Burning Desires, Burning Planet
Questioner: What is the Gita saying?
“From yagya comes rain; From rain comes grain; From grain, all living beings.” And that which is rain comes from yagya, which has already been said. And yagya is related to desireless action. yagya is related to desireless action.
When we look at the climate crisis, what do we say? We say the climate crisis is out there, but its reasons are in here. That's how somebody coming from the Gita looks at any crisis in the world. The climate crisis is out there, but its roots are in here. So the outer and the inner are definitely one. Getting it?
And if there is one verse in entire wisdom literature, in the entire corpus of spiritual works, it is this one that relates to the climate crisis very, very directly. It is this one: (Annād bhavanti bhūtāni parjanyād annasambhavaḥ। Yajñād bhavati parjanyo yajñaḥ karmasamudbhavaḥ।।3.14।। ). We'll enter this, and you will see the clear relationship between the internal center and the outer manifestation, how the internal center relates to the outer happening or phenomena.
Parjanya. Parjanya could mean clouds. That's the common meaning. But Parjanya, in the Vedic literature, actually refers to the mighty force of prakṛti itself. Prakṛti personified in Indra or Vishnu or other gods with other names,parjanya. Prakṛti herself is Parjanya, right?
Now we very well know the outer chain, right? Prakṛti offers rain, and not just rain, everything that is available as resource to us living beings, all that is afforded to us by prakṛti. So prakṛti offers rain, that's what the verse says, and the rains sustain life on the planet. So that's the outer chain: prakṛti, rain, and life. Right? That's the outer chain.
The beautiful, special thing about this verse is that it creates an inner link to the outer chain. What is the verse saying? The verse is saying that Parjanya is related to yagya, which means prakṛti is related to niṣkāma karma, which means the state of prakṛti in which it can keep offering life-giving food and rain and such things to beings on the planet is related to yagya.
What prakṛti does in its natural state, in its uncorrupted state, undisturbed state, we all know. We all know. What does it do? It offers sunlight, it offers moonlight, it offers the wind, it offers everything that you have, all comes from prakṛti. So that is anyway established. That is a scientific fact. We know that. The verse is not here to teach us science. We know what prakṛti does. The verse here is to teach us that for prakṛti to retain its untouched, uncorrupted, undisturbed, unbroken cycle, there must be yagya.
If you've not understood this, you'll totally miss the verse. Okay, approach it from the other end. Look at the climate crisis today. What has brought it about, sakām karma right? And yagya is?
Listener: Niṣkāma karma.
Acharya Prashant: So, it is desire that has brought about the climate crisis, sakām karma, desirous action. Now invert that. If desirous action has reduced prakṛti to its corrupted state, to its diseased state, to its hurt state, what keeps prakṛti in its healthy and original state?
Listener: Niṣkāma karma.
Acharya Prashant: Desireless action. Desirous action has corrupted prakṛti. Seen? Agreed? Desirous action has corrupted prakṛti. So what will restore prakṛti to its natural state? Desireless action, which is niṣkāma karma. So for prakṛti to operate properly, there must be desireless action. Desireless action is niṣkāma karma. Niṣkāma karma is yagya. So for prakṛti to operate properly, let there be yagya. This is what the verse means.
The inner and the outer are related. Prakṛti, in the outer sense, can operate properly only when the ego in the inner place is desireless, which means it has self-knowledge. It is only self-knowledge that can restore health to prakṛti. This is what the verse today means. It is only niṣkāma karma that can bring health back to prakṛti, if that is still possible, if we have not crossed the line of no return, which we probably have already. The Gita didn't want that to happen. So we were forewarned many centuries in advance. We didn't heed.
Do you understand this? This verse is not to teach you the mechanics of material precipitation. For that, you can refer to a class 6 textbook. And we all learned that from the same textbook, didn't we?
