How does the consciousness of the cook affect prasad?

From: Sripad Mahaprabhu das

I have heard that consciousness of the cook enters the food and is transferred to the person who eats it. Does this also holds true in case of devotee cooks?

How can prasad have consciousness of the cook when it is completely purified by the glance of the Lord Himself? Will not consciousness of Lord override the consciousness of cook?

Please answer with some scriptural reference. Thank you.

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Sripad Mahaprabhu Prabhu. I have heard that consciousness of the cook enters the food and is transferred to the person who eats it. Does this also hold true in case of devotee cooks? How can prasad have consciousness of the cook when it is completely purified by the glance of the Lord himself? Will not consciousness of the Lord override the consciousness of cook? Please answer with some scriptural reference.
Answer. Yes, it is true that consciousness of the cook does enter into the food and that’s why devotees are very careful about not just whether the food that they are eating is offered properly or not but also whether it is cooked properly or not. Because consciousness is a subtle, is actually spiritual but at the level of the mind it is expressed through the thoughts, desires, cravings and emotions of the mind and this is put into the subtle way into the food.
Chandogya Upanishad describes that food has three components. One is the gross component that is when we take the food in, the gross component that is passed out. Another is another component that is taken into the body to build the body and another is a subtle component that is taken in to form the mind.
So Chandogya Upanishad also agrees that the food has multiple components. Now regarding the point of prasadam that is offered, how can the consciousness of the cook override the consciousness of the Lord? Actually it is not that the consciousness of the Lord is overridden, it is actually Krishna who chooses to manifest partially or completely depending on the degree of devotion with which the whole devotional process is enacted. We have the instruction by the Goswamis that avaishna mukho viramputam harikathamritam shravanam naiva kartavyam sarpo chishti thapayam So it is said that although Harikatha is purifying like milk is purifying and nourishing actually although Harikatha just as milk is nourishing, Harikatha is purifying.
But just as the milk when touched by the tongue or fangs of a snake transforms from being nourishing to becoming killing, to poisonous. Similarly Harikatha when it is touched by, when it is spoken by a non devotee it becomes something that can have a counterproductive effect in terms of one’s devotion. So now if Harikatha is pure can the consciousness of the speaker contaminate the Harikatha? Actually it is not that the Harikatha is contaminated, it is rather Hari chooses not to manifest through the Harikatha.
Krishna is completely independent and it is up to his will that he will choose when he wants to manifest and when he chooses not to manifest. So although at one level we said the holy name and Krishna are non-different at the same time we also say that the chanter’s consciousness determines how much of the holy name can be experienced. That’s why this chanter’s consciousness is expressed in terms of aparadhanam, namabhasa and shuddhanam.
Even at the stage of aparadhanam the person is chanting the same Hare Krishna mahamantra but Krishna chooses not to reveal himself fully because that person is not yet pure nor does that person have a strong desire to become pure. Person is chanting offensively and so Krishna manifests partially. Certainly this chanting is also purifying in its own way but certainly not as purifying as when Krishna manifests himself fully.
So when a person who is not yet a pure devotee cooks the food and offers it to people, offers it to Krishna and then serves it to people, even the people are devotees, even if the cook is a devotee, still there will be some consciousness which is not yet pure that will come in the food and secondly although the food is offered to Krishna, Krishna does not accept all the food that is offered by all kinds of people with equal delight. If we see a subtle difference between the verses 9.26 and 9.27 in the Bhagavad Gita, 9.26 Krishna says that even if you offer me a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water, I accept it. Ashnami prayatatmanah he says.
By the same time in the next verse Krishna is telling that okay you please whatever you are doing, do it for me. So when Krishna says that whatever work you do, whatever you eat, you give it to me, he doesn’t explicitly say there that I will accept it. So in the earlier 26th verse when a person is offering with bhakti, Krishna is twice emphasizing the word bhakti.
So there Krishna is saying ashnami, I will accept it. In the next verse he doesn’t say that I will accept it but still he recommends his offer it to me. Why? Because even by this in verse 28 he will say gradually even by this one will become purified and will attain the supreme destination by this.
