Homework Master 4: The Multitude of Offerings 1) Lord Krishna now begins to explore the true nature of action by examining the action of making an offering.  How does the act of an offering, especially a traditional offering of ancient India, relate closely to understanding the true nature of an action?  What two Sanskrit (and Tibetan) words are commonly used for this kind of ritual offering? Lord Krishna’s examination of offering, which is aimed at explaining the nature of all true action, is founded in the ancient fire offering of ancient India.  That is, he will be following the metaphor of the ancient fire offering to elucidate a whole variety of possible actions and, in fact, an entire range of different forms of yoga itself. The offering of any gift, but especially a fire offering, provides us an opportunity to overcome our selfishness—to examine our idea of what “me” is, our whole idea of functionality.  A true gift, a gift which is completely free of self-interest, is not possible for a person who does not yet have an understanding of a true act.  We can though get closer to a true act if we practice the art of offering In the fire offering which is the foundation for Lord Krishna’s discussion at this point, we definitely come closer to a gift free of self-interest.  By tradition, this offering is made with a wide variety of grains, along with melted butter or ghee, all of which constitute money itself for a person in India, even to the present day.  It would be the same, in modern times, as burning money as an offering. The idea here again is of the self-interest that almost every other form of offering can take.  His Holiness the Dalai Lama jokes about attending offering ceremonies as a small boy and claims he was sometimes thinking about whether or not he would be able to get, after the ceremony was ended, some of the pastries that were being offered.  A husband for example might offer his wife a fishing boat for Christmas or a birthday, or a mop or a sewing machine. Even when we offer a gift that we don’t actually intend for ourselves, there may be other kinds of self-interest involved: we are deep down more interested in the expressions of thanks that the other person will give us, or something we might get from them by giving the gift.  On the outside, we may be hoping that other people hear about the gift and are impressed somehow. While these same motivations can also pop up in a fire offering, the basic fact is that we’re sitting there burning up money for no explicit personal interest.  Compared to most offerings, and certainly compared to most actions, there is normally a considerable lack of self-interest.  The act also serves as an expression of our belief in the high being (the text mentions Brahma as an object of the offering) to whom we are making the offering: we wouldn’t be sitting here burning up our money if we didn’t believe that some higher being was experiencing the offering somehow. We can say then that pure forms of offering take us closer to the point where, as we heard before, we can challenge our ideas of “me” and “mine.”  Neither I nor any of those close to me is getting any part of the grains and butter that I burn; and the total amount of “my” stuff that I own is actually decreasing rapidly as the offering proceeds, and I burn my money. It’s important to understand that giving up what we could call our personal interests at this point is not in itself the understanding of how one version of me that constantly gives me trouble doesn’t in fact exist.  But if we are through a pure offering able to reduce our more obvious selfishness and self-centeredness, then this can free our minds sufficiently to make a higher breakthrough into realizations about the “me” and “mine.”  The offering of fire is then an excellent place for Lord Krishna to use as we begin our search for a true act. The most common word for “fire offering” in modern India is homa (homa), which derives from a root √hu (hu), meaning to sacrifice.  This is a reference to ancient sacrifices of bulls, horses, or reportedly even humans, although all of these would obviously violate the basic principle of non-violence.  The corresponding Tibetan is jinsek {SBYIN SREG}, meaning offering (jin) of materials which are burned (sek). The word used throughout this section of the Gita is yajnya (yajn~a), or ritual offering or sacrifice, which derives from a root √yaj (yaj), meaning to offer.  The corresponding Tibetan here is chujin {MCHOD SBYIN,}, which again means ritual offering. 1) Lord Krishna next makes mention of a “yoga of self-control.”  What side conversation does He thus begin?  What are the Sanskrit and Tibetan terms for this yoga?  What are the two forms that this yoga is said here to take?  And how do they involve two different levels of action that we have already begun to explore? In mentioning now the “yoga of self-control,” Lord Krishna is alerting us to a whole list of different types of yoga, types which are much more comprehensive than anything we commonly call “yoga” today.  This one is called, in Sanskrit, sanyama yoga (sam*yama yoga), where sanyama means self-control.  The root here is √yam (yam), which means to reach. The “control” part is said to come from the fact that the two reins of a horse, which controlled it, were named after this verb “to reach.”  Yam then came into English with Gemini, or the Two Twins, which reflects this idea of the Two.  