Smog now fills the air and there are pollutants in the water, increased carbon footprint on land and perpetual smoke from waste burning. Four of the five elements of nature that govern our lives according to Vedic tradition — air, water, land and fire, the fifth being space or sky — are not the same as envisaged in the Vedas.
Only humans are to blame for that. Of the Pancha Maha Yajna, one yajna is Bhuta yajna or respect for all things around us. It is an obligation on the part of all humans to respect all things around us. The Pancha Bhuta or the five elements of air, water, land, fire and space were created from the knowledge of the conscious being, Ishvara and, hence, are to be worshipped. My guru, Swami Dayananda Saraswati would often say that every aspect of the whole universe is Ishvara. Mountains, water and trees are sacred. There is sacredness to life and nothing is profane, whether living or non-living.
The opening verse of the Ishavasya Upanishad conveys this.
Ishavaasyam idam sarvam
Yat kinca jagatyaam jagat
Tena tyaktena Bhunjiithaa,
maa grdhah kasya sviddhanam
Ishavaasyam idam sarvam
— this world is covered by Ishvara. May this world be enveloped by your knowledge. I see, hear, smell, taste and touch the world. Or in this world of time and space, anything that is in it, sentient or insentient, inert or conscious in all worlds, seven-up and seven-down, is covered by Ishvara. The sentence, Tena tyaktenabhunjiithaa, maa grdhah kasya sviddhanam states that it is because of ignorance or lack of understanding that we appropriate our body, children and things around us as ‘I’and mine, whereas we are only managing trustees of our body and of the things around us.
Gandhiji often said that even if all scriptures of the world were to disappear, this one verse outlines all the wisdom that is necessary for us to live.
In the Bhagwad Gita, 3.12, Krishna says,‘The deities, when propitiated with reverence, will give you desirable objects. One who enjoys objects given by them, without making an offering to them in return, is indeed a thief.’
One cannot help but perform certain harmful karma in daily life. To fulfil certain minimum requirements in order to survive, there is bound to be some himsa, injury, to certain plants, animals, and bugs. This destruction produces certain paapa, untoward results, which gather every day.
How are you going to eliminate these paapas? Some of the results are undesirable and may result in duukha, unpleasantness. To neutralise these results, some actions must be performed by an enlightened human being — to deities, ancestors, fellow creatures, and to rishis who have given us this knowledge. These obligations are to be performed daily and are contained in the pancha yajna. In the Bhagwad Gita,3.14, Krishna says that food itself is born from rain. And rain, in turn, Krishna says is born out of our reverence to nature. It is true that if you do not perform these obligations, rain will still come, but it may not come at the right time or in the right quantity as in drought and floods. Later, Krishna says that while rain always does its job but, unless you show respect to things around you by offering daily prayers, you are not doing your job as it was meant to be done.