अहं क्रतुरहं यज्ञः स्वधाहमहमौषधम् ।मन्त्रोऽहमहमेवाज्यम् अहमग्निरहं हुतम् ॥
ahaṃ kraturahaṃ yajñaḥ svadhāhamahamauṣadhammantro’hamahamevājyam ahamagnirahaṃ hutam
I the ritual action, I the sacrifice, I the food-oblation, I the fire-giving herb, the mantra I, I also the butter, I the flame, the offering I.
Gītā 9·16The way of works too turns into an adoration and a devotion of self-giving because it is an entire sacrifice of all our will and its activities to the one Purushottama. The outward Vedic rite is a powerful symbol, effective for a slighter though still a heavenward purpose; but the real sacrifice is that inner oblation in which the Divine All becomes himself the ritual action, the sacrifice and every single circumstance of the sacrifice. All the working and forms of that inner rite are the self-ordinance and self-expression of his power in us mounting by our aspiration towards the source of its energies. The Divine Inhabitant becomes himself the flame and the offering, because the flame is the Godward will and that will is God himself within us. And the offering too is form and force of the constituent Godhead in our nature and being; all that has been received from him is given up to the service and the worship of its own Reality, its own supreme Truth and Origin. The Divine Thinker becomes himself the sacred mantra; it is the Light of his being that expresses itself in the thought directed Godward and is effective in the revealing word of splendour that enshrines the thought’s secret and in the rhythm that repeats for man the rhythms of the Eternal.
