Yaga is Tyaga

In His discourse in August 1970, Bhagavan Baba said that God’s grace could be won through discipline and good character. He also said that a gift is a meritorious act and should be rendered without pride or publicity.

Eradi [Chief Justice of India] told you just now that Bali Chakravarti [an emperor of the asura or demonic race] developed enormous conceit and as a consequence, God punished him and trampled him into the lower regions. As consolation, he was, , allowed to come up during this [Onam] festival and derive happiness, witnessing the prosperity of his old realm.

Well, conceit is a poisonous weed in any field of activity. Aham (ego) is the core around which the personality is built. It is the form which is necessary for every embodied being. It is the aham, which every being has to be within temporarily, until he is freed. You should not burden yourself with attachment toward property, power, or authority. You may have them on trust, as a sacred responsibility and on temporary ownership, but do not get attached to them, wailing when they melt or hailing when they grow. Of course, there must be the feeling of aham, or ‘I’ until, by constant contemplation the two merge and there is only we—He and I—at last.

Just consider the word aham. ‘A’ is the first letter of the alphabet, the prime vowel that emanates from the throat when the mouth is opened; the second sound ham is produced by closing the mouth tight. All letters lie in between. The vowels and consonants that intervene are called the akshara—the indestructible, the eternal, and the ever-present. So, aham is the akshara, the indestructible self that is all this and more.

It is a sacrilege to its glory to identify it with lesser things or smaller concepts. You imagine yourself to be this feeble body and its appurtenances due to the delusion that has overtaken the reason, the will, and the mind. Arjuna [one of the Pandavas of Mahabharata] confessed that he had gotten rid of that delusion and he said, “My moha or delusion has gone; I have recovered the memory of my reality.”

Concretize God by prayer 

Practice self-examination. Who am I? Am I the mind, the will, the discriminating faculty, the intellect, the senses, the body, or the limbs? Realize that you are neither any of these, nor all of these. You are the breath of God; it is through Him that you are alive, active, and aware. But, when you are asked where God is, you point your finger toward the sky, and say, “Up above.” When someone asks you where Swami is, you say, “Upstairs” and point toward the room on the first floor! You know that I am by your side also.

You remember God when distress assaults you; you forget Him when you are free from it. You do not realize that I am everywhere at all times, that God is not confined to the upper regions of the sky or to one little room where you keep His picture. He can be concretized anywhere through sincere prayer. Pray to Him one-pointedly, through any form or name. He will answer. Do not, however, change the name and form as fancy flits; then concentration will become impossible. All names are His; all forms are His; but, when you are striving to concretize Him, it is best to select the name and form that appeal to you most.

Bali was a grandson of [King] Prahlada, the great rakshasa (demon) devotee of the Lord. Bali was engaged in conquest—commandeering others’ wealth, exploiting the elation of the satisfied ego, and such other demonic exercises. He had to realize that divinity was his reality, and that consciousness of that divinity is the summum bonum of life, and not other material pursuits such as—eating and sleeping, earning and spending, and saving and scattering.

The master can tread on all

The Onam [festival] is not to be celebrated merely with feasting and fun. It has a deeper significance that has to be grasped. The yaga (holy ritual) that Bali celebrated attracted God, in the form of Vamana, the young wandering student-disciple. For, yaga is tyaga (sacrifice); it is not the sacrifice of animals, but [the sacrifice] of one’s own encumbrances, including wealth and property. The Lord was so pleased that He presented Himself before Bali, and asked for gifts and homage.

Shukracharya, the family priest of Bali, advised the king to renege on the gifts granted to Vamana, and like all people who stand in the way of good deeds, he was punished; he lost his one eye. Why would anyone withdraw gifts given to God? In fact, how can you call giving to the owner that which belongs to him as a gift? He who thinks that one can give God what does not belong to Him is blind, and has no vision; indeed, that is what Shukracharya’s experience teaches.

The universe is composed of the five elements, and is cognized by the five senses of perception. He who is the master of the five elements can tread on all. That is what Vamana did as Trivikrama [one who measured the three worlds in three strides], when he asked and got three feet of land from Bali. With one of His feet, He measured the entire earth; with the second, He measured space; and, He planted the third on Bali’s head and pressed him [Bali] into the nether regions. One gets the liberating wisdom of the reality through grace, prayer, or love. In this case, Bali got it [liberation] through God’s grace.