Sunlight heats up the surface of the water bodies, and so there is evaporation. What happens to the gas? It rises. And when it rises, it experiences cooling. And when it experiences cooling, the vapor condenses into clouds. And the clouds float. And where the clouds find the right opportunity, the right scientific moment, they open up and rain. That's how rainfall happens. We all know that, right? The Gita is not to teach us that. The Gita is to teach us how outer prakṛti and inner ego are related to each other, and therefore there can be no division.
You cannot say, “I will destroy the planet and remain healthy and prosperous within.” It is not possible. You cannot say, “I'm a spiritual person, but I don't care for the climate catastrophe.” You are a liar and a fraud.
If somebody comes to you saying that he's a religious person, and you say, “What are you doing about the climate crisis?” He says, “What is that? I don't know about it,” the fellow is someone the Gita has already rejected because the fellow is thriving on a division between the inner and the outer. He's saying that “my inner self is illuminated; now let the planet go to dogs.” The Gita won't tolerate this. The Gita is saying, “Let the outer and the inner be one.” And the outer and the inner are actually one.
If you are inwardly dark, that will show up in the darkness of your actions, your decisions, your relationships. The inner and the outer are anyway one.
But we keep the paramārthik aside, not aside, we hoist the paramārthik just so high that it becomes truly unreachable, untouchable, and then we are safe, you know. We turn the truth into such an absolute that it becomes unreachable, and that keeps the ego safe.
“Oh, the Truth is absolute. Who can talk of the Truth?” So let me continue with my dark, murky, dirty business. Because, you see, I am a little insect of the vyavahārik tal. Who am I? I'm just a little Jhunnu. Who am I? I'm just a little Dhaniya. Who am I to even approach the being of a Krishna, Kabir, a Buddha? Who am I? Have you not heard of that? Have you not heard people saying that way? “But I am just a little girl. Why are you talking of Krishna to me? Krishna was so great, so great, so great. He's unreachable. I am the petty Jhunnu.”
No, no, no, it's a dirty trick you are playing. You want to remain Jhunnu, and that's why you have put Krishna in the unreachable sky. That's your defense, not your devotion. That which you are calling your devotion or diffidence is just your defense. You have very deliberately made the truth so distant that the light reaches you no more. Are you getting it?
And this has been especially India's undoing. We had Vedānta, and Vedānta is Advait. And yes, there are these two levels, the levels of the practical, factual reality we all operate in. We think of ourselves, we operate as material bodies, we utter “I,” which is fine, and we also know that this is not the Truth.
So yes, this that appears like a practical reality is not absolutely true. We know. But then we started calling this too as the Truth, whereas this should have been referred to only as the fact, the experienced fact. And that is fine; it is an experienced fact. But we said, “No, it is another kind of truth, another variety of Truth.” And we said these two must remain separated. So this is here, that is there. Are you getting it?
This superstition plagues humanity to this day. Remaining burning within, we feel the Amazon forests can be saved. No, the fire there cannot be extinguished as long as mankind is burning within. No. Burning within we keep feeling that the smoke outside can be contained, and we are trying all kinds of fancy things. No, the smoke that you see in the air is actually smoke arising from the very center of mankind. It is not really smoke coming from construction or vehicle exhausts. That smoke is actually coming from the ego.
We are all full of smoke within, and that smoke shows up in the air. But we think of the outer as one thing and the inner as a separate thing. No, they are related. They're not just related, they are one. We think the rivers are dirty because of some material reason. No, no, no, no, no. The filth in the flow of the river is the filth in the flow of the human mind. And as long as the filth in this inner flow is not cleaned up, the filth in the river will be impossible to clean up.
But we keep harboring very romantic notions. We keep saying, “You know, Britain didn't get spiritually elevated, but they cleaned up the Thames.” So they didn't clean it up. They just outsourced all the rubbish. They just outsourced all the rubbish. Are you getting it?
