Yajña, Daana and Tapas - the Indian Way of Life

In this ancient land of India, we are used to seeing people who are utterly poor, living on the pavements and vending fruits, vegetables or some little scrap of a toy at a traffic junction just to make ends meet.  They live under a tarpaulin and wake up each day to some customer’s call for a small purchase.   In the morning, I have seen women whose face is weathered by the vagaries of life, make themselves up with a few glass bangles, and a few glittering pieces of jewellery, beads and ear rings and drawing the drift of their saree over their heads, adorn their foreheads with vermilion and start working to earn a few rupees so they can live another day.  Today’s materialistic culture has driven these traders to the fringes, to a life of uncertainty and yet they continue to serve a valuable role in society and cherish the independence that trading gives them. 

India’s ancient culture was built around three aspects of work culture – yajña, daana and tapas.  Yajña is often translated as sacrifice.  What is the relation between our work [karma] and yajña? In the western world, people project their strengths and skills and try to get as much as possible in terms of remuneration.  In India the brightest minds were told that they shall be treasured, respected and maintained by the rest of society.  And for the longest time, those that wanted to pursue study, teaching and the high road were fed by the rest of the society, taken care of, and in turn they provided true education for life and living, well meaning counsel and were always looked up to.  The life of the highest of men was built on pure acceptance, a complete lack of selfish desire, built around a coveted simplicity that kept them in touch with reality all the time.  Thus the brightest minds were not driven to create without regard to man or his environment.  Even amongst India’s divine trinity, Brahma, who is the creator, is shown with four heads indicating that he would create with a 360 degree vision – and not with a myopic vision.  And yet he was not worshipped.  Creativity was always subordinate to the art of sustenance and destruction.  Creative works of our land depict the destruction of that which is detrimental, degrading and deleterious and give form to that which is enduring, enlightening and enlivening.  Yajña meant that every citizen would sacrifice some of what he earnt towards the well being of fellow beings and society at large – it was not tax – it was a giving up of some of the fruits of one’s toil. 

Many years ago when my child was still a baby, an aged lady banana seller who did not even have a blouse to wear, gave to my child, two bananas more than what I purchased – ‘this is from me to your baby’, she said.  This is daana or true charity.  She was carrying a bamboo tray of bananas on her head and perhaps she could not earn more than two meals even she had sold the entire tray for the price of her asking.  And yet, the generosity of spirit, the capability of giving was always preserved in the Indian psyche.   Our trading community was always known for their generosity.  The richest people spent on public projects and were given titles such as ‘Dharmaprakasha’ – he who with his generosity lights the lamp of dharma in others.  This noble attitude comes from true education. 

Even our kings gave up their kingdoms and retired to the forest to perform penance at some point in life.  Tapas or penance is the art of subduing one’s mind-generated impulses.  The great culture of yajña, daana and tapas must be revived if we should prevent more and more people from becoming lost to the glorious opportunity of human life.  Everyday the television channels broadcast mindless and de-humanising news-bits and bombard your senses with unending tickers broadcasting the worst events of the day with some vague hope that enhanced viewership will increase their profits.  Will not such profit earnt through the glorifying the images of the degradation of human life eventually degrade the profiteer himself?

If we go by the western way of looking at things and their education model, soon we will lose all of our spiritual wealth.  For millennia people all over the world have struggled through this material life and in the end sought the benevolent guidance of the seers of India and it is up to us to preserve this spiritual wealth.  It is not to be seen as a fashionable thing to seek spirituality - it is the paramount necessity of the day that we seek it and live it in our lives.  Without a spiritual anchor that is lodged securely in the depths of the ocean of life, we will drift – be driven by a waxing and waning mind – and store negativity and dark energies in our subtle bodies.  And if we do nothing to change this situation, this darkness will drive many into clinical depression - and the rising number of people in depression is an indication.  

In the name of economic reforms and globalisation, profiteers are seeking to steal the few last rupees that sustain the millions of poor that still live happily in this ancient land by inflating food prices through commodity trading.  This has already started resulting in instances of our hard working humble farmers and even struggling lower income families - people who have worked with pride and honesty - resorting to suicide.  Many large multinational corporations will give nothing in charity to a cause that they think will not benefit their company in the end.  This is not daana by any means.  It is another self serving expenditure through the garb of charity.  Our education must enable us to choose that which is truly sustainable and truly uplifting. 

