Vishnusahasranama

July 7, 2006

Stanza 105

yajnabhridyajnakridyajnee yajnabhugyajnasaadhah

yajnaantakridyajnaguhyamannamannaada eva cha.

976. Yajna-bhrit –“the ruler of the Yajnas” –the One who helps us to conclude successfully all our ‘good, dedicated. Selfless acts of service to others’ –Yajnas.

977. Yajna-Krit –“One who performs Yajna.” The same term also mean One who destroys the yajnas. The term Yajna connotes all noble and divine actions of service and love undertaken in a pure sense of God dedication, selflessness and joy. Lord issued forth the creation as an act of yajna, and in the end He must also undertake the total dissolution of this very yajna. Sometimes this is interpreted as “One who ‘performs’ the yajnas of the good people and one who ‘destroys’ the Yajnas of the evil minded folk.”

978. Yajnee –“One who is constant ‘Enjoyer’ of the perpetual Yajnas.” In all Yajnas, because every act is Narayana –centered-god-dedicated-to him alone is the attribute of being the only single ‘Enjoyer.’

979. Yajnee –“All that is offered into the scared Fire during a Yajna, though with an invocation to any of the deities, in tender devotion and joy. Goes to Him alone, the “One receiver of all that is offered,” for all deities are but Narayana in different forms.

980. Yajna-saadhanah –“One who fulfills all Yajnas.” It is by his grace alone all noble endeavours, undertaken in an honest and true sincerity, gain spectacular success.

981. Yajnaantakrit –“One who performs the last, concluding act in all Yajnas.” The final item in a yajna is the “total –offerings” (Poorna-Aahuti) when Sree Narayana is reverently and earnestly invoked. Without this prayer-ritual. Yajna is never complete. Sree Hari, therefore, is of the form of Poorna-Aahuti -in the sense that when ‘total’ surrender of all vehicles and their actions is accomplished, the transcendental experience of the Self, Narayana alone, comes to manifest in all His divine Splendour.

Some commentators have, however, taken the meaning of the Yajna-anta-not as “the last item in yajna” but as ‘anta,’ the ‘fruit’ of the yajna by which they bestow the meaning that Narayana is the “One who gives away the ‘fruits’ for all Hari-dedicated, selfless acts of love and service.”

982. yagna-guhyam –“Sree Narayana is the most profound truth to be realised in all yajnas.” The self is the most noble truth to be sought through ‘offerings’ all the ‘Dravya’ (objects) into the “consciousness” (Fire) in the “body” (kunda). This kind of subjective-Yajna is called in the Geeta as “Knowledge-Yajna.” This is also called in the Vedas as Brahma-Yajna.

983. Annam –“One who has himself become the ‘food’ ” –sense –objects which are the ‘food’ consumed by the sense –organs. As a verb it can be used as One who “Eats” the whole universe at the time of the great dissolution. At that time, he is the one in whom the world remains absorbed in the pralaya, just as our individual world each day gets dissolved in our sleep. The one in whom alone the world of names and forms can remain in their ‘seed-form,’ is Sree Narayana, the self.

984. Annaadah –“One who eats the ‘food.’ ” not only the objective world is the projection on Narayana, but the subjective-enjoyer –the individuality, the ego, that experiences-is also Narayana. The self, functioning through the “equipment” is the jeevaatman, the individuality in each of us who “experiences.” Thus the self is the both ‘food’ (Annam) and ‘eater-of-food’ (Annaadah) just as our own waking-mind becomes the “experiencer” and the “experienced” in our dream-world.

http://groups.msn.com/

Try the all-new Mail . "The New Version is radically easier to use" – The Wall Street Journal