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To give, means to get back in abundance. As a mirror reflects your face, the good and noble pursuit called Yajña will shower back great rewards for you. Normally human is selfish. His motivation is solely for loving and caring himself and his relatives around. The thought and fondness making him feel for others around, giving and helping them in one way or other, are very rare. But, this alone is what makes the mind expand and extend incalculably.

Dear and blessed souls:

Harih Om Tat Sat.

Visibles have their source in lofty invisible expanse

Krishna now goes to the next verse (3.10), wherein he explains how everything in the visible world upon the earth as well as the surrounding heavenly bodies has its source above, in the invisible expanse. Go and stand anywhere on the earth. You can see only above. Below, the vision strikes the earth. The existence and expression above, though not clearly visible, is inferable indeed. Thus the whole subject totally depends upon your mind-intelligence deliberation. Even otherwise, it is the mind-intelligence that employs the senses and gains perceptions. The body and senses have no independent place or potential to do anything.

We all have our parents, who have their parents too. Our grandparents did have their parents, who definitely had theirs as well. Thus, when we go to the first parents in the sequence, instantly arises the big question as to who their parents were. Obviously, they did not have parents, as they were the ‘first’ visible parents in the whole succession. Hence, the source of the first visible human parents was neither human nor visible. Nonetheless, there was such a source. That is evident only before the intelligence, its enquiry and introspection.

Citing Prajapati’s exhortation on Yajña, sacrifice

Thus, our ancient thinkers had hit upon the concept of Prajapati, the Lord of all beings. As the source of the first parents, Prajapati must have had all potentials and possibilities we can think of in the context of the entire creation, consisting of mobile and immobile constituents. Our imagination and investigation become final only when we are able to conceive of such a prehuman source and relate our thoughts, findings and relevance to it. To give fullness to this thought process as well as to trace the requisite authority for what he says, Krishna relates Yajña, sacrifice, as an injunction the supreme Lord of humans has himself enjoined on his descendants. Think how sacrosanct, sanctifying the pronouncement then becomes! Besides the relevance and benevolence Yajña offers to us, the humans, it has, says Krishna, its sacred links with our supreme Lord and the command he had given.

Our cultural links have ineffable value & authority

Naturally, our attitude towards Yajña becomes too deep and great, adorable and undeniable. This is how the ultimate as well as cultural concepts present their links to the supreme source of creation and manifestation, thereby gaining ineffable value, purpose and authority!

Grow and multiply creditably with the spirit of Yajna

Prajapati, says Krishna, created human beings with Yajña, performance of activities without delusional clinging, as a very natural expression of their livingness.  Prajapati also added, reminds Krishna, that “by this holy pursuit of Yajña, O humans, multiply yourselves, become many, with several lineages. May this embellishment in your life and mission, be a kāma-dhenu, wish-yielding cow for you, bestowing whatever good, great and noble you look for.’’

This is a very great statement, nay a unique revelation, from Krishna. The quality and habit of sacrifice in human life will lead one to great favours and rewards. It is like watering and nourishing a plant, which, growing into a huge tree, bears flowers and fruits in a proportion far greater than the water and nourishment fed to it.

To give is to be enriched abundantly

To give, means to get back in abundance. As a mirror reflects your face, the good and noble pursuit called Yajña will shower back great rewards for you. Normally human is selfish. His motivation is solely for loving and caring himself and his relatives around. The thought and fondness making him feel for others around, giving and helping them in one way or other, are very rare. But, this alone is what makes the mind expand and extend incalculably. When such inner expansion takes place in everything one does, correspondingly there will be a greater magnitude and grace. That is, in fact, the inner, spiritual dimension, with its tremendous potential and resources.

So, one given to sacrifice, Yajña, gets greatly enriched inwardly. And such enrichment will find its benedictory influence in all that one thinks, speaks and does. Imagine such a refined, elevated dimension and its salutary effect in human life! The sacrifice one does becomes symbolically a supra-worldly act, appealing to and delighting the higher powers, Devas. Pleased heartily, they also please you, the offerer. The bilateral nobility and fondness become a mutual bond, rewarding the higher powers and the sacrificers alike. This mutual enrichment takes the sacrificer to supreme felicity (śreyas), the fulfilment earmarked for humans alone on earth (3.11).

