The World is an Arena of Sacrifice
Divine Life
Society Publication: Chapter1 The Esoteric
Significance of the Kathopanishad by Swami Krishnananda
This world seems to be an
arena of sacrifice. Are we altruistic essentially or selfish essentially?
The Kathopanishad is the story
of spiritual ascent. It is the sadhana, the spiritual endeavor of the human
individual towards the achievement of ultimate perfection that is narrated to
us in epic form in the Kathopanishad.
Sacrifices of a ritualistic
type - yajnas,
havanas as they are called, are
prevalent in some measure even in this day. So when we speak of yajna or sacrifice, we are likely
to think of pouring sacred objects into the fire in a yajna kunda or an altar. But this
is a ritual expression of sacrifice which life seems to be. Life does not
appear to get exhausted by rituals or gestures or activities of any kind.
If life cannot be equated
wholly with activity and we can be alive even without being active, and
therefore, life may be something different from what we call action or
performance, then yajna or
sacrifice need not necessarily be the ritualistic performances with which we
are usually familiar in orthodox circles.
You do not know what it is to
live. You may say to live is to do something. On a careful study of this
situation you will realize that to live need not necessarily mean to do
something. You may be able to live without any relationship, without any
activity, performance, ritual or doing of any kind. Yet, life is a sacrifice.
Therefore, it has to be a sacrifice in a different sense, not necessarily in
the sense of doing something, even if it be a religious way of doing as yajnas in yajna kundas, etc.
The Kathopanishad begins with
a description of this large sacrifice. This was undertaken in ancient times by
a very great sage called Vajasravasa for
his future welfare. It is a belief prevalent right from the time of the Vedas
that sacrifices offered to gods will promise heavenly enjoyment in the future
for the yajnamana, or the performer.
Sacrifice is parting with
something which one possesses. It may be the offering of ghee to the sacred fire, when we
actually utter the mantras and conclude with saying svaha.
Some article which we possess, which belongs to us, is offered as a gesture of
parting with our own little joy for the sake of a larger joy, maybe in heaven.
Vajasravasa the sage performed
a yajna called vishwajit for the conquering of the
blessedness of heavenly satisfaction. He gave away all his possessions because
it is laid down that the more is the charity that you do, the greater is the
joy that comes to you as recompense thereof.
But man is after all man, he
cannot be anything else. The aspiration for heavenly enjoyment in Vajasravasa
was one thing, and the man that Vajaravasa was, was another thing. So two
operations were taking place simultaneously in this person. He was thinking as
a learned Brahman, Vajasravasa, owning wealth and cattle and many other
possessions, and at the same time aspiring for that which is not of this world.
He had to offer all the things of this world for the sake of another world.
Here is a suggestion that the other world seems to be superior to the present
world, else no one would be prepared to offer this world for the sake of
another world. You would not like to die here merely because you want to live
somewhere else, unless life somewhere else is far superior to life here. This
was known to Vajasravasa, and everyone knows that perhaps this is the meaning
behind every gesture of goodwill, kind word, a word of thanks or service. Else,
there is no point in doing any of these things.
The little gesture of
sacrifice that we communicate in respect of others is a tendency towards
movement in the direction of the higher world. Our world is this body only, and
when we do a little sacrifice we have transcended this bodily world and
extended it to the realm of other people’s existence. We cannot have any sense
of affection for other people unless we have overcome the sense of satisfaction
with only this bodily world. The gesture of good will, in whatever form it may
be expressed, is a tendency to the recognition of an existence of a world
transcending the physical world of body.
Vajasravasa performed this yajna, and offered everything that
he possessed - land, buildings, silver, gold, cattle and the like. In the case of this sage Vajasravasa there was
greed for satisfaction, joy in the heavenly empire after the passing from this
world, but he was not prepared to entirely give up his possessions in this
world in the true spirit of sacrifice. So he was evidently throwing off bad
coins in the coffer of temples, torn notes which could not be used by anybody.
God can take it because man cannot use it. This is sometimes the gesture of
people like us.
In this spirit of a
self-deceptive conduct, Vajasravasa is said to have been offering things which
were not worth their salt. Cattle which were famished, cows which would not
yield any milk– such things were evidently being given as charity, a great sacrifice
for the sake of the heavenly rejoicings to come later on.
Often we can conduct ourselves
very cleverly by engaging ourselves in the letter and very conveniently ignore
the spirit. We are two people at the same time, almost every minute of the day.
We can behave as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in one second. Such a double attitude
each person has in this world. So we agree with the noble aspiration that
manifests itself in us in the direction of a larger dimension of existence
which we may call the heavenly existence, yet the greed for physical existence
persists.
People are thinking what will
happen to their family – sons and daughters and property, etc. – after their
death. They are worried even before they die. Though it is true that a person
who is thinking thus is not going to have any relationship with what he is
thinking of now after he sheds this body – he will be in a new space-time
complex altogether, he will not have any kind of sensible contact with the
things he is worrying about now – yet the worry continues. Human nature goes
simultaneously with a transhuman aspiration.
The Upanishad, in a very
cryptic form, tells us that this sacrifice which he performed was not true to
its spirit, it was true only to the letter. He followed the letter of the law
but not the spirit of the law.
(to be continued…)
Excerpts from:
The World is an Arena of Sacrifice - The Esoteric
Significance of the Kathopanishad by Swami KrishnanandaArchives - Blog
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