We see the root of course in the famed expression for ethical vows or codes of self-control, the yamas and niyamas. Here in this section of the Gita, Lord Krishna makes reference to this self-control coming in two different forms: controlling the actions of our sense powers, and controlling the actions of our inner winds.  It’s interesting that He makes mention of “actions” in both these cases: he is giving us a clue to the two levels that this control can take. We’ve already discussed the idea of self-control of our sense powers on two levels.  An obvious form is really what would be called pratyahara in the Yoga Sutra: avoiding too much sense stimulation, in for example the forms of sweets or TV or the Web.  On the second, more subtle level, we are avoiding relating to the objects of the senses with misunderstanding. A simple example would be where we really enjoy mint chocolate-chip ice cream, and think that to make sure that we get it ourselves we need to raid the fridge before anyone else gets home.  Now that we have some understanding though, we know that to get the ice cream we need to be sharing it with others, careful to do this sharing.  Now we are exercising self-control towards this sense object on a more subtle level. Exercising the grosser level of self-control—that is, not eating 3 bowls of the ice cream that we do get—as mentioned before helps us maintain a good level of awareness that helps us when we are grappling with the deeper level. Self-control of the actions of our inner winds would include for example doing yoga asanas or poses which help us direct these winds out of the two side channels, ida and pingala, and into the central channel (sushumna), since whenever they travel inside this channel they promote realizations and compassion.  A deeper level of this kind of self-control would be to realize that our poses will not have this desired effect unless we are actively helping others throughout the day: this creates the karma for our winds to move as we hope them to. Lord Krishna recognizes this deeper level when he speaks of “throwing” these two forms of self-control “into the fire of understanding.” 3) Lord Krishna next mentions three very concrete forms of offering; name these three, and then describe examples of each, showing how they can also reflect a higher level of offering if “thrown into the fire of understanding.” Lord Krishna now mentions first (1) the offering of material wealth: we can say giving as opposed to offering.  This could include for example helping our parents by paying for their apartment or home, or for their food expenses. In this case we take the giving to a higher level when we reflect upon our parents as what is called a “powerful object” of offering.  As we go about the different actions needed to provide them with a home or support, we actively try to think about how much they have helped us in the past.  Regardless of how well our childhood went with them, or even how much material support they have provided us in our adult years, the simple fact is that they went through tremendous trouble and (in the case of our Mother) physical suffering to usher us into the world. They taught us to speak, taught us to walk, taught us all the foundational code of the world that we have used ever since, to even function in this life.  As every different religion of the world also recognizes, this then makes them very powerful objects in our life.  As we help them then we reflect upon how this is planting an even more powerful karmic seed within our own minds.  In its ultimate form this will ripen in the form of the resources we will need ourselves to become the “mom & dad” of the world itself: to take care of this world, and all worlds in fact, as we cross over into the state of enlightenment. The Lord then speaks (2) of the “offering of spiritual hardships.”  We’re all familiar with the obvious forms of this hardship in the Hindu tradition: people staring at the sun until their eyes are destroyed; passing years standing on a single leg as an act of devotion; sitting in the middle of a number of fires to prove their determination. The ultimate form of spiritual hardship though is in the wisdom tradition considered keeping our cool, our patience, when circumstances make this very difficult.  On an obvious level, we can offer up to our Teacher and other holy beings the equanimity we were able to maintain with the last person who really irritated us at work.  On a more subtle level, we can offer up to them the patience we kept with this person by recognizing that they were simply mirroring back to us our own behavior in recent weeks and months.  This would be taking this offering to a higher level. Finally in this verse then Lord Krishna speaks of (3) the offering of yoga itself—we can again think of our asana practice.  We could offer on one level our attempt to keep the “temple of our body” healthy, so that we can be of service to others.  On a higher level we can offer asanas as an attempt to change the very nature of our body, into that of an enlightened being—someone who spontaneously emanates countless forms to be of service to others. 1) Lord Krishna then speaks of two kinds of sacred offerings made by a special group of people.  Explain, with reference to a famous Sanskrit term from the Yoga Sutra.  How do these reflect the very highest form of offering, and what are the names of this offering in the traditional languages? Lord Krishna now begins to describe offerings made by “masters of sacred vows.”  