Yagna is a science where specific materials and herbs are used that impact specific parts of our body. Don’t think that the Navagrahas are just planets, they are specific vibrations in the cosmos and they relate to different parts of our body. The whole science behind a yagna is the connection between microcosm and the macrocosm. For example, Mars is connected to the liver and to proteins.
Like this, there are many connections between different herbs, different materials with cosmic vibrations. The cosmos has a number of vibrations and specific vibrations are named for different planets and they also relate to the movements of planets. You doing something here is not going to affect the Sun, but you holding an umbrella definitely protects you from the sun.
Another important thing is that all the Grahas (planets) and their Devatas (vibrations) come in specific vehicles. What is the vehicle? This is interesting to analyze. A goat carries the Mars vibrations, and like this every animal brings down specific vibrations from nature on to the ground. It is fascinating to go deeper and analyze this.
In the middle ages, people never understood that butterflies have very specific things to do. If there are no butterflies, food cannot be grown. People with less knowledge question what butterflies have to do with having more food. In the US, when the pesticides were spread, they never considered butterflies or insects as an important phenomenon. So what happened? All the butterflies disappeared! Now they are bringing butterflies in containers and leaving them in the fields so that pollination can happen and food can be grown. The quality of food suffers a lot when pollination does not happen. So, from an ant to an elephant, everything has a role to play in this planet. Honouring them is what this is about.
When you say that there is only one consciousness – this is quantum physics. But there are also many different materials and that is classical chemistry. They are not at loggerheads with each other, and can both go together.
You don’t have to pray to all the Navagrahas. All that you need to say is, “Om Namah Shivaya”. The prayer is only to one, in that everything is contained. But in yagnas, specific things are done and you see they are all part of that whole. You don’t see it as separate.
See, in your homes, there are different rooms – kitchen, dining, bedrooms, etc. Don’t you decorate each room? If someone says, you have decorated the house from outside, what is the need to decorate each room? You simply say that you would like to decorate each room inside the house. But it is all part of the big house. This is how you should take it. Not think that there are different Devatas apart from Shiva. They are all a part of Shiva, each an aspect of Shiva.
See, in your homes, there are different rooms – kitchen, dining, bedrooms, etc. Don’t you decorate each room? If someone says, you have decorated the house from outside, what is the need to decorate each room? You simply say that you would like to decorate each room inside the house. But it is all part of the big house. This is how you should take it. Not think that there are different Devatas apart from Shiva. They are all a part of Shiva, each an aspect of Shiva.
