This material world is designed in such a way the conditioned souls cannot enjoy the senses the way they want.
VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING KRISHNA PRASADAM.ALL MUST READ THIS AND TRY TO FOLLOW THIS.
COOKING BHOGA
We have to understand that Krishna is the only enjoyer. The consciousness of this is developed in a Krishna Conscious temple, where the central point of all activities is Krishna. All cooking is carried out for Krishna, not for one's own purposes. Ultimately we shall eat the prasadam, but when we cook we should think that we are cooking for Krishna and not for ourselves. When you cook, if you think, "Oh, this nice thing is being cooked. I shall eat it very nicely," then it is not Krishna. But while cooking, if you think, "Let me do it very nicely so that Krishna will taste it," it is Krishna consciousness.
- [Lecture: SB 1.5.13, New Vrindaban, 13/06/69]
Ingredients:
The purpose of food is to increase the duration of life, purify the mind and aid bodily strength. This is its only purpose. In the past, great authorities selected those foods that best aid health and increase life's duration, such as milk products, sugar, rice, wheat, fruits and vegetables. These foods are very dear to those in the mode of goodness. Some other foods, such as baked corn and molasses, while not very palatable in themselves, can be made pleasant when mixed with milk or other foods. They are then in the mode of goodness. All these foods are pure by nature. They are quite distinct from untouchable things like meat and liquor.
- [BG 17.8 – 10 Purport]
Krishna is offered foodstuff in goodness. The foodstuffs in the modes of goodness are wheat, rice, pulse (beans, peas), sugar, honey, butter and all milk preparations, vegetables, flowers, fruits, grains. So these foods can be offered in any shape, but prepared in various ways by the intelligence of the devotees. The ingredients are always the same as above, whether you fry them, boil them, bake them, powder them, or whatever way they are combined or cooked, the idea is that they must come from this group of foodstuffs. So you can make your own recipe if you like, so long as the ingredients are within this group. This foods group is stated by Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita, and we follow accordingly.
- [Letter to: Kris, Los Angeles, 13/11/68]
Forbidden Foods:
Ice cream purchased from the market may not be offered. Because such ice cream may contains undesirable things, which we should not offer. We must offer Krishna only first class prepared foodstuff, especially made at home. We shall try to avoid as far as possible goods purchased from the market and offer to Krishna.
- [Letter to: Syama Dasi, Seattle, 21/10/68]
Cocoa and chocolate are not to be taken as they are intoxicants.
- [Letter to: Surasrestha, Los Angeles, 14/06/72]
Because mushrooms grow in a filthy place, they are not usually offered to Krishna.
- [Letter to: Himavati, Delhi, 17/11/71]
Mushrooms are generally not offered, but there is no prohibition, there is no harm in them.
- [Letter to: Harer Nama, LA, 12/01/68]
It is not very good to use yeast in preparing prasadam. It is better to prepare bread in the process as you have seen done in the temple.
- [Letter to: Vibhavati, LA, 15/07/69]
-
Brown rice generally is doubly boiled; therefore it cannot be used for Krishna prasadam. Unpolished rice, which looks like brown can be used. Generally in America the brown rice is doubly boiled therefore unfit. We do not mind polished or unpolished but doubly boiled mustn't be used. Doubly boiled rice is considered impure. Sun baked rice is all right.
- [Letter to: Mahapurusa, Calcutta, 17/10/67]
Use brown or unrefined sugar if you can find it.
- [Letter to: Pradyumna, Calcutta, 17/10/67]
-
Yogurt can be prepared in the temple, it is not very difficult. Boil the milk at night, put a little yogurt in it, and next morning you will find it full of yogurt.
- [Letter to: Harer Nama, LA, 11/02/70]
-
As far as possible we should not offer to the Deity things which are prepared by non-devotees. We can accept from them raw fruits, grains or similar raw things. So far cooking and preparing, that should be strictly limited to the initiated devotees. And aside from this, vinegar is not good; it is tamasic, in the darkness, nasty food. So I think we shall not accept this pickles.