Real cleansing of prakṛti can happen only when the ego stands really cleansed. Refer to Durgā Saptashatī once again. When the inner demons were slayed, prakṛti was restored to her original, clean, innocent self. Without a slaying of the inner demon, cleaning up the environment is just not going to be possible. You may keep saying, “I am running a great project to clean up this river or that river.” Oh, you are fooling yourself.
Where does the contamination, the pollutant, come from? It comes from somebody's greed. Have you contained that greed? Why will that fellow not continue to pollute? Yes, he will pollute in some other way. Maybe he will now pollute some other river. Maybe he will relocate his factory. Maybe he will bribe the minister, and maybe the minister will fudge the pollution reading itself because the agencies that provide the pollution ratings to you, they can all be manipulated.
They can be manipulated because they all have egos vulnerable to fear and greed. How will you contain outer deterioration as long as you are not honest about the inner one? But we are special beings. We live in notions, concepts, imaginations, grandiose self-deceptions. You know, we can keep emitting carbon dioxide, but we can have satellites all around the earth with large reflective panels, and they will not allow sunlight to enter the earth's atmosphere, and therefore the heating effect of carbon dioxide can be nullified.
What kind of evil line of thought is this? You begin this, and can you stop? What you're saying is now you have insurance against emissions. You can keep emitting and keep launching satellites, and the satellites will reflect back sunlight so the environment will not heat up. Fine. That means you will emit more, and then you'll have more satellites.
How long will it take for this kind of method to get saturated? And when it gets saturated, what will you do? Because now the atmosphere too is saturated with carbon dioxide. Now what will you do? Once this method saturates and therefore fails and collapses, what will you do now? This is just like some of those quacks that treat the symptoms and, in the process, make the disease worse. The simple thing is to turn inward and ask yourself: do I even need to do all this? Do I even need to consume all that which emits? Do I even need to reproduce so much?
Because the one thing, the one thing that stands as the fundamental cause of emission, is the unit of emission itself. And the unit of emission is the human being, not the factory. The unit of emission is the human being.
If the population reduces, that is the biggest form of climate activism. But no, you will keep talking of newborns as little bundles of joy from God Almighty and keep saying, “Oh, I care so much for Mother Earth.” If you care so much for Mother Earth, why did you become a mother? Mother Earth wants no more mothers. Are you getting it?
We need yagya to save the planet. Only desireless action can save the planet. Yagya is a desireless action. As long as we remain burning with desire within, the planet has no future, in fact, no present as well.
You get this? The inner and the outer are related. Don't go for interpretations that deal only with the outer, that present a purely material meaning. Also don't subscribe to interpretations that think of everything as symbolic. They will say, “No, no, no, clouds here are symbolic. They mean inner clouds. Rain too is symbolic. It means inner rain.”
I will give you inner food on your plate, and then see what your spirituality can offer you. On your plate, I will keep some symbolic food. I'll keep an “F” and say this symbolizes food. And you too will say “F” and say it symbolizes…, right?
Not everything is symbolic, sir. Not everything is a metaphor. Vyavahār, the material fact has to be respected as an entity in itself. SPM readings have to be respected as facts in themselves. You cannot say, “I care only for the inner Truth. What are all these numbers? Truth cannot be measured in numbers. My master told me. Therefore this AQI 400, 500, this is nonsense. These are just numbers. You see, age is just a number. So you live up to the number 200. Then age is just a number. SPM is just a number. The number of species going extinct per day is just a number. The BOD figure in the water bodies is just a number. I don't care for them because the Truth is beyond all numbers.”
No, no, no. “The marks I get in the Gita exam are just numbers. They cannot capture my inner Truth. My inner Truth is that I am perfectly aligned with Krishna. It's just that in the exam I get minus 250%, which is just a number. Numbers don't matter.”
Numbers do matter, sir. The inner Truth shows up in the outer numbers. The beauty, the oneness of Truth, shows up in the harmony of the experienced universe. The pāramārthik and the vyāvahārik are related. Why don't you see that? Prakṛti does not support ideas, for example, right? In prakṛti there are no ideas. Therefore, in prakṛti there are no circles. The earth's orbit is an ellipse, there are no circles in the universe at all. Ellipses are there, and the circle happens to be a special case of an ellipse.
