Shloka 14
Cāturhotra as Inner Sacrifice (Yoga-Yajña) and Nārāyaṇa Recitation
गुणवत्पावको महां दीव्यते5न्त:शरीरग: । जो मनसे अवगत होता है
brāhmaṇa uvāca | guṇavat pāvako mahān dīvyate 'ntaḥśarīragaḥ | yogayajñaḥ pravṛtto me jñānavallīprado 'dbhutaḥ | prāṇastotraḥ apānaśastraḥ sarvatyāgasudakṣiṇaḥ |
The Brahmin said: “A mighty, virtuous Fire shines within my body. I have begun the sacrifice that is Yoga—marvelous, and granting the creeper of knowledge. In this rite, the in-breath is the hymn of praise, the out-breath is the sacrificial implement, and the finest priestly fee is the renunciation of everything. One should offer, with disciplined restraint, the six ‘oblations’ that are the objects of thought and sense—what the mind apprehends, what speech expresses, what the ear hears, what the eye sees, what the skin touches, and what the nose smells—into the six instruments of perception beginning with the mind, by making the self itself the altar. In that inner offering, the Supreme Self, as the fire that presides over the sacrifice, is revealed within my body and mind.”
ब्राह्मण उवाच
Educational Q&A
True sacrifice can be internalized: by restraining the senses and mind, one offers sense-objects back into disciplined awareness, making the self the altar. The ‘fire’ is the Supreme Self shining within, and the highest sacrificial gift is total renunciation.
A Brahmin speaker describes his spiritual practice as a ‘yoga-sacrifice.’ He reinterprets Vedic ritual elements symbolically—prāṇa as the chant, apāna as the implement, and renunciation as the dakṣiṇā—asserting that through this inner rite the Supreme Self becomes manifest within him.