- [Letter to: Kirtanananda, Hawaii, 24/03/69]
Purchasing Bhoga:
Just like we are buying so many things at the market, which are not fit for offering to Krishna, but because we are purchasing them, we can offer.
- [Letter to: Jadurani, LA, 15/02/68]
Regarding purchasing things in the market, these items are considered as purified when we pay the price for them. That is the general instruction. [Drabyamulyena Suddhati] But when we know something is adulterated, we should avoid it. But unknowingly if something is purchased, that is not our fault. Things, which are suspicious, however, should be avoided.
- [Letter to: Krishna Dasa, Boston, 25 /12/69]
Kitchen Rules:
The kitchen department should be very clean and things should not be wasted. This is the first consideration.
- [Letter to Akshayananda, Nellore, 01/06/76]
One cannot eat food from the kitchen unless it is offered to the Deity. If something is taken before being offered to the Deity, the entire preparation is polluted and can no longer be offered. Those engaged in Deity worship must know this very well so that they may be saved from committing offenses in Deity worship.
- [SB 9.6.8 Purport]
1) One should never eat within the kitchen; there is ample place to eat so why should one eat in the kitchen?
2) Kitchen should be considered as good as the Lord's room; and nobody should wear shoes in the kitchen;
3) smelling and tasting of foods being prepared for the Lord should never be done;
4) talking within the kitchen should be only what is necessary for preparing the prasadam, or about the Lord; and
5) dirty dishes (those taken from kitchen and eaten from) should not be brought back into the kitchen (but if there is no other place to wash them, then they should be put into sink and washed immediately); hands should always be washed when preparing prasadam, and in this way, everything shall be prepared very cleanly and pure.
- [Letter to: Aniruddha, Montreal, 16/06/68]
In the kitchen also, things should be kept spotless and cooking should only be done by brahmanas; others may assist.
- [Letter to: Lakshmi Narayana, LA, 07/08/71]
Any initiated girl can take part in preparation of prasadam, and even a boy who is not initiated cannot take part.
- [Letter to: Balai, Los Angeles, 25/01/68]
The dishwashing occupation is open to anyone who wishes to help. There is no restriction. Also, non-initiates may help in cooking prasadam under the direction of devotees. That is all right.
- [Letter to: Jadurani, San Francisco, 16/03/68]
Cleanliness:
The kitchen should be very neat and clean, washed twice daily, and smeared with water and gobar.
- [Room Conversation, Melbourne, 22/04/76]
Everything should be prepared very carefully and cleanly within the groups of foods listed. And nothing should ever be eaten before offering to the Lord. Best thing is to prepare separately each preparation.
- [Letter to: Aniruddha, Montreal, 16/06/68]
If, in the cooking process, food falls on the floor, if it is raw and can be washed nicely, then it can be offered. But if it is prepared and cannot be washed, then it is not to be offered, but can be eaten rather than be wasted.
- [Letter to: Jadurani, LA, 15/02/68]
Food, which has been offered, should never be put back into the refrigerator with the unoffered foods, or brought back into the kitchen.
You should prepare, as much as can be consumed, and after offering, nothing should be put back in the refrigerator, or kitchen.
Refrigerator should always be very cleansed and pure. Everyone should be careful to make only as much as they can eat; they cannot keep any leftovers in refrigerator.
I know this is a practice in your country, but in the temples or at homes of any Krishna Consciousness persons, a person should not indulge in such unclean habits. If there is any food extra, that should be kept separately; and if there is a separate refrigerator, not within the kitchen and not having in it any unoffered foods, then you may have such special refrigerator for leftover prasadam. But it cannot be kept within the same refrigerator as the unoffered, unprepared foods. That cannot be.
- [Letter to: Aniruddha, Montreal, 16/06/68]
Jai Srila Prabhupada !
