11. The celestial gods, or devatas, are in-charge of the administration of the universe. The Supreme Lord does his work of managing the universe through them. These devatas live within this material universe, in the higher planes of existence, called swarg, or the celestial abodes. The devatās are not God; they are souls like us. They occupy specific posts in the affairs of running the world. Consider the Federal government of a country. There is a Secretary of State, a Secretary of the Treasury, a Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, and so on. These are posts, and chosen people occupy those posts for a limited tenure. At the end of the tenure, the government changes and all the post-holders change too. Similarly, in administering the affairs of the world, there are posts such as Agni Dev (the god of fire), Vayu Dev (the god of the wind), Varuna Dev (the god of the ocean), Indra Dev (the king of the celestial gods), etc. Souls selected by virtue of their deeds in past lives occupy these seats for a fixed number of ages, and administer the affairs of the universe. These are the devatas (celestial gods).
The Vedas mention various ceremonies and processes for the satisfaction of the celestial gods, and in turn these devatas bestow material prosperity. However, when we perform our yajña for the satisfaction of the Supreme Lord, the celestial gods are automatically appeased, just as when we water the root of a tree, the water inevitably reaches its flowers, fruits, leaves, branches, and twigs. The Skandh Puran states:
"By worshipping the Supreme Lord Shree Vishnu, we automatically worship all the celestial gods, since they all derive their power from him." Thus, the performance of yajna is naturally pleasing to the devatas, who then create prosperity for living beings by favorably adjusting the elements of material nature.
12. As administrators of various processes of the universe, the devatās provide us with rain, wind, crops, vegetation, minerals, fertile soil, etc. We human beings are indebted to them for all that we receive from them. The devatās perform their duty, and expect us to perform our duty in the proper consciousness too. Since these celestial gods are all servants of the Supreme Lord, they become pleased when someone performs a sacrifice for him, and in turn assist such a soul by creating favorable material conditions. Thus, it is said that when we strongly resolve to serve God, the universe begins to cooperate with us.
However, if we begin looking upon the gifts of nature, not as means of serving the Lord but as objects of our own enjoyment, Shree Krishna calls it a thieving mentality. Often people ask the question, "I lead a virtuous life; I do not harm anyone, nor do I steal anything. But I do not believe in worshipping God, nor do I believe in him. Am I doing anything wrong?" This question is answered in the above verse. Such persons may not be doing anything wrong in the eyes of humans, but they are thieves in the eyes of God. Let us say, we walk into someone's house, and without recognizing the owner, we sit on the sofa, eat from the refrigerator, and use the restroom. We may claim that we are not doing anything wrong, but we will be considered thieves in the eyes of the law, because the house does not belong to us. Similarly, the world that we live in was made by God, and everything in it belongs to him. If we utilize his creation for our pleasure, without acknowledging his dominion over it, from the divine perspective we are certainly committing theft.
The famous king in Indian history, Chandragupta, asked Chanakya Pundit, his Guru, "According to the Vedic scriptures, what is the position of the king vis-à-vis his subjects?" Chanakya Pundit replied, "The king is the servant of the subjects and nothing else. His God-given duty is to help the citizens of his kingdom progress in their journey toward God-realization." Whether one is a king, a businessperson, a farmer, or a worker, each person, as an integral member of God's world, is expected to do his or her duty as a service to the Supreme.
13. In the Vedic tradition, food is cooked with the consciousness that the meal is for the pleasure of God. A portion of the food items is then put in a plate and a verbal or mental prayer is made for the Lord to come and eat it. After the offering, the food in the plate is considered prasad (grace of God). All the food in the plate and the pots is then accepted as God's grace and eaten in that consciousness. Other religious traditions follow similar customs. Christianity has the sacrament of the Eucharist, where bread and wine are consecrated and then partaken. Shree Krishna states in this verse that eating prasad (food that is first offered as sacrifice to God) releases one from sin, while those who eat food without offering commit sin.
The question may arise whether we can offer non-vegetarian items to God and then accept the remnants as his prasad. The answer to this question is that the Vedas prescribe a vegetarian diet for humans, which includes grains, pulses and beans, vegetables, fruits, dairy products, etc. Apart from the Vedic culture, many spiritually evolved souls in the history of all cultures around the world also rejected a non-vegetarian diet that makes the stomach a graveyard for animals. Even though many of them were born in meat-eating families, they gravitated to a vegetarian lifestyle as they advanced on the path of spirituality. Here are quotations from some famous thinkers and personalities advocating vegetarianism:
"To avoid causing terror to living beings, let the disciple refrain from eating meat… the food of the wise is that which is consumed by the sadhus; it does not consist of meat." The Buddha.
"If you declare that you are naturally designed for such a diet, then first kill for yourself what you want to eat. Do it, however, only through your own resources, unaided by cleaver or cudgel or any kind of ax." The Roman Plutarch, in the essay, "On Eating Flesh."
"As long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seeds of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love." Pythagoras
"Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places! I have since an early age abjured the use of meat…" Leonardo da Vinci.
"Nonviolence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all living beings, we are all savages." Thomas Edison.
"Flesh-eating is simply immoral, as it involves the performance of an act which is contrary to moral feeling—killing." Leo Tolstoy.
"It may indeed be doubted whether butchers' meat is anywhere a necessary of life… Decency nowhere requires that any man should eat butchers' meat." Adam Smith.
"I look my age. It is the other people who look older than they are. What can you expect from people who eat corpses?" George Bernard Shaw.
"A dead cow or sheep lying in a pasture is recognized as carrion. The same sort of carcass dressed and hung up in a butcher's stall passes as food!" J. H. Kellogg.
"It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind." Albert Einstein
"I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants." Mahatma Gandhi
In this verse, Shree Krishna goes further and says that even vegetation contains life, and if we eat it for our own sense enjoyment, we get bound in the karmic reactions of destroying life. The word used in the verse is atma-karanat, meaning "for one's individual pleasure." However, if we eat food as remnants of yajña offered to God then the consciousness changes. We then look upon our body as the property of God, which has been put under our care for his service. And we partake of permitted food, as his grace, with the intention that it will nourish the body. In this sentiment, the entire process is consecrated to the Divine. Bharat Muni states:
"Violence is caused unknowingly to living entities in the process of cooking, by the use of the pestle, fire, grinding instruments, water pot, and broom. Those who cook food for themselves become implicated in the sin. But yajna nullifies the sinful reactions."