Daily Practice

— { Bhog, cooking, offering } —

"Householder life is also not bad. You can maintain your spiritual life as a householder, but practise properly. You see what we do here—mangal arati, parikrama, and so on—and you can do that at your home too. Wake up, have morning arati, cook something and give an offering to Gurudev with Tulasi leaves. Always avoid outside food—cook yourself or your wife can cook. Make an altar in your house, or have a shelf with a photo of the Deities, the Guru-parampara, and offer the food you cook to them. You can take the same food for lunch too. Is it very hard to maintain this? I do not think so... You have to eat something, so cook and offer it for ten minutes to Gurudev and the Deities, in this way all your senses will be controlled, the chhaya dos (the six faults: excessive eating, materialistic endeavours, useless talks, inability to follow instructions, bad association, fickle-mindedness) will be removed, and you will get energy.

"Gurudev said that wherever you stay you can maintain your spiritual life. It is viddhi-bhakti. We are practitioners; we are not big devotees or great Vaishnavs..."

"There are rules in the service of the Lord. What rules are they? I heard from Gurudev, one time Srila Sridhar Maharaj saw they were not doing bhoga offering at the temple on time. He got very angry and, taking a stick, went to the temple. He asked the pujari who was doing archan at that time, 'Why is offering bhoga late?!' The pujari explained that the lady who washed the dishes had not come, so he got late and was doing archan at that time. Srila Sridhar Maharaj threw him aside and said, "No!" Then, he took some flowers, placed them at the feet of the Lordships and said, "That is it, your archan finished." It is not necessary to show elaborate archan, what is necessary is keeping proper time. You cannot offer bhoga when you are hungry. This is not right. The Deities' bhoga, everything must be timely."

"Do not take anything without offering it first—not even a glass of water. If you take a glass of water, you must remember your Guru, remember the Lord, then only can you drink it. Continue your spiritual life practising properly in this way and you will see how much it will improve."

"What do householder devotees do? Householder devotees can practise everything individually at their homes and come to the programme at the centre every Sunday. You eat every day, you go to the toilet every day, and you must practise every day too! You must give an offering to the Lord, the Deities, to your Guru every day. Do not eat anything without offering it—that is not prasad! We must offer bhog to our Guru every day, and take prasad every day.

"It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita that you if you take some food without offering it to the Lord, it means you steal it and eat it, then you will enjoy sin. If you eat, if you work or do some karma for your own self, it means you enjoy sin."

"Gurudev said also that if you are a householder devotee, you can make your house a temple. What do we do in the temple? We wake up early in the morning, do mangal arati—you too can have an altar, do mangal arati, do kirtan, and go to your work (a devotee's work means working for Guru, for the Lord), and you must take prasadam.

"I saw that in many countries this is very difficult—the husband and the wife work the whole day, and the whole day their Deity fasts. They do not cook during the week and only cook on Sundays. I saw many family houses like this in the West, and in India also there are many houses where they do not cook—they go to restaurants and eat out.

"Even if you do not have time to cook—you work the whole day—you must bring the restaurant food for the Deity, offer it with Tulasi leaves, and take prasadam. That is practising life—but if you go and enjoy in a restaurant and when you come home your Deity or Gurudev fasts the whole day, that is not practising."

"You must avoid eating what you have not offered, what is not prasadam. Always avoid the outside food. I heard it from Gurudev.

"One time, soon after I joined the temple, I asked Gurudev why we must avoid the outside food—like, if you go to some restaurant, there is some vegetarian food, why must we avoid it? And I heard the answer from Gurudev. We avoid the outside food (the food that has not been offered to the Lord) because the person who cooks that food has some material desire and that desire will slowly, slowly come to you, and it will eventually remove devotional activities from your life. You must understand that it is harmful for your practising life. It is very bad."

"Sometimes you go to the market and think, 'Oh, this is very nice food. I want to eat it.' If you see something you want, then buy it, bring it home, give it to the Deity, and take prasad."

