Jnana Yajna has no ritualism. It is a constant attempt on the part of the performer to see, in and through the experienced names and forms, the expression and vitality of the One Conscious Principle, the Self. The seeker here, practising Jnana Yajna has understood the significance of the Vedantic assertion that the Immutable Self pervades all, penetrating everything, and in Its homogeneous web of existence, It holds together the phenomenal multiplicity and their variegated inter-actions.
Chocolates made by different firms, irrespective of their shapes and colours, flavours and prices, are all chocolates and, therefore, their essential nature of sweetness is common to all of them; and the child who is seeking the sweetness of the chocolates will enjoy them, whatever be their shape, size, or packing.
Similarly, a seeker of the Self watches for, observes and detects the expression of the Self in all forms and names, in all situations and conditions. Whatever be the setting in which diamonds are held together, to a diamond merchant all of them are so many points of brilliance and light, and he evaluates them according to the light-content in each one of them and not the design or beauty of the ornament.
A man of realisation moves about the world, seeing his own Self, expressed through every movement and action, word and thought that clusters round him at all times. Just as one light in the midst of a thousand mirrors comes to provide crores of reflections everywhere, so too, the one centred in the Self, when he walks out into the world, sees everywhere his own Self dancing, shooting glances at him from all around at once, thrilling him always with the homogeneous ecstasy of perfection and bliss.
In the sparkle of the eyes, in the smile of a friend, in the grin of an enemy, in the harsh words of jealousy and in the soft tones of love, in heat and in cold, in success and in failure — among men, among animals, amidst the trees and in the company of the inert, everywhere, he successfully gains the auspicious vision of the Supreme, either as EXISTENCE PURE or as KNOWLEDGE ABSOLUTE or as BLISS INFINITE!! This is the meaning of Ishwara Darshana or the Atma Darshana which is sung so gloriously in all the scriptures of the world. To watch for and discover the smile of the Divine through the trellis of names and forms is to live in the constant spirit of Jnana Yajna.
To adore Him in all visions, to recognise Him in all situations, to feel Him with each thought, is to live in a constant remembrance of the Self, and therefore, such people “worship the Self through the wisdom-sacrifice (Jnana Yajna).”In the beginning, this attempt of seeing the Self is a conscious act, not without its unpleasant strain. But as the seeker develops in his own spiritual cognition of the Self, the Awareness Divine within him, it becomes easy for him to recognise the One Self splashing Itself upon the myriad forms of Its own effulgent glory: “ME, WHO IN ALL FORMS FACES UP EVERYWHERE.”
The Man-of-Realisation not only experiences the Pure Self, uncontaminated by the pluralistic equipments, but, also recognises the same Self as playing through the endless variety of conditionings available in the universe. Having known the one Sun in the sky, even if we see a thousand reflections of the same in different equipments, in all of them, we see and recognise only the one Sun.
According to Vedanta, Self-realisation is not at all complete if the realised one can keep his composure and equanimity only in solitude and silence; if he recognises and experiences the Divine only at some rare moments of his transcendental experiences, then he is not the Man-of-Wisdom glorified by the Rishis of the Upanishads. This is not the way of the Yogis. A Man-of-true-Knowledge is he to whom the Self alone is the Truth within, without, and everywhere. “The One pervades all and nothing pervades It.” To him a market place of the busiest tensions is as much a conducive place for cognising the Self as the quiet Himalayan valleys and their deep caves of roaring silence. With his eyes shut, he, from the balcony of the Infinite in himself, gazes out to experience nothing but his own Self everywhere.
In my legs as well as in my hands, I pervade equally at all moments. I know I am there. To say that this knowledge makes my hands and legs disappear, as mist disappears at sunrise, is sheer lunacy and not the assertion of a true science. Just as I permeate, exist, enjoy, and experience in and through every little portion of my body, all through my waking hours, at one and the same time, so too, the man-of-Realisation realises that at all times, his own Self permeates the entire universe, in His Infinite domain — “AS ONE, AS DISTINCT, AS MANIFOLD.”
Vedanta preaches the recognition of Divinity and the experience of the Infinite in and through life. It is not a passing experience lived through an accidental movement. It is not an occasion to celebrate by distributing laddus and then to retire for ever from that experience. Just as the knowledge acquired by an individual through his education keeps him constant company, at all times and in all conditions — even in his dream — even so, nay, much more powerfully, much more intimately, much more irredeemably, the “knower-of-the-Self becomes the Self”; there is no doubt about it. The truth of the Vedantic declaration is upheld by the assertion in the second line: “ME, THE ALL-FORMED, THEY WORSHIP, AS ONE, AS DISTINCT AND AS FACING EVERYWHERE, IN EACH FORM.”
All that we have so far said is being endorsed here. No doubt, through meditation, when the mind is stilled, the Pure Self, the One-without-a-second, is realised. The knower of the mud can easily recognise the mud in all pots; the shape, size and colour of the pot do not destroy the mud. Similarly, the apparent and delusory names and forms, superimposed upon the Truth, cannot and do not veil the Truth from the “vision” of the Man-of-Truth. Not only does the Seer recognise the Self in each individual separately, but Krishna, the upholder of Vedanta thunders that the Truth is recognised “IN EACH FORM, AS FACING EVERYWHERE.” It is absurd to say that one discovers the essential nature of the pot only on the right-hand bottom of the mud-pot! The mud is in the pot, facing everywhere, at all times; where the mud is not, there the pot is non-existent. When the Self is not, there, the perception of the multiple existence is never possible.
IF, IN A VARIETY OF FORMS, DIFFERENT TYPES OF WORSHIP ARE PERFORMED, HOW DO THEY ALL BECOME THE WORSHIP OF THE ONE SELF?