Similarly, there are no squares or rectangles in prakṛti. You will have curves. You will have arcs. In fact, a moving particle can never describe a perpendicular turn. No moving particle can turn at 90°. That is impossible in prakṛti. Are you getting it? They are related.
We keep saying that the universe is our projection. But you must also ask: if it is your projection, even if it is your projection, even if it is one end of the ahaṅkār-saṁsār duality, why does the universe appear to follow laws? Why is there harmony in the universe? You must ask. It is because the pāramārth and the vyāvahār are related. Don't dissociate them.
Never say, and never believe in stuff that says outwardly whatever is going on, let it continue. Inwardly you must become clean and pure. And that kind of spiritual teaching has been doing the rounds. Reject it totally. There is that Zen koan that says there was this woodcutter, and he got enlightened, whatever that means. And somebody asked him, “What did you do before your enlightenment?” And he said, “I used to get up. I used to pick my axe and travel to the jungle and chop wood and carry it on my head and sell it and buy food and sleep.”
“Oh, so that was your routine before enlightenment. Now what is your routine after enlightenment?”
He says, “Now I get up, I pick my axe, I go to the jungle, I chop wood, I sell it, I buy food, I eat it, I sleep.”
So no change at all. And I totally reject this kind of mindset. Doesn't matter whether it's coming from Zen or anywhere else. If you are saying that your outer environment and actions will remain the same even after inner illumination, then you have had no inner illumination.
What if the fellow were a butcher or a murderer?
Then he would say, “I used to pick up the gun. I used to slaughter animals or human beings before enlightenment. Now after enlightenment, I again pick up the gun and I slaughter human beings.” Same thing.
No, no, no, no, no, no. The inner rise must display itself in the outer change. And it is very convenient for you when a book or a teacher tells you, “No, you continue in your same old shop, just inwardly you become detached and dissociated.” What nonsense is this? Inwardly you become detached? If you are inwardly detached, why will you externally keep clutching? “No. Inwardly I am detached. Just externally I am clutching the Samosa. Inwardly I am totally detached.” Nonsense. You get this?
So the division remains. The one who is concerned with the external world does not want to look within. And the one who declares himself a spiritual seeker does not want to corroborate his inner rise with his outward action. So we said the division is maintained. In the first case, the outer expansion seems to result in no inner clarity or rise. In the second case, the claimed inner rise seems to have no bearing on the outer action.
It is in this context that today's verse becomes very significant. So it would be very easy to take a totally external, material, cosmological view of the verse and say that the Gita is declaring that when the ritual of yagya, which involves the fire ceremony, the burning of wood, the several offerings that serve as fuel to the fire, when that material phenomenon is performed, the material phenomenon called yagya, then a special smoke arises, special emissions take place, very unique kinds of gases are produced, and they rise and they form clouds. Those clouds rain, and the rains sustain life on the planet, and that's why yagya is such a wonderful thing.
And that would be a totally outward view of the verse. And we are still not critiquing that view from the point of scientific accuracy, right? If we take the scientific lens, we very well know that the emissions from burning of wood or other organic material do not contribute to rain at all. That's not science. Not at all. In fact, the opposite is true. It is not burning wood that attracts clouds or makes clouds appear. It is standing wood, breathing wood, living wood that invites the clouds and hence causes rains. We know that. It is the jungles, the greens, they are the ones that enable rain to happen.
So that material interpretation of this verse would be not just totally material but also scientifically very misplaced, though that's the interpretation doing the rounds since millennia, right? Even today, if you go to the common religious person, the lok-dhārmik, he will say that the physical process of the fire sacrifice, the yagya, brings so many environmental benefits. They will even say that burning wood produces oxygen.
