Preeti Bhojanam- Part 2 - The Faces behind the Feast

The Faces behind the Feast.

Southward bound: Last Sunday, we decided to travel south and offer the culinary specialities of South India to the Lord and the devotees. The menu included Idli, Sambar, Tamarind rice, Coconut chutney, Papad and the dessert ...Rava Kesari or Semolina halva with saffron,from which it takes on the name Kesari (for the Ramayan fans, please do not mistake this with the monkey king). We don't have a temple yet and use the kitchen of another temple to make our bhoga every Sunday, so the pictures are not of a typical ISKCON kitchen. Here is the long and short of it.

Our Head Cook for the day-Meenakshi Mata.

The sidekicks oops, I mean side-cooks

Prema Prada dd, Sudevi dd and Saahithya, We don't like cutting boards as you can see.

Manu Bhai and Madhu kaki- The temple's resident's cooks, doing their (Gujarati) cooking for Dwarakadeesh.

Our local Aindra Prabhu (of Kirtan fame)- Sravanananda Prabhu.

Sauna in motion

Too many cooks ...

Sundarananda Prabhu, Gaurav Prabhu and Gayatri Mata.

IDDLI- filling in the moulds

Our Make shift altar.

Maha prasade Govinde....

Nothing tastes like Prasadam!

"The chanting of the holy name," Srila Prabhupada recommended, "should be heard as far as possible from the lips of a pure devotee." One might ask a similar question to yours re. the chanting of the pure Holy Name of the Lord, as with prasadam.
When an offering is made to the Supreme Lord, He accepts the offering due to the love and devotion that has gone into the offering. As He states in the Bhagavad-gita, ye yatha mam prapadyante (Bg 4.11): "As one approaches Me, I reciprocate proportionately." To the degree of devotion and care with which an offering is prepared, and and then brings the offering to Him with sincere devotion, to that degree Krishna relishes that offering. Thus, when a qualified and pure devotee cooks in a thoroughly clean atmosphere and cleansed consciousness, the prasadam correspondingly becomes that much more transcendentally enjoyed by Krishna. Conversely to the degree one is not purified, Krishna does not accept the offering. Inquiries into the absolute- Digest 46 B HH Romapada Swami

From eww! to wow!

We must eat food, not so much for our body but for our mind. Food does more than nourish the body, it nourishes the mind. I just understood after hearing the glories of maha maha prasadam, by HH Mahanidhi Swami, that even the act of accepting prasadam and honoring it can mean surrendering to Krishna. How is that possible one might ask? When one accepts Krishna Prasadam, he/she is acceptng the ucchistha,or the remnants of Sri Krishna. Even what is in the cooking pot becomes the remnants. The act of accepting someone's ucchistha is unthinkable for someone who comes from an orthodox brahman upbringing. Imagine, eating from a half eaten plate of prasadam, where the gulab jamun has landed into the kadhi and the papad is a soggy mass. Most mothers would identify with this, as they often end up having maha maha prasadam or simply, ucchistha of their children. Imagine doing the same from someone else's plate, someone whom you don't know. We would scrunch up our noses and walk away. I remember the first time i was offered ucchistha of my Guru Maharaj, it took me a long time before i could pop the fragment of pizza crust into my mouth. Thats why it takes humility and surrender to accept the remants of prasadam. Since, our whole Gaudiya Vaisnava Philosophy emphasizes the role of humilty and not identifying with the body, honoring ucchistha is a foremost lesson in cultivating humilty. Except for the having the ucchistha of father, brother or spiritual master, a brahman is prohibited from giving his remnants to others, or eating another's remnants. The subtle meaning of ucchista is to be submissive to your ishta devata. When one eats the ucchistha of someone then he/she takes on the mood of the person. Food is a medium through which many things get transferred and the type of food we eat makes an impact on our mind. So, eating the remnants of a saintly person turns our mind to follow theirs. On the contrary, if one eats abominable food, cooked by a chef in a restaurant, we are having the ucchistha of the cook and our consciousness will take on that of the cook. The sastras say that when a brahmana eats the remnants of an unknown person, he assumes a dog's body in the subsequent life. Eating food in a restaurant makes the mind uncontrolled. Since mind is the cause for bondage as well as liberation, we can make our choice. Eating foodstuffs that are offered to Krishna, one gives up his independence of wanting to indulge and enjoy separately from Krishna and therefore the act is liberating. Thus, when one honors the prasadam in a mood of seva, he is giving up his independence by simply giving up independence in eating.

Though i knew that Prasadam is sanctified food, remnants of the Lord, i am completely in awe of the fact that we are surrendering to Krishna by just honoring prasadam. It is the ucchistha of the Lord and how fortunate are we that we are able to have access to it every single day. All we need to do is honor it with the right consciousness. What a revelation this class has been for me. Maha Prasadam ki Jaya!