The Sanskrit word for “vows” here is vrata (vrata), which also has a connotation of spiritual austerities.  We see the word used in the second chapter of the Yoga Sutra, where it describes the yamas or foundational ethical code as a great vrata shared by all of humankind. The point in our context here is that their observance of an ethical way of life—we can say, their observance of the ethical code of the yamas—makes this particular group special in this section of the Gita.  Exactly because they have been observing the code of non-violence in all their actions, their perception of how to offer, and what happens when they offer, is altered completely.  In short, they are capable of a very high form of offering. Sticking then to the metaphor of a traditional fire offering, Lord Krishna says that these yogis make what many traditions of India describe as the highest form of offering: the offering of their daily practice.  In Tibetan this is called druppay chupa, where druppay refers to daily practice, and chupa means offering.  The original Sanskrit for the word druppa is siddha, which also has the connotation of the fruits of ones successful practice.  Chupa then would be for the yajna or ritual offering be described throughout this section.  We could call then this highest form of offering siddha yajna. If for example we were able to remain calm and patient as a fellow worker in our office blew his top at us, then we could turn around and offer this beautiful gift to our Teacher in our mind; and no gift would be appreciated by them more. In this verse, two specific aspects of the gift of our practice are mentioned—and these of all the gifts of practice are considered the highest.  The first is the “recitation of the holy books,” or svadhyaya, which we also see listed in the Yoga Sutra among the practices of kriya yoga.  When the Gita here mentions “recitation,” the implication is of the formal study of the spiritual path, since especially in the ancient Vedic tradition, the foundation of study was where the Guru passed on knowledge to their disciple in the form of verses of sacred knowledge, which the student then memorized and passed on to their own disciple.  The first great offering of practice then that yogis elevated by their observance of an ethical code make is of their formal spiritual study. Lord Krishna is quick to point out that formal study needs to be accompanied by actual realizations, and so in the same breath he speaks of jnana yajna: the ritual offering of wisdom, or our inner understanding of what we have studied.  These two together then—learning the theory of how to act in the service of others, and then actually serving others with this understanding—make the perfect offering of practice, and offering most available to those who are keeping their moral code.] 1) Lord Krishna goes next into yet another kind of ritual offering when he says that we should “offer the prana to the apana, and the apana to the prana.”  Explain what this kind of offering would entail, why it is “yoga,” and why it is especially significant.  And explain these two Sanskrit words, particularly with reference to the corresponding Tibetan. The word prana in this case is of course not simply referring to the inner winds; it is a reference to the prana vayu, or what in Tibetan is called the sokdzin gyi lung.  Sokdzin means holding life, and lung here refers to one of the five major winds which perform essential functions in the body.  This wind is located at the heart, and we can think of it as representing the life functions of the upper half of the body. Apana is another of these five major winds of function, and the corresponding Tibetan is tursel gyi lung.  The word tursel means downward-clearing, and reflects this wind’s job of facilitating the elimination of substances from the body: urine, feces, menses, semen, and even the pushing out of a newborn baby.  In this context, we can think of apana as representing all the life functions of the lower half of the body. We know of course that the original meaning of the word yoga is union, and traditionally one of the fundamental interpretations of yoga is the union of the forces of the prana and the apana: the combined power of the forces of the upper and lower parts of the body.  This for example is why inversions are so emphasized in the practice of the physical asanas of yoga.  The direction of each of the two winds is being reversed, and each is being directed towards the center of the body, rather than out to the top and the bottom. The joining or yoga of these two forces, which is typically seen as happening at the heart, helps bring on the direct perception of ultimate reality.  This perception is the one spiritual achievement that will free us from our own pain, and enable us as well to free every other living being. Lord Krishna in the verse describes making the offering both ways; that is, we offer the prana to the apana, and then the apana to the prana.  The idea is that we are working to bring the winds of the upper part of the body down towards those of the lower, and vice versa: we are working both ways. We can see that, if we were to succeed in bringing them together and thus perceive ultimate reality, then this would truly be a worthy offering.  