Self-Offering: The Doorway to Freedom

The entire spiritual path consists of offering up the ego to God for purification, and of receiving His grace (kripa) in return. Only thus can one eventually attain oneness with God. – Swami Kriyananda

In the Indian tradition, yagya is an outward fire ceremony but on a deeper level, yagya is a practice of self-offering to God; offering our actions, desires, and attachments. Yagya is a means of walking upward on the staircase to freedom.

Ultimately, we need to offer the ego itself to God. Over time, as we do so, the veils of separation become ever more transparent.

Meditation is a form of yagya. We withdraw our energy from the five senses as we practice meditation, bringing that energy inward and upward through the spine, and offering it into the light of the spiritual eye.

Yagya: Self-Offering

The religious rite of yagya symbolically offers up the ego-self into the sacrificial fire for purification. One who aspires to liberation should do everything in a spirit of self-offering to God. God’s power itself is symbolized by the fire of yagya.

In the Bhagavad Gita, chapter 3, verse 9, we read:

Actions performed for selfish gain are karmically binding. Therefore, O Son of Kunti (that is to say, of dispassion), perform your duty without attachment in
a spirit of religious self-offering.

Our karma is a result of personal identification. Yagya helps us to stop identifying and release our personal karma. Our karma is stored in the chakras. The energy that flows out of the chakras does not flow purely, as it is colored by our consciousness and karma. If we see reality as it is, our energy will flow purely.

In order to stop coloring the energy that flows from the chakras and begin to perceive reality objectively, we need to control the inner powers of the senses. We can begin to take control of our inner powers by withdrawing the outward-pouring energy from the chakras to remove the coloring from the senses so that we can see things as God sees them.

Each chakra is like a projection booth, shining specific light into objective reality. Our biases distort our perceptions of objective reality and cause us not to perceive reality as it truly is.

Yagya helps us to withdraw the energy of the chakras into the deep spine and up to the brain. The ultimate yagya is raising the kundalini to the brain and becoming enlightened.

We start to see reality as it is, not colored by desires, as we offer the energy from the chakras to be purified in the inner flow of the spiritual eye.

Fire refers to life energy: The fire of yagya symbolizes the divine energy into which one offers his ego for purification in ultimate consumption.

Awakening the Kundalini

Yogananda explained that the path of spiritual ascent is awakening the Kundalini. Kundalini awakening signifies that moment when the downward flow of energy relaxes its grip on outwardness and begins its return journey upward in the direction of its source in divine consciousness.

Kundalini can be awakened by yoga practices. If, however, those practices are not accompanied by a corresponding purification of the ego, they can raise more energy to the medulla oblongata than the ego is prepared to send forward to the spiritual eye. This excessive energy forms a vortex around the thoughts of the ego, creating an imbalance of awareness. The yogi cannot maintain this heightened state and falls back again toward the base of the spine.

Yogis who follow the upward course, raise the fiery energy in the spine and awaken in passing the chakras in the spine.  God will help that person who longs for truth to walk in the direction of inner freedom.

Offering–Up Desires

Desire is a strong factor in the lives of all human beings. Good and dharmic desires bring good results but only temporarily. Desirelessness alone leads to liberation.

The more we release the thought of I, desires, and attachments – offering them all to God, the freer we become.

Yagya is the process of disentanglement from ‘me.’ You need to offer all of your desires – good, bad, and neutral up to God. When you offer your desires, you are saying: ‘I am not going to cling to these.’ The highest yagya is to offer the consciousness itself into its source.

An upward flow of energy is essential for spiritual awakening but that flow must be calm.

Watch the Heart

Upward leaps of feeling indicate outwardness. Watch your heart and check to see if its feelings leap up at any sudden infatuation.

Do not let your discrimination be fooled by anything that uplifts feelings in emotional excitement. Avoid the desire for outward stimulation rather than for inward inspiration.

For the meditating yogi seeking oneness with God, the energy in the body should be offered continually back—for fine-tuning, to its source. In the body, the negative pole of that source is the medulla oblongata. The positive pole is the seat of superconsciousness (in the frontal lobe of the brain, centered between and behind the two eyebrows).

The true yagya is Kriya Yoga. Kriya Yoga leads one up the spine, enabling the little self—the ego—to be united with the Infinite Self – God.

Raising the Kundalini power is the ultimate fire rite, leading to a complete withdrawal of energy from the body and an offering of that energy into the Infinite.

Kundalini begins this ritual by withdrawing energy from the body-sustaining energy in the chakras. Finally, the yogi offers himself for perfect purification into the blazing light of the Infinite.

Man’s ego is created by the soul’s identification with a bodily form. Its return to oneness with Spirit is accomplished by yagya (self-offering) to God. The aim is for the ego to become absorbed again in absolute oneness.

Krishna (representing God) in the Bhagavad Gita recommended yagya – the offering up of the little self into union with the Cosmic Self. He says that when one clings to littleness out of attachment to the separate, individual ego, one lives in vain!

Whatever we do on a human level, we can translate into doing for God. The most important practice on the spiritual path is to do that which takes us out of ego consciousness.

Concentrate First on Those Battles You Can Win

If you are not yet strong enough to conquer some habit or if another duty commands so much of your time and energy that you simply cannot deal with it, then simply resist it mentally. Never admit to yourself that you don’t have the power to overcome any defect.

The more your mind resists a bad habit instead of embracing it, the more you will build up the inner strength eventually to overcome it. Thus, the incarnations that might otherwise be required to extricate yourself from the mud of delusion may be reduced to a relatively short time.

Guided Visualization:
Offering the energy of each chakra up to the brain

In the Srimad Bhagavatam, one of India’s sacred scriptures, there is a meditation technique to visualize the heart as a lotus flower and turn all its petals upward to the brain so that all one’s feelings go upward.

All spiritual progress is to bring the energy upward to the brain. Swami Kriyananda recommended this practice of visualizing each chakra as a lotus and turning its petals upward, offering the energy of each chakra to the brain.

GUIDED VISUALIZATION

  To learn more about self-offering in the larger context of the Bhagavad Gita, please join Nayaswami Gyandev and Nayaswami Diksha for the online course: Keys to the Bhagavad Gita, February 22–May 17, 2023.

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