So this is a gradual process. So even in the Bhagavad Gita there is the recommendation to offer even if we do not yet have very devotional consciousness. So does that mean that Krishna rejects the food? We should not think of this in terms of digital logic, the acceptance and rejection are like 0 and 1. But it’s more of analog logic where there is a progression.
When we offer to Krishna, Krishna surely accepts but the degree of his acceptance and the degree of his reciprocal manifestation to us will be varying depending on our bhakti. Just as Krishna tells in the Bhagavad Gita 4.11 that yetha maam prapadyante taam tathaiva bhajaam nihaam. So that’s why when say we skew classes and a person hears the class of Sri Prabhupada or some advanced devotees then the potency of those classes is far greater.
When they are spoken by those who are totally or greatly devoted to Krishna. So if something as pure as Harikatha may not manifest its full purity if it is spoken by an impure person then what to speak of? Prasad. Prasad at one level is made of material ingredients and it is then offered to Krishna.
So even if a non devotee offers the food to Krishna if the person has the intention that okay I want to serve Krishna that devotional intention might be there although there might not be explicit devotion. The desire for devotion is also like devotion in a seed micro stage. Krishna will see that and he will accept that but surely the purity and the potency of the prasad that is offered by a neophyte devotee and it is offered by pure devotee will have a world of difference among them.
So therefore yes the consciousness of the devotee cooks will also go into the food. So at one level we need to differentiate whether the cook is having proper consciousness or not and only people who are chanting properly and following the four aggregate principles should cook food in the temples or in other places where others are coming to take prasadam on a regular basis. At the same time Shri Pramupada from his own example did not go into a hair splitting mission with respect to this if somebody was practicing the basic principles of Krishna consciousness.
Shri Pramupada did try to have as high standard as possible for deity worship where he said it would be best if there are initiated or second initiated devotees for the deities and he certainly wanted that devotees should cook in the kitchen also but you know he did not say that I will not take food because this is not cooked by a devotee in proper consciousness. May once he might have said that to instruct a specific servant but in general that was not a principle that Shri Pramupada made explicit in his books and he encouraged everybody to serve Krishna in the best possible way according to the situation that they were in. So that’s why for us philosophically we accept the principle that it is not that the consciousness of the cook is more powerful than the consciousness of Krishna rather when the cook cooks the food at that time his consciousness comes in the food and when that food is offered to Krishna at that time Krishna contacts the food but after the contact of the food with Krishna how much will Krishna manifest in the food that will vary depending on time place circumstances not just time place circumstances in terms of the external time place circumstances but in terms of the consciousness of the person who has offered it.
So his consciousness will be different depending on time place circumstances. That’s why we accept this point in principle. Now with respect to Harikatha when it is said that the Harikatha becomes like milk touched by poison.
What is that poison? So our Acharyas have described that it is the desire for Karma and Jnana. It is not that Harikatha is going to become sinful. The example of the snake touching milk is given to jolt us out of complacency and make us aware of the danger but milk touched by the poison will kill.
It is not that Harikatha heard from a person who is a non devotee will kill in the literal sense. In the spiritual sense what it may it will hurt surely and what it will hurt is our aspiration for pure devotional service. We will start aspiring for mixed devotional service because of hearing it from those who are practicing mixed devotional service and from the point of your pure devotional service as Narottam Das Thakur says Karma Kanda, Jnana Kanda, Vishera Bhanda.
So the sections of the Vedic literature which talk about Karma Kanda and Jnana Kanda are like poison pots and similarly the broadcasting of Harikatha by those who have Karma Kanda and Jnana Kanda mentalities poisons the inclination for pure devotional service. So it is the inclination for Kevala Bhakt that is contaminated and becomes poisoned and becomes weakened but that doesn’t mean that Harikatha becomes sinful. Certainly we want pure devotional service and that’s why we will avoid that kind of Harikatha but at the same time and the meaning has to be clearly understood.
Similarly Prasad even if it is prepared by a devotee who is not very serious or very advanced surely that Prasad is having its potency and it will purify but the potency will increase substantially when the devotee who is cooking it has far greater devotional consciousness and the greater the devotional consciousness the greater will be the purification. So thank you. So in Bhakti also there is a hierarchy.
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