Karma Yoga: Karma Yoga - Lesson VIII (of XI )

By Bhikshu

Karma Yoga: Lesson VIII

The Hindu-Yogi Philosophy has recognised full well the universe of Thought in so far as to state that Thoughts people many realms of existence beyond the physical plane, the treatment of one of which we have already spoken of in the last chapter. Thoughts exist otherwise too, as the denizens, for instance, of the infra world, the matter of biology, for which the term in Hindu philosophy is Bhoota (what has come to be); as ideas, soul particles, psychomeres, gods, divinities, angels, good thoughts, Devas, denizen of a supra world, (not superior world at all); as Manushyas; men themselves who are but aggregations of Thought; and as the Transcendentals, the Higher Purposes of Man called in the collective God. The Karma Yogi has to know, has to appreciate these lives, these Thoughts as forming part of the universe he is dealing with, and has to settle his attitude towards these various forms of thought not as they come before him, but collectively, comprehensively.

As he can approach the Devas, the gods of the supra world, and help the Bhootas, the beings of the infra world, alike via the agency of Fire, says Veda. And by fire is meant not merely the flame but the catalyst that accelerates oxidation, which oxidation is a constant ceaseless factor in the universe, the same thing again as thought. We shall therefore deal with the Fire mystery, for Fire is a mystery, as great a mystery as catalysis, as great a mystery as electrical induction, as radiography; Fire has been a universal symbol; it was the Universal medium for all offerings among almost all the ancient nations. And has the use and purpose of fire been entirely meaningless? The Karma Yogi must understand why the ancient Parsis and Hindus were charged with being worshippers of the visible fire, and falsely charged, too. For the Parsis and Hindus face the Fire as they also face the sun and sea, because in them they picture to themselves the hidden light of lights, source of all life, to which they give the name of Ahuramazda. How well Robert Fludd, the English mystic, expresses this divinity of Fire is seen from the following excerpt from "Hargrave Jennings on the Rosicrucians," p. 69.

"Regard fire then with other eyes than with those soulless incurious ones with which thou hast lookt on it as the most ordinary thing. Thou has forgotten what it is, or rather thou hast never known. Chemists are silent about it. Philosophers talk about it as anatomists talk about the constitution or parts of the human body. It is made for man and the world and it is greatly like him they would add that is mean.... But is this all? Is this the sum of the casketed lamp of the human body? thine own body, thou unthinking world's machine, thou man? Or in the fabric of this clay lamp (what a beautiful simile) burneth there not a light? Describe that ye doctors of physics! Note the goings of fire .... Think that this thing is bound up in matter chains. Think that he is outside of all things; and that thou and that world are only the thing between and that outside and inside are both identical, couldst thou understand the supernatural truth! Reverence fire for its meaning and tremble at it. Avert the face from it as the Magi turned, dreading and as the symbol bowed askance.... Wonder no longer then if, rejected so long as an idolatry, the ancient Persians and their masters the Magi concluding that they saw all in this supernaturally magnificent element, fell down and worshipped it; making of it the physical representation of the very truest yet in man's speculation and in his philosophies nay in his commonest reason impossible God."

And look you, this is the language not of a Parsi or Hindu but of an English scholar, one of a nation of phlegmatics, and hence is his effusiveness remarkable; of one who followed the shining path marked out by the Chaldean Magi and obtained like them the true meaning of their mysteries.

Fire (Agni) was not merely a symbol with the ancient Hindus; it was a vehicle for the good thoughts of the individual and good thoughts were offered up along with material physical offerings via Agni the great Vehicle, vahana. Could not good thoughts, kind wishes and the like be offered without any media? They could, of course, but they would in most cases be inchoate; of incomplete cogency, and hence ineffective of action. But offering through Fire conveys to the offerer the suggestion that the Vedas state about the Vedic sacrifices; namely that offerings into the fire being reduced all into one element rise up to the Father the Sun who himself is a great drier of water which rises in steam up to him; from on high where these smokes and clouds form and in time condense cometh rain which sheds on the world forcing up plant life and creating fruits which are offered again in sacrifice. As says the ancient lawgiver Manu: "The offering put into the fire goeth to the Sun; from the Sun cometh rain; from rain food; from food all creatures." III. 76.

