Bhagwad Gita - Post 209

Verse 11

That sacrifice which is offered by men without desire for reward as enjoined by the ordinance (scripture), with a firm faith that to do so is a duty, is Sattwic (or pure).

Verse 12

The sacrifice which is offered, O Arjuna, seeking a reward and for ostentation, know thou that to be a Rajasic Yajna!

Verse 13

They declare that sacrifice to be Tamasic which is contrary to the ordinances of the scriptures, in which no food is distributed, which is devoid of Mantras and gifts, and which is devoid of faith.

Now the Lord goes into details of sattvic sacrifices, rajasic sacrifices, tamasic sacrifices, and the threefold classification of every blessed item in this world. 

Sattvic Sacrifice

That sacrifice can be called sattvic sacrifice which is performed by those who expect no particular fruit to follow from that performance. They do this sacrifice according to rules laid down in the Vedas and the Brahmana scriptures, and perform these sacrifices merely because it is obligatory on their part to do these sacrifices.

Let us take sandhya vandana, early morning prayers—Gayatri japa and prayer to the sun—which have to be done three times, or two times, or at least once. Sandhya vandana is an obligatory sacrifice, we may say, because it is a spiritual dedication before the great Lord of the universe, Suryanarayana Bhagavan, who is indwelt by Narayana, the spiritual Supreme Reality itself. 

There are certain conditions for the performance of obligatory duty, say, Sandhya Vandana.

*     We should not expect any ulterior fruit to follow from the performance of our duty. Then it ceases to be a duty.

*     It should be performed for the pleasure of God, the satisfaction of the deity which we are worshipping.

*     Also, it should be done according to the rules and regulations, laid down in the scriptures. 

Rajasic Sacrifice

That performance is called rajasic which is undertaken merely for the fruit that follows, the result that comes out of it. 

The puja is done by hurriedly mumbling something, because some great blessing will come from that deity. The blessing is the important thing, and the manner of worship is not important. The mind is concentrated only on the result that follows, and is filled with vanity—that kind of sacrifice is rajasic. Puja that is selfishness oriented, fruit oriented, and not done according to the ordinance of scriptures is rajasic because it is motivated by a distraction of the mind. It is especially defective on account of there being no devotion to the means of worship; the devotion is only to that which will follow from the worship.

Tamasic Sacrifice

Tamasic sacrifice, tamasic worship, tamasic yajna is that which is done contrary to prescribed rules and is totally oblivious to the regulations laid down in the Vedas, the Brahmanas and the Smritis, or even by tradition, and is bereft of charity. 

It is an unthinkably defective way of approaching things. The desired result will not follow. An example is a person who employs a pandit—a yajamana who engages a saint or a purohita for the performance of a worship—and does not properly respect him, does not give him his due, and he concentrates only on what he will get out of it, and not on the pleasure of the gods or the satisfaction of the deity whom he is invoking through the sacrifice. And he is faithless; inwardly, he has no faith in the very performance itself. 

Faithless performance is tamasic performance. When our heart is not in a thing, we are also not in that thing. Where our heart is, there we are; and if we ourselves are not there, what is the good of doing anything? 

To the extent we are involved in the work, to that extent it is a sacrifice. If we are wholly involved in it, and we are not separable from the work that we are doing—we ourselves are the work, as it were—then it is the highest sacrifice, and it will bring us the best of benefits. Else, it is tamasic. 

Who else but our divine Lord Sai can actually demonstrate how an Yagna has to be performed??

The Veda Purusha Saptaha Yagna held in Puttaparthi during Navaratri, demonstrates Yagna in the most sattvic manner, in the presence of the Lord Himself.

Speaking on the Yagna on one such occasion, Swami Said,

  

"This Puja, this Yajna, and this Homa, are arranged here every Dasara, in order to help you to learn that other everlasting, abstract Yajna, which every one of you has to do, to save yourselves from fear, grief and anxiety." 

(Divine discourse - 11-10-1972)

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 208

Now, the Lord goes on to describe the nature of food preferred by Sattwic, Rajasic and Tamasic beings in the following verses.

Verse 8

Foods which increase life, purity, strength, health, joy and cheerfulness, which are oleaginous and savoury, substantial and agreeable, are dear to the Sattwic people.

Verse 9

The foods that are bitter, sour, saline, excessively hot, dry, pungent and burning, are liked by the Rajasic and are productive of pain, grief and disease.

Verse 10

That which is stale, tasteless, putrid, rotten and impure refuse, is the food liked by the Tamasic.

Sattvic Food

That kind of food which energizes the system, which contributes to the enhancement of life, which increases strength in the body, which ensures health, which is delighting to the taste and enjoyable at all times, which is full of delicacy and the heart opens up, as it were, when we eat such food—that food is sattvic. 

Hence, a vegetarian diet is beneficial for cultivating the qualities of the mode of goodness that are conducive for spiritual life. 

Rajasic Food

A rajasic diet is irritating, biting, burning, and very harsh in its action on the system. It causes a burning sensation at the time of eating it, and it affects the stomach, and it may even create a stomach ulcer. These diets are very much desired by people who are rajasic in their nature. 

Persons in the mode of passion find such foods attractive, but those in the mode of goodness find them disgusting. The purpose of eating is not to relish bliss through the palate, but to keep the body healthy and strong. As the old adage states: “Eat to live; do not live to eat.”

Thus, the wise partake of foods that are conducive to good health, and have a peaceable impact upon the mind i.e., sāttvic foods.

Tamasic Food

Tamasic people do not want freshly cooked food; they only want yesterday’s food. They would rather have leftovers from yesterday than freshly cooked food. 

Gatarasaṁ is food whose taste has gone because it has been kept too long. 

Pūti is food that is not pleasant to the taste and is almost stinking. 

Paryuṣitaṁ is food which was cooked yesterday. 

Ucchiṣṭam is the leftovers from somebody’s meal. That should not be eaten. 

Amedhyaṁ is very impure food, kept in a dirty place, cooked in a dirty manner, with an impure mind, with emotions of unhappiness, tension, anger, and dislike. 

Impure foods also include all kinds of meat products.

Nature has designed the human body to be vegetarian. All these physical characteristics of the human body reveal that God has not created us as carnivorous creatures, and consequently, meat is considered impure food for humans.

Meat-eating also creates bad karma. The Manu Smṛiti states:

māṁ sa bhakṣhayitāmutra yasya māṁsam ihādmy aham

etan māṁsasya māṁsatvaṁ pravadanti manīṣhiṇaḥ 

(“The word mānsa (meat) means “that whom I am eating here will eat me in my next life.” The learned say that meat is called mānsa (a repeated act: I eat him, he eats me).”

Dear All,

Videos are available showing Swami (Sri Sathya Sai Baba) partaking food during His visit to Hostel/Hospital etc. It is height of Sattvic and just few teaspoonful of food.

https://youtu.be/Td_TYdRYOJk 

If we take inspiration from that, at least we can hope to reach the Sattvic food level at some point of time.

The author often tells to few sadhakas, “Food is eaten by him as a charity, for, the internal system of his body need some food and hence, he has to grant them some food. That is all and there is no other purpose of eating food. “

When we visit Banaras and we are told that we should leave some food as an offering, never to take it again, we seldom make a promise to give up some food that we love, we give up only that food which we never like or which we have once in a blue moon. 

Dietary control is very much part of ceiling of desires also for all human beings, especially those who are in Sai fold.

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 207

THE YOGA OF THE DIVISION OF THE THREE FOLD PATH

For the question put up by Arjuna, “What about those who, even though setting aside scriptural injunctions yet perform worship with faith?”,

The Lord replies and states that the faith of such men who ignore the injunctions of the scriptures could be either Sattwic, Rajasic or Tamasic.

And then, the Lord goes on to explain how the three types of men - Sattwic, Rajasic and Tamasic, pursue their faith / worship.

Verse 4

The Sattwic or pure men worship the gods; the Rajasic or the passionate worship the Yakshas and the Rakshasas; the others (the Tamasic or the deluded) worship the ghosts and the hosts of nature-spirits.

Sattvic people adore the gods in heaven. Ganesha, Devi, Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Lord Siva, Vishnu, Narayana, Siva, Skanda are the gods whom they worship if their mind is sattvic. Nara-Narayana, Vyasa, Vasishtha—these are their adored beings.  Lofty transcendent realities are the objects of people who are sattvic in their nature. 

Rajasic people worship demoniacal, lower spirits which are likely to bless them with immediate results and then possess them and keep them under subjection. Yakshas, rakshasas and demigods are the objects of worship of people who are entirely rajasic, because they cannot wait for the blessings of a god in heaven. They want immediate results to follow, so they go to lesser divinities. 

But people with tamasic qualities worship actual demons—bhutas, pretas and spirits who hang in the air, summoning dead people who speak through those who make this their profession. This is the tamasic way of living, where the lower spirits are considered as objects of adoration. Bhutas and pretas are their objects of worship.

Verse 5

Those men who practice terrific austerities not enjoined by the scriptures, given to hypocrisy and egoism, impelled by the force of lust and attachment

Verse 6

Senseless, torturing all the elements in the body and Me also, who dwells in the body—know thou these to be of demoniacal resolves.

In the name of spirituality, people perform senseless austerities. 

Over-enthusiasm can produce only a physical exhaustion, and an inward fatigue. No spiritual unfoldment can be expected from unintelligent expenditure of energy in wrong channels merely because it is undertaken in the name of religion. The majority of seekers mis-apply their energies and come to suffer. 

Physical restraints and self-denials are, no doubt, sometimes prescribed for some strong men, for some limited period. At the same time it is not proper or correct to believe that any kind of self-denial would constitute an austerity, and that by following it, creative unfoldment of the inner personality-structure could be successfully brought about. 

Sri Krishna says: “O Arjuna, you asked me about the status of those who disregard the injunctions of the scriptures and yet worship with faith. I am telling you that faith is visible even in people who perform severe austerities, but it is bereft of a proper basis of knowledge. 

Such people do possess deep conviction in the efficacy of their practices, but their faith is in the mode of ignorance. Those who abuse and torture their own physical body disrespect the Supreme Soul who resides within. All these are contrary to the recommended path of the scriptures.”

Love.