The person who acts in accordance with the principles of Krishna consciousness is the highest, the most perfect of spiritualists and mystics. But Krishna devotees are not alone in offering sacrifices. There are also those who offer them to divine beings, or to the Impersonal Supreme Spiritual Being [the only aspect of God known to believers on earth]. Depending on the nature of their recipients, these sacrifices take different forms, but this diversity is superficial, since every sacrifice ultimately goes to the Supreme Lord, Krishna.
Some sacrifice hearing and the other senses in the fire of the controlled mind, and others offer sound and other sense objects to the sacrificial fire.
Those who desire to attain spiritual realization through control of the senses and the mind offer the activities of all their senses and their vital breath as sacrifices in the fire of the controlled mind.
Others, enlightened by the sacrifice of their material possessions and by great austerities, take strict vows and adopt the eight-phase yoga. Still others study the Vedas to acquire absolute knowledge. Some also seek exaltation in the mastery of the respiratory functions. They practice merging the exhaled breath into the inhaled breath, and then vice versa. They thus succeed in suspending all breathing and experiencing ecstasy. Still others, restricting their food, sacrifice the exhaled breath within themselves.
Among them, all those who understand the purpose of sacrifice are freed from the shackles of karma. Having tasted the nectar of the fruits of sacrifice, they attain the supreme spheres of eternity.
Know that without making sacrifice one cannot live happily in this [material] world, and what of the next [life]?
These various sacrifices are authorized by the Vedas [the original holy scriptures] and designed according to the various forms of action. Knowing this, you will attain liberation.
Superior to the sacrifice of material goods is the sacrifice of knowledge, for ultimately, the sacrifice of action finds its purpose in absolute knowledge.
Seek to know the truth by approaching a spiritual master, inquire of it from him submissively while serving him. The realized soul can reveal knowledge to you, for it has seen the truth.
And when you thus know the truth, you will understand that all beings are an integral part of me, that they live in me, and belong to me.
Even if you were the vilest of sinners, once embarked on the vessel of spiritual knowledge, you will cross the ocean of suffering. Like the blazing fire that converts wood to ashes, the brazier of knowledge reduces all the consequences of material actions to ashes.