Gift without pride or publicity

You cannot achieve the [spiritual] goal through good works alone. In the word good, there is an extra o; a something that is a mere zero; that is to say, the desire which prompts you, the fruit which entices you, and the reputation that tantalizes you—each is a sheer zero, with a big O. Let it go; then, we have good with one less zero, that is to say that we have God. Desire plus life is man; Life minus desire is God. Bali got blessed through tyaga (renunciation, detachment), He became the monarch of the nether regions, and God agreed to be his gatekeeper, guardian, and guide. What a blessing!

He [Bali] aspired to become Indra, the God of Gods, the ruler of heaven. It is said that anyone who performs a hundred yagas in a row, with ceremonial rectitude, will automatically become Indra. The Indra who is installed thus once is ever reluctant to yield his chair to another 100-yaga person. So he tries to disturb and desecrate the last few yagas of the hundred so that no one can complete a century. Bali too was within 36 minutes of completing the 100th [yaga]; the crisis of enthroning a rakshasa as God of Gods had to be averted. Hence, Vamana arrived on the scene, asking for alms—just three feet of ground. O, what a foot He grew, in a trice! Indra was saved from becoming an ex-Indra. The 100th yaga was abandoned due to the calamity that descended on the monarch, his displacement and his transmutation into a humble servant of God.

Dana (gift) is a meritorious act if it is rendered to the needy, at the time of need, in a manner that fulfils the need. It must be done without pride or publicity and it cannot be tainted by condescension or humiliation. Give as an act of worship to the Divine that you wish to adore in the person to whom you are offering that which God has given you for this very purpose. One person in heaven asked an angel how he could get into heaven, and sit on the very throne of Indra. When told that his gifts on earth had entitled him to it, he gifted heaven itself to that angel and rose up to an even higher status.

Grow detachment and love

The qualities of detachment and love will grow in you if you stick to one discipline: namasmarana. Have the [Divine] name on your tongue and in your thoughts all your waking hours. See every one as the person whose name you adore; hear all tales told by people around you as tales of His glory, and His leela [divine play]. Love will remove selfishness and expand your consciousness through sympathy and compassion.

Today is Onam, the great festival [celebrated in the state] of Kerala. Say this special prayer today: Ask God to develop your sense of detachment. Ask Him to put you on the road to self-realization and ask Him to endow you with the light to know and experience the highest bliss.

Devotion is not part-time

Thyagaraja, [a famous composer of Carnatic music] was invited to court by the Maharaja of Tanjavur [an ancient South Indian city], Sarfoji Maharaj, the descendent of Shivaji [an emperor], so that he—the king— might bestow precious gifts (nidhi) on him. But, the poet-singer was a mystic who took it as a spiritual test that would entice him into wrong ways. He asked the question, “Is nidhi more valuable as giver of joy in contrast to sannidhi (divine presence)?” Of course, the answer was self-evident. Thyagaraja’s brother, who was counting on the treasure which the maharaja would bestow on the composer, grew wild with anger at his [the saint’s] refusal to go to the king’s durbar [court]. He pushed his brother out of the house, and did not allow him to re-enter. Further, he threw the idols that he [Thyagaraja] worshipped—through which he had realized Rama as the indweller of everyone—into the flooded river.

Likewise, at another time, Tukaram [a saint] was honored with the gift of a gorgeous palanquin and caskets of jewels by [emperor] Shivaji. But, Tukaram declined the gifts, saying, “Rama! I will not take my hands off your feet for I know that you are waiting to escape from me the moment I release the grasp to hold anything other than your divine feet.”

When Thyagaraja passed away, his wife kept his head on her lap, and when the saint was calling out “Rama!” “Rama!” in ecstatic agony, three hot teardrops fell from her eyes, on the face of the dying Thyagaraja. “O, I am the property of Rama! But, you are still the property of Kama [desire]!” Thyagaraja exclaimed. Devotion is complete surrender, not a part-time affair or something taken on credit. Every bit of it has to be earned and deposited for there are no overdrafts. [Divine] Grace is won by discipline and good character. Sublimate the love you have for the pleasures of the world, and for the objects of the world into love for God. Do not waste even a single second in idle scandal or hollow praise. Bend your head before God, welcoming whatever be His will; then, you too can have the Lord as your guide and guard.

Source: Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. 10