A lot of those who call themselves religious will hold forth on the benefits of yagya in this way. They will say it purifies the environment, it kills harmful bacteria. “And see, the mighty Gita herself declares that yagya brings rain, the same rain that sustains all life.” So they'll come up with this kind of interpretation, which is obviously scientifically very hollow, rather amusing.
So that's the common view, and we see why it's more easily accepted, why it is common at all, because we all are material beings identified with the body. So whatsoever is there, its material interpretation, its gross interpretation, will be the first thing to gain currency. We'll very quickly accept it when somebody says that the Gita declares that yagya causes rains, and rains sustain all life, and therefore yagya is the basis of all life on the planet.
So that's one end of ignorance. That's one part of the big divide.
What is the other part?
Now there would be people who will see that this is not just scientifically very hollow, this interpretation, but also that it contains no reference to any inner movement, and that would alarm them. They would say the Gita could not possibly be talking of geography and biology and meteorology and cosmology. The Gita is hardly about how the climate and the weather operate, right? So surely this verse cannot have just a totally outer meaning. There ought to exist an inner meaning.
So these people sense and smell something fishy. So they say there must be an inner meaning to this verse. So what do they do? They pick up everything mentioned in the verse and give it an inner interpretation. So what have such people done? They have said, “Clouds refer to that which offers you something for free because the rains come for free, and the rains come from clouds. So therefore cloud refers to the source of all grace. Hence the clouds are a metaphor for benediction.”
Fine. Then what is rain? Rain is grace itself because no one earns rain. Rains just happen like grace. Okay? And then what are all these beings, the bhūtāni, being referred to in the verse?
Well, you see, that is the inner being, the ego-self itself. It is the ego that is being referred to as the inner being. So what the verse means is that yagya is desireless action, niṣkāma karma and niṣkāma karma attracts grace because it pleases the source of the grace, and then that grace nourishes the ego in the way rains nourish the plants and the animals and the humans.
So that would be the inner interpretation. Now this inner interpretation sounds better than the outer one. At least it is not unscientific. The outer one was something straight out of a circus. But the inner one isn't complete either. The inner one still stands divided. The inner one still lacks a certain honesty, because in the inner interpretation, the outer has been totally rejected, sidelined, one feels deliberately shut out.
I want to talk of what is happening within. I don't want to talk of what is happening without. Why? Because what is happening within can never be tested. I can just keep claiming that inside me certain great things are happening.
Now the outer is available for verification. The outer can be subjected to tests, right? So claiming something in the outer dimension is risky. If you say, for example, that spirituality enabled me to be physically fitter and I have lost weight, then you can be put on a weighing scale and your lie can be called out. You still weigh much the same. In fact, now you weigh 1 kilogram extra, which is the weight of your lies. Right? But if you say, “You know, inwardly I have become lighter,” nobody can test it, and you can now strut around in your spiritual pride. You can say, “Inwardly I have become lighter.”
Therefore this inwardness is a great refuge for all kinds of spiritual lies. And that is why this division between the inner and the outer is created. Because the moment the inner presents itself to be tested in an outer way also, all the pretense of inner growth or development or illumination can be exposed. Therefore, the inner decides deliberately to remain only inner, and hence a division between the inner and outer becomes necessary.
What is happening to you?
“Sir, great inner growth is happening to me. I have lost all hatred. I have lost all fear. I have lost anger and desire and lust and envy. Everything I have lost.”
But I see no proof in your day-to-day life.
“No sir, you see, all the changes are internal. How can I show you any external proof?”
So this inner thing is a great deception. Be cautious of those who keep saying that our external conditions have remained the same even after our internal growth or rise. If you meet such people, you must know they are very skilled liars, not ordinary ones, accomplished ones.
“Internally I feel a ray of light rising.”
Does it have weight? How do you feel it? Light does not rise or fall. But you will meet such people. The spiritual market is full of such seekers.
“My mind experiences a great inner tension, and it feels like blasting. When my kuṇḍalinī awakens, a great presence from somewhere comes and speaks to me.”