And again, as says Ramanuja, a great revivalist of Hindu Bhakti Yoga in his comment on the Bhagavad Gita III. 15: "This is the wheel of ceaseless antecedents and sequences, thus; food from rain, rain from yajna, sacrifice and worship; yajna from works performed by a doer; works from a living body; living bodies again from food."

The world is seen by the ancient Vedic yogis to be a world of fire, of things which are ceaselessly burnt up; what the chemists mean when they say that oxidation is a constant process of nature; what the ancient works state when they say that Thought is a constant process irrespective of any thinker; what the Xian mystics mean when they say that the world is a world of sin that has been already saved by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ who is dying on the Cross in every moment of time. All things are being burnt up, eaten up, continuously and it is for the Karma Yogi to make of this unconscious waste process a useful process, to regulate it, to make all thoughts, offerings, to render the thought again to its appropriate end. And herein is Fire to be used as apparatus (vahana), water as an accessory (tarpana), and speech as the time marker, rhythm fixer (japa); for the Karma Yogi is going to use all the material available and use it for the ends of all, ends that are to be attained in the universe as far as he can help. And let not this programme daunt any one, for the one instrument that he Karma Yogi shall use is good thought, and if he uses it, he does not care about what happens in the use, especially to himself, and of course he does not care about the results at all.

The rationale of the burnt offering is this: That the offering is reduced to aerial particles according to science and as all particles are ions of ether (or fine matter), if you please, the burnt offering is reduced to a diffused condition just as the thought world is, and as we have postulated the thought world is a world of matter still, albeit finer matter than any we have out here; for thought can be used, rejected, eliminated, placed, transmitted, avoided, rendered up just as any other material can be. And along with the burnt offering goeth the prayer or persistent thought of the offerer, goeth up to the object intended much quicker than the offering itself, for who can state that the offering as reduced in fire has not reached the object; who can say that the object of affection did not exist in the Fire and did not take the offering as it was offered to the Fire? And indeed fire itself is but a form of thought, a form of oxidation, a form of Life.

In the Turanian worship, the worship via fire and the burnt offering were replaced by the offer of incense; good thoughts, kind remembrances and the like expressions of gratitude were offered up in incense, frankincense and spices, the smoke of which added to the world's greater fragrance. The Turanian concept did not need the sacrifice of the fire; it ruled that man should sacrifice himself by a willing life and by a willing death; but in effect they offered good thoughts to the universe of thoughts by the burning of incense, itself provocative of fragrant thoughts. The Western World has virtually adopted the Turanian ritual; it maintains the offer of incense still and has given up the burnt offering and any attempt to introduce the burnt offering in the West would be difficult; what we would therefore advise is that every Karma Yogi, every disciple who has come to us for guidance, do, in a separate room set apart for worship, meditation or Yoga as it ought to be, burn incense or joss sticks, as the Chinese or Japanese do; incense of any non-stupefying kind, before his invocation of the Presences around and in man, before beginning each practice of meditation. It would be very well if along with this offer of incense, good wishes for the welfare of the world around, be also sent up by the use of any short prayer, such as the "Phala-sruti-vakyas" of Sanskrit books for the Orientals, or the simpler "Sarvey janah sukhinah bhavantu," "let every one be happy; let every one have his peace," "the Blessings of Alla on all" any of these may be adopted for use as mantra or affirmation.

