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Why
do offer food to the Lord before eating
it?
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Indians make an offering of food to the
Lord and later partake of it as prasaada -
a holy gift from the Lord. In our daily
ritualistic worship (pooja) too we offer naivedyam (food)
to the Lord.
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The Lord is omnipotent and omniscient.
Man is a part, while the Lord is the
totality. All that we do is by His
strength and knowledge alone. Hence what
we receive in life as a result of our
actions is really His alone. We
acknowledge this through the act of
offering food to Him. This is
exemplified by the Hindi words "tera
tujko arpan"� I offer what is
Yours to You. Thereafter it is akin to
His gift to us, graced by His divine
touch.
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Knowing this, our entire attitude to
food and the act of eating changes. The
food offered will naturally be pure and
the best. We share what we get with
others before consuming it. We do not
demand, complain or criticise the
quality of the food we get. We eat it
with cheerful acceptance (prasaada
buddhi).
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Before we partake of our daily meals we
first sprinkle water around the plate as
an act of purification. Five morsels of
food are placed on the side of the plate
acknowledging the debt owed by us to the
Divine forces (devta
runa)
for their benign grace and protection,
our ancestors (pitru
runa)
for giving us their lineage and a family
culture, the sages (rishi runa)
as our religion and culture have been
"realised", aintained and handed down to
us by them, our fellow beings (manushya
runa) who constitute society
without the support of which we could
not live as we do and other living
beings (bhuta runa) for
serving us selflessly.
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Thereafter the Lord, the life force, who
is also within us as the five
life-giving physiological functions, is
offered the food. This is done with the
chant
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praanaaya swaahaa,
apaanaaya swaahaa, vyaanaaya swaahaa,
udaanaaya swaahaa,
samaanaaya swaahaa, brahmane swaahaa
After offering the food thus, it
is eaten as prasaada - blessed food.
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