The Vedapurusha Sapthaha Jnana Yajna
The following discourse, delivered by Sathya Sai Baba in 1972 at Prasanthi Nilayam, focuses on the meaning of the Vedapurusha Sapthaha Jnana Yajna, a fire ceremony performed there every year during Dasara, a Hindu festival.
Prasanthi Nilayam’s Vedapurusha Sapthaha Jnana Yajna is a rite that promotes the welfare and prosperity of all humanity. But it is difficult to convince doubters and disbelievers of this truth. Many people want such Vedic ceremonies to be performed in orthodox style, with all the mantras [sacred formula] uttered correctly and said only in India so that their efficacy, if any, will be confined to this country alone. How, they ask, can the ceremony bring benefit to regions where people have no faith in such rituals and hymns?
Such doubters restrict the definition of the word yajna, which means not merely an activity prescribed in the ancient scriptures, but “any activity dedicated to the glory of God.” All races can do such dedicated activity in all climes, in all realms. The word dedication ensures its success. Without dedication, there will inevitably arise anxiety, fear, and faction. Every activity in the world is God-directed and godward moving, whether you are aware of this fact or not. You need to be aware of it and share in the thrill of that knowledge. If God were not the inspirer and motivator, how could the universe move in harmony, wheeling so smoothly? Without God, the universe would be chaotic and anarchical.
Do not think that a yajna is a ceremony performed only in a particular enclosure, marked out as especially holy, attended by readings and recitals from sacred texts, chanting of Vedic hymns, and nothing more. A yajna is a continuous process. Everyone who lives in the constant presence of God and performs all acts in dedication to God is engaged in a yajna.
Three processes go together in spiritual discipline (as laid down by the sages): renunciation (yajna), charity, and self-control. These three cannot be partitioned and particularized. Charity and self-control are integral parts of a yajna. That is why the word yajna is translated as “sacrifice,” for the process of charity is essential to such an activity. Self-control implies the strict regulation of emotions and thought processes to ensure peace and faith.
Various yajnas are prescribed by the Vedas [ancient Hindu sacred texts]. The Vedapurusha Yajna is a sacrificial ceremony dedicated to the Lord, as extolled in the Vedas. He is the Lord mentioned in the Purusha Sukta [a Hindu scripture] as constituting the universe and subsuming it as the limbs of His cosmic body.
All householders have a duty to perform for their own welfare and for the welfare of the society in which they live the following yajnas: one for worship of their forefathers, another to honor sages (by studying and practicing the sages’ teachings), and still another to revere animals and lower beings (by providing shelters, fodder, and the like).
The Vedapurusha is the supreme Lord, for by His will He manifested Himself as the cosmos and created its components out of Himself. There is nothing that is not He, so how can you be different? In these matters, faith comes first; it has to. Believe that you are divine; conduct yourselves in accordance with that sovereign status; then you will be blessed with the direct perception of the Divine, the experience, the vision, the realization, and the awareness. You will be merged in everlasting bliss.
Remember, you cannot have the experience and the bliss first. You cannot postpone faith until you get these things. You cannot bargain, “Give me the bliss, and then I will have faith.” See the Supreme Lord in all people (purushas). Purusha means “he who lives in the port city (pura).” Each one of us is the resident, the sole resident, of a distinct house of God. But the supreme resident in all the cities is God. You can recognize Him if you educate yourself properly.
Take the yajna performed here. In this one fire, we make offerings concurrently with the recitation of the names of God, enclosed in elaborate hymns. We make more than 3,560 offerings every day for seven days. Each name describes God as having a special form. But this one fire consumes all the offerings. Through its intercession, each of the offerings reaches the one God, the One that really is. Or consider this: You perform worship with 1,008 names of God. You keep an idol or picture before you and offer one flower at a time at the feet of that God symbol, repeating the names one at a time. The one symbol of the one God accepts all the 1,008 names, since God is only one, though He can be reached by a thousand routes.
Though you acknowledge only one in all these rites, proclaiming the one non-dual Divine, your senses, intellect, and mind, with its pack of desires, insist on running after the many. This illusion casts its enchantment on weak and ignorant people. It urges the human being toward the wild and prolific greed of the many-faced senses.
To realize the One—the universal absolute that personalizes itself into God and creation—no discipline is more valuable and effective than service. All the 1,008 names of God you worship reach the One. All the 1,000 names of a thousand-faced society connote only the one God who plays in those 1,000 roles. The One appears as if it is enshrined in the 1,000 bodies. You have to realize and cherish this truth as the most precious gift of life.
You have observed that the Vedic pundits pour clarified butter into the fire each time they finish reciting a hymn. Every day when you eat, you are offering food to the fire that God has lit in you. You must eat in a prayerful mood, in profound gratitude. The Gita [Bhagavad-Gita] says, the fire that cooked the meal is God, the meal is God, the eater is God, the purpose of eating is to carry on work entrusted by God or to please God, and the fruit of the work is progress toward God.
Every day, you must perform another yajna, too. Pour the egoistic desires, emotions, passions, impulses, and acts into the flames of dedication and devotion. In fact, that is the real yajna, of which these [physical ones] are reflections, prompters, guides, and prototypes. The ceremony we’re doing here is only the concrete symbolic representation of the abstract underlying truth. Just as a child learns to read words—head, net, wave, garland, etc.—by associating the sounds and letterforms with pictures of objects, through this temporary symbol you bring the eternal principle before your consciousness.
This worship and sacrificial rite is arranged here every Dasara to help you learn about that other everlasting abstract yajna, which every one of you has to do to save yourself from fear, grief, and anxiety.
You must have noticed that the pundits close each day of the yajna with a prayer that calls for world peace—peace and happiness (for there can be no peace without happiness, and no happiness without peace): “May all the worlds have happiness and peace.” Peace of mind cannot be gained by wealth, fame, scholarship, or skill. To attain it, you have to cleanse the mind, purify the heart, and yearn for service of the divine forms that move around you. Do every deed as an act of worship; make every thought a longing for Him; change every word that comes from your tongue into a hymn in His praise.
You must learn this lesson at Prasanthi Nilayam every Dasara, during the week the yajna is celebrated.
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, October 1973
