Overeating and Prasadam

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
7 September 2010

Question: Now and also the other night we were talking about controlling your tongue, and sometimes when people are preaching about this, they say, "You will control your tongue by taking prasadam." And then also sometimes they say, "Atyahara, it is necessary to avoid eating too much." So, sometimes as soon as people hear about taking prasadam they think they can eat as much as they like...

If you think about it... When I joined the temple, that time I could easily eat 23-25 chapatis. First day I ate 25 chapatis. But now I cannot eat more than 1 or 2 chapatis, maybe one and half only. So, it is easily controlled by the prasadam. At night time I take chapati, and to eat even 1 chapati is very hard. How is it possible? It is possible through prasadam.

প্রসাদ-সেবা করিতে হয়
সকল প্রপঞ্চ জয়

prasada-seva karite haya,
sakala prapancha jaya

By honouring the Lord's prasadam I conquer over all worldly illusions.

'Suddha-bhakata' by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur

That is the thing. It is written simply by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur.

If you take prasadam, everything will be controlled. I saw that. When I first joined, I sometimes took the little money that somebody gave me, went to buy something, and ate it here, because I felt so much disturbed, too much, and also I did not taste very good prasadam. At that time I thought, "Oh, I want to eat this, this, this." And I ate something, some samosa or something like this, but now I cannot tolerate outside things. I cannot eat without temple prasadam.

Another way is prasad seva. You offer something, and when that prasadam comes, you have to pay obeisance to the prasadam, and then take that.

প্রসাদ-সেবা করিতে হয়
সকল প্রপঞ্চ জয়

prasada-seva karite haya,
sakala prapancha jaya

By honouring the Lord's prasadam I conquer over all worldly illusions.

'Suddha-bhakata' by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur

It is easy.

And atyahara, prajalpa, etc. Why is it written? Atyahara (অত্যাহার) means too much eating, but when you take prasadam, there is no question of that. Atyahara, prajalpa, etc. is written for the outside people. When you take prasadam, all your greed and all kinds of bad things will be reduced. It will be reduced for sure. Prasad will be bhakti.

Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya used to never take prasadam—did you know that? Once Mahaprabhu came to Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya's house with some prasadam. Mahaprabhu went to the mangal arati, did everything, then He got some prasadam and came to Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya, who was still sleeping in bed. Mahaprabhu said,

"O Sarvabhauma, O Bhattacharya! Where is Panditji? Where are you? I came to you with some prasadam!"

"O Prabhu, I am sleeping now... I have not brushed my teeth yet..."

"Not necessary! To take prasadam it is not necessary to brush your teeth!"

Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya sat on his bed, Mahaprabhu gave him prasadam, and he ate it... To take prasadam it is not necessary to brush your teeth. Nothing is necessary, you take prasadam and eat it. Mahaprabhu said, "Today he got some devotion through prasadam! Prasade bhakti haya."

Otherwise Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya did not like prasadam. He took something in his house, but he did not take prasadam from the Jagannath temple, but from that day he started to. He was Jagannath's main servitor; he arranged everything, but he did not take prasadam from the Jagannath temple, but when Mahaprabhu gave it to him, he took it and said, "Yes! Very nice, very nice! I have never tasted anything like that!" That day Mahaprabhu said (it is written in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita), "Oh, aji haite Sarvabhaumer prasade bhakti haya! Today he has got some attachment to prasadam."

If you think prasad is rice and dahl, that is not proper honour to prasadam. You must give proper honour to prasadam. When prasad comes, you must take some prasadam in your hand and touch it to your forehead, like this—offer it to your Guru. Even when you are not making an offering, if you take it in your hand and remember your Guru, that will be prasadam. You see when Gurudev would take prasadam, he would always first touch his forehead like this (which means he gave honour to his Guru). He always did that, I saw it. Later when he was sick, some disbalance came...

Do you understand what I am saying?

As for prajalpa, I told it: if you use your energy for talking nonsense, then you will lose the energy to chant the Holy Name. It is not necessary talk so much, mithya bhasi (telling lies). Always talk little; talking is not necessary. Without talking about Krishna consciousness, that is gramya-katha. It is written in Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Amrita Bhasya that when a husband and a wife talk in their dampatya jivan (দাম্পত্য জীবন, married life), they talk about the family life, family matters, talk with their family, discuss how to continue their life. This is called gramya-katha. Mahaprabhu said to Das Goswami, "গ্রাম্যকথা না শুনিবে, গ্রাম্যবার্ত্তা না কহিবে, gramya-katha na sunibe, gramya-varta na kahibe. Do not talk like people in general or hear what they say." Why are we not getting energy? Because we waste our energy on other things, that is why we cannot get a chance, we cannot get energy to chant the Holy Name.

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