February 19:

“Yajña is not yajña if one feels it to be burdensome or annoying.”

–Gandhi (From Yervada Mandir, pp. 57-60)

(The Salt March (pictured here) was a form of yajña.)

Yajña is the Sanskrit term for sacrifice or offering.  Of course, this is not limited to Hinduism. Muslims offer yajña yearly during the month-long fast of Karem, or Ramadan. Catholics offer yajña during the season of Lent. In short, every faith includes yajña. However, a yajña is not limited to formal worship. We can make every moment a form of an offering when we keep our eyes focused on a goal like nonviolence–the food we eat, the work we do, the words we use, the way we greet our neighbors, even our thoughts–all of these can be done in a spirit of Love and sacrifice.

A careful study of Gandhi’s life demonstrates this principle: never acting for his own welfare alone, he steadily undertook almost every inconvenience, such as seemingly small ones like cutting his own hair, to long fasts or jail-time.  He gives us valuable insight into our own experiments in daily acts of nonviolence, or in making our lives an offering: we must do it cheerfully, because the real renunciation, or yajña, is of our mental attachment to our likes and dislikes. The minute we complain that we are not up to it, or feel it to be a burden, yajña loses its power.

Experiment in Nonviolence:

The next time that you feel that you have to give something up, make it an offering, do it cheerfully.

Daily Metta 2015, a service of the Metta Center for Nonviolence, is a daily reflection on the strategic and spiritual insights of Mahatma Gandhi in thought, word and deed. As Gandhi called his life an “experiment in truth,” we have included an experiment in nonviolence to accompany each Daily Metta. Check in every day for new inspiration. Each year will be dedicated to another wisdom teacher.