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Tag: sacrifice

Baby time

Published September 15, 2021

A lot of babies nowadays are raised not by their parents, but by their nannies.

Whether it’s feeding the baby, cleaning the baby, changing diapers, clothing the baby, carrying the baby, burping the baby, talking with the baby – you name it, and it’s done by the nannies.

The rationale is of course sound – couples in nuclear families have to manage the house and their office work. How can they possibly get time to fit a baby in as well?

Nannies get baby duties, while the parents continue to enjoy their favorite pastimes, whether sports, TV shows, movie outings, friend outings, eat outs, music concerts and a variety of other events. “We are still young. If not now, then when?”

Spending time with the baby is most critical during its first few years. If time is an issue, then why have a baby in the first place? As a wise elder in my family remarked, raising children is all about one and only one thing – Sacrifice. The parents would need to sacrifice their lives for the future of their kids. And when done well, when the sacrifice is out of love rather than lack of alternative, it earns the highest blessing.

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Sacrificial – part 4

Sacrificial – part 4

Published July 22, 2021

A final post for now on yagna or sacrifice. We saw some of the 12 different types of sacrifice mentioned in the Gita yesterday. Those are all nice no doubt, but the focus must be on the last one, the brahma yagna. The giving up of the ego, the self.

It does not mean just getting up and jumping into the fire. That would be quite useless in reality, as the heat would be too much to take, the burns fatal, and once dead, of what use is all this spirituality? Rather it is all about giving up at the mind level.

This last yagna is so awesome that it is better than any and all of the previous yagnas. One question though here could be – fine, I’ll do some of these sacrifices. Like I’ll give up some good of my liking. There, sacrifice done, now what?

As Swami Paramarthananda puts it, real yagnas need two conditions to be satisfied, otherwise they simply remain physical acts / exercises.
1. The first condition is that it needs the Lord (i.e, bhakti or devotion, maybe faith).
2. The second condition is that it needs a spiritual motive. Otherwise it would just become a material transaction.

Speaking of yagnas – here is an excellent fire homa that anyone can do.

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Sacrificial – part 3

Sacrificial – part 3

Published July 21, 2021

Chapter 4 in the Gita is called Karma Sanyaasa Yoga, and talks of a variety of yagnas or sacrifices, as we’ve seen in the last couple of days.

The list of yagnas is beautiful, mesmerizing and sequenced to perfection.

It starts with physical items. Things like ghee, coconuts and other things one would normally offer into a fire ritual. But those are the easy ones.

Next come giving up the sense organs. What does this mean? Cut off my ears and put it into the fire? Certainly not :). Rather it is attachment to these organs and their perceptions that needs to be given up. What? How can I give up my organs. Seems illogical, until we come to terms with the scriptural end-game. Which is that all creation around us is simply maya, and all the sense organs are doing for us, is to bind us more to this world.

A question that is relevant here is – which part of all this is truly ours? All the money and material possessions we have – in some shape or form belong to the earth. We have maybe taken it, and processed it and converted it, but not truly created anything. If none of this is ours in the first place, what can we really sacrifice?

Oh yes, there is only one thing that is wholly solely ours. And it is called the Ego.

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Sacrificial – part 2

Sacrificial – part 2

Published July 20, 2021

Yagna as we know and saw yesterday, refers to sacrifice. The word and its associated action might seem simplistic. But it has the most profound effect of them all – the unbinding of karma!

The first word of verse 3 in chapter 9 of the Gita is Yagna.

yajñārthāt karmaṇo ’nyatra loko ’yaṁ karma-bandhanaḥ
tad-arthaṁ karma kaunteya mukta-saṅgaḥ samāchara

Here is my Guru’s interpretation of this verse. “Man becomes bound by all actions, other than that done as sacrifice. Without being attached, you perform actions for Him.”

Worried about accruing karma for your actions? The simplest solution is here – do all work as a sacrifice to the Lord.

Guruji further adds in the purport thus, (with my musings in brackets):
1. This verse sums up karma yoga. (wow, entire karma yoga summarized in this one verse, what more do we need?)
2. All actions, good or bad, bind us to enjoy or suffer, this birth or next. (we know this, having seen karma in detail)
3. The only exception, is action done as sacrifice. This is how to come out of cycle of birth and death. (here is the solution to all our problems – but are we able to practise it?)

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Sacrificial

Sacrificial

Published July 19, 2021

The word sacrifice in Sanskrit would be yagna. It’s a very important concept and is repeated multiple times throughout the Gita. Krishna also mentions that those who practice yagna, daana and tapa (sacrifice, charity and austerity) are dear to Him).

If we give something to someone, and get something in exchange, that is a transaction.

But if we give something to someone purely for the other person’s well-being, and expect nothing in return, that would be a sacrifice.

There are 5 types of maha yagnas prescribed in the scriptures. How do we practise these?

  1. Deva Yajna – for the Gods (sun, moon etc). We can pray with gratitude for the presence of all the deities around us.
  2. Pitri Yajna – for our forefathers and ancestors. We are here because of them. Tarpana is good to do where possible.
  3. Manushya Yajna – for our fellow humans. Being charitable, compassionate, loving and kind would be a great start.
  4. Bhoota Yajna – for the other living creatures. Feeding the animals, providing shelter for them.
  5. Brahma Yajna – for the soul inside us. Attending satsang, applying scriptural knowledge, attaining moksha.
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learn – earn – yearn

learn – earn – yearn

Published June 4, 2020

In school and college, it was all about:

  1. winning alone
  2. defeating others
  3. getting the best job interviews, and
  4. bagging the highest paid offer

In the workplace, realisation dawns, that life is about:

  1. winning together
  2. working with others
  3. the ‘best’ job being but a mirage in the mind, and
  4. money being there, but yet never enough

We spend the first quarter of our lives learning how to earn a living. Then we spend next two quarters earning that living. And the last quarter, yearning for whatever was left out.

But we never really live, because we are always focused on the ‘me and the my’, instead of the ‘we and the why’.

‘We’ for inclusivity. And ‘why’ for clarity – why do we have so many things, yet feel empty?

In this age of excesses, less is more. And it comes from more austerity, more self-sacrifice and more charity.

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