70
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 7, Ch. 2]
recommended. But for those in the mode of goodness, the transcendental worship of Viṣṇu is recommended. Ultimately, all  yajñas  are meant for gradual promotion to the transcendental position. For ordinary men, at least five  yajñas , known as  pañca-mahāyajña , are necessary.
One should know, however, that all the necessities of life that human society requires are supplied by the demigod agents of the Lord. No one can manufacture anything. Consider, for example, all the eatables of human society. These eatables include grains, fruits, vegetables, milk and sugar for persons in the mode of goodness, and also eatables for the nonvegetarians, such as meats, none of which can be manufactured by men. Then again, take for example, heat, light, water and air, which are also necessities of life—none of them can be manufactured by human society. Without the Supreme Lord, there can be no profuse sunlight, moonlight, rainfall or breeze, without which no one can live. Obviously, our life is dependent on supplies from the Lord. Even for our manufacturing enterprises, we require so many raw materials like metal, sulphur, mercury, manganese and so many essentials—all of which are supplied by the agents of the Lord, with the purpose that we should make proper use of them to keep ourselves fit and healthy for the purpose of self-realization, leading to the ultimate goal of life, namely, liberation from the material struggle for existence. This aim of life is attained by performance of  yajñas . If we forget the purpose of human life and simply take supplies from the agents of the Lord for sense gratification and become more and more entangled in material existence, which is not the purpose of creation, certainly we become thieves, and therefore we are punished by the laws of material nature. A society of thieves can never be happy, for they have no aim in life. The gross materialist thieves have no ultimate goal of life. They are simply directed to sense gratification; nor do they have knowledge of how to perform  yajñas . Lord Caitanya, however, inaugurated the easiest performance of  yajña , namely the  saṅkīrtana-yajña , which can be performed by anyone in the world who accepts the principles of Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
Hiraṇyakaśipu planned to kill the inhabitants of earth so that  yajña  would stop and the demigods, being disturbed, would die automatically when Lord Viṣṇu, the  yajñeśvara , was killed. These were the demoniac plans of Hiraṇyakaśipu, who was expert in such activities.