"We always go outside and see so many kinds of food there, and our tongue always wants something, always asks for some food, but we should take, we should honour maha-prasadam every day. We must give whatever we cook for ourselves to Krishna. In Srimad Bhagavad-gita, Krishna said, 'If you are eating something, or if you are taking something for yourself, without giving it to Me, it means you are stealing My things.' For example, you can see that some outside people eat fish, meat, and we also clean and cut vegetables, kill some plants, but the difference is that we offer it to the Lord—we do not do it for ourselves, and the outside people do it for themselves.

"You must always take prasadam—it is a part of practice. Householder devotees, brahmachari, even sannyasis—everyone must always take prasadam."

"We cannot take things at all places. Sometimes I take only the Tulasi leaves. If you take something from the hands of someone who is not a devotee—karmi, jnani, yogi—that reaction will come to you. This is why we do not take things from outside without discrimination. If you stay alone, you can cook in your room, offer it to the Lord, to your Guru, and take that prasadam—you will be happy, and your devotion will be all right."

"Food that is just vegetarian is also not for Krishna consciousness. You must take prasad. Monkeys also eat vegetarian food, cows also eat grass, calves drink milk, etc. They are vegetarian, but do they get Krishna consciousness? No."

"The main thing is that living is necessary for the service to Krishna and Guru Vaishnav. When something comes to us, we must try to avoid bad things, but if we cannot, what shall we do? To live for Guru, Vaishnav, and Bhagavan, for my service life, I must take it. In the scriptures, some rules and regulation are mentioned, it is said that first of all we must be vegetarian. But actually we do not take vegetables or anything else. We are not vegetarian, we are not meat-eaters—we only take the prasadam that comes from the Lord. But the Lord takes vegetables, that is why I offer vegetables. First I offer it to the Lord and then I take it, so what I am taking is not vegetables, it is not non-vegetables, I take only prasadam. Also, we cannot offer anything directly to Krishna, that is why we first offer everything to Gurudev, and he offers it to Krishna—in this way it comes back to me as prasadam."

"You offer something, and when that prasadam comes, you have to pay obeisance to the prasadam, and then take that. If you think prasad is rice and dal, 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."

"If you follow me, you will be a great devotee, the only problem is that you must control your root. Do not follow your tongue, and always take prasad. You can take prasad even five times a day, no problem, but do not take anything except Krishna prasad. Do not eat outside food—soft drinks, snacks, fast food, and so on. If you do not control your tongue, the rest will not be under control too:

jihvara lalase yei iti-uti dhaya
sisnodara-parayana se krsna nahi paya

"One who is subservient to the tongue and who thus goes here and there, devoted to the genitals and the belly, cannot attain Krishna."

প্রসাদ-সেবা করিতে হয়
সকল প্রপঞ্চ জয়

prasada-seva korite hoya,
sakala prapancha jaya

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

"If you do not control your tongue, your mind will be disturbed. Prasad seva: always take prasad, do not take what your tongue and your mind want. It is possible if you try to do it."

"If you cook for Krishna, if you take Krishna's prasad, then all kinds of material elements will go away from your heart. In this way you can transform your material life into spiritual life. Whether you work, serve, go somewhere, or stay in a temple, you must think you have service for your Guru, Vaishnavs, Bhagavan."

"Sometimes you are given some opulent prasadam like big gulab-jamuns, rasagullas, paneer, and you think, 'Oh, I will not eat so much. I am a renounced person, I will not take that.' But that is not right, it is prasad and you must take it. Krishna will be happy. You should enjoy prasadam, it is not necessary to show that you are renounced. Sometimes you are outside and get no prasadam—this is the time when you can practise renunciation and tolerate."

"Suppose there is an elephant and an ant. The ant says, 'Oh, the elephant eats so much!' and some may think that because the ant eats little it is a sadhu, but the elephant carries Lord Krishna on its back, so while the elephant does some service, the ant only bites. Eat as much as you can digest—'prasad akantha kariya bhojan, sara din koro sankirtan, eat up to your neck and chant the Holy Name the whole day.' No problem."

