A third kind of yagya is for the fulfillment of a task, ‘karya purti’, for example, the chandi yagya, rudra yagya, ashvamedha or rajasuya. When you perform such a yagya in Guru Sanidhya, the purpose for which the yagya is performed materializes with certainty. However, these yagyas should only be performed when one has accumulated suitable karmic strength. Everything in creation is bound by karma, including the Trinity. There is no escape from it. Even if you attain something in the physical through a yagya, in the absence of requisite karmas, it will be at the cost of something else, which will be taken away from you to balance out karmas. Therefore the yagyas for karya purti are not prescribed to all and sundry. Next there are yagyas, which are performed, not for someone specific or towards specific end, but simply as a duty by virtue of being a human and a part and parcel of Creation. Agnihotra falls in this category.

Then there are yagyas, which pertain to the food chain, to the co-existence of various aspects of Creation. For example, a tree performs a yagya all its life, sacrificing itself to provide us food, air and shelter. As humans it is our duty to perform a yagya for the tree, by nurturing it. If we do not do that, the tree would perish and with it we will too perish. Similarly the cow, it bears immense pain and agony to nourish us with its milk. It then becomes our duty to perform a yagya for the cow, by protecting and providing for it. In fact, every entity in creation is performing a yagya, the sun is burning everyday to give us heat and light, the earth bears our weight to sustain life, the winds blow, the rivers flow. Each is performing a yagya. Tapasya or penance too is a form of yagya. Every human has to perform tapasya to give back to Creation. Only then is he entitled to human birth and body and related pleasures. The ones who do not perform these yagyas move into the yonis of bhoots and pesach. At Dhyan Ashram, the sadhaks have traversed various lokas and yugas with me and interacted with all kinds of entities and know this for a fact. We need to give back to Creation and yagya is a means to do that.

Yagya basically means a sacrifice of whatever is dear to you. The Creation runs on someone’s sacrifice, like the food chain, one is sacrificed for the other. The bigger the sacrifice, the more is the gain. Giving pain to an animal for sacrificing gets no punya. It gets you hells only. Guru prescribes a yagya and mantra sadhna as per the desire and capacity of the sadhak, which opens doorways to the subtler dimensions. It is extremely important here that the mantra uchharan in a yagya be done by the siddha of the mantra. Correct uchharan bestows phenomenal siddhis, the results of an incorrect or faulty uchharan can be catastrophic. To experience the power of yagya, you may contact Dhyan Ashram.

—Yogi Ashwini is the Guiding Light of Dhyan Ashram and can be reached at www.dhyanfoundation.com