Intellect - Custodian.

We have seen that all the activities are carried by 5 senses to mind and mind accordingly has various inputs and hence depending on the inputs creates desire(s). Now these desire are to be fulfilled and some of them are so intense that actions thereafter are inevitable. Most of the times this happens and unknowingly we start creating programs or routines simply because of that. These desires can be a temporary affair or relatively permanent. And yet many times we ourselves feel why we doing this or why we into this schedule or why we are in this company? We also do retrospection but it doesn't last because we haven't changed either the routine or the inputs what we are receiving. Almost 99% of our activities are mechanical because of that. We also resist change (say 95%) or we like changes and always newness (signs of unstable mind or untrained mind) this also means we are in intial stage (ghrut analogy: where milk is the day to day experiences, we have to consume milk everyday (experiences) but we aren't accumulating knowledge/wisdom cream and thats why we constantly need changes) and also resistance to change means we have climbed one step(Ghrut analogy: we have accumulated cream but are not ready to churn for higher goals that is butter).

The question in mind will come then don't we use brains and what then if we are so mechanical would be differences in animals and we as humans. Well the answer is no, there is absolutely no difference. Awkward, but true. Animals can be and are trained, similarly humans are trained. Only the difference probably would be we are better trained or can be better trained. But there is also one difference animals don't have desires so eventually it evens out. Are we suggesting the depressing side, this is very shocking and so on would be reactions in mind, also there can be a thought this writting is all bogus and this person is insane..... well actually this brings to our topic, the Intellect.

By intellect we are not suggesting (IQ = intelligence Quotient or brilliancy) but role of intellect in our life. As we know majority of our actions or activities are desire driven. So lets go to the inputs again; we hear ( we are using hearing as a meronymy) good or bad so this input will create wonders in our mind, isn't it. This input will further escalate our emotions depending on its nature and intensity. Now because this falls in mind domain the person gives way to emotions or reaction to the input. Surprisingly intellect is not involved in this activity. For example we watch the movie and the emotions displayed (created by writer, director and shown by actor or situation) are felt by us (may be limited to that situation or during the hours) so we cry or laugh and yet when we leave the theatre we only remember the movie and forget the emotions because then the intellect tell us that we are no more in that situation, but because while viewing the movie intellect was absent we faltered to emotions. So similarly many of our situations in life we face trauma of miseries just because in those situations intellect not called for or just not present. They give us a rope snake analogy, where suppose in a dark you have stepped on a snake you are naturally frightened and start to panic and do all sorts of things and then there is a beam of light where you come to know that this thing is merely a rope. So in this situation intellect was absolutely absent, naturally so!!. Similarly this is applicable to our real lives (What is real is again in question?) we have situation where our mind falters and there is a total chaos.

Therefore we should allow our intellect to intervene. All the action or activities that we do should have intellect involved. Is this difficult, well it depends. For this either you should know swadharma (duties) or you should accept what world offers to you. There is a reason for this, we do all the activities that are driven by desires so the action will leave some result which may or may not be pleasant. So the other side is we do things only for pleasantness or for fruit of action. This is the ignorance which will show us pair of opposites (joy or sorrow) but mostly we get bad part (80-20: 80% stressful conditions, 20% happiness) and therefore we get into futher emotional or delicate situations because again the mind has a negative input, isn't it. So its like a giant wheel so land up in the same place where you started from. Now if the intellect is called a. before the action or b. duriing the action, then we understand either the repurcurtions of the action or we also know that we are doing it with purpose, so therefore whatever the fruit might me is irrelavant. For example, if a karate aspirant is doing his routines, these routines may not give him black belt but in order to get to that level he should possess some pre-requisites. So therefore even if he misses a schedule or two it hardly makes difference in the final objective but skipping routines for a longer period will definately make difference. So there the intellect comes in picture, here the aspirant has to decide whether he is skipping too many or he will manage (not implusive or by mind). 

