by Yogeśvara dāsa

by Yogesvara dasa

At first I was bewildered. The word "yoga" had always summoned up images of thin men with austere eating habits. Yet here we were, being encouraged to eat our fill. The scene was the Radha-Krsna temple in Rome; the occasion, a delicious ten-course feast in memory of Thakura Bhaktivinoda, a great Krsna-conscious saint. Our spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, was there with us partaking of the feast, so I asked if he'd please clear up a doubt I'd been entertaining for some time.

"Srila Prabhupada," I said, "in all yoga practices control of the senses is of first importance. But how is that control possible when there are so many feasts in Krsna consciousness?"

"Why should you hesitate?" he replied. "This is not material food. You should take to your full satisfaction. But not too much-then you will be sick and have to fast for two days."

He went on to describe how all food comes from Lord Krsna and should therefore be prepared sumptuously, as an offering to Him.

"Eating is a very important function," he continued. "It should be done in a spiritual atmosphere and without disturbance. If you are disrupted while taking prasada [vegetarian food offered to Krsna with devotion], then there will be loss of appetite, and indigestion."

In his books and private instructions, Srila Prabhupada often stresses the significance of prasada in developing spiritual consciousness. Prasada is Sanskrit for "mercy." As mentioned above, vegetarian foods offered with devotion to Lord Krsna become prasada, "the mercy of the Lord," and the remnants of such offerings are highly prized by spiritualists of all kinds. For eleven years now, ISKCON centers throughout the world have held a free "Love Feast" every Sunday (see back cover), at which devotees distribute prasada to anyone and everyone. And at ISKCON's Mayapur center near Calcutta, devotees distribute simple but nourishing prasada free to more than ten thousand people every week.

Recently, at several Krsna temples around the world, devotees have established Govinda's Restaurants and made the health-giving, spiritually nourishing experience of prasada even more widely available. To comply with Srila Prabhupada's instruction that prasada be taken in a spiritual atmosphere, the devotees decorate each restaurant with paintings of Lord Krsna's pastimes, and they pipe in soft temple music called kirtana. As far as possible, the ingredients that go into the restaurants' fare are grown on farms run by devotees, and all the cooks are initiated brahmanas. (One of the main brahminical qualities is scrupulous cleanliness.)

Prasada is also available from a fleet of eighteen food carts in New York City and from a pair of "Govinda's Mobile Kitchens" in Berkeley, California. The most popular items are the samosa, lassi, and Gauraṅga potatoes (see above). Another favorite is the pakora, a bite-size chunk of vegetable dipped in spicy batter and deep-fried in clear butter. Bala-Krsna dasa, who heads up prasada distribution in Berkeley, explained the program this way: "If we distribute Krsna's prasada profusely, people's eating habits will gradually be purified, and they'll become more and more attracted to Krsna. So we have definite plans to make the samosa more popular than the hamburger-and Govinda's Kitchen more popular than McDonald's."