For Orientals and for those Karma Yogins of the West who have a liking for oriental methods, it is advisable to have an altar; in the West where tables and chairs are used the altar has to be raised and all that one has to do is to have such a separate altar for himself, instead of the common altar at church or lodge. Of course the altar should be used exclusively for the purpose of the Ritual and be kept clean and pure. Every morn after one has risen and finished his morning ablutions and cleansing, his bath and dressing (of course the loose morning gown is enough) one may offer to the fire that he has kindled, (it is only a little flame of burning scented wood sticks, the scent being all important), a handful of cooked wheat or rice or oats seasoned with butter or aromatic oil, or a few scented sticks of wood along with the repetition of that grand hymn, Our Lord's Prayer.

Such of our Mahomeddan Karma Yogis as desire to take up the hint contained in the above may, instead of the above Prayer, repeat the Fateha, a very ancient Tamil Prayer rendered into the Arabic, and drop the fire offering, keeping on the burning of the incense.

Those who would have no objection to the Hindu ritual are required to offer two offerings, first to our Father the Sun, Sooryaya Svaha; and next to Fire the great granter of one's yearnings, good yearnings (of course), Agnaye Su Ishta kritaya svaha. It is taken that the place of fire-kindling, the altar, has been well cleansed and that fire is approached with reverence; the Parsis say that the mouth must be covered by a veil lest any spittal, or even the breath, pollute the Fire addressed. These are the essentials and may be used with any adaptation required by modernity with the proviso that neither flesh, fish, blood nor foul-smelling substances be used in the ritual; and it will be a pleasing diversion to many westerners to adopt this mode of prayer and offering.

The ancient Hindu identified Fire with himself, with his household life (garhapatya), with his service to humanity and the world (ahavaniya), with the invocation of the Higher presence (in himself and in the universe), darsana. There were kept, first one fire that was ever burning, and next three fires, two of them periodical, or occasional. The Hindu recognised the Fire in man, Hunger, Agni Vaisvanara, God in himself, the living God in man that we all recognise in our acceptance of charity as a virtue. God has incarnated as man with a Purpose, wherefore is the body, we have to live to fulfill the Purpose (Anta), and we have to eat to live, not because it is the food that causes the vital energy, but because vital energy, oxidation or thought, a constant process, has been eating up the matter-cells that we have to replace to make our embodiment hold together. God himself as Agni (fire) Vaisvanara (in all men) digests and converts gross material into experience, both mental, spiritual and physical.

As says the Westerner, "the satisfaction afforded by a starving creature by his taking food is a manifestation of the spirit, of the spirit of God in man," that is where the rationale of Charity comes in as a Manushya Yajna, sacrifice to and worship of humanity. In Mahommeddanism, Charity was the one injunction of duty from man to man and was regarded as a duty to be controlled and regulated by the state; in the Hindu country the offer of food to the guest was a duty to be well recognised; for here the guest was God himself and the unhonored guest took away the merit of the host. It was to be regarded, say the Hindu scriptures, that the unbidden guest was a messenger of God, one whom God could not feed and hence whom God had sent to us to be fed, fed as God should have fed him, for it was God's duty to feed every creature. Not one shall die of starvation say the scriptures; the sun shall not set before every one is fed; the great creator, Brahma himself, shall feed the starving.

The Karma Yogi (like every householder) should satisfy, recognising their needs, all beings on all the five planes where worship or sacrifice is to be rendered. Firstly then as to the human plane, charity the offer of free food to the chance guest, to the really needy as much as any one could afford, has been advised in Hinduism and Jainism. Hindu scriptures have gone elaborately on this duty to the needy, of giving food, to the extent that it has been made part of the ordinances that none was to take food unless he had fed strangers seeking food at his doorstep; but before feeding strangers the householder had to feed children, vestals, sick females, aged females, aye, before feeding even the guest! So much was the guest esteemed in the East that the guest was regarded as the master of the house, even before the master himself. The ancient adage also states that the householder attains heaven not so much by sacrifices, or charities or by attendance on the Fire, as by devotion to the unbidden guest.

