Order of offering (arati)Nrsimha Kavaca (das) IDS28-Jun-95------------------------------------------------------------Just a few quotes I was able to dig up. There are others, but it depends how much time you can give one topic.22nd March, 1968letter to Balai dasi,Yes, you may say the prayer to the Spiritual Master 3 times, and also the Namo Brahmanya . . . prayer 3 times, when offering Prasadam. That is very nice to say the mantra 3 times. Also, you may, after offering to the Spiritual Master, offer to Lord Caitanya by saying the prayer, Namo Maha Badanyaya . . . 3 times, and then offer to Krishna thrice.1st April, 1970letter to Himavati,Yes, it is nice that you are worshipping Lord Caitanya along with Radha Krsna. That is alright. Lord Caitanya should be placed to the right side of Krsna. There is nothing special for His worship, but you may continue as you are doing now. The order of worshipping is first Spiritual Master, and then Lord Caitanya, then Radha Krsna (as in the mantras or Bunde aham prayer).16th June, 1969letter to Arundhati,Please accept my blessings. I am in due receipt of your letter dated June 11, 1969, and I have noted the contents carefully. Regarding your question about offering Prasadam, whatever is offered to the Deity actually it goes through the Spiritual Master. The Spiritual Master offers to Lord Caitanya, and Lord Caitanya offers it to Krishna. Then Radha Krishna eats, or Jagannatha eats, then Caitanya Mahaprabhu eats, then the Spiritual Master eats, and it becomes Mahaprasadam. So when you offer something, you think like that and chant the Gayatri mantra, and then everything is complete. At last, ring the bell, take out the plate and wipe the place where the plate was kept.28th May, 1968letter to Harer Nama,Regarding your 2 questions: For offering prasadam simply prayers to the Spiritual Master is sufficient. The process is that everything is offered to the Spiritual Master, and the Spiritual Master is supposed to offer the same foodstuff to the Lord. When a thing is offered to the Spiritual Master, he immediately offers to the Lord. That is the system, and as we come by parampara system, it is our duty to go through the right channel--namely, first the Spiritual Master, then Lord Caitanya, and then Krishna. So when we chant prayers, we do this, Bande ham Sri Guru . . . and gradually to the Goswamis, then to Lord Caitanya, and then to Radha Krishna. That is the praying system. But offering the prasadam to present everything before the Spiritual Master whose picture is also in the altar, means that the Spiritual Master will take care of offering the foodstuff to the Lord. Therefore simply by chanting the prayer to the Spiritual Master, everything will be complete.15th February, 1968letter to Jadurani,Regarding offering food: The custom is to offer the foodstuff first to the Spiritual Master; we cannot do anything directly. The Spiritual Master accepts the offering on behalf of his disciple, and offers the same to Krishna. After Krishna's eating, the Spiritual Master eats it, and then the devotees take