Dr. Vladimir Yatsenko- Sacrifice as the Central Idea of the Veda and the Karma Yoga of the Gita

To understand the concept of the Vedic Sacrifice, yajña, we should dive deep into the very vision
of manifestation as presented in the Vedas and Upanishads. Creation itself is seen as the Sacrifice of the Divine. In the ancient parts of the Rigveda, it is Aditi the Divine Mother whose projection in the form of all the gods and godheads manifests the Universe, being sacrificed for the sake of the Divine in time and space. All the beings are her offspring. In the 10th Mandala of the Rigveda 10.90 we find the Purusha Sukta, where the Purusha is being sacrificed and becomes the Universe. Sri Aurobindo writes about it in his work The Mother:
“The Mother not only governs all from above but she descends into this lesser triple universe. ...
This is the great sacrifice called sometimes the sacrifice of the Purusha, but much more deeply
the holocaust of the Prakriti, the sacrifice of the Divine Mother.” (Sri Aurobindo, The Mother, p.
24) The Sacrifice is a conversion of the mundane and unregenerated existence into a sacred and
divine life on earth: ‘may [Agni] bring HERE the Gods’, sa devān eha vakṣati (Rigveda 1.1.2).
Charged with the Spiritual Presence, an earthly life grows into higher and more refined forms of
existence.
In the Gita the concept of sacrifice is the foundation of Karma Yoga. In fact, sacrifice is the
condition of all life. But by a few it is done consciously, generally it is done unknowingly and
ignorantly, avidhi-pūrvakam.
Sacrifice is the process meant to uncover the hidden properties of higher consciousness in all
things, to manifest the Divine. In Integral Yoga we refer to this process as the Evolution of
Consciousness.