Chapter 3, Verse 11
devān bhāvayetānena
te devā bhāvayantu vaḥ
parasparaṁ bhāvayantaḥ
śreyaḥ paramavāpsyatha
By this, may you nurture the gods, and the gods will nurture you in return. Thus, nurturing one another, you will obtain the highest good.
In this verse, Krishna doesn’t refer to the One God, but to the demigods. He says, “By offering this nourishment to the demigods, you will receive punya, much merit in return for what you offer to them. They will also take care of your needs.”
Here sacrifice also means the service that you offer to humanity, because each person is a manifestation of the Divine. Through the service which you render, selflessly, with a pure heart to humanity, you will receive a blessing which is ten times greater. When you do your service to God, when you help people, when you do service to the sages, to the saints, to the animals, to the birds, to all the species which God has created, then you show that you have realised that the soul which is inside of you is the same soul which is in all. This service is a sacrifice. Lord Krishna says, “The gods will nurture you in return.” The Divine will give you ten times more than what you give to others. If you give pain to others, you will receive ten times more pain. If you do good, the merit, the punya that you receive will be much more. If you cause harm to somebody, the deva, the god, which is inside the person, will react. Automatically your karma will be ten times more than what you have done.
“The gods will nurture you in return.” So this is the service. Whenever you do something in the spirit of serving God, God will send His servants, His messengers, in every way to bless you. He will send you good deeds and help you to advance towards God-Realisation.
“Thus, nurturing one another, you will obtain the highest good.” Here Krishna says that the humans and the devas work in accordance with each another. When you start working in unity with each other, with respect for each other, when you each start doing your own duty, you will be prosperous materially and spiritually, and even attain salvation.
In such sacrifice, in such service, the devas help man to grow spiritually. And what is the nourishment of the devas? The nourishment of the devas is Amrit, the ‘divine nectar of immortality’. Krishna says here that when you start serving with an attitude of surrender to the Divine, your life will be transformed and filled with this divine nectar. But this service should not be done to obtain personal aim. The service must be done out of surrender.
Bhagavad Gita