SB 5.18.9: May there be good fortune throughout the universe, and may all envious persons be pacified. May all living entities become calm by practicing bhakti-yoga, for by accepting devotional service they will think of each other's welfare. Therefore let us all engage in the service of the supreme transcendence, Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, and always remain absorbed in thought of Him.
SB 5.18.10: My dear Lord, we pray that we may never feel attraction for the prison of family life, consisting of home, wife, children, friends, bank balance, relatives and so on. If we do have some attachment, let it be for devotees, whose only dear friend is Kṛṣṇa. A person who is actually self-realized and who has controlled his mind is perfectly satisfied with the bare necessities of life. He does not try to gratify his senses. Such a person quickly advances in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, whereas others, who are too attached to material things, find advancement very difficult.
SB 5.18.11: By associating with persons for whom the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Mukunda, is the all in all, one can hear of His powerful activities and soon come to understand them. The activities of Mukunda are so potent that simply by hearing of them one immediately associates with the Lord. For a person who constantly and very eagerly hears narrations of the Lord's powerful activities, the Absolute Truth, the Personality of Godhead in the form of sound vibrations, enters within his heart and cleanses it of all contamination. On the other hand, although bathing in the Ganges diminishes bodily contaminations and infections, this process and the process of visiting holy places can cleanse the heart only after a long time. Therefore who is the sane man who will not associate with devotees to quickly perfect his life?
Root Cause of All Problems:
1. To identify and spot the problems in the world is not very difficult. There are innumerable number of problems that one can list out. But to find the root cause of the problems is what is important.
2. Unless the root cause of all problems is identified, it is not possible to provide permanent solution to the problems of the world. The root cause of all the problems is envy.
3. Envy means when there's someone higher in position than me, I either want to grow above them or push them down from their position and when there's somone lower than me, I have to keep them there always. Material word means I envy upon you and you envy upon me. We are also envious of our own family members, children that we dont allow them to attain God consciousness.
4. Our constitutional position is to be a servant of the Lord. The position of Krishna or the Supreme Lord's position is so high that having seen Him in that position we envied upon Him and wanted to take that position. Right at that moment we got into dualities of Desire(to enjoy separately) and Hatred(of Krishna being in that high position) and fell down from the spiritual world and get caught in the cycle of material miseries of birth , death, disease, oldage.
5. We not only envied the Supreme Lord but our fellow beings, our siblings. We are part and parcel of the Supreme Lord also envy upon our own self and that way we are not allowing ourselves to get back to the natural state of being servant of the Lord.
6. People say I dont envy upon anyone and say that I am only engage in charity, friendship kindness etc. Krishna say 'bhoktaram yajya tapasam..' I am the enjoyer, the controller of all the planetary systems, the well-wisher and friend of all beings. When we say I want to make friends with everyone and I am caring everyone in the world, we are trying to take the position of Krishna which is impossible.
7. The material desires are with us in our mind(heart) life after life after life...Over and over again and again we have been trying to enjoy the matter in various ways. This is our heart disease which cannot be cured by any medicine or even by death. Because the same mind goes to the next life and have to suffer with the disease of envy at heart.
8. Our material desires are compared to demons. And Prahlad Maharaj prays on behalf of the residents of Hari Varsa. He does not have these material desires but he takes the position of representing the residents of the place of Hari-Varsa.
9. The material desires especially the lust is compared to fire. Fire burns everything to ashes. To fulfill the desires of lust is to feed the fire. A cute small 6 inch fire will keep crying and asking feed me, feed me. If a child is hungry it will cry and when we give some food to eat, it will calm down. But this fire when we fuel with two pieces of wood it will consume that and grow bigger and ask for 4 pieces of wood, 8 pieces of wood and finally it will consume the whole house if it is fed.
10. The practitioners of Jnana Yoga thinks that fire is the problem so lets get rid of the fire. Lets get rid of the material desire which has been burning us all these while. So their renunciation is not very easy and again it is sure that the material desires flow in the mind like rivers gushing into the Ocean.
