This is in reply to one of the comments my friend made in the earlier post....this is a big topic, hence thought of blogging abt. this as well separately.
The belief of Yagna, is manifold...
The central belief of a Yagna, I will try to explain with the help of a story to be more clear:
An uneducated farmer goes to a telegraph office in his village and asks for a money order to be sent to his son who is studying in the city. So he goes to the Telegraph master and gives him a 100 rupee note , and requests it be sent to his son. The telegraph master sends a telegraph order through Morse code to the office at the city and then tells this farmer that the money has been sent.
To this the farmer says "Why are you lying to me, the 100 rupee note is still in your hands".
The farmer does not understand what is meant by a telegraph, and you cannot explain it to him that easily. Just as the telegraph has been sent to the son without the ACTUAL movement of the 100 rupee note, the belief of a Yagna is that anything that is offered in the "Sacrifical Fire" will be sent to the appropriate God.
According to the Gurus of this system of sacrifice, we are the farmers, who are yet to comprehend how this offering reaches the Gods.
Read this : http://www.kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/chap16.htm (and keep reading it by pressing the next button for more info)
Now why should we offer sacrifices: http://www.kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part5/chap19.htm
Some of you may kid the analogy that has been mentioned therein, but the fact is that, as we grow older, we feel how childish we were for many things in the past...it just means we are getting wiser. Perhaps, we need to have faith and more belief, and then will slowly come to understand that the analogy is perhaps true.
The reason why analogy is given to humans is because, we fail to comprehend when some things are said to us in the first go. To make life easier and to instill belief analogies are used. When we say every action has an equal and opposite reaction, we donot understand how...but when we give an example such as two balls coming in opposite directions colliding with each other, we seem to understand it better. Hence, in case you are a non-believer of the above system, it is not necessary for you to believe what is said, but you could read it for the sake of knowledge. In case you are a believer, then trust it fully.
Lastly, read this http://www.kamakoti.org/hindudharma/part19/chap3.htm, said by Sri Chandrasekara Saraswati Swamigal, (great words)
"The point to noted is that if you believe in the sastras you must believe in them fully. If you are an atheist you could of course reject all of them. But to make a show of being very clever and twist the sastras as you like, accepting some parts or rejecting or changing some others, is an offence more grave than that of being an atheist. To think that Mother Veda should dance to our tune is also a great offence. Learning the Vedas in such an attitude is tantamount to ridiculing them. "
5 comments:
Dont think I count as a believer in Yajnas... so answer only if you please...
If Yajnas are meant for ancestors who have departed, and the departed have already descended again according to the Hindu rebirth theory, where does that reach? Is there an auto-addressing (please dont mistake me that I am being sarcastic here... as this is a genuine question that I have)
Have you thought of the possibility that all that ghee, milk and coconuts that go into a Yajna - could have been of better use if given directly to your great-great-grand father - who has reincarnated as a hungry orphan next door?
There are a million things that make me a scpetic... and hence I think I will take the advice "But to make a show of being very clever and twist the sastras as you like, accepting some parts or rejecting or changing some others, is an offence more grave than that of being an atheist"
and I should perhaps remain a non-believer in such things
I cannot exactly call myself a believer either, because if so I would not be sitting here and writing software programs.
Anyways, an attempt at answering what you say:
Not sure if u read the articles I had pointed out fully, Yajnas, are not only for Great Grandfathers, it is to appease the Gods.
Now the yajnas that are performed for ur ancestors like "dhevasam", etc... they are meant to wash away the sins which your parents / grandparents etc might have done.
I too donot object to u feeding the hungry orphan next door :), and neither is it advocated in this system not to do so. So do as you please with that orphan. But if ypu are a follower of this system, you are also supposed to perform the "Dhevasam" of your
ancestors.
This auto addressing which you talk about is the exact thing I wanted some skeptic to ask. Thanks for mentioning it.
That is the reason why Swamigal calls you an uneducated farmer. He cannot see the telegraph being addressed to his son. He cannot comprehend how the 100 rupee note has been delievered. So cannot you comprehend how that which is given to the sacrificial fire goes to the appropriate person. If you believe this system and practice it, then maybe it would make more sense to you as well as to me. Right now I too am a skeptic. I can only tell you what HE says. I have not REALIZED certain things. I only KNOW them.
"But to make a show of being very clever and twist the sastras as you like, accepting some parts or rejecting or changing some others, is an offence more grave than that of being an atheist"
Cb, if it is such a rigid framework then is it not difficult to question things being within the framework itself? Leave alone trying to effect any sort of change, the very fact that you question things to probably satisfy a person's curiosity is liable to be struck down as a lack of faith or belief. Where would jignyasa fit in if one were not allowed to lead an inquiry into things - I don't think philosophies within the framework evolved without questioning certain practices in the first place. (?)
Hapi,
I think you got it wrong.
What he means to say is that, when you argue and question something, you must first fully grasp the underlying concepts, and then if there are any more doubts/questions you should ask them.
Without understanding the premise of the argument, if you "Think" you have understood something and ask twist some meanings, then that is what is termed as wrong.
Questioning is not forbidden according to those words, but to act smart by taking only a part of the theory , and neglecting the rest and then asking questions in an attempt to make fun, is.
Anyone is free to ask questions and to get their doubts cleared as long as they are not doing it to make fun, but are on a sincere attempt to learn things.
Namaste,
The basis of any religion or culture is belief. But Sanatana Dharma can also be proved, but as the both the subject and the object is the person itself, the "belief" is not only mandatory but pre-requisite. As one can KNOW only after he has started believing and unless he believes he cannot know.
Vedas and other sastras makes it is mandatory some times for the sadhaka to question the belief until he completely understands it. This format of Questions and answers are there in many of our sastras. As an example, we can see the Bhagavad Gita, wherein Arjuna put fourths lot of questions to Lord Krishna who patiently clarifies all with proper reasoning. Had questioning been not allowed Bhagavad Gita would have ended at the 2nd chapter. The thoughts that are put in sacred books like Vedas so condensed and compact, where other books has been written by sages explaining the same in different books. The point I want to make here is once we start believing we will start knowing about it. One can see the pointers from "messages from water" and "what the bleep do we know" for scientific explanations to the concepts in Satana Dharma.
Yagna not means the puja around the fire (which we generally associate the word Yagna to) but also any "work" done with arpan bhava is called yagna. Here "work" can be any work right from the work of a sweeper to a CEO of a company. Any work with proper devotion and attitude can be called Yagna. Please correct me if have gone wrong any where.
Ravi
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