Tattva-viveka
Prasadam offerings
Margaret Dale - September 12, 2005 5:59 am
I've got pictures of Deities that I offer puja to. The problem I'm having is figuring out what to do about prasadam.
I have very little time to cook, so generally I make a big batch of something once a week or so. If I offer a bit of the batch, my understanding is that the whole batch then becomes prasadam. So far, so good. My problem is that then I would have nothing to offer for many meals, since I'm just eating leftovers, and I feel bad about the Deities not getting anything. Then again, the actual Deities are being fed at the temple where they are installed. I'm just not sure what the right way to go about this is.
I also am not sure about the protocol for things like boxes of cereal or bags of chips. (I know, I know, I should cook so that I'm offering the love with which I made the meal, but I just don't have time....doing the best I can 
). Anyway, if I offer some from the box or bag, does the whole bag become prasadam? Or is it only the portion that I've taken out for the current meal? And if it is the whole box, does that mean that all the boxes that were made on that day in the factory are now prasadam? Is this a new opportunity to secretly hand out prasadam to the whole world? OK, the last bit is half of a joke, but I'm curious to know what the answer is.
I appreciate the help of all you prabhus!
Bhrigu - September 12, 2005 10:15 am
It is allowed to offer small batches. Pujaris sometimes make a whole bunch of sandesha sweets, for example, and then offer a few every day as long as they last. With food that isn't in clearly definable "pieces" (e.g. soup, kitchari, rice, cereals) it is a bit more tricky, though. How do you decide how much to offer? You can't offer only part of the kettle (since you cannot mix prasadam and bhoga), neither can you put the part that will be offered on your plate, for then Krishna wouldn't accept it. It would have to be only as much as you put on the offering plate, and that may not be enough.
All in all, I would recommend you to just offer the whole batch the day you make it. Don't worry about Krishna not getting enough to eat: as you say, he eats sumptously in the temple where he lives.
As for offering everything in the factory, Prabhupada once answered a similar question about offering all the tap-water of a city. As I remember it, he did not take it very seriously. We should see offering food more as a way to please Krishna than as a way to "purify" the food that we will eat.
Syamasundara - September 12, 2005 10:31 am
You are right in many things, Damodara's belly is never empty. From what I gather, your picture is of some deities who are being served in a temple (possibly our Gaura Nitai?). What you are really feeding is your bhakti.
Even if no one offered food to the Lord, he would still be complete in himself.
Bhakti comes from the root bhuk, nourishment. Bhoga, enjoyment, also comes from that root.
Offering bhoga to the Lord with devotion is a very elevated activity and interaction.
By feeding bhoga to the Lord you actually feed (bhuk) your own bhakti. Bhakti is in and of itself, or bhakti begets bhakti. I hope I am making sense.
In that famous verse of the second chapter of the Gita (patram puspam phalam toyam...) Krsna says twice that he will accept any offering if done with bhakti.
Having said this, and as you also pointed out, Krsna is not a coin-op machine for prasadam, nor is he a virus that spreads on everything it touches.
It´s really a matter of consciousness with which you make the offering, you decide what you offer, otherwise after the first offering of rice ever performed all the rice on earth would be already offered.
Again, it's not a matter of the actual items we offer. Radharani cooks for Krsna personally, and she is bhakti personified. What chance do we stand with our offerings?
If we do our best to make an offering with bhakti, that will invoke Radharani´s benevolence and cooperation, and Krsna will accept our offering on account of that.
On the practical side, if you don´t want Krsna to starve for six days a week while you eat his remnants, you can have a batch of granola and offer a tiny amount every day as a fresh offering. Better still would be if you made your own batch once a week.
If you want to be creative, you can make a simple batch of granola on sunday and offer it as is. On monday you add some raisins to the daily offering, on tuesday you add some roasted nuts, on wed dried strawberries, on thu grated white chocolate.... you get the gist.
While in the ashram I was always engaged in heavy-duty cooking, but Citta Hari learned to cook gradually. At first he would prepare the 3:30 offering, to wake the deities after their nap. No cooking involved, 15 minutes to prepare, but he loved it: cutting the fruit, choosing the combination of fruit, dried fruits and juice, dribbling some honey on a bowl of yogurt... so simple and sattvic and enlivening.
I feel like making an offering right now, but I need to go to a job inteview...