How Yajnas benefit us !

Do Yajna

भोक्तारं यज्ञतपसां bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ [Bhagavad Gita 5.29]. With yajya and with tapas, one attains the highest.

What is Yajna?

Yajna means bringing things together. Everything together – body, mind, spirit coming together is a yajna. When you are singing and chanting, this is Kirtan yajna. Just that song is there; you are not there, just that song is there. It has taken over your whole mind. If you are looking here and there, not getting immersed in it, then that’s not yajna. But if you are immersed, totally drowned in the music you are singing, that is yajna.

Types of Yajnas

In the same way, the Vedic pandits do yajna by bringing 108 different types of herbs, and with chanting with the mantra, they put them in the fire and perform a ceremony. That is Dravya yajna, the most gross form of yajna. Subtler than that is Japa yajna. Subtler than that is Jnana yajna, Knowledge. Everyone together discussing, understanding, listening, and digesting the knowledge – this is Jnana yajna. And then, meditation is another yajna.

Mechanics of Yajna

If ten of us sit and do satsang, that is good. If ten thousand sit and do, that is also good. It’s not that ten people doing will have less impact. You know, if I help one person, that is good; if I help ten people or one thousand people, they have the same impact. So, how much you have done is not important – whatever you can do, that much you have to do.

Three aspects of Yajna

Yajna means three things: Dev pooja, honouring the divine qualities, the divinities, divine energies; Sangati Karan, i.e., everyone moving together, jointly moving together. Yajna cannot happen alone, with one person, because we are not isolated beings. We are connected with everybody. If one is affected to some degree, it will affect others too. Sangati Karan, everybody moving together. And Daan, giving, sharing. These are the three aspects of yajna.