Ram Dass on Consecrating Actions

October 15, 2013

Ram Dass is an American teacher of Hinduism and is the author of "Be Here Now." His recent blog post has a very neat explanation for the famous Geeta verse that is traditionally chanted before a meal.

ब्रह्मार्पणं ब्रह्म हविर्ब्रह्माग्नौ ब्रह्मणा हुतम् |
ब्रह्मैव तेन गन्तव्यं ब्रह्मकर्मसमाधिना ||४-२४||
brahmaarpaNaM brahma havirbrahmaagnau brahmaNaa hutam.h .
brahmaiva tena gantavyaM brahmakarmasamaadhinaa .. 4-24..
BRAHMAN is the oblation; BRAHMAN is the clarified butter, etc. , constituting the offerings; by BRAHMAN is the oblation poured into the fire of BRAHMAN; BRAHMAN verily shall be reached by him who always sees BRAHMAN in all actions.
This translation above is by Param Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananadaji and can often puzzle those unfamiliar with the cryptic manner of the Hindu texts. Here is how Ram Dass puts it:

Now, when I bless food, the statement I say, when I say grace, is an old Sanskrit one. It means "This offering of this little ritual I'm performing, this is part of it all, part of Brahma, part of that which is eternally all. He who is making the offering means, that which is being offered is part of it all. The hunger to which you are feeding . . . the fire which you are feeding, that's all part of it all. Whoever you are offering it to is part of it all, too. He who realizes that all of it is interrelated, all of it is one, becomes one with it."

Another interesting quote from the blog refers to singing hymns in church.

I go to church now and then around the United States and we sing hymns that are mind-blowers. They are all hymns that get you "high." They were written by people in ecstatic states and you read them … everybody's singing them like they're reading the shopping list. There's no spirit, the spirit isn't invested in any way in the singing and yet whoever wrote it invested the spirit.

The quote above could just as well apply to some of the chanting that we see in temples and at some pujas. We say them as if we're reading the shopping list

Hari Om and Namaskaar until the next post

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