Krishna fulfils Arjuna’s yearning for Śreyas

Remember, śreyas is what Arjuna had sought from Krishna right in the beginning, confessing he was totally deluded in the path of righteousness (see 2.7). See how, by asking Arjuna to incorporate the spirit and content of sacrifice (Yajña), Krishna lifts his life to a pedestal of divinity that instantly brings śreyas (spiritual felicity) he was yearning for! Thus the dialogue always preserves its focus and goal intact. Krishna draws concentric circles, one after another, covering further and further areas and needs of Arjuna as well as of all the rest of seekers the world over.

Yajña fetches prosperity and felicity alike

Krishna goes a step further in boosting the place and purpose of sacrifice (Yajña) in human life. Pleased by the sacrifice that people do here on the earth, the higher powers will start bestowing you, the sacrificer, with your choice needs and wishes. The process becomes a cycle, like the seasons earth brings. One has to discern with keenness the inextricable connection our earth and its denizens have with the higher realms.

Think beyond terrestrial laws and processes

We have physical, chemical, biophysical, biochemical and biological laws and processes operating on the earth, in the ken of matter and energy. But, what about the laws operating beyond matter and energy?

Material world itself has evolved from a source different from matter and energy. There must be parallel laws working there too. Your body also is evolved from a source other than matter and energy. Think of your own mind, intelligence and ego, which are right within your body. They undoubtedly rise above matter and energy. What are then the laws operating there? Are they not spiritual or divine?

How are thoughts, feelings, emotions and memory generated in and by the mind? How is reason aroused by intelligence? Though inaccessible to our senses, we experience them readily. Are not the inner laws governing these supra-material, hence spiritual and divine?

Yajña makes spiritual laws work beneficially

Krishna is referring to them, when he speaks about Brahmā, the spiritual source of creation, enjoining sacrifice as a noble means on the humans. Yajñas are optional, no doubt, but when you incorporate them in your life, the spiritual laws begin to work unfailingly. By the practice of Yajña, the whole life becomes sublime, edified, noble and spiritually rewarding. It stands to reason that it is these laws that govern those who are born noble and pursue nobility as an inseparable part of their being. They feel comfortable, contented and fortunate. Certainly, nothing, no outcome, is an accident. Everything is incidental.

Krishna also adds that to receive through Yajña benevolent favours from the higher powers and not to reciprocate them faithfully, thereby leading a solely selfish life, is to be a thief. What a grave pronouncement!

Be not a thief by enjoying Nature’s gifts without reciprocity

Yes, everything around us as well as in our own personality, is a gift from the higher source. To use and enjoy all of it, but not to express gratitude towards that higher source, is starkly sinful. It makes humans thieves. A very strong warning indeed! What more do you want not only to avoid degeneration but also to elevate yourself as a noble human, with the power of thinking, understanding and articulation you are gifted with? This is a point to be sufficiently reflected upon in depth. See how Krishna makes his dialogue broader, greater every time.

Partaking Yajña-śiṣṭa liberates one from impurities

Yajña, emphasizes Krishna, has great ennobling and purifying effect. One given regularly to Yajña, sacrifice, is purifying himself as well as everything he has as possessions. By performing Yajña, all he has become Yajña- śiṣṭa, left over from Yajña. Partaking the left over items, liberates the sacrificer from all kinds of blemish and impurity (3.13).

Leading selfish life, devoid of Yajna, sinful indeed

In contrast, whoever lives without caring for others besides their families, is verily eating sin. Krishna uses a very strong expression to describe the plight of people, for whom selfishness and family-centredness alone are the driving force in their life and activities – a very powerful denouncement indeed!

By extolling the benefit of adhering to Yajña-discipline and by condemning any disregard towards it (followers of life devoid of yajna), Krishna makes Yajña inevitable in every one’s life. This is how an injunction becomes totally effective, leaving no room for people to disregard or violate it.