offering store bought cereals

arkanand

Hare Krishna everyone

Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.

I would like to know from devotees who have dieties in their homes. I would like to know if offering store bought cereals to deities ok or should I offer it to pictures or should I offer at all?

I remember once Srila Prabhupada allowed store bought bread offered to pictures.

Of course...best is to avoid any store bought items. However, at the current moment, I still transitioning from store to all home made. So right now, i am consuming store bought cereals. Kashi cereal to be precise.

Thank you.

Hare Krishna
anand

Kyros

Check the ingredients to make sure it's all good. You'l have to use the internet because they always use technical terms, unless you understand them. Then offer the cereal to Gaura-Nitai, and it's all prasada.

It's best to make your own cereal. Check in with the devotees at the local temple and ask for a recipe for granola cereal, or you can google one up online.

Haridas

On a related note, most cereals are highly processed, full of sugar and are quite bad for your health. Simple cereals or porridge are best.

jagannath

I really doubt that Krishna will accept food prepared by the people with stool still smudged on their backside-any food.At least in India even the poorest street vendors have more reasonable hygiene standards.

Put yourselves in Krishnas shoes.He has Srimati Rahdharani cooking for him.Why would he accept some filthy food cooked by some meat eater with feces smudged all over his ass.

When I need to eat food such as karmi bread ,for lack of choice I just thank the Lord for his mercy for being able to eat anything at all but I don't try and insult him by offering him something that is clearly not clean enough for His sensitive taste-buds.

Think about it.even we ourselves can discern the difference in taste between cooked by the meat eaters (often tastes muchi) and food cooked by even beginner devotee. after attaining some higher taste even we tend to be pickier(hopefully).So why even think about offering unclean taste to our dear Lord.

Bhagavatamrta

jagannath:
When I need to eat food such as karmi bread ,for lack of choice I just thank the Lord for his mercy for being able to eat anything at all but I don't try and insult him by offering him something that is clearly not clean enough for His sensitive taste-buds

I think this is a very good point to discuss. Srila Prabhupada wanted us to eat only Krsna Prasadam, in the sense of eating only Prasadam offered to the deities on the temple, or preparations cooked and offered to the Lord at home. Nowadays, very few devotees can follow this standard and then we have the "to offer or not to offer dilemma": risking ofenses by offering industrialized foods to Krsna, or to just thank to the Lords mercy, as Prabhupada recommends to Bob Cohen(?) on Perfect Questions Perfect answers, when he tells that was not feeling t easy offering his food to Krsna.

jagannath

If Krishna only takes love from our offering than how is it possible to offer the food that was not prepared/cooked with love for Him?

Srila Prabhupada said that all food is a mercy of the Lord but didn't sanction us taking food that is not offered/bhoga.We only take such(unofferable) food when nothing else is available(i.e. when traveling) and structure our lives/schedules in the way that we can eat pure prasadam as much as possible(99.99 % of the time).We found that some radical adjustments were to be made to accomplish that but our Gracious Lord Krishna helped us a lot in that regard.

I know a lot of devotees that never took time to learn how to cook properly because they maintain the mentality of offering the unclean bread/cereals/grains to their Lordships on their home altars under the pretense of being too busy.

Lets consider that point.How long does it take to cook rice and some simple subji.Maybe half an hour tops.How long does it take to prepare two weeks worth of dough for delicious no-knead bread (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU) that can be shaped any way you wish(pita bread/loaf/pizza base/buns) and cooked in less than 10 minutes if shaped as delicious hot pita bread?How long does it take to prepare vegetable soup/dhal/kichari in pressure cooker?Maybe 15-20 minutes tops.How long does it take to dehydrate some vegetables,turn them into powder and reconstitute them in hot water to make delicious soup in less than a minute?It takes few hours to make a batch that can last for years and is handy to use when traveling.Does it require one to be gourmet chef to do so?Not at all.If my children can do it so can you.

My two boys(aged 8 and 10) can prepare,cook,offer and serve an entire 3 course meal in less than 30 min and wash up afterwards so I see no reason for others not being able to do it other than ignorance and laziness.

One of the main tenets of our culture is to be able to cook and lovingly offer food prepared with love in mode of goodness (read:clean food) so why is there so much necessity of offering the dirty food cooked by dirty people with dirty thoughts and motivation and absolutely no love for the Lord?

If there is a genuine desire to find a way to prepare food suitable for offering to the Lord in shortest time possible free resources are abundant.

Haridas

jagannath:
I really doubt that Krishna will accept food prepared by the people with stool still smudged on their backside-any food.At least in India even the poorest street vendors have more reasonable hygiene standards.

Put yourselves in Krishnas shoes.He has Srimati Rahdharani cooking for him.Why would he accept some filthy food cooked by some meat eater with feces smudged all over his ass.

When I need to eat food such as karmi bread ,for lack of choice I just thank the Lord for his mercy for being able to eat anything at all but I don't try and insult him by offering him something that is clearly not clean enough for His sensitive taste-buds.

Think about it.even we ourselves can discern the difference in taste between cooked by the meat eaters (often tastes muchi) and food cooked by even beginner devotee. after attaining some higher taste even we tend to be pickier(hopefully).So why even think about offering unclean taste to our dear Lord.

How humble of you.

jagannath

http://avaxhome.ws/ebooks/cooking_diets/Kneadlessly_Simple_Fabulous.html

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