"May you prosper through sacrifice" - Lord Krishna

In the beginning of creation, the Lord of all creatures sent forth generations of men and Demigods, along with sacrifices for Visnu, and blessed them by saying, "Be thou happy by this yajna [sacrifice] because its performance will bestow upon you all desirable things."

The Demigods, being pleased by sacrifices, will also please you; thus nourishing one another, there will reign general prosperity for all.

In charge of the various necessities of life, the demigods, being satisfied by the performance of sacrifice, supply all necessities to man. But he who enjoys these gifts, without offering them to the demigods in return, is certainly a thief.

- Bhagavad Gita 3:10-12

I've always read the above verses and compared them to Genesis 3:17-19, where man is told that he shall win his daily bread with the work of his hands and with sweat on his face. In other words, through sacrifice. In that book, this was a curse but in the Gita the Lord was establishing the timeless dharmic practice of offering sacrifices to the Deities.

One interpretation of this text and the one in Genesis has to do with work ethics. I believe that the Biblical commandment on not stealing could have been better stated and explained as "You will work for a living". Work is righteousness: he who works is earning a living and does not have to take what is not his or hers. This is why in Vaishnava spirituality work is worship. When a person offers his work as a sacrifice to the Creator, it becomes sanctified and it is known as karma yoga, or the mysticism of activity. The important factor is not so much the quality of the work as the intent, the sincerity of the devotional act.

Vaishnava Hindu work ethics also promote human values in much subtler ways. When people focus on their duty, they become selfless. In the West, we are very much concerned with our rights, with human rights and the rights of workers, etc. This is all good and important, but it is a manifestation of self interest and selfishness. It is egotistical and promotes ego-centric views, and produces a society of selfish people. It therefore generates suffering and it cannot be considered pure or considered yoga. But when the mind sees work as duty and performs work for the sake of performing it, or to serve humans or animals, or to serve Lord Krishna, then it's pure and selfless, it becomes an act of love and service. It becomes worship.

Therefore, without being attached to the fruits of activities, one should act as a matter of duty; for by working without attachment, one attains the Supreme. - Gita 3:19

Lord Jesus paraphrased this same religious principle with regards to the performance of the fasting sacrifice in Mattew 6:16-18.

The Gita text takes place within the context of offering foods to the Deities so that they may feed us, and so it is appropriate to understand these verses as instructions to literally offer our food as a sacrifice to God or to our Deities. However in a recent reading of this text I was moved to a reinterpretation of it. This is due to a trend, which I believe is being informed and guided by my spirits, towards a more environmentally aware spirituality.

In my recent entry on the death of a tree I speak of the ancestral covenants that exist in aboriginal spirituality between all the different species that populate the planet, and how this keeps the balance between the species and helps them all survive by cooperating. Could it be that the same principle should be applied to Deities, and not just Deities that are socially significant to our tribes and communities but specifically to nature Deities such as the river and mountain spirits of many aboriginal religions, and even Pele and other volcano Goddesses, etc?

In recent years, the high priests (babalawos) of the African diasporic religion of Ifa have called several times for sacrifices to Mother Earth and to Yemayá, who is the Mother of all and the African Deity of the oceans, where life originated. And we all know that due to global warming, the oceans are expected to rise and to feed larger hurricanes. Many cataclisms that can be avoided are expected to take place if a careful balance is not maintained with the Earth and with the ocean ... not to mention the natural ones that take place periodically like the 2004 tsunami off the coast of Indonesia.

Are these sacrifices, which are being marked in Letras del Año (annual readings), a sign that the commandment set in Bhagavad Gita 3:10-12 has been forgotten by humanity? In the above mentioned article, I said: "The law of life is written in our breaths: we inhale and we exhale, we take life and we give life. This is inescapable. If we take life but do not give back, we are destroying the natural balance which serves as the context within which we exist." I believe that this is another way of articulating Lord Krishna's advise in the Gita.

