Yaksha Prashnam Questions 17-20

Continued From: http://thoughtsonsanathanadharma.blogspot.ca/2013/02/yaksha-prashnam-question-4.html

The Yakshan asked Yudhishtirar to name the Sama most suitable for a Yagnam, the Yajus most suitable for a Yagnam. Name that which keeps the Yagnam steady and that which cannot be crossed by the Yagnam.

Of the four Vedas, the Rig Veda is in the form of poetry. The Yajur Veda is in the form of prose and the Sama Veda is poetry with musical notes. By the word “Sama” music is implied by the Yakshan. Yagnam means worship and does not refer to just sacrifice in the above question. The word Yagnam is derived from “yaja deva poojanam” and refers to the proper way to worship the Devas. The Upanishads also state that “Yagnovai Vishnuhu”; Lord Vishnu is called as Yagnam.  Yudhishtirar’s answers become clear if we keep the meaning of Yagnam as Lord Vishnu.

Name the Sama most suitable for a Yagnam, the Yajus most suitable for a Yagnam.

The Yakshan wanted to know the Lord’s favourite music which is unique in nature and prose suitable to worship the Lord in the first two questions. Yudhishtirar answered that “prana” is the Lord’s favourite music. By Prana he is referring to the sound made when we breathe. Our Lord likes to know that His devotees are alive and well by listening to their breathing.

Prose can have any number of sentences. It is thus unlimited in nature. Thus the best prose suitable to worship the Lord is our mind. Our mind has no limitation. Even if we cannot afford to buy gold vessels to worship the Lord with, we can imagine that we have gold vessels when we worship the Lord.

In the next question the Yakshan wanted to know which poetry attracts Yagnam. Again this can be rephrased as the poem which attracts Lord Narayana. Yudhishtirar answered this question by saying that the unique poem attracts the Lord. He said that Rig eka runuthe yagnam. That is “one rik attracts Yagnam”. The number “one” is used to indicate uniqueness. The Vedas when stating about God say that He is “Ekena advitiyam”. This statement does not mean that He is the only one in the Universe; the statement means that He is unique.

In the Thirupavai pasuram “Oruthi maganai pirandhu oriravil oruthi maganai olinthu valara”, both Devaki and Yashoda are called as “one lady”. The literal translation of the pasuram is that, “the Lord incarnated as one lady’s son on one night and was raised by one lady”. According to the rules of grammar, if Devaki as the first lady in the pasuram is indicated as “one lady” then Yashoda should be called as “another lady”. That is the Pasuram should be, “the Lord incarnated as one lady’s son on one night and was raised by another lady” Instead both Devaki and Yashoda are called as “one lady” to show us that they are both “unique”. The night is also called as “one night” because it was a unique night because the Lord incarnated on that night.

Thus the number one is used to show uniqueness. According to Yudhishtirar, a unique poem attracts Lord. This unique poem is the Gayathri Manthram which is called as Savithri Rik.  The clue to the fact that this poem is Gayathri Manthram is provided when the Yudhishtirar /Yakshan say that the poem “attracts” our Lord.

To examine why the Gayathri Manthram attracts our Lord, let us first take a look at the following.

The Vedic verse describes brilliant rays emanating from our Lord which blind us. We are unable to see Him as we are blinded by His effulgence. He shines brilliantly like a Sun and is hence unseen by us. We request Him to appear like the moon so that we can easily see His auspicious appearance. We can meditate upon our Lord only if the Lord reveals His form to us.

The following table shows a comparison between our body, our soul, the Lord’s soul and the Lord’s divine form in helping us to reach Him. It is very easy to meditate on our body but the result obtained from this meditation is very ordinary and does not grant us liberation. It is very difficult to meditate upon our soul and the result obtained by performing this difficult exercise is also very poor and will not give us liberation. The Lord’s soul is difficult to meditate upon but the result obtained is supreme and can liberate us from this material world. The Lord’s divine form on the other hand is very easy to meditate upon as well as the result of this meditation will grant us liberation. In the following table a point is awarded for ease of meditation and if the result obtained is supreme. From the table we can see that the best option is to meditate upon the Lord’s divine form which is very easy to do and yields the highest result of Moksham.