Since the very bringing together of the two winds gives us an insight into the real nature of things, we would also—through this kind of yoga, and this kind of offering—learn to perform a true act. 1) Lord Krishna next describes a kind of offering which involves food, and poetically describes its results.  Explain, also including some actual examples of the offering, and another famous source.  Give too the Sanskrit and Tibetan words for this type of offering.  Speak finally to the question of how the idea of “true action” might apply to how we eat. Lord Krishna next speaks of the offering of niyatahara, or self-control in eating.  In Tibetan this is most often referred to as se tsu dzin, which refers primarily to the ability to judge properly the amount of food we should be eating at any particular time, but also involves selecting the proper types of food. Another famous source here is the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, by Master Svatmarama.  In this text we are actually given specific lists of foods that are conducive to our spiritual practice, and others that harm this practice. What we eat has a tremendous effect on our state of mind and our ability to carry out our spiritual practice.  It has such an effect that anyone who is really serious about the related practices of yoga, meditation, maintaining an ethical way of life, and serving others needs to pay some careful attention to what they eat.  Making this part of our daily practice of sadhana and gaining some skill at it then is a very valuable gift of our practice to make to our Teacher—and thus does Lord Krishna list it. A first thing to mention about a style of eating which is conducive to spiritual practice is that which foods affect us positively will be different for each person.  This in fact is a reflection of the emptiness of food, and recognizing this form of emptiness will allow us to act properly as we eat. That is, we recognize that no particular food has any power or nutrient within it naturally.  The kind of food that energizes one person for their spiritual practice may well make another person feel dull.  This in itself is proof that there is no formal substance within the food which is causing the energy or the dullness.  If a person has felt some concern that others feel good spiritual energy, and has done something to help them reach this energy, then they will find that many different kinds of food tend to give them spiritual energy.  The foods, in effect, are “loaded” by the person’s kindness towards others.  If we understand this, then our eating can become a “true” action. This doesn’t mean though that we can’t go ahead and make some general recommendations on good foods to eat in the context of the general patterns of karma that most of us share.  Perhaps most important to mention first are foods that are most often best avoided if we have a serious spiritual practice. The most important thing to mention here is that a yogi who is hoping to have amazing spiritual things happen to them should avoid types of food that involve harm to other living creatures.  The most obvious example is actually eating the flesh of other living beings who have been killed for food: things like beef, chicken, or fish. What we do to others is always done back to us; if we hope to have wondrous spiritual experiences, we can hardly be subjecting others to the ultimate form of pain: of killing.  And of course it’s patently ridiculous to claim that these other creatures are incapable of feeling such pain, since as a society we also spend extraordinary amounts of money making our pets feel happy. Dairy is an area where, even though we are not directly eating the flesh of a being murdered for us, in modern times the production of dairy involves the imprisonment and abuse of female cows, in addition to their murder when they slow down in their milk production, and the murder of young male cows who are seen as useless as they produce no milk. If we can find healthy alternatives then to both meat and dairy we can really advance our spiritual practice.  Sources of protein are vital, and include nuts, beans and other legumes, and things like almond milk, where the almonds are ground up fine and the protein then much more easily absorbed. As your yoga asanas and other practices of the inner body advance, you’ll find yourself craving more “live” food, such as fresh spinach and freshly squeezed orange juice.  False stimulants such as coffee and sweets, heavily fried foods and carbohydrates in general will naturally give way to an automatic desire for more gentle “highs” such as that brought on by some fresh vegetables mixed with peanut or cashew butter: life plus protein. You’ll also find yourself automatically only wanting the quantity of food which is healthy for you.  The details of eating properly are something we can learn with the help of like-minded friends and teachers; these are only some general comments. The results of proper eating are described by Lord Krishna as “winds piled on winds,” meaning that our inner winds flow more and more smoothly, so that eating correctly even becomes a cause that helps us in our quest of the direct perception of ultimate reality. 1) Lord Krishna mentions how these types of offering help us “bring our negativities to an end.”  What are two forms that this “end” can take, and why is one better than the other, and what is it called?  Describe finally this effect of offering upon what we do next, making reference to the four traditional types of fire offerings. The different kinds of offering that Lord Krishna has described have a symbiotic effect with our quest to understand how to act.  