Question: If a person lives far away from the temple and the devotees and does not have proper facility to, for example, to cook or offer proper bhog to Krishna, what service can they do then?

"What do they eat then? Do they fast the whole day? Whatever you have, you must give it to the Lord. If you only drink water, then you can give water to the Lord, He will happily accept it. "Bhakter jinish Prabhu lutiputi khay": Krishna does not want some big prasadam from you—whatever you can give to Him, even if it is some banana skin, He also accepts it. It is necessary to give your heart."

"There is a girl who eats only rotis, she does not eat anything else, not even kitchuri—only arepa. When you go to different countries, where will you get arepa there? In Vaikuntha there is no arepa, in Goloka Vrindavan there is no arepa... You must have habit to take all kinds of prasadam.

"It is good if you offer to the Lord whatever you cook. If you have some devotion, Krishna will accept it. Krishna took food even from the mouth of a sabar (a man of a low caste)—when the sabar was eating some plantain root, Krishna took it from his mouth.

"When you cook something, when you want to use something for the service, you must offer it to the Deities. If you do it, it will be good. If sometimes you cannot do it, for example, when you are outside, still you can remember Guru, Vaishnavs, Bhagavan at that time. It is a necessary process. Some people cannot understand it and they take food before (or without) offering it to the Deity, that is not good. When you offer the bhog and take prasadam, it is good for you—it will bring benefit for you. Offer the bhog and take prasadam. Through service illusory environment will be removed from you, so it is necessary to engage in service, and taking prasadam is also service. These are the main things."

"It says here what happens if you do not get rid of all those material desires. For example, you are hungry today and think, 'Oh, I am so hungry but the prasadam is not so good today. I will eat out today—I have some money, I can go to a hotel and get something there.' Another day you think, 'I want a little more...' another day again, 'A little more,' and you end up thinking, 'What is the big deal? Nobody sees me, I can have some eggs in the hotel!' (But He who has to see it, will see it!)"

visayira anna khaile malina haya mana
malina mana haile, nahe krsna-nama grahana

"If you take food that comes from materialistic people, your mind becomes contaminated. When your mind is contaminated, you cannot chant the Name of Krishna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 6.278)

"If you think about the Lord, then everything will go to the Lord. This is called Krishne-karmarpan. If you drink some water and remember Krishna, it will be taking prasadam; if you drink a glass of water and remember Gurudev, you will be taking his prasadam. In this way you can use yourself as a servitor."

"The Lord says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, 'When a devotee serves Me and offers Me some water and a Tulasi leaf, I free them from all their debts.' Do you need money, a house, or a car to serve the Lord? Even if you have nothing, you can offer Ganges water and Tulasi to the Lord..."

"Jive daya: You can give benefit to the jiva souls by using everything for the service to the Lord: you offer a flower, you cook some rice, make chapatis or cut vegetables—it all comes from a tree or a plant, and when you offer everything to the Lord, everybody gets benefit through you. That is called devotion and this is the householder life—to do so that everybody gets benefit from you."

"A householder devotee cooks and maintains a family, and a householder nondevotee also cooks and maintains a family; but the householder devotee is intelligent because he cooks for the Deity and devotees and maintains Krishna's samsar (family). You must be clever and do everything as service to the Lord. That is called intelligence. Those who are foolish, think that they want to be enjoyers, but they do not know that Krishna is the enjoyer."

"Those who eat regularly, who work regularly, who sleep regularly, can practise properly. Regular sleeping, regular prasadam is also a part of service. If you cannot do it, you will not be able to practise. Do you understand it?"

tvayopabhukta-srag-gandha, vaso 'lankara-charchchitah
uchchhista bhojino dasas, tava mayam jayema hi

"Adorned with the articles that have been offered to You, such as garlands, fragrant clothing, and ornaments, we, Your personal servitors who partake of Your holy remnants alone, will certainly be able to conquer Your illusory energy (maya)."