Not only was man to be fed by the householder but also the lives of the "infra" world, the teeming life of the insect world as far as possible in what is known as the Bhoota Yajna by offerings called Bali. Like Devas, the beings of the infra world can hardly be seen and hence the offer of food to them must be through the medium of the elements (in this case the elements of air and earth); food is spread or scattered before the birds, ant or insect life, snakes even, in groves, nocturnal wanderers in midnight offerings, of food and drink where four roads meet, or in cemeteries. Along with the offer of the food go out the good thoughts of the offerer of the food, thoughts that go out to strengthen the Bhootas, the beings of the lesser world that is of us, that is contributing its quota to us. It was useful in ancient time to offer blood periodically to one class of these beings and in many places blood continues to be shed and offered in the invocation of the beings of the infra world. Bali was current in very ancient time among the Turanians and consisted in the offer of the blood and flesh of the sacrificed animal victims to insect and bird life, the while the sacrifice was considered as an offering to God, i.e. to the Being to be pleased or appeased.

Dating to very ancient times when the victim was God or one deified as God for the purpose of the immolation, as in the Purusha Sukta, Aja Medha, etc., of the Rg Veda, it came out later on that instead of a human victim an animal victim representative of God was sacrificed to God in a hundred fashions in many thousand primitive cults. "Sacrifice to gods," says James (Varieties of Religious experience), "are omnipresent in primeval worship, but as cults have grown refined, burnt offerings and the blood of he-goats have been superseded by sacrifices more spiritual in nature; Judaism, Islam and Buddhism get along without ritual sacrifice, so does Christianity, save in so far as the notion is preserved in transfigured form in the mystery of Christ's atonement."

Says Madame H. P. Blavatsky in her Isis Unveiled, II. 4I: "As all expiation for the past, present and future sins of ignorant but nevertheless polluted mankind the Hierophant (Karma Yogi) had the option of suffering his sinless life as the sacrifice for his race to the Gods whom he hoped to rejoin or an animal victim (Passion). The former depended entirely on his free will." Like Jesus the Karma Yogi's life is one of voluntary sacrifice, for it is not as a halter that he regards (his duties) these rituals nor as helping him on, but because they are God's work. To the idea of charity as the virtue to be practised towards man, the Karma Yogi adds that all shedding of blood, all use of flesh and fish as food should be accompanied by the recognition of the need of the poor, too poor to buy the food, a fact that Islam recognises and insists on to be appreciated in the course of the Haj pilgrimage. It has, it may be mentioned en passant, been part of Hindu ethics to spread food for crows, birds, insects, etc., the Bhootas, before beginning the daily meal; whether this can be followed out in the West is a matter of Individual choice, but is it after all anything worse than feeding the pidgeons or magpies, than feeding dogs and horses?

So far as to Bhoota Yajna; but what about the milliards of beings in himself, what about his higher purposes? We have seen how in the history of religious thought, religions such as Islam, Christianity, Bhuddhism, Jainism, replace offerings of the heart, renunciations of the inner self for the oblations of the ancient; but they ought not to be replaced but to be added on to the offerings; all life wherever it is taken strenuously calls for sacrifice, and the ascetic practises of most religions are Brahma Yajna, religious exercises that are sacrifices. The Karma Yogi has to continue to strip away whatever accretions to himself he has been tempted to make in daily life by set practices of mortification, the term being used in the western sense of stripping away vain employments, curiosity, fantasies and the like. Towards Brahma Yajna comes in as help the Scripture or representation of the great Law; it does not matter what the Scripture is, provided it is read in the spirit known to the Karma Yogi.

This articles is from a series in eleven lesson in Karma Yoga, From "The Yoga Philosophy of Thought Use" and "The Yogin Doctrine of Work"

ÒThe kingdom of Thought is truly yours; you can select values, reject vanities, eliminate dross, live as the uncrowned and crowned Emperors have lived in the utmost independance, ordering for yourself Happiness, distributing the flowing surpluses thereof to all around you.Ó

Chicago, U.S.A., Yogi Publication Society, 1928

See - Yoga Lessons - for the other Yoga Lessons I - XI