The fundamental concepts of India’s great work culture - yajña, daana and tapas - were designed around converting material wealth into spiritual wealth.  We must not be lead by our wayward mind.  But we must lead it so that we are not driven to failure by it.  Therefore leadership must come from those who have crossed the mind and can call the bluff of all that is mind-created.  Leadership in education must come from those who have conquered the mind and imbibed a spiritual life and learning.  It is most natural for man to be rooted in his spirit.  When he abandons his spiritual self and tries to lay the foundation of life on mind generated constructs, then it is only a matter of time before this castle collapses. 

Whenever we take something lesser than we deserve, the balance gets transformed into spiritual wealth.  Whenever we work selflessly, the energy that we put in, gets transformed into spiritual wealth.  Our arts, our culture, our wonderfully colourful and decorative dress culture, our stories and heritage are all aimed at creating spiritual wealth.  And it is this spiritual wealth that brings a smile on the banana seller when she sees a small baby.  The humblest of humble in this vast country carry this spiritual wealth and that is what enables them to live another day.  And we hope that those that matter will see the wisdom of our ancient heritage and utilise the opportunities in their hands to reform our education to create a generation that is rooted in reality, truth and happiness.    

Bhakti and Rasaanubhava

We use the words bhakti and rasa and sometimes the word bhakti-rasa.  Bhakti is commonly translated as devotion and yet it is something more than that – it is a devotional union.  What is bhakti other than the absence of vibhakti?  Vibhakti is separation and bhakti is union.  It is only in the struggle of the separate in its search for some union that any movement of consciousness can be felt. Unconsciousness is the result of vibhakti and consciousness is the result of bhakti.  And rasa is nothing but a palpable movement from unconsciousness towards consciousness.  

In fact the nava (nine) rasas when it comes down to the level of societal interaction are the reflected approaches roads to bhakti from different relational and emotional standpoints.  And these rasas such as shrungaara(love), haasya(laughable, amusing), bheebhatsa(disgust), adbhuta(wonder), veera(heroic), raudra(fierce), bhayaanaka(fearful), karuna(compassion) and shaanta(peace) are all human emotions resulting in a movement from separation to union.  These are but nine types of waves and when these waves subside, the calm and deep waters of bhakti can be felt.  Diluted samples of these rasas play out in our worldly relations too.  The worldly is after all only a subset of the divine.  And similarly the worldly experience of rasa is a subset of the one and only rasa that is true - and this is the bhakti-rasa.    

In literary creative works, authors introduce the rasas to make the story interesting and captivating to an audience.  And yet without the intent of a central union, the use of rasas will become an instrument only for entertainment.  And there is no end to it.  Because the more you entertain the mind, the more it will ask for the same.  And this is also a mild form of addiction and not much else. To effectively use the nava rasas in a natural and appropriate manner, and through it, string the reader's awareness to his innermost self, is a tall ask - one that can only be met by a mahaakavi – an accomplished poet.  

If there is some tangible truth within one’s words and if it can touch your core, then such work can be considered to be of value.  Else it may fall by the wayside like millions of works that are daily consigned to the dustbin of a forgotten past.  

Rasaanubhava – the experience of rasa, is nothing but the touch of a bhaava (a release of a sense of feeling from the depths of your inner emotive self) that is beyond the material - it cannot be talked about - any word is violence and no true rasa can survive within a sphere of violence - because true rasa is ahimsa.  It is like a mystical vibrating column of soft light - the moment you let loose the noise of your opinion on it, it disappears.  The moment you make an effort to delineate its qualifications, you cast the shadow of the human ego on it and it disappears - true rasa must come effortlessly - anaayaasena.  The moment you try to touch it, it collapses at the very proximity of human minds.  It is too gentle, too soft, too sacred to be bounded or touched.  It is asprha (untouched).  

The conditioned mind is opaque to this gentle touch.  In school one must ingest the rules.  But what one must drink and digest must be more than the rules of verse – it must be the nectar of life - if a single memorable verse or sentence must flow through one’s work.  No amount of grammar or meter or vocabulary can give it any lasting value.  It is like trying to labour and deliver without becoming pregnant!  First we must become pregnant, then our expression will become pregnant, and then in due course a beautiful offspring will be produced. And in order for our words to become pregnant, no amount of going around the trees will do.  You must experience union – you must experience bhakti! It is only then that a mysterious dimension of depth will get attached to one’s words and do their work in their own way.   It is not one’s work; it is the work of that experience, of the truth that it carries.  Words arise and fall.  It is only that which is transmitted between the words that stays – that invisible clear water like fluid is rasa – and it is felt as a result of bhakti.   

Published in the New Indian Express - September 11, 2014 - Section 'Soulful' {Bangalore Edition}