(Sri Sri Prapanna-jivanamritam, 3.7)

"We offer what Krishna takes and what the scriptures say, that is sattvik food, then we take it—we do not take sattvik, rajasik, or tamasik food, we always try to take maha-prasadam, and when you offer something, it must be maha-prasadam."

"Do not use ginger in subjis. It is not good for health, and not good for the devotional life also. OK? If you can use only cumin, cumin powder, some tumeric, that is good for health and also your mind, your brain, your heart, everything will become cool. When you take ginger, ego comes and angry mood comes. Do not use it. If you eat a lot of ginger, more ego will come to you. If we take the prasad that Nityananda Prabhu and Mahaprabhu like, that is good for us. Also, we can cook what we like and offer it to Nityananda Prabhu, that is also good for us. Do not cook your own things and eat it yourself, this is bad for your spiritual life.

"Do not take honey, ghee, if you take them, then kamana-basana (lust desire) will always be increasing, and red dal gives anger like cow's meat (cow's meat and masoori dal are the same). I am telling it to all the devotees: always take prasadam—offer bhog to the Deity and take prasadam..."

Question: Could you please explain the importance of following the four regulative principles?

I always tell about the four regulative principle at the time of initiation. The four regulative principles are dyuta, pana, striya, suna. These are primary, basic, things. Dyuta means gambling. Pana means drinking—do not drink alcohol, do not take marijuana. Striya means illegal sex. Suna means killing animals—do not kill any animals, do not take meat, fish, or any other non-vegetarian food; you must offer vegetarian food to the Deities and always take prasad.

প্রসাদ-সেবা করিতে হয়
সকল প্রপঞ্চ জয়

prasada-seva karite haya,
sakala prapancha-jaya

"By honouring the Lord's prasad I conquer all worldly illusions."

(Saranagati, 31.5, by Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur)

Everybody must following these four regulative principles. After that, even if we follow these four regulative principles, we still have five diseases—avidya (ignorance), asmita (false identification), raga (misdirected love), dvesa (aversion to anything that goes against one's enjoyment), and abhinivesa (being unable to give up unfavourable habits)...

We all follow the regulative principles, we take prasadam every day, we do not do any illegal sex, we do not gamble, we do not drink alcohol, we do not even drink tea—but why are we still unable to proceed in our practising life, in our spiritual life? Because even if we follow these things, so many things still come up in our life—there are the five diseases (avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa, abhinivesa), there is attachment to enjoyment (rupa, rasa, gandha, sabda, sparsa—desire to enjoy with beauty, taste, smell, sound, touch), and there is also kanak, kamini, pratistha (desire for money, companions, prestige). We think we do everything, we follow everything, but the truth is that we are only instruments. We are not doers, we cannot do anything—we are only instruments. Only Krishna and Guru do everything.

So, following only these four regulative principles (dyuta, pana, striya, suna) is a simple matter. Even non-devotees should follow them because these things—killing animals, eating fish, meat, etc.—are not good for one's health, they are not good for one's life. However, only taking vegetarian food is not enough. Sometimes, we buy some food at the market, we buy something from a restaurant, but Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said,

বিষয়ীর অন্ন খাইলে মলিন হয় মন ।
মলিন মন হৈলে, নহে কৃষ্ণ-নাম গ্রহণ ॥

visayira anna khaile malina haya mana
malina mana haile, nahe krsna-nama grahana

"If you take food that comes from materialistic people, your mind becomes contaminated. When your mind is contaminated, you cannot chant the Name of Krishna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 6.278)

We sometimes buy food in a restaurant and eat it, but we do not know who cooks it. Srila Gurudev also says that if you take food from the the hands of a non-devotee, the material desires that the person who cooks has will come to you. That is what is called,

বিষয়ীর অন্ন খাইলে মলিন হয় মন ।
মলিন মন হৈলে, নহে কৃষ্ণ-নাম গ্রহণ ॥

visayira anna khaile malina haya mana
malina mana haile, nahe krsna-nama grahana

"If you take food that comes from materialistic people, your mind becomes contaminated. When your mind is contaminated, you cannot chant the Name of Krishna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 6.278)

You may take outside food for one or two days if you cannot cook for some reason (for example, you have been working the whole day and did not have time to cook), but if you do it every day—if you work the whole day, go to a restaurant, eat there or get takeaway food, come home, if you do not cook, if you do not offer bhog—that is not right. I know some of our people live like this, I have seen this in many foreign countries—they take vegetarian good, but they eat outside food, they do not cook themselves. If you are doing some service and have no time to cook for some reason, it is OK for one day, but if you do this every day, it is not good for spiritual practice. You must understand this.