Now in the innocent old days, they would simply say, “Some ghost, some soul, some spirit is talking to me.” These days they name it more politely, sophisticated lies, you see. So they won't say, “Some ghost is coming and talking to me.” They'll say, “You know, an external presence is talking to me. Some otherness is talking to me.”
But you mean much the same thing. Much the same. And these are all lies. And you can get away with these lies because they can never be put to test. You can keep saying something.
“Some great energy is circulating through me.”
Now how do we measure it? But if you say, “You know, there is current circulating in the wire,” we can very well test that. How many amperes? Exactly we will know the current. But you say, “A great energy is circulating through my being, and it's a cosmic energy. It is coming from somewhere else. It is not my own.” How does one test it?
Therefore, you can keep uttering nonsense without ever being held accountable. Do you get this? And this distinction between inner and outer then has to be deliberately maintained.
Those who talk only of the outer are fools, and those who talk only of the inner are shrewd. You must neither be stupid nor cunning. In fact, it is in some way better to be stupid than cunning.
If you think that this verse means that yagya causes rains, physical rains, and that's what Shri Krishna is holding forth on, you can probably be corrected. Maybe after this session you would have some genuine insight. But those who say yagya is about the rise of inner energy, or “I hear strange sounds,” or “I get special visions,” or “some special figure occurs to me at night in my dreams and plays with me and fondles me,” and whatnot, one doesn't want to go into that. You know, you will continue on your own.
In fact, if somebody comes to even discuss this with you, you will have one patent response. You know what you'll say? You'll say, “Since you have not experienced it, therefore you are denying it.”
So in fact your denial proves your inferiority because you are denying it only because you have not experienced it, and you have not experienced it because you are not pure enough. “You see, I am a pure soul. Therefore I experience all these mystical phenomena within my body. Only pure souls experience that. You are questioning me because you're not a pure soul.” Whatever that means, pure soul. “You're not a pure soul, so you are questioning me, and I cannot demonstrate it to you because, you see, it is a thing of experience. Only those who have experienced it will know it.”
Have you not heard all this nonsense?
And this is why the division between the internal and the external must be maintained. I remain a terribly insecure fellow. That shows up in all my worldly dealings, in my family, in my business, in my office, in my politics. It shows up everywhere. I remain terribly insecure. But I keep claiming that inwardly I am best friends with my favorite god, that when I close my eyes a special devotional music rings in my ears, only in my ears, you see, because I'm a pure soul. And I cannot communicate that to you because that thing is very subjective. It happens only to me.
This subjectivity must be nipped in the bud. Wherever you hear something that can be experienced only by that so-called pure soul and is neither verifiable nor falsifiable, you must smell fraud cooking, outright fraud. And this division is also the conventional division between the pāramārthik and the vyāvahārik. You have put all your science only at the vyāvahārik level, and you have put everything else, all your spirituality, at the pāramārthik level. So physics at vyāvahārik and metaphysics at pāramārthik. And you have disconnected the two, you have divided. Do you understand this?
You have divided, and Shri Krishna is out to demolish the division. The ego is arranged, right? And to rise, the ego must see the futility of the objects that hold it at its current level, right? And then there would be an ascension. Now the objects are all material, but the ego is a thing subtle, inner. Now this is the genius of the Gita. The Gita is linking the outer to the inner. Inwardly you are stuck at a lowly place because of the external, material objects you have related yourself to. So no division, no division, sir. The outer and the inner are very much related. And inner rise will show up in your outer associations.
As long as those outer associations remain the same, all your claims regarding inner rise are just false.
Listener: False.
Acharya Prashant: Not just false, you are being deceptive. You are being loudmouthed. You're a spiritual fraud.
There has to be a connection. This division is not permissible. Whenever you have a verse, if you have a totally material or cosmological interpretation, at best it can be factual, but then it will not be inwardly useful at best. Therefore, if you come across a totally material interpretation of a work of wisdom, at best it can be factual. Factual, but it won't be truthful. It won't help the ego rise to Truth. Are you getting it?
