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A Harmonious World Order Through Interfaith Dialogue
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gratification, seeking power and consequently experiencing the "Dvandvas" or the pairs of success and failure, victory and defeat, pleasure and pain, inflation and depression.
Thus, ego is at the root of our sufferings.
Vedic ritualists or the Mimāṁaskas resolve this question of 'Ego' by defining the 'Action' in terms of Vedic 'Yāga' or offerings, generally translated as Vedic sacrifice. Although there is no action without result and desire for result, therefore, Vedic rituals have been taught initially in terms of a means for fulfilling desires, yet ultimately, sacrifice has been viewed as a total giving of our own being to the other. It is an act of emptying out of a being in order to obtain fulfillment. Fulfillment then is the complete merging of oneself in the other. "In other words, emptying out is the beginning of fulfillment and vice versa. Fulfillment is a new start for another emptying out in order to obtain more fulfillments. This, in certain aspects has been compared with the idea of the dark night in St. John of the cross or in other mystics for whom the ritual of the Mass has a similar significance." observes Prof. Vidya Nivas Mishra.
In the Hindu view, rites are an attempt to rejuvenate a person through a re-enactment of the primordial act of creation. Every ritual is a death of the finite and realization of the Infinite. This is why the partaking of the sacrificial 'Soma juice' has been viewed in terms of realization of immortality and eternity.
The path of 'Nişkāma-karma-yoga' or the "Yoga" of desireless action taught in Srimad Bhagavadgitā is essentially one with this ultimate understandings of 'Karman' and opens the door, for translating this philosophy of 'Action' in not only day to day life, but rising gradually to the highest goal of feeling the presence of the Infinite and Eternal through the path of 'Bhakti of realizing the 'Mokşa', through the 'Path of knowledge.'
Bhakti means yoking of 'Ego' in the services of God. The ego, because of its self-gratifying nature, develops desire for finite and