11. The rivers are always having waves and it cannot be stopped by any artificial means. Our minds are also disturbed by the incessant flow of material desires all the time and causing us to get trapped into this world(rebirth, death, disease, oldage) by its further reactions.
12. In conclusion it is not possible to stop the waves of the river by anyone by their endeavor of self alone. So Prahlad Maharaj admits this fact and is praying to Lord Nrsimhadev to enter into his heart and rip of the demons of the material desires with His sharp nails and long teeth. When the tides of the Ocean rise above the waves of the river, the river is overflooded and the tides are high above the waves of the river. The tides of the ocean are compared to the desires to perform devotional service and to stay in Krishna consciousness and the waves of river to the material desires.
13. Home, wife, children, friends, bank balance, relatives which a materialistic person considers as those that protect are fallible soldiers because they cannot protect one's self from death. Only the holy names of the Lord can protect. No one else can protect anyone in this world.
14. Lord Nrsimhadev is asking Prahlada Maharaj to ask for boon that he is ready to offer anything. Prahlad maharaj says that he is not having any business with the Lord for he is completely satisfied in the relationship that he is the servant and the Lord his master always. If at all if the Lord wants to give some benediction he is requesting the Lord to give the benediction that he always wants to get detached from mundane people and always wants to get attached to the devotees of the Lord. Because the devotees are always dear to the Lord and the Lord is dear to His devotees.
15. We have to refrain associating with the mundane people because by associating with them we will get all the bad qualities like accumulating wealth that is more than required, eating more than required, committing sinful activities. When one is not purified in the activities of eating(by eating only the remnants of the offered food), sleeping(when the actions in day are pure, the dreams will also be pure), mating(by only using it for procreation), fearing(not undergoing too much hardships to worry about the future and taking shelter of too many artificial fallible soldiers. The whole material civilization is fearing the future of economy getting crashed because they lack faith in Krishna. Insurance, Stock market all are based on the fear of future)
16. The whole economy is based on the false things of just papers. Actually it should be based on grains and agriculture. Even gold cannot be eaten. Today's world is based on the competitive sense gratification and oppression. People are oppressed by excessive tax and the economy of paper based civilization is false and it might crash anytime.
17. There's no poverty for anything in this world but for Krishna consciousness. The living entities are like child, they are trapped in the fruitive activities and they dont know how to get rid of the cycle of birth and death. They werent able to solve the problems of birth and death and so they dont even talk about that. Why do we fear death? We have been dying billions of times and deep down inside our hearts we all know that we will have to take birth again and so there's so much fear for death. We can see that when children have their vacation , they say they dont know what to do? Mother asks play outside tennis, watch tv, swim, play chess etc. The kids get bored of all this and they say they have already done everything in the past. There's nothing in this world that gives us the satisfaction for the soul in this world. We have tried everything in every nook and corner of this world, but no satisfaction. Only the topics concerning the Lord are the ones which will satisfy the heart of the conditioned souls.
18. So we have to give the conditioned souls an opportunity to free themselves. This is the duty of everyone born in the Bharata Varsha. It is the Order of Lord Caitanya. No one in this material universe knows the solution to the problems. Every living entity is suffering with the same problems of envy in the whole of this material universe.
19. When one begins to associate with the Lord, one attains the perfect state of being, full of bliss, intelligent, because the Lord is all knowledgeable, blissful and perfect. To associate with the Lord one has to associate with His devotees. There are two things person Bhagavata and book Bhagavata. Book Bhagavata - Literary incarnation of the Lord. By serving the person Bhagavata one attains the love for Krishna and association with Krishna. Krishna says one who is my devotee is not actually a devotee but the one who is a devotee of My devotee is a real devotee. Reading Srimad Bhagavatam is direclty associating with the Lord in the literary form and can keep one away from all contamination and make oneself happy.
