Food for the Body,Food for the Soul,and Food for Godby Kirtanänanda SväméPrasädam means food for the body, food for the soul and food for God. Morespecifically, it is food which has been sanctified by special selection and preparationand then offered to Kåñëa, God, in love and devotion. Cooking for God? How absurdthat sounds to the sophisticates of this modern age! How anthropomorphic! Evenmost transcendentalists will smile a smile of condescension at the suggestion:cooking for God! But why not? We cook for every conceivable nonsensical purpose.Why not cook instead for the Lord? Why shouldn’t this most important and centralactivity of life be dedicated to the Supreme? Why not cook transcendentally?We are not so naive as to suggest that God needs our food, but we are suggestingthat we need God to bless the energy of our hands and thus to sustain us by meansof daily bread. He does this by accepting and eating the food which we prepare andoffer to Him, and then giving it back to us in the form of prasädam. In theBhagavad-gétä Kåñëa says: “If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower,fruit or water, I will accept it. O son of Kunté, all that you do, all that you eat, all thatyou offer and give away, as well as all austerities that you may perform, should bedone as an offering unto Me.” (Bg. 9.26-27) Of course, He doesn’t need food; He issupreme, absolute. He is full of all opulences, namely, wealth, fame, beauty,strength, knowledge and renunciation. He is never in need or want of anything. Still,He asks His devotee to offer Him these simple fruits of the earth. The key word isdevotion. Twice it is used: “If in full devotion a pure devotee offers a little leaf, alittle flower, a little fruit with a little water, because he offers it with great devotion,the Supreme Personality of Godhead accepts them and eats them.” So it is not as if the Lord were in need of something; He is fully satisfied in Himself. Indeed, He iseverything. So whatever we are offering Him, be it a grain or a fruit, is already His;it is not, and never was, “ours.” But out of His causeless mercy, He is so kind to Hisdevotees that any small offering given in devotion He accepts and eats. The Lord isnot hungry for our food but for our hearts; He is not wanting for our substance butfor our consciousness, our love, our union. This is why prasädam is “mercy.” In shopping, in preparation, in eating, we aregiven a chance to remain conscious of Him, to be engaged in His transcendentalloving service. This is why the word bhakti, or devotion, is so stressed—it is thisbhakti which makes the Supreme Lord “transcendentally hungry.” Even the greatestbanquet cooked by the most renowned chef has no appeal to one who is nothungry; so, too, Kåñëa’s acceptance of our gifts is dependent upon His being“hungry,” and only our love and devotion can do that. His Divine Grace A. C.Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupäda writes: “The devotee is so humble andsubmissive to the Supreme Lord that whenever he prepares something for the Lord,he takes all care to finish the preparation nicely. And for such offering a devoteeasks nothing. It is the exchange of love. That love is accepted by the Supreme Lord,and He eats… Therefore, devotional service is the only way to offer anything to theSupreme Lord, to understand the Supreme Lord, to be in the confidence of theSupreme Lord, and to go back to the supreme abode of the Supreme Lord.”Devotional service begins with the chanting of the Lord’s holy names, as in themahä-mantra: Hare Kåñëa, Hare Kåñëa, Kåñëa Kåñëa, Hare Hare/ Hare Räma, HareRäma, Räma Räma, Hare Hare. That is the first great activity of transcendentalservice, and the next is to prepare and offer food to the Lord. There are a number of reasons for doing so. First of all, Kåñëa commands it: “The devotees of the Lord arereleased from all sins because they eat food which is offered first for sacrifice.Others, who prepare food for personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin. All livingbodies subsist on food grains, which are produced from rains. Rains come fromperformance of yajïa [sacrifice], and sacrifice is born of man’s work.” (Bg. 3.13-14)
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