Zitat von Vedanta am 16. Juni 2017, 10:37 Uhr

„Hinduism“, 4^th Part (continuation)
HH Shri Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji Maharaja

Once upon a time, in India doing yajna was very common. All the ritual part of Hinduism belongs to this school called Purva-mimamsa. Whether it is chanting of the mantras in the morning, agni hotra, … all of this is Purva-mimamsa. People used to do

• daily yajnas which are called agnihotra,

• bi-monthly yajnas which are called darsh / purnamas,

• quarterly yajnas which are called caturmasya, and

• yearly yajnas.

Agnihotra had to be done every morning and evening by everybody who had undergone the sacred thread ceremony.

Now there are some societies in the West
which are also doing it.
And they are getting a lot of benefit.

You can search the Internet for agnihotra and you will find some websites which will tell you how to do it. It is a very short way of doing yajna, it takes maybe 5 or 10 minutes. But it has to be done at a very specific time, when the sun is rising in that particular place and when the sun is setting. At that time there is a very special cosmic energy which becomes manifest and if you do the yajna, this energy goes into the yajna and you can use the ashes for medicinal purposes, which people are doing. Actually, I went to one such place in Germany, the Homa-Hof.

Homa-Hof

They actually showed that this place had been completely barren, nothing was growing there. And now whatever they are growing there is very big in size, the whole community living like that. This is a practial example of how these yajnas were actually very beneficial for the society. It purifies the atmosphere, not only at a gross level but a subtle purification took place and some energy was developed in that.

Then there are yajnas which are being done bi-monthly. Darsh is done at the new moon day and purnamas at the full moon day. Quarterly or caturmasya, these are done every three months, and yearly, there was soma yajna. These were various types of yajnas which were being performed in India. Now this tradition is lost, maybe a few people are doing it, but 99.99 % not, this is almost gone.

Maybe we can now show a small video about a very rare yajna which was done in 1975, and an American professor Frits Staal actually documented it. I don‘t think anybody can do it anymore. Because doing these types of yajnas needs lots of preparation, lots of material and qualified brahmanas to do it. That doesn‘t exist anymore. At least we can see what he has recorded.

Last Agnisthoma yajna in Kali-yuga 1975

You can see it is a very complicated procedure and this goes on for days. This agnishtoma is a yearly yajna and it takes a whole year to prepare.

So Purva-mimamsa deals with that. Many times you still see some remnants of these yajnas. Even if in America you go to temples they may be doing yajna, e.g. for the marriage ceremony they do a yajna. In India, yajna was part of any ceremony performed. When a child was born, a yajna was performed, even for conception there was a yajna performed. Somebody dies in the family, a yajna is performed. Any rituals - yajna was part of it. Some are very complicated, some are very simple.

Basically, there are three types of yajna:

1. One is the daily yajna, i.e. which has to be performed regularly.

2. Then there are yajnas which are called incidental, naimittika. They performed only on special occasions, e.g. somebody dies, somebody is born, marriage etc.

3. And then there is a third variety of yajnas which are performed when a person desires something specifically.

If somebody wants to attain something, in India they used to do a yajna for that. One of the very common desire one can read about is that, a king is there, he is not having a son due to some problem. Then he invites a sage who comes and does a yajna. Then the king gets a son. Or even for conquering a kingdom, sometimes for killing an enemy. There were yajnas to kill an enemy, all kinds of things. You see similar things in tantras. In tantra there are various types of rituals, that you want to control somebody, or you want to make two people fight with each other, or even want to make somebody sick, … all kinds of things are there. These are yajnas when people have some specific desire and materialistic desires are usually such that you want to take revenge from somebody or you want to attain something material. Vedas as well as tantras are full of such things. Of course, it is also written that one should not do these things because you get reactions for it. But why these things are mentioned there? Because people have desires, so they say: „Ok, you fulfill your desires“. But at the same time they warn you that one day you get reactions for this. Sometimes, you have very intense desire for something, and although you know it is wrong you cannot give up your idea. Then they say:

Ok, but do it
in a controlled way
and then get rid of it.

So the idea there also is, how you can become free from material attachments, which we will study more in Bhagavad Gita.