বিষয়ীর অন্ন খাইলে মলিন হয় মন ।
মলিন মন হৈলে, নহে কৃষ্ণ-নাম গ্রহণ ॥

visayira anna khaile malina haya mana
malina mana haile, nahe krsna-nama grahana

"If you take food that comes from materialistic people, your mind becomes contaminated. When your mind is contaminated, you cannot chant the Name of Krishna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 6.278)

You cannot set time for chanting, you do not get time for your daily practice—this is not good, try to understand it. You should practise daily, regularly, you should chant on your beads, you should chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra without the beads, you must cook, offer bhog. You must do all this. Try to follow all rules and regulations in this way. Try to understand this and try to follow all the rules and regulations.

I have seen a photograph of Srila A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Maharaj Srila Prabhupad—when he went to America, he would cook himself. He would cook himself, offer it to the Deities, to his Guru, and take prasadam. I also did that—when I had some problems and had to stay in Park Street, I cooked myself too. When Nakul Prabhu stayed with me for a short time, he would cook, otherwise, when I stayed with Ananda Moy Prabhu, I would cook and Ananda Moy Prabhu would cut the vegetables. I cooked various items, offered everything to Gurudev, and we would take prasadam. We also do this.

You must understand that when you come to practising life, you will get some austerity. I know you work the whole day, I know you come home very tired and only want to go to bed, you have no mood to cook, but still you must try to follow what I am saying. Otherwise, you will get into the habit of going to the restaurant every day. You eat food from a restaurant, but they cook meat and vegetables side by side, you do not know what they mix with what—you buy it, take it home and eat that kind of food. That is,

বিষয়ীর অন্ন খাইলে মলিন হয় মন ।
মলিন মন হৈলে, নহে কৃষ্ণ-নাম গ্রহণ ॥

visayira anna khaile malina haya mana
malina mana haile, nahe krsna-nama grahana

"If you take food that comes from materialistic people, your mind becomes contaminated. When your mind is contaminated, you cannot chant the Name of Krishna."

(Sri Chaitanya-charitamrita, Antya-lila, 6.278)

These materialists, people who have material attachments, cook, and when you eat their food, it makes your heart dirty...

You must always practise properly, that is good for you. Try to practise properly. Try to change yourself. This is how you can proceed in your spiritual life. I know it is sometimes very difficult—I know you work the whole day, you come home tired, and sometimes both husband and wife work, they do not have time to cook. I know it is very difficult, but I am telling you—you must still try to follow what I am saying, you must still try to cook, try to serve. That is good for you—you will get more energy for service, you will get more happiness in your heart.

Question: Many devotees do not eat in a restaurant, but they have a maidservant in their house and they take the food prepared by the maidservant every day. Is that the same thing? I know some have been eating such maidservant's food for ten, twenty years now...

In such cases, the maidservant must take initiation. If you have been taking food from the same maidservant for twenty years, can you not preach to her and tell her that she must become a devotee?? You can preach to somebody for fifteen-twenty minutes only and wash their brain, it is easy.

A few days ago, one devotee (not really a devotee, but a new boy) phoned me, and I washed his brain on the phone. After that, I went to Nabadwip (Nrisingha Palli), and on the way I saw him standing on the road—he said he wanted to go with me. I took him to Nrisingha Palli, and now he is a devotee, he is doing much service and doing it very nicely.

