How to avoid thinking about eating food while offering bhoga?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
to Krishna, I often think that, oh, after I offer this, I will be eating this. And, I try to cultivate a service attitude.
But, somehow, I keep thinking about food and eating when I am offering also. So, what to do at that time? So, actually, the first thing is that we prepare the food and offer it to Krishna. I said that we cannot become pure devotees without becoming devotees.
Sometimes we set the standard of bhakti right in the beginning only to pure devotion. And then we think, I can never practice this. Well, first we have to become devotees.
So, that means, we offer Krishna the food, whether we are thinking of eating food or not. Just offer the food. And then, gradually, as we keep practicing bhakti, if we try to cultivate more of a prayerful mood, we recite some verses, we recite some songs, you know.
Some devotees, when they are cooking also, they may have some kirtan going on. And, even when they are offering, not just when we are offering, we offer prayers, but before that also, maybe they have some devotional stimuli or they have some nice kirtan, some devotional music going on, something which reminds us of Krishna. Especially in some temples, when rajbhog is offered, not only that time Krishna offers the food, but outside devotees come and sing some song.
Bhaktivinoda Thakura has a song about how Krishna eats food and Vishwamitra offers food to Krishna. So, basically, we try to create more and more of a devotional atmosphere around us. And as we become absorbed in the devotional atmosphere, then the thought of our eating the food ourselves will go down.
And that’s why the point is not that we, food is a basic biological need. And if we are hungry, it is not possible to not think about the food. But the point is, we should not be thinking only about the food and not thinking about Krishna at all.
So, we should not, just like there is a water filter. So, I put the water in, so that I take it out. And I get clean water.
So, we should not think as a, think of Krishna as a bhoga purifier. You know, I am, simply, simply, you know, I don’t want to get karwa, so I am going to take this bhoga, put it before Krishna and then it becomes prasad and I’ll eat it. We don’t have a utilitarian or instrumental attitude towards Krishna.
No, we know that Krishna is a person and we are offering the food to him. And we try to offer it with as devotional attitude as possible. But it is not that we have to become too worried about having the right consciousness.
The right consciousness will come by the practice of bhakti. And the more we create devotional stimuli around us in the process of cooking and offering, the more the right consciousness will become more and more natural for us.