Prasadam: The Lord’s Mercy. Food prepared in pure consciousness with pure products and offered with love to the Lord.

The glories of prasadam Prasadam is spiritual, not different from Krishna. It purifies the heart (different levels of potency). It frees one from sinful reactions. We can simply eat our way back to Godhead. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu and Krishna become very pleased when we cook nicely for Them. Krishna actually eats the offering. By eating prasadam, the devotee becomes Krishna-ised. It connects our eating process to Krishna. It helps control the tongue. It protects one from falling into illusion. The offering contains love and devotion.

We get benefit through offering, serving and eating it. We are not dry renouncers; we can prepare wonderful feasts. The Lord likes to see His devotees enjoy in a Krishna-conscious way.

Cultural background

• Preparing, serving, and eating prasadam in the association of devotees is integral to devotional service with roots based in the most ancient Vedic culture and the Lord’s pastimes.
• A part of Deity worship (arcanam): Cooking for Krishna is an exact science. Various dishes are prepared in certain ways because experts in the art have determined that these preparations are most pleasing to Krishna.
• Trains us for the spiritual world in the correct service attitude of taking pleasure in eating Krishna’s remnants. The cowherd boys enjoy eating in Krishna’s company and sharing His remnants.
• In the spiritual world, Radha cooks for Krishna and She never cooks the same preparation twice. The temple kitchen is understood to belong to Radharani. She is the controller there.
• In Lord Caitanya’s pastimes, the devotees would make kirtana until they were exhausted and then eat a big feast together with great joy. The Caitanya-caritamrta contains many descriptions of the food preparations and feasts the devotees used to make. Look in the Caitanya-caritamrta and find a section where such a feast is described.

Regulations in serving and honouring prasadam

Serving

• Be clean.
• Hold utensils in right hand only.
• Do not touch serving utensils to eating plates.
• Be sensitive: give only what is wanted.
• Be quick: others may be waiting.
• No mixing: keep the preparations separate.

Honouring

• We don't just 'eat' prasadam, we 'honour' it. It should be respected as non-different from Krishna.
• Don’t criticise prasadam.
• It should not be wasted.
• Your consciousness also affects how much benefit you get from eating it.
• Don’t steal from others.
• Don’t grab for yourself: serve and be served.
• Don’t eat while walking.
• Don’t horde prasadam.

Be wise

• Take a short walk afterwards or sleep ten minutes on your left side.
• Don’t eat too much.
• Take the right balance.
• Don’t eat too much in the evening.
• Consider regulation and health.

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