Rajasooya Yajna 2004
Swami Satyasangananda Saraswati

The science of tantra advocates expansion of mind, and although it teaches specific techniques to achieve this state it also says that this can occur naturally in anyone at any time. It is these moments of expansion of mind that have led to the greatest discoveries of man throughout the ages. If this phenomenon did not occur, man would have remained at the level of instinct, just as in animals.

Expansion of mind is that state when you begin to perceive a different dimension in relation to your existence, which until that moment remains unknown or concealed from you. After all, we see apples falling off trees every single day but it took a Newton to realize the law of gravity.

Something similar must have happened to the man who first discovered fire. That precise moment when man recognized fire was the moment of his greatest insight. You can say that it was the split second when his consciousness took an evolutionary leap from the instinctive to the intelligent and intuitive plane.

Of course, fire existed even before man discovered it, for fire is primordial. Who knows how often he gazed at it without realizing the significance of the role it was to play in his future development. Animals even today do not know fire, even though it exists all around them. We have never seen animals, plants or birds utilizing fire the way we do. Have you ever seen a lion roast his meat or a bird bake her bread? Man too was in this state of blissful ignorance until one of our primitive ancestors experienced that expanded state of mind which tantra has so lucidly defined.

This led to the greatest discovery of man - fire, which must have then led to a chain reaction, because after that there was no stopping man. His realization of a difference between himself and other living creatures led him to a further insight into how he could live apart from them, nurturing his home, growing his own food, and rearing his cattle and livestock. Fire and grain thus signify that precise moment of insight into a world which, until then, was unknown to the primitive man who existed billions and trillions of years ago. A discovery that catapulted him into what he is today.

It is not surprising therefore that the Rig Veda, the oldest written text of a most ancient civilization, begins with a tribute to this awesome manifestation of nature. "Agni mide purohitam", a statement that gives agni or fire the status of divinity or one that illumines the path. One can thus clearly see how the ceremony of yajna evolved as a commemoration of this historic event, a salute to the foremost quantum leap made by man.

This is the utilitarian aspect of his discovery. But beyond that there is another deeper esoteric aspect to this event, which relates to that expanded state of mind that tantra talks about. For in that state of mind, fire and grain assume a different role, one that elevates them to the role of catalyst of creation, signifying that we owe our existence to fire and grain.

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