When we offer for example the small successes in our day—overcoming small feelings of being upset, of being sad—then we create one small karma not to be upset, not to be sad. Especially if we offer these small successes to the fire of understanding—if the reason we overcame our sadness was that we made some small effort to overcome the sadness of another—then gradually occurrences of these unhappy states of mind will get less and less.  That is, when we use our wisdom not to get upset at someone, we can then think more clearly, and be less upset next time.  The interaction between understanding and true action, each strengthening the other, brings us in time to a place where we are simply not capable of being upset any more. Reaching the end of our negative emotions this way is in fact the meaning of the word nirvana, which literally refers to blowing out for example the emotion of feeling upset, by understanding that what we are upset at is coming from ourselves.  This is in contrast to trying to control our feeling of upset, trying to suppress it, without really understanding where it comes from in the first place.  The first of the two is what Lord Krishna is saying can happen if we perform the various forms of offering mentioned, but with understanding. So what do we do once we have extinguished our own negativities?  Teach others to extinguish theirs, naturally.  It’s interesting that, traditionally, the classical fire offerings of ancient India and Tibet were divided into four different kinds, according to four different “modes” or “aspects” that we would take on when teaching others to overcome their own negativities. These four modes are called peaceful, generous, powerful, and fierce.  In a peaceful fire offering, for example, we would be offering large quantities of grains and butter into the fire, and dedicating this to mastering the peaceful mode.  “Peaceful mode” refers to the ability to explain important ideas like those found in the Gita to others by assuming a calm and gentle aspect.  When a student would best respond to our teaching if we were particularly nice and peaceful towards them, then this is the mode we would take to teach them, and we would be doing a peaceful fire offering from time to time, which would fill us with this peaceful mode. The same would apply to making a generous form of the fire offering, meaning that we dedicate this action to learning to be particularly giving and sharing with a student who responds best to this approach, as we teach them the crucial ideas of how to act.  Powerful mode is a mode where we take on an aura of authority with a disciple who best responds to that, and “fierce” mode is, well, where we are able to yell at a student if that’s what would help them at the moment (although of course we do not get angry). Making the offering of fire that corresponds to each mode is said then to be an especially good way to develop these modes within ourselves.] 1) What offering does Lord Krishna describe as the “highest” offering, as “far better than material offerings”?  How is it described in three “elements, and how is it all-inclusive? Lord Krishna, in the final verse of our reading for this class, states that the offering of wisdom is the highest form of offering, and far better than material offerings.  He makes the radical statement that all the actions that even exist can be found complete in the offering of wisdom. The “offering of wisdom” in this context is often traditionally described in terms of the “emptiness of the three elements.”  The three elements in an act of giving or offering can be described as the person giving the gift, the person receiving the gift, and the act of giving itself—the interaction between the two. What it means to say that these three are “empty” is that we learn, even as we perform an offering or make a gift, to keep our minds on the fact that each of these three is coming from ourselves: each is flowing forth from some action we ourselves have performed towards someone in the past.  I am here with some money in my hand because I have been generous to others at some point earlier on.  You are standing there with your hand outstretched ready to accept my gift of money because I sought to provide opportunities for others in the past to perform good deeds—I encouraged and facilitated their good deeds.  I have the idea to perform the offering because, in the past, I made some attempt to help others understand the power of offering. That is, all three elements of the situation are in actuality coming from some good that I have done in the past.   If I truly keep this in mind as I present you my offering, then I will be committing a “true” act.  The karma created by this act will ripen as greater understanding and greater generosity in the future, thus triggering an upward spiral—a spiral that takes me all the way to enlightenment, especially since the understanding of the three elements can be applied to every action we ever take: it “includes,” as Lord Krishna puts it, every other action there is. Coffeeshop assignment:  Please meet with one other member of the class (preferably someone you didn’t know before the course started) to talk a bit about this class, before the next one. Meditation assignment:  15 minutes per day, on @@@. Meditation times and dates (homework without this section completed will not be accepted): **