Now if the intellect starts to intervene in all the actions then the person only deos action which are his duties because then the desire driven actions are not there and also as he does what he is suppose to do the fruit of action is irrelevant. The major cause of stress or dissent or unrest is desire driven actions.

Are we suggesting that we should not have any desires we should not have any fun or luxuries and we should not enjoy, the answer to this is we should enjoy to the fullest we should have all the luxuries (they say play while you play, study while you study and enjoy while enjoying) but all these activities are first to be scanned by intellect. Intellect will always alarm us about the lurking dangers. If the action is scanned by intellect the enjoyment is to the fullest. But if all the actions taken are doing my mind ( as we always do), we face problems.

Yadgna - Sacrifice.

Well this is something tough, at least for me. As we have seen in past few sessions, all about senses, mind and intellect (we haven't discussed but as we progress I think things will get clearer). Now based on these thing we will touch delicate yet important topic of Yadgna (Sorry I don't have Devanagari fonts).
We know that the senses carry tons of information to the mind, I am not saying brain there is a reason for this. This information in raw form is pretty innocuous till the time it is processed. Say for example you had a bad day, that is life isn't but say if you post the whole blame on your boss then probably you are in trouble or say you land up in the conclusion that these things went wrong because of someone else.
So the experiences of the world are going to be pairs of opposites therefore we find pair of opposite people, because their mind have been altered with experiences. Therefore the experiences of these five senses are having no value in themselves till the time they are processed. Now it all depends how they are processed, that is why great people say you should have positive attitude, by this they mean gain the experience where you can learn in right way.
This brings to our topic Yadgna, this is slightly boring, if you have seen the ritual of yadgna, om indraya swaha, indraya idanna mama. They say "This is for indra this is not mine". Which also means that the experiences of world are not mine. Also (I don't think anybody will agree), indra means individual who as conquered his senses. So the other side is person who wants to controls over senses should leave experiences (idanna mama - not mine). So are we suggesting that person should be mute, deaf and blind to the experiences? No not at all.
There we come to what is required in Yagna,
You require
- Firewood (Samidha)
Ideally dried firewood of five different trees are taken. So five also means senses. Dried means devoid of life or doesn't involve in life.

- Ghrut (Cow Ghee, well !!)
Well again this is my favorite and top class thing. Ghrut starts its journey from milk which we consume daily (in some form or other) so this milk means daily experiences of mind. Then as we keep the milk the next day you have cream over it. So which means we gather wisdom out of it and as we know cream floats above milk so wisdom floats above the petty and small things (experiences of life) or the other side is wise men are above mediocre people. And also cream was in the milk which floated above so the experiences are all there wisdom is a scarcity and floats above. Then this cream is mixed with curd for settling (i don't know whether is term is correct). which means this acquired wisdom, knowledge has to be preserved. The the process of churning this curd consisting of cream which results in butter. Now this means that whatever we have gathered has to be churned, thoughts churning is inevitable in any process.
- This is my favorite example, a chess player he thinks during the game and then finishes his game. After the game is finished he just plays the moves again to see how the game has progressed (settling cream with curd), then after the tournament is finished goes back to his library and refers annotated games with similar positions so in fact churning process and he gets navneet (butter) and yet he has to testify this result or analysis or thought process, so that brings us to ghrut which means burning butter with heat or testifying your thoughts with intellect ( here the example is heat, intense heat) so rigours research.

So this is entire thing for Ghrut

- Chanting mantra & performing rituals
Now this is again interesting, (for many people boring though) as we saw mind is responsible for actions, so doing actions with right thoughts (they call attitude these days) is also an objective for yagna.

Now we see the relevance, as we are doing yagna we are burning firewood (five senses) adding ghee (the entire process of ghrut) and taking action (chanting mantra and doing rituals). If you see any person who has evolved he does exactly what we have mentioned above. He sacrifices his senses, purifies his mind (may be to the limited domain) and does his action with a fixed objective in mind.