In all ritualistic sacrifices, the Self alone is “THE ENJOYER AND THE LORD.” It is the Self, in one form or another, expressing some special power that goes to form the different deities, for the invocation of whom the various sacrifices are performed by the seekers of their grace. Here the Lord says “I am the Immutable Reality” that is behind all the deities that are invoked during every sacrifice with faith and devotion, be it in a Temple or a Church, in a Mosque or a Synagogue. But because they invoke “limited potentials in Me” (Devatas) they do not come to realise “My Infinite Glory revelling as their Self,” and therefore, jumping from one worship to another, they slip down to fall into delusory confusions and endless entanglements.

Applying it to life, in all fields of activity wherein men strive (Yajna), they are invoking some finite profit or the other (deity), and do not strive to improve spiritually so as to come to rediscover the Self as their own essential nature. Treading on the slippery slopes of sensuality, they fall to the levels of brutal animalism and prove themselves a disgrace to the dignity and status of man.

Complete happiness and satisfaction, perfect contentment and peace, lie only in the innermost precincts of the bosom and not in the extrovert fields of profit and success, glory and fame. Unmindful of this enduring profit that lies within themselves, men, bitten by a thousand scorpions of desire, run amuck — bringing about chaos and sorrows not only to themselves but to others walking the same road. Necessarily, therefore, when a generation of such deluded people come to live, freely encouraging their own mental weaknesses, and never caring to pause and estimate their own actions, the history of that period can be written only upon the face of a blasted world with the very blood of the killed and the maimed — diluted with the tears of the bereaved mothers and widows! Indeed, they return to the sorrows of the mortals (Chyavanti te).

HOW CAN WE SAY THAT EVEN THOSE WHO ARE INVOKING THE ETERNAL BY METHODS WHICH THE LAW DOES NOT ORDAIN, COME TO ENJOY THEIR CERTAIN FRUITS?… LISTEN:

As the Self of the deities (of the sacrifices), aham, I; hi, indeed; am the bhokta, enjoyer; ca eva, as also; the prabhuh, Lord; [The Lord: ‘I being the indwelling Ruler of all.’] sarva-yajnanam, of all sacrifices enjoined by the Vedas and the Smrtis. A sacrifice is verily presided over by Me, for it has been said earlier, ‘I Myself am the entity (called Visnu) that exists in the sacrifice in this body’ (8.4). Tu, but; na abhi-jananti, they do not know; mam, Me as such; tattvena, in reality. And atah, therefore, by worshipping ignorantly; te, they; cyavanti, fall from the result of the sacrifice. [‘Although they perform sacrifices with great diligence, still just because they do not know Me real nature and do not offer the fruits of their sacrifices to Me, they proceed to the worlds of the respective deities through the Southern Path (beginning with smoke; see 8.25). Then, after the exhaustion of the results of those sacrifices and the falling of the respective bodies (assumed in those worlds) they return to the human world for rembodiment.’-M.S. (See also 9.20-1.)] The result of a sacrifice is inevitable even for those who worship ignorantly out of their devotion to other deities. How?