In this tradition, we have various kinds of beings. They are all particularly identified, according to their quality. We have humans, and of course the animal nature and all those things that you can see around you. Those beings that you can not see – there are some, which we call as ‘Bhoota-Pretha’ category. There are other beings, that we call as ‘Yakshas’. There are other kinds of beings, that we call as ‘Gandharvas’. And there are ‘Devas’.
So, based on this, there are tree Gods, there are monkey Gods, there are elephant Gods, there is fruit God, there is vegetable God, there is flower God – for everything there is a God.
Is this all figment of imagination? No. It is – everything is happening because of certain forces. They identified these forces, and personified them, and created a method as to how to find access to them.
These Yagnas were processes through which, you can find access to certain forces in the existence
So, these Yagnas were processes through which, you can find access to certain forces in the existence, so that you have an advantage of achieving things, much more than you would do by your normal strengths and capabilities.
The word ‘yagna’ has been translated as ‘sacrifice’. The English word sacrifice, you would always understand as ‘giving up something for something else’, or ‘giving up something for nothing’, that’s a sacrifice, okay! ‘Giving up something for something else’, is commerce. ‘Giving up something for nothing’, is sacrifice. So, yagna need not necessarily mean a sacrifice. Probably, yagna is a combination of an offering, an oblation, and a sacrifice – it’s a mixture of all these three things.
A ritual through which you can please certain forces in the existence. In other cultures, generally they have not been properly identified and classified – all of them are dismissed as angels. But here, different quality beings have been identified as different types. And accordingly you call for a particular being, for a particular kind of benefit. There is a whole process and science behind this.
People do achieve what they want to do in a material world by using yagas and yagnas in a certain way
Even today people are using these yagas and yagnas – generally, for lot of them it may not work, because it’s not being properly conducted, the way it should be. But for many people, it does work. There are many many people, who are hugely benefited by these things. People do achieve what they want to do in a material world by using yagas and yagnas in a certain way.
Even though, it doesn’t matter how educated they are, and how much liberation they talk about – even today, 95% of the Indians, if they want to enter a new home, they will do yagas and yagnas before they get in. Only here at Isha we don’t do anything, because we are a different breed! If you are in a certain level of consciousness and energy, everything that you do is a yagna. You don’t have to do a separate ritual. The very way you live, is a yagna.
So yagnas are of different kinds – yagna means a certain means to access a dimension that is right now not in your access. One is a ritualistic yagna – that you perform something, and an expert in the field comes, and does something for you, through which you receive some benefit. Or you have made your very life process into a yagna. Now you sit in the morning, and you are doing your Shakti Chalana Kriya, or your Shambhavi Mahamudra – this is an internal yagna.
