How and why to offer the food to God?

This is a subject of fundamental importance for whole

mankind.
To offer the food means to thanks for it, to recognize the
energy source from everything.
The first thing to be understood is that Mother Nature
(Durga mata) maintain us, and She possess the most
wonderful amount of mechanism to control and direct the
whole universe. As we are Her children, She granted to
the spiritual soul a material body for a limited time. Body
and soul remain together as long as there are water,
food and the due conditions. But, is a fact that our
attitude is influenced by what we eat, what we hear and
watch, etc.
Even if our body is in 90% constituted by water, each
cell is enough sophisticated and its atomic particles hold
the information from our constitution.
The main three colors produce the multicolor scale and
the three moods of Mother Nature (goodness, passion,
inertia) originate the variety of characters; as yellow
relate to goodness, red to passion and blue to inertia, in
the same way, when oneself offer the food pronouncing
the respective mantras and thanking to the Lord that His
energy maintain us, then is created a beautiful
atmosphere that nourish and heal our existence.
The Japan professor Maseru Emoto made photography
of crystals of water after those had been enclosed with
words like love, goodness, and forgiveness; indeed other
waters was surrounded with words like hate, terror and
cruelty. The pictures of those iced crystals were
surprising. The crystals from rude words looked like
monsters, but those of positive words were like precious
diamonds.
Our attitude and sound created, charge information,
which penetrate each atom of us and later reflect in our
behavior.
To offer the food and thanks for it is a millenary tradition
in the daily routine of yogis and goodness minded
people. This practice keeps high loving consciousness in
the kitchen and allows the family to enjoy happy
moments when they get together to eat sacred food;
which is free from negative reactions of karma.
Transcendental food liberates us from the influences of
materialism and grant happiness and good vibrations at
home.
Products from passion and ignorance like meat, fish,
eggs; alcoholic beverages, etc shall not be offered to
God.

The process of offering is very simple, without any cost,

but works only when is done with loving heart.

The Altar.
Choose a quite and clean place of your home and put
there an altar. According Bhakti-yoga, the altar is
arranged with a sculture (murti) or picture of the deity of
the heart, istha –dev; and one level down is placed the
picture of Guru ji, the spiritual master. If you have no
spiritual master then you can keep a picture of Srila
Prabhupad ji, who has been empowered by Shri Krishna
Himself to spread the teachings of Bhakti-yoga in India
and worldwide. Flowers and incense shall accompany
the offering.

The kitchen.
Everything shall be on time, clean and preferably
prepared following the recipes. It shall be avoided to
taste the food before offering, but some bhaktas do that
just to make sure that what ever they cooked have
enough salt etc. They serve a little of each foodstuff to
be tried outside the kitchen by own selves or to request
somebody else to do so; after hands and mouth has
been rinsed, then an especial and nice plate is to served
for the Supreme Lord. Add to each dish variety a sacred
Tulsi leaf and take the plate to the altar. Close the
curtain, and call the Lord with the bell by repeating three
times following Maha-mantra:

“Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare,

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare”
“O my dear Lord, allow me to be an instrument of Your
Love”
“Please my Lord, accept this offering of food that I
cooked for you by Your Divine Grace”.

Those who are initiated by the spiritual master, they

repeat besides Maha-mantra, other mantras received
from him in order to complete their offering. Example:

Om, ajnana timirandhasya jnananjana salakaya

Chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai shri gurave namaha
I born in darkness of ignorance but my spiritual master
opened my eyes with the light of knowledge. I offer him
my respects.

Namo maha vadanyaya, Krishna prema pradayate,

Krishnaya Krishna-chatanya, namne gaura tvise namaha
I offer my prostrated respects to the Supreme Lord Shri
Krishna Chaitanya, Who is the most generous Avatar,
even more then Shri Krishna Himself, because He is
giving freely pure love for Shri Krishna, which never has
been granted by nobody else.

namo brahmanya devaya, go brahmana hitaya cha

jagat hitaya krishnaya govindaya namo namaha
I offer my respectful salute to You, my Lord. You are the
protector of the cows and the well wisher of the
Brahmins and the whole mankind as well.

Offering of food means offering our consciousness. After

pronouncing the mantras then we left the Lord alone
eating for 10 or 15 minutes, in which one can meditate or
sing a song (bhajan) for the Lord. Then clap the hands 3
times and open the curtain, retire the food and transfer it
back into the pots…now everything what you cooked
became maha-prasadam. Happy and thankful for the
divine glance the Lord gave to the food then, you may
rinse His plate.

The ancient custom in the Vedic Culture at the time of

eating is to call loudly, outside the home and to request
somebody who is hungry to accept invitation to eat.
Once the prasadam is served then following prayer
composed originally in Bengali by Bhaktivinoda Thakur
is recommended:

“The body is constituted by ignorance and the senses

throw us in the ocean of nescience, from all the tongue
is the most dangerous, obstinate and difficult to conquer.
But most merciful Shri Krishna captivates our tongue
with His delicious prasadam. O brothers, let’s taste this
nectarous food indeed glorifying Shri Shri Radha
Krishna, and with much love let’s exclaim: Jay
Chaitanya, jay Nitai!”
“sarira avidya jal, jodendriya tahe kal,
jihve pehle visaya sagore, tara madhye jihva ati,
lobha moi sudurmati, take jeta kathina samsare,
Krishna baro doyamoi, koribare jihva joi,
Sa prasad anna dilo bhai, sei annamrita pao,
Radha-Krishna guna gao ,
preme dako Chaitanya Nitai”

With this daily practice you will experience wonderful

changes in your life; your friends and family members
will get benefited. This is self-realization through habits
of day-by-day routine, like eating.
To distribute sacred merciful food is a generous benefit,
which makes fortunate and assure internal advance to
those who give and receive as well.
It is well known that the reason why there is no peace in
people’s heart is due wasting of food, consume of junk
food and due to intake of meat along with it’s inherent
violence inflicted to killed animals.
May the mercy of God in the form of sacred Prasadam
accompany us for the rest of our life.

Pictures for your altar, you may get at the nearest temple
or download it from the Web: www.sabiduriavedica.org

“Everything what you do, all what you eat, all what you
offer and give, and all austerities you undergo, you shall
do everything as an offering to Me”. Bhagavad-Gita 9,27

“If some body offer Me with love and devotion one leaf,
one flower, one fruit or some water, I will accept it”.
Bhagavad-Gita 9,26