Hare Krishna Dear Gurumaharaja,
Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
If somebody who is not pure devotee is in the situation when he needs to take prasadam cooked by other devotees (e.g. temple, sankirtan van, festival), is there way how he can get immune to receive cook's mind or mood?
I found myself sometimes my mood changes or some non-standard pictures / throughts appear in my mind sometimes which seems to be connected by eating prasadam prepared by others.
Somebody in my country previously told: "Cook is hidden temple president."
One could think that when food is offered and become prasadam it will be transcendental. Is consciousness hidden in food caused by wrong attitude during offering or during eating prasadam?
Your servant Prahlad-nrsmha das
HpS - ASA -- BIG topic. We answer for you and 6,000 more people. Maybe print essay and send to Barrack Obama.
1. Hari bolo!
2. More Hari Bolo!
3. NOI.... page 45. visayera anna khaila. If we take food cooked by a visayi, material enjoyer, our mind becomes wicked. Look up source of citation in CC and I bet you will find very nice discussion of the subject there!
Yes, it is transcendental if properly offered but still some difference. Prabhupada talks about his mother's kitchen and explains that she would cook as she cleaned, so when the bhoga left for the offering there was just one, two minutes to clean up the kitchen, not that the plates, very nice and neat, would go to the altar and the kitchen would look like the dancing place of Lord Shiva at the end of the cosmic manifestation! That chaos will be in the offering, no?
He said she demanded all the pots be shining and if not, "Back to the cleaning girls", then he says that if you honor prasadam cooked in a kitchen like that immediately you feel refreshed.
So there is some difference.
Just like there are a variety of devotees in ISKCON, so we have a certain level of respect for all of them and associate with some more intimately.
As a Sannyasi we get invited to a lot of dinners, by different people, so we have adopted a standard that Prabhupada mentions, 'If the cooks are completely clean (strict vegetarian) then, for Sankirtan purposes, it can be offered to the deity'.
Maybe a vaisya on the road will eat some vegetarian cooking, offer it, in a place that cooks hamburgers. He has different Dharma from a Sannyasi.
Krsna will protect us.
Sometimes you have to associate with little bit crazy fellow in ISKCON, but we do it.
O.K?