For example, if I say, “Pay attention that which flies high will definitely crash one day on the ground, but that which is one with the soil will never suffer a crash.” What I'm saying is scientifically very right, very factual. But if you limit yourself to just its scientific accuracy, then you are missing the inner point. A work of wisdom will carry both scientific accuracy and an inner dimension.
The ball that has been tossed up will certainly come down. Now, this is true as per Newton's laws. But this also has a spiritual Truth contained in it. Do you understand? When you look at gravitation as the pull of inner tendencies, and when you look at the lobbed object as ego that has been thrown up only by the force of circumstance, then you know that ego, even if it has been lobbed up by an external force, will ultimately succumb to the force of its own compulsive gravitation and will fall.
Then you see, at both levels, you are being parallelly, concurrently exact. You are scientifically not misplaced, and what you are putting forth as a scientific statement is actually a good, a great, and useful metaphor for inner growth as well. That would be the mark of a truly good word of wisdom. Are you getting it?
If it holds only external Truth, then at best it is factual, scientific, which is fine. But if I want to learn science, I would rather go to a book of science. Why will I come to the Bhagavad Gita? The Bhagavad Gita is not here to teach me physics. Are you getting it?
Worse than that is when you interpret the Gita in a way which is not even scientific, like saying, you know, when we had the COVID tragedy, a lot of so-called religious people were saying, “We must have a lot of fire sacrifices. Let's perform yagya, and that will kill the COVID virus.” You are deeply disrespecting the Gita. You are using yagya as an air purifier. You are using yagya as some kind of cloud-feeding mechanism. What are you doing?
And that has been happening since centuries. Indian agriculture has been largely dependent on monsoons, right? Indian agriculture has been largely dependent on monsoons, and it used to be a very common practice to perform yagya when the skies wouldn't open up. “It's not raining. It's not raining. Let's, as villagers, all gather and have a massive yagya, and that will please the gods, and we will have rain.” This is what has been happening.
You are insulting not just science, but also works of wisdom, also spirituality. Are you getting it? Gita will not bear any dishonesty. Gita will not allow any division between the inner and the outer. The vyāvahārik and the pāramārthik have to be knitted into one. Are you getting this?
Inner rise must show up in external change. Inner evolution must show up in your external ethics, right? The change of the actor must manifest in the change of action. Then there is honesty. Now the inner and the outer are one. Now the vyāvahārik and the pāramārthik are hand in hand. Getting it?
So, the outer interpretation of this verse is obviously stupid, though that's what has been accepted since long. “If you perform yagya, you will remove all the bacteria and the virus. If you perform yagya, gods will be happy. If you perform yagya, you will release oxygen in the environment,” all those kinds of things.
And if that is stupid, then the other end of the divide is shrewd. What does the other end of the divide say? “Oh, yagya is about inner rise and inner rise alone. Yagya is about inner rise.” Now, these shrewd people are not dumb. They are intellectual enough to understand that yagya refers to niṣkām karma. They know that. They understand that. But they are not honest enough to actually internally rise.
So, they make their intellectual comprehension food and nutrition for their ego. They say, “Yes, yagya means to live in a way that raises your inner self, and we are experiencing a genuine rise in our inner self. Yes. Don't you see that in my eyes? Don't you see that in the glow on my face? Don't you experience that in my vibes? Don't you feel that in my aura?”
They won't display that in their actions, in the P&L of their business, right? In the books of their shops. They won't display that in all that, in the real relationship with their spouses and their kids, in the view that they hold opposing communities and ideologies. Nowhere would any inner rise show up, but they will keep saying, “I have risen internally, and that is showing up in my aura and vibes.”
Frauds, very shrewd people. We are to be neither stupid nor shrewd. The internal and the external are necessarily connected. Let this be remembered as the climate sutra. Bhagavad Gita, 14th verse of the third chapter, is the climate sutra.