Another thing is why is it necessary to keep a maidservant? If you have to have a maidservant to cook, then she has to take initiation, otherwise, if she is not a devotee, it is a problem. In Srivas Pandit's house also there was a maidservant Duhkhi, and she became a disciple of Mahaprabhu, she became a great servitor. I have seen also many families where maidservants became devotees. Why will they not take initiation? They can easily take initiation. What does initiation mean? They already cook and take vegetarian food, so they will just wear kanthi-mala, tilaks and chant the Holy Name. What is so difficult about that? You can tell the maidservant, "I will pay you more salary if you take initiation," or you can say, "If you want to cook here, if you want to work here, you must take initiation." I have seen one devotee from Hungary who has a printing house—he said to them straight that if anyone wanted to work there, they had to take initiation from Gurudev.

Another thing is this. We also sometimes keep some workers at the temple, for example, we keep a gatekeeper or a man for cow seva who are not initiated, but they do not come to the temple to cook—they only do outside work. So, you can keep a maidservant for outside works—she can do the shopping, do the cleaning, etc. But the kitchen service is very special. The kitchen is the Lord's place—the Deities' room and the Deities' kitchen are the highest places in the house or in the temple, so why will anyone without initiation enter it? How can they enter it?

I have seen in some foreign devotee's house that they keep a girl from Indonesia to do the cooking—who knows, she could be Muslim, but what can I do? We tolerate it and take food there also. When we go abroad, we tolerate everything, Gurudev also tolerated everything—but we do it for service and for preaching. When Srila Sridhar Maharaj went to Kashmir, they could not find any pure vegetarian food, so in the end they took some food from a hotel—they got some dal that had onion and garlic in it, but they took it, they tolerated it.

So, you can take outside food for service, but not every day. Why will you tolerate it every day? Try to understand what I am saying.

In Gurudev's time also, during festival time, we saw they hired some Oriyan brahmans (some brahmans would come from Odisha and cook). I heard also that the pandas who cook Jagannath prasad also eat meat, fish, etc. in their houses. I did not see them do it, I only heard it, so we do not know if that is true or not.

Srila Janardan Maharaj: Maharaj, when you used to cook together with Ananda Moy Prabhu, what would you cook?

Many things—rice, dal, subji, etc. I know how to cook.

"One day, some devotees had to go to the court at ten o'clock and they were coming back later in the afternoon. Srila Sridhar Maharaj ordered the cook, 'Cook before ten o'clock—keep some bhoga for the offering to the Deities and then feed the devotees.' So, there is some exception for those devotees who are going out for some service. If you stay at the temple and you are not going anywhere, it is not good to take prasadam before the offering. If somebody is going out, then cook something earlier, take out some of the cooked bhoga for the Deities to offer it later at the proper time, and feed those who are going out for service, for collection, etc. properly. This is how you must serve devotees. This is the rule of Srila Sridhar Maharaj's temple."

Srila B.S. Govinda Dev-Goswami Maharaj, "First, clean your hand, then, if Tulasi is available, it is very nice, if not available, then think about Tulasi Devi and offer the preparation with Tulasi to your Guru, 'My Lord, this is an offering for you and your Lord, Krishna. I have brought this offering and I am giving it to you, you please give it to your Lord and take it yourself.'"

This is, after all, the suicidal plane, the discordant plane where one cannot live without devouring his environment. That is the law of this land. If you want to live here then you must devour your environment otherwise you can't survive. So it is the suicidal plane. One is eating another and only then he can live, that too is only for the time being. So is this a proper land to live in?

Prasada—that is the highest solution! The principle necessities of any life here in this world are to preserve and to propagate. Our first priority is to preserve, and for self-preservation we create havoc in the environment by exploitation. The first principle of exploitation begins from the urge for self-preservation, and that means eating. We are to adjust our dealings with the environment in our most primitive necessity which we can't avoid in order to keep body and soul together. So if we can solve this one difficulty, we can almost solve the whole problem.

Prasada-seva korite hoya, sakala prapanca jaya—Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakur says that the key to the solution of the whole problem of this mundane life is in Prasada. The first necessity of life is eating, and if we can solve that problem, we have solved the whole thing. Prasada-seva korite hoya, sakala prapanca jaya—the most important thing is to learn how we should take Prasadam to maintain ourselves. Our life depends mainly on that.

