Gita 04.32 – Knowing the unity among various yajnas grants liberation

Thank you so evam bahuvidha yajna all these are bahuvidha yajna they are all different kinds of sacrifices but vidhata brahmano khe vidhata is actually emanated or spread out from brahmano khe now mukhe is the mouth so these are brahmana the word brahman can mean many things and different acharyas give different meanings in general we can follow prabhupada over here and here it says that it means vedas and it makes logical sense also that these sacrifices have come from the vedas evam bahuvidha yajna vidhata brahmano mukhe and karma jaan vidhitaan sarvaan that they are karma jaan they are all born of karma vidhi or you know this taan sarvaan all of them evam jnatva one who knows this vimoksha say attains liberation the whole purpose of the discussion that the bhagavad gita is the purpose of that discussion is to elevate a person towards liberation is to help a person attain ultimately liberation but in the context of the bhagavad gita it is to help arjuna decide what he should do should he adopt the path of action and fight or should he adopt the path of inaction and renounce the jungle so krishna tells arjuna over here that we know krishna wants arjuna to fight the war and krishna is philosophically explaining why fighting is the best course of action for him so here he states that these various kinds of sacrifices that are there they are all two characteristics he is giving bahuvidha yajna their specifics they are quite different bahuvidha they are having many different forms many different components but two commonalities he says vidhita brahmanukhe they come from the scripture and more importantly for our discussion karmajan vidhita ansarvan they are all born of karma that means that they are all meant for the purpose of or they are all they all involve some activity even when a person does something which involves an activity like say ashtang yoga the advance of ashtang yoga but still one can come to that stage by having done karma earlier so essentially karmajan vidhita ansarvan all those are born of karma so here karma does not refer to fruitive activity which is the general meaning of the word karma it just refers to action so all these perform all these sacrifices have some kind of action involved in them and if we go at a deeper level even if one is motionless and one is even trying to curb one's fire curb the motion of one's life not fire then also at that time one is doing an activity because one has to consciously endeavor to offer the outgoing air to the ingoing and the outgoing and that certainly involves doing some activity so karmajan vidhita ansarvan therefore the point to recognize is that these are all activities which are which involve action so remember that the word karma had four different meanings it could refer generally simply to action it could refer to one particular kind of action that is the action which brings positive reaction that means su-karma it could refer to the law of action reaction or it could refer to the reaction that comes because of our action so here Krishna is using the word action in terms of activity generically not so much in terms of action that will bring some reaction but rather simply activity so all these yajnas involve some activity and therefore Arjuna do not adopt the path of inactivity adopt the path of activity that means for Arjuna the path of activity is the path of adopting the kshatriya duty and acting as a kshatriya as a martial guardian of society to protect society from aggressors, unscrupulous aggressors so here Krishna says what is the evam jnatva vimokshase one who knows this so the word evam is coming twice over here evam thus one who knows this knowing this vimokshase one will attain liberation, not just moksha vimokshase, special liberation ultimate liberation it's interesting that Krishna is not framing the dialogue of this discussion of yajna in karmakandri terms where normally speaking yajna is often seen as a fruitive activity which is done for satisfying the demigods for getting some worldly results so just as there can be putrakameshti yajna which can get a child so Krishna is not saying it that way here, what he is saying it here is evam jnatva vimokshase he says that vimokshase, so he is not sticking to some specific rituals so yajna, the word yajna if it is used to refer to specific rituals for getting specific results then it can be seen as a karmakandri activity, if those rituals are karmakandri but when it is seen as a generic reference to a universal principle that is when it is seen as an activity involving something which we could have used for our pleasure, we offer for the lord's pleasure, when it is seen that way then this activity becomes a pathway to liberation it becomes a roadway to ultimately the disentanglement of the consciousness from matter because when we are doing some sacrifice we are, akinis doing the activity of sacrifice, disentangling our consciousness from matter and focusing our consciousness on Krishna so in that sense it will move towards liberation, of course Krishna has talked about liberation once earlier in 30th verse also when he talked about yanti brahma sanatana and of course before that Krishna also has talked about it in 4.24 when he said that brahma brahma brahma brahma brahma brahma brahma brahma brahma brahma so essentially Arjuna don't have superficial vision of things don't reduce sacrifice to some rituals involving the powering of ghee into fire and don't reduce the activities that lead to liberation to inactive contemplation during a forest broaden your vision and see that even your fighting in a war field can be a sacrifice and can be an activity that can lead to liberation so evam jnatva knowing this so the if you look at the verse Krishna is asking us to look beyond, to look the substance under the appearance, to see beyond the specific to the universal so first we start with pavidha yajna there are many different kinds of yajna but what are the commonality these all come from scripture vithuta brahmano and they all involve doing some kind of activity because after all what does sacrifice mean there is a sacrificer who offers the object to be sacrificed into the fire, sacred fire so there has to be the activity of offering the oblation into the fire so like that all these various activities that can be seen generically as sacrifices, they all involve some activity and therefore karmajan, vidhitan, sarvan, they all involve activity and therefore you should also do activity and if you know this universal principle and you adopt that consciousness of sacrifice while doing your activity of fighting the war then even this activity of fighting which you think of as entangling will turn out to be liberating knowing this you will attain liberation, thank you.