20. None of the charitable work, hospitals, schools can give satisfaction for the soul and liberate the souls trapped under material conditioning. Actually educating the conditioned souls about their trapped condition is real welfare activity. Ahimsa also means not tolerating the violence in front of us. If someone is running at full speed to the edges of a hill in fron of us, we should be stopping them from doing so. Otherwise we are also consider an accomplice in the crime.
All glories to HG.Prithusrava Prabhu and Danakeli mataji for giving their association and mercy by visiting Omaha and enlightening us. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
--
Tulsidas, the famous Hindi poet, has sung:
corko chode sadhko bandhe
pathikko lagaoe phansi--
dhanya kalijug teri tamasa
duhkh lage aor hasi
"The real thief is set free, and the sadhu is handcuffed, while the passerby is hanged--all glories to Kali Yuga! Such is your great joke that it generates both pity and laughter at the same time."
In this age of confusion, rascals disguise themselves as saints and plunder the foolish populace, while at the same time accusing the real sadhus of being cheaters. These rascals use the wealth turned over to them by fools for their personal sense gratification, but they cleverly convince others that their sense gratification is divine and for everyone's benefit. They ridicule the devotees use of money in the service of Krsna (especially for the building of temples and the worship of the Deity) as being a criminal waste. Such rascal leaders of religions and welfare organizations are like the thief who escapes in the night by accusing the innocent.
Yours
Dinesh
I had this thought If someone cooks for me it would save sometime for sadhana but it will end up mostly like the story below.
............
Once a renounced spiritual master presented his neophyte disciple with a copy of the Bhagavad-gita, instructing him to study the book all the time. The disciple, eager to imitate the advanced status of his guru, entered a cave in the Vindhya hill and there read the gita day and night.
Now, while the disciple took rest, a mouse who lived in the cave nibbled at the pages of the holy book, leaving the edges ragged. The disciple was very upset about this. He went down the hillside to a village and found a kitten, which he brought back to the cave to deal with the mouse.
But the kitten required milk. So the disciple managed to find a pious farmer who willingly parted with one cow. Next the would-be renunciate constructed a cow-shed with materials that he begged from here and there and laboriously dragged up the hillside.
Even after building the shed, the disciple found it too difficult to maintain the cow alone. At last he found a young villager who was willing--simply for three meals a day--to tend the cow.
But now the aspiring anchorite was faced with the duty of cooking thrice daily for the cowherd as well as preparing his own meals. This meant he had to visit the village at least once a day to beg sufficient foodstuffs and firewood and then bring it all up to the cave. The villagers were less supportive now that his possessions had increased. One of them even mocked the dis- ciple, saying, "You've become a busy householder. Why do you persist in this charade of renunciation? Get married and work like the rest of us!"
Finding it impossible to meet his requirements otherwise, the disciple did just that. As his family grew, so did his needs until at last he lived in a comfortable villa on a large tract of land as the owner of many animals and the employer of many servants.
After the guru became aware that his disciple had abandoned the cave, he traced him to his new home and was astonished to find him amidst all the trappings of worldly existence. "Now what does all this mean?" he demanded of his disciple.
"Oh Divine Master," came the reply, "this, my family and property, is for the gita study you ordered."
The scriptures enjoin: yaavannirvaaha pratigraha--"accept only that which is essential for serving the Lord." This means that a devotee centers his life's needs around Krsna and not around himself. He is concerned neither with excessive gain or excessive renunciation. Indeed, if an aspirant on the spiritual path becomes selfishly inclined even in the matter of renuncia- tion--i.e. his vanity is displayed in his show of detachment from the world--that selfishness is very liable to mislead him into accumulating excessive material possessions in the name of maintaining his spiritual life. Another way that material attachment creeps into the life of a renunciate is through attraction to material knowledge. If pride is fostored through mastery of the scriptures and through philosophical erudition, that knowledge is only material and will result in the falldown of the student into material entanglement.
Yours
Dinesh
Posts
All Comments
