Well, some non devotee wants to invite me to eat. it's a vegetarian person and it's ok for him to cook w/o onion and garlic because he knows I don't eat, but still I resist because I don't like to eat bhoga.
so what do you recommend me to do? rejecting this invitation or doing a sacrifice and offer it in my mind for the sake of preaching?
Bring a nice offered dish with you. Perhaps some delicious sweet. Give your host/hostess a Bhagavad-gita As It Is also as a gift. See this as an opportunity and not as a difficulty.
I already gave BG and prasadam and the reason of the invitation was to say thank you to me, but I can bring more prasadam anyway :) and at the same time Krsna knows how much I suffer eating bhoga so maybe it won't be so bad. Thank you for the help!!!
You can explain to them that you do not eat cooked food that is not offered to Krishna. So, they can offer you some kind of cheese veggie brand, salad, fruit juice, nuts, etc, explain to them, they will understand. And then you can quickly offer that before you take. One time I was with such a nice family and they offered me coke, and I was like you, not willing to disrupt, it was so nice it felt like not saying anything. I drank it and felt so sick.. Next time I explained to them and to whoever offers me coke how sick I become if I yield, cause its more than 30 yrs I do not drink that stuff. In this way you save your "skin" and preach at the same time.
The point is that this person likes cooking and sees cooking as a good way of saying thank you to me. I keep giving him prasadam and he feels in debt and wants to invite me to eat vegetarian food, no garlic, no onion, no whatever I tell him but the offering part is what he doesn't understand. I tried to explain to him but he doesn't understand why we offer. He says that if Krsna doesn't need anything then why to offer. I reply because of the love exchange then he says "but at the end you will eat it"... I don't know what else to tell to him.
that's certainly a good option, helping with the cooking & offering the food in an unobtrusive way. it's not the 'highest standard of worship,' but you're not taking a salagram-sila, and the purpose is for preaching, so i don't see how SP would be offended or reject the offering.
it's important that the person is a vegetarian, otherwise the utensils would be heavily contaminated.
if the helping & offering idea doesn't work out, or if SP doesn't want any of the cooked food, you'll end up accepting a little of that person's karma; that's what happens if you accept someone's service, or grains cooked by them w/o offering. then it depends how much you like the person, if you're willing to accept some of their reactions?
earlier, in some other thread, the question came up if devotees, especially in india, were eating outside vegetarian food, not cooked by devotees & not offered. my experience is that many do, including myself at times. it's certainly not good, but it doesn't seem to affect those who indulge in it in a major or dramatic way.
much better than doing that for sense-gratification is doing it for preaching, and i wouldn't be too concerned about the reaction. pray to lord caitanya and make sure you try to use the opportunity to preach. (not by being too 'preachy,' of course, that tends to turn people off.)