	Our Body	Our Soul	Lord’s Soul	Lord’s divine form
Easy to meditate	1	0	0	1
Provides Moksham	0	0	1	1

In the above table 1 = Yes and 0 = No.

The Purusha Suktam describes the Lord as having Adithya varnam i.e. He appears beautiful like the rising Sun. The Purusha Suktam begins by presenting the Universal Form of our Lord and gradually builds up to present His beautiful Thirumeni.

Through the above verse we pray to Him to reveal His beautiful form to us so that we can meditate upon His divine form. The Gayathri manthram helps us to meditate upon the effulgent attractive form of Lord Narayana. Hence this poem attracts the form of Lord in our minds.

Gayathri manthram should not fall at the same time in more than 3 pairs of ears. This is why Yudhishtirar did not provide further explanation.

The Gayathri Manthram begins with the word “Tat”. This word “tat” used here does not mean “that”. “Tat” is a name of Lord Narayana. The name “Tat” means multiplier or magnifier. If we chant the Gayathri Manthram once then Lord Narayana multiplies our good efforts by hundred folds. This is true for all devotional activities. If we take one step towards Him, He takes ten steps towards us to reduce the gap between Him and Us.

In the Vishnu Sahasranamam Stothram, in the following slokam Bagawan says,

“Yomam namasahasrena sthothumichathi Pandava

Sohamevena shlokena sthuva yeva na samchayaha

Sthuva yeva na samchaya om nama ithi”

The meaning of the above slokam is that there is no need to chant all one thousand names; it is enough to chant just one name with devotion. If we chant one name with devotion, He will multiply our efforts and give us the fruit of chanting all one thousand names.

A person who chants Gayathri Manthram properly and meditates upon His Divya Mangala Vigraham will always make intelligent decision.

The above applies to people who are given the privilege to chant the Gayathri Manthram. Women do not have this privilege as they are not allowed to chant Gayathri Manthram. How are women benefitted if they cannot chant Gayathri Manthram? The Vedas have given the women the task of making sure their men folk follow the prescribed duties for their Varna (caste). It is the duty of a Brahmin lady to make sure her men folk (husband, son) chant the Gayathri Manthram properly without fail every day. For just nagging her husband to chant the Manthram, she reaps fifty percent of the benefit of chanting the Manthram; i.e., if her husband chanted the Gayathri Manthram 108 times then the wife automatically gets the benefit of chanting the Manthram for 54 times and the husband is left with only the benefit of chanting the Manthram for the remaining 54 times. The wife automatically gets 50% of the good fruits earned by her husband.

The family in which the men chant Gayathri Manthram regularly, the Manthram attracts Lord Vishnu to reside in the mind of everyone.

The Yakshan’s next question in this series is “name that that which cannot be crossed by the Yagnam.” Yudhishtirar answered that “Yagnam will not cross that person who chants the Gayathri Manthram regularly with devotion.”

Yudhishtirar’s answer means that Lord Vishnu who is also called as “Yagnam” will not abandon anyone who chants the Gayathri Manthram regularly with devotion.

After seeing that Yudhishtirar is able to answer all the questions satisfactorily, the Yakshan decided to ask a riddle to test Yudhishtirar’s intelligence; to see if Yudhishtirar is able to apply his knowledge to solve problems. We will examine this riddle in my next post.

Continued On: http://thoughtsonsanathanadharma.blogspot.ca/2013/02/yaksha-prashnam-question-6.html

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Based on, Yaksha Prashnam - A discourse in Tamil by Sri U.Ve. Karunakaran Swamy
(Any errors or inconsistencies in the following series are due to the mistakes I made while taking notes. ) 

Copies of the CDs can be obtained from Sri Karunakaran Swami’s website http://www.nadadoor.org/ . This series is for the benefit of people who do not understand Tamil. Those of you who understand Tamil very well must definitely obtain a copy of Swami’s Upanyasam. You can do so by contacting Nadadoor.org. Swami also renders discourses in English but I am not sure if Yaksha Prashnam discourse is available in English.  The experience of listening to Swami’s upanyasams could never be obtained by reading the following series. I have done my best to take notes with due diligence. I apologize for any errors that I have made while writing this series.