The Demigods that He is refering to here are the aboriginal, nature Deities that all of our ancestors revered, which were all related to the lands where they lived. This is the practice that would have existed five thousand years ago, when Lord Krishna incarnated and monotheistic religions had yet to come into being. These Deities governed the land, the rain, the forests, the rivers and seas. Polluting the seas or rivers would have been an insult to them, and naturally the fish would get sick and anyone who ate them would also get sick.

The planting of a tree and the adopting of a dog that has been abandoned are as much a sacrifice to Mother Earth as a libation of rum. The planting of trees is also a sacrifice to Her. Removing trash from the beaches can be said to be a sacrifice to Yemayá, the Mother of all the Fish. Notice how all of these acts ultimately and naturally bring humans health, abundance and joy, just as the word of God promised: "Be thou happy by this sacrifice because its performance will bestow upon you all desirable things." THAT is how our relationship with these elements should be: we should sacrifice to them periodically, not just in a ritual manner but in the more practical ways also.

"The Demigods, being pleased by sacrifices, will also please you; thus nourishing one another, there will reign general prosperity for all."

The Dalai Lama and other teachers of the ethical principle of non-violence speak of the importance of working for the common good, where all parties benefit. This is not a separate teaching but it is part of the idea of ahimsa or non-violence.

Non-violence is not only the highest expression of ethics: it's also commonsense and profoundly practical. It promotes conflict resolution and ultimately cooperation, which promotes the strengthening of all the links in the chain of life and essentially produces a happy and prosperous world. If we ponder this, we will see this process very clearly.

Many economists have observed the fact that when there is a lot of trade between countries, there is stability, prosperity and peace and that the isolationist countries that do not trade with others are often the poorest and we often see hostility between them and their neighbors: trade promotes peace and non-violence, as well as creating a happier world. This is just one of the many reasons why every child of every culture, in their human values education, needs to have the seeds of ahimsa or non-violence firmly planted in their heart and mind, and the many practical applications and implications of ahimsa should be clearly explained to them.

The notion that the Demigods will please us if we please them is really a scientific principle. In the field of biology, it has been found that when single cell organisms started becoming more complex, they did so via symbiosis. What this means is that two particles or two beings become each other's parasites and develop a relationship such that they both benefit from their mutuality. They become one, they form a circle. In all of nature, all the creatures form part of symbiotic circles, and even the processes that take place within their bodies all are based on symbiosis at the most minute level.

In other words: Lord Krishna, the Cosmic Biologist, was making an acute ecological observation. Life likes to cooperate with life. That is, when we feed (via sacrifices) what the Native Americans call all our relations, inevitably we in turn get fed and we in turn benefit. When all our relations become stronger and healthier, we in turn become stronger and healthier. If we derive a living from corn, or from wheat, then if a parasite attacks these crops we will perish. But if we sacrifice, if we work the land, if we watch and protect the fields from vermin or contaminants, then we will prosper.

In the days of Lord Krishna, these Deities were often mere personifications of crops and the lands that sustained them. Annapurna, for instance, is a Hindu Goddess who personifies rice and is non-different from rice. When you eat rice, you are eating Her body. It is a communion, very similar to when Christians eat the consecrated bread and wine with the understanding that they are one with Christ. This is the awareness with which foods are to be consumed in Krishna Consciousness.

The passage closes with the admonition: "But he who enjoys these gifts, without offering them to the Demigods in return, is certainly a thief." Again, eating can be an expression of righteousness, of dharma, in Hinduism. If we eat in a selfish mode of consciousness, we remain ignorant about the sources of our food and our sacred relationship with it. If eating our food is turned into a yoga, if it is done selflessly as a sacrifice and performed as a duty, then we become aware of our place as a link in a chain, which is the circle of life.

If Annapurna feeds us, then we have a duty to keep the land that births Her clean and free of contaminants. If we cut off all the trees, then erosion will occur, and with erosion comes desertification, and with desertification comes sterility of the land. If we do not perform our duties to Annapurna of keeping the land healthy, it is not that She will get angry with us like a Disney character ... but She may not be able to feed us and our children in the future.

Hare Krishna ~ Hare Rama!