To live here we cannot but consume, and we cannot but create devastation in the environment by our eating. If we go to consume anything, even plants, grasses or seeds, then microscopic creatures are being killed. So the question is how to get rid of this reaction? It is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita (3.9): yajnarthat karmano 'nyatra, loko 'yam karmma-bandhanah—we shall get relief from that reaction only if we can successfully connect everything with the Supreme Satisfaction, with Him whose pleasure all existence is meant to fulfil. So, in the taking of food, really we are to be conscious that we are collecting the ingredients for His satisfaction, and then cooking and offering to Him for His satisfaction—that should be our real purpose. And then because our whole life and energy is for serving Him, we need energy and must take something out of that. But the main point, the real substance of the transaction will be to collect, cook, and offer to Him according to His will expressed in the Scriptures. That is the first step, and only after the foodstuffs have been offered to Him shall we take anything ourselves. This will help to make us always conscious of why we are taking. We are taking because we want only to serve Him. Furthermore, whatever has been accepted by the Lord, the 'poison' the bad reaction, will have been absorbed and digested by Him just as in the case of Mahadeva who drank the poison generated from the Ocean of Milk.

Krsna is absolute and can digest anything. Not only that, but those things which have been consumed in His connection also receive promotion, so actually there is no himsa, violence. What appears to be himsa is not really so, because those whom are apparently violently treated actually receive a high promotion through connection with the Supreme. In addition whoever has been instrumental in fulfilling that connection will also receive some reward. So the devotee must think, "What shall I take? I won't take anything from the world, I shall take only from my Master, as His grace. It is His grace. His free grace to me—Prasada."

The word Prasada means 'kindness,' 'grace.' The devotee will feel, "Whatever service I do, I am not expecting anything to be paid to me in return. It is a free transaction. And whatever I receive is only His grace. So I shall take Prasada, then I shall be free from all entanglement of action and reaction even though I am in the midst of it. Because it is a fact that with every action I must disturb the environment, then if all my actions are meant for Him, the Supreme Lord, there will be no bad reaction coming to me, but rather the opposite reaction will occur and help not only me but those that were offered also. Through me, through myself as a centre, such waves will emanate that will help others to progress in their path of purification."

So, through the godliness in his heart, everyone must be a purifying agent. God is on the throne of the heart, and from there He will emanate such a fine ray which will purify not only that person's heart, but also the environment.

mahaprasade govinde nama-brahmani vaisnave
svalpa-punya-vatam rajan visvaso naiva yayate

"O king, one whose fortune is meagre never develops faith in mahaprasad, Govinda, the Holy Name, or the Vaisnavas."

bhai re!
sarira avidya-jala jadendriya tahe kala
jive phele visaya-sagare
ta'ra madhye jihva ati lobhamaya sudurmati
ta'ke jeta kathina samsare

"The body is a net of illusion, and the material senses are the enemies; they throw the soul into the ocean of mundanity. Among the senses, the tongue is the most greedy and wicked. It is very difficult to conquer the tongue in this world."

krsna bada dayamaya karibare jihva jaya
sva-prasad-anna dila bhai
sei annamrta pao radha-krsna-guna gao
preme daka chaitanya-nitai

"O brothers! Krsna is very merciful: to conquer the tongue He has given us His remnants! Accept this nectarean food, sing the glories of Radha-Krsna, and with love call out, 'Chaitanya! Nitai!'"

(preme bhare daka re)
(dayal nitai chaitanya bale preme bhare daka re)
(nitai gaura haribol!)

"Call with love! Call with love: ‘Dayal Nitai Chaitanya! Nitai! Gaura! Hari!'"

Introduction
• Setting up the altar
• Arati
• Daily kirtans
• Bhog, cooking, offering
• Cooking Viddhi
• Observing Ekadasi
• Observing Festivals
• Tulasi Devi
• Four regulative principles
• Scriptural regulations