Recall that sacrifice means making everything sacred or spiritual or transcendental by offering an object for the pleasure of Krishna. The object of offering can belong to different levels (BG 4.28) – going from gross to subtle: (i) material possessions (dravya-yajña), (ii) gross body (tapo-yajña), (iii) breath and mind (yoga-yajña), and (iv) intelligence (svādhyāya-jñāna-yajñā).
How does the experience of a sacrifice performer look like?
A sacrifice performer becomes cleansed and tastes nectar (bliss) at every step, and in the end, goes back to the spiritual abode (BG 4.30). Conversely, without sacrifice, it is not possible to get happiness either in this life or the next (BG 4.31).
Different types of sacrifice suit different types of workers (BG 4.32). Because people are so deeply absorbed in the bodily concept, these sacrifices are so arranged that one can make sacrifices at the level of the body, the mind, or the intelligence. As the intelligence is higher than the mind and the mind is higher than the gross body (BG 3.42), a sacrifice performed at the level of the intelligence (jñāna-yajñā) is considered higher than that performed at the level of the body (dravya-yajña) (BG 4.33).
Since the ego is hierarchically superior to the intelligence, the sacrifice reaches its pinnacle point when we are ready to sacrifice our false ego. When we submit our false ego before a bona fide spiritual master, we receive the transcendental knowledge unadulterated. BG 4.34 points out that understanding of the transcendental knowledge comes by (i) submission (praṇipātena), (ii) inquiry (paripraśnena) and (iii) service (sevayā) unto a bona fide spiritual master. This is the secret of receiving transcendental knowledge.
