Page:Essays On The Gita - Ghose - 1922.djvu/163

Rh discipline which stills the senses so that the soul in its purity may appear from behind the veil of mind action, calm and still; there is the discipline by whigh, when the self is known, all the actiops of the sense-perceptions and all the action of the vital being are received into that one still and tranquil soul. The offering of the striver after perfection may be material and physical, dravya- yajna, like that consecrated in worship by the devotee to his deity, or it may be the austerity of his self-dis- cipline and energy of his soml directed to some high aim, fapo-yajna, or it may be some form of Yoga like the Prandyama of the Rajayogins and Hathayogins, or any other yoga-yajna. All these tend to the purification of the being'; all sacrifice is a way towards the attainment of the highest.

The one thing needful, the saving principle constant in all these variations, is to subordinate the lower activities, to diminish the control of desire and replace it by a superior energy, to abandon the purely egoistic enjoyment for that diviner delight which comes by sacrifice, by self-dedication, by self-mastery, by the giving up of one’s lower impulses to a greater and higher aim. “ They who enjoy the nectar of immortality left over from the sacrifice attain to the eternal Brahman.” Sacrifice is the law of the world and nothing can be gained without it, neither mastery here, nor the possession of heavens beyond, nor the supreme possession of all; “this world is not for him who doeth not sacrifice, how then any other world ?” Thérefore all these and many other forms of sacrifice have been “extended in the mouth of the Brahman,” the mouth of that Fire which receives all offerings ; they are all means