Niranjana Swami

Niranjana Swami

Collected Letters Written to Friends and Disciples, Vol. 4, December 1, 1994

Krsna says that one who claims to be His devotee is not His devotee. His devotee is one who claims to be the devotee of His devotee. When we offer something to Krsna's devotee, even though we may not be pure in heart, he accepts the offering, and he offers it to Krsna. But we still cannot offer anything that we want and expect the offering to be offered to Krsna. We must offer what is asked of us.

Srila Prabhupada

Lecture on Bhagavad-gita 3.8-11, Seattle, October 22, 1968

According to the Vedic rituals, yajna, or sacrifice, is offered to different devas, demigods. There are hundreds and thousands of demigods mentioned in the Vedic literatures. And the whole portion is called upasana-kanda. Upasana-kanda means worshiping different demigods. But what are these demigods? The demigods are just like different parts of the whole body of the Supreme Lord. They are, so to say, just like the government of the king. There is one king, but there are many state officers. Just you can imagine that if for management of a city like New York you have got so many departments. As soon as we go to these chambers, we get so many departments: criminal department, civil department, and so many departments. So for management of these universal affairs, there are different departments also, so far we can get information from the Vedic literature. And each department, there is a particular director. And Brahma is considered to be supreme director of this universe. So this yajna, sacrifice, Vedic rituals, they are indicated to pay different taxes to different demigods. But the Supreme Lord is above all. Therefore, if one performs sacrifice for the Supreme Lord, he is immune from other obligations.