Yajna

Now a friend has asked: Osho, could it not be that a yajna (fire ritual) creates a certain atmosphere such that, on a scientific basis, rain falls?

Prove it and show. The issue is not whether it cannot happen; it simply has not happened so far. The laboratories of science stand across the whole country—every college, every university has a laboratory. Go there, perform a yajna, and prove your claim. If you prove it by doing a yajna, the whole world will touch your feet and say you have discovered a great method. We go through a lot of trouble; your formula is very easy. But prove it! That it is written in your book proves nothing. That you believe it proves nothing. That your heart is hurt proves nothing. In the afternoon a gentleman wrote to me and handed me that...

A friend has also asked. He has asked that— Osho, Ramachandraji performed yajnas, Krishnaji performed yajnas, and Ravana performed yajnas—so did they all do wrong?

Now, whether they did wrong or right—first it is difficult even to find out whether they did them at all. It is also hard to know whether they ever existed or not. And it is equally hard to know whether their yajnas brought any benefit. But we ourselves are doing yajnas every day and seeing—nothing happens! At least make water fall out of a tap’s spout if no water is coming; to make it fall from the clouds is a much farther cry. If a tap has run dry, then perform a yajna-havan and make water pour from its spout! If a well has dried up, do a yajna and bring water into it! Clouds are a rather distant matter. But it is not that water cannot be made to fall from clouds. It will never fall because of yajna-havan, because the clouds have no idea of your yajnas, nor…

Osho, in the world of sadhana there is much mention of yajnas and rituals. There are many methods of yajna; people speak of homa-type yajnas. But in the Gita, japa-yajna and jnana-yajna are given special importance. And while speaking on japa you also spoke of ajapa-japa. So please shed light on the Gita’s japa-yajna, jnana-yajna, and on ajapa-japa as well.

Third: we see the flames of fire rising; we can only see them a little way, then they vanish. Fire is visible only a short distance; beyond that it becomes invisible. Knowledge too is visible only a little—or say: for a short distance its relation remains with the visible; beyond that its relation is with the invisible. Then the visible is lost; only the invisible remains. For all these reasons fire became a potent symbol of knowledge, and Krishna could use the word jnana-yajna. If these symbols are in our awareness, jnana-yajna will continue forever. The other rituals and yajnas built around fire will disappear, because they arise from circumstances; but jnana-yajna will continue. Thus Krishna, for the first time, freed yajna from circumstance and gave it an eternal meaning. The yajna of the Vedas was bound to particular conditions, tied to an event. Krishna freed it from that event…

Osho, in the second part of the verse it is said: an oblation into the yogic fire, the steadiness established in the Divine, illumined by knowledge. Kindly explain what is meant by yogagni, the yoga-fire.

Those who are free of the urge to harm arrive at the same goal that others reach through yoga, through sankhya, through service offered to God. What does it mean to be free of the urge to harm? Here is the strange thing: all these different paths are connected deep down to one root. As long as there is greed in the senses, freedom from violence is impossible. As long as a man is frantic to gratify the senses, nonviolence is impossible. The senses are constantly committing violence. When your eye becomes lust upon someone’s body, violence has happened—you have raped. The court cannot catch you; it has no means yet to prosecute rape by the eyes. But when your gaze falls upon someone’s body and becomes demand, desire, lust—and in a moment you possess that body, and the smoke of the urge to enjoy it spreads—rape has happened. It…