O Arjuna, even those devotees who worship the deities with faith, they also worship Me, but in an improper way. The Supreme Being is a woman, a man, a boy, a girl, and an old per son. All deities, male or female, are representations of the One divine. He is One in many and many in One. The Vedic principle of celestial controllers does not diversify the Unity, but unifies the diversity.
Deities are just different names and forms, or symbolic representa tions, of the energies of nature.
The deity is a conduit through which the water of di vine grace can be made to flow by the power of conviction expressed through worship and prayer from the reservoir of infinite conscious ness. However, the seedling of faith becomes the fruit tree of convic tion only when it comes out of the ground of Self-knowledge and survives the frost of logic. We evoke the potential energy of cosmic forces by con templating on deities with faith. Faith really works. The power of faith in rituals or the spiritual science works in the same manner as a placebo works by the power of faith in the medical science.