visiting, bring an offering!
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Any devotee coming into the temple should always offer something to the Deity-fruit, flowers, incense, etc. If one cannot offer anything in cash, something else must be offered. Any devotee coming into the temple should always offer something to the Deity-fruit, flowers, incense, etc. If one cannot offer anything in cash, something else must be offered. In India the system is that all the ladies and gentlemen who come in the morning to visit the temple bring so many things. Even one morsel of rice or one morsel of flour can be offered. It is a regulative principle that one should not go to see a saintly person or the Deity in the temple without any offering. The offering may be very humble, or it may be priceless. Even a flower, a little fruit, a little water-whatever is possible-must be offered. So when a devotee comes to offer something to the Deity in the morning, he is sure to smell the good flavor of the incense, and then at once he will become cleansed of the poisonous effect of material existence.
(More...) Imported quote 17683 So it is the custom of grhasthas that when a grhastha goes to see a saintly person, he should bring some gift. Never mind however insignificant is-at least one palmful of rice or dal or ata put there. Give something. If one comes to the temple... Here are many temples in India still, people come there with... One who hasn't got many things, but he brings one palmful of ata or rice or dal. This is useful. And in the temple there are three pots: they put dal in the dal, ata in the ata and rice in the rice. So in this way the inmates of the temple, they can live without going outside. But people have lost such habit. They come empty-handed-"darsana"-that "I'll not give you anything, but you are a saintly person. Give me darsana, and give me your asirvada, and then I enjoy my senses. That's all. Nothing to give you, but you give me your asirvada. You give me the dust of your feet. I become benefited. You starve." But [chuckling] that is not the process. So the hunter, he was following the instruction of his Guru Maharaja, Narada Muni, chanting Hare Krsna and sitting very peacefully. So people would come, and they were surprised. So, so many people came-heaps of ata, heaps of rice, heaps of vegetables. So he became little agitated: "What shall I do with so many, so much quantity? Why he's sending so much? We are simply two, husband and wife. So why he's sending this?"
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