Verse 3-13

Commentary

Food that is first offered to God is called ‘prasādam’ or holy food because it has been received and blessed by God. One day a disciple asked his Guru, “If God received the offering, why is the food still on the plate?”. The Guru remained silent and continued teaching to the students. He asked everyone to learn a sloka from the book and later asked this student whether he could recite. The student recited the sloka perfectly but the Guru showed disappointment on his face. The confused student showed the sloka in the book. Guru then asked, “If the sloka is in your mind, how is it still showing in the book?”. He continued, “Just as the letters of the sloka remain in a gross form and enter the mind in subtle form, the food that is offered to God is received by Him in a subtle form and the gross food becomes divine”. Therefore devotees who offer and eat divine food are cleansed of all sins. Those who prepare food for their own sake without offering to God incur sins.

As food offered to God becomes divine, actions offered to Him also become divine; prāna or energy offered to God in yoga becomes divine. Prāna is an intelligent current that can sustain the body by directly drawing energy from sunlight and air but due to ignorance, man has constantly trained this prāna to eat gross food. Active God-seekers partake of this food like prāna within their body after first offering to the Cosmic Fire at the Āgnya center and renewing it with divine vigor. They ‘eat or consume this divine prāna’ to perform activities in the world without accumulating sins of rebirth and future bodily activities.

Every night, during sleep, people unconsciously engage in a form of yoga, replenishing themselves with the vital energy for the day ahead. However, those who cook and consume this energy within solely for indulging in selfish sense pleasures feast not on divine but unholy and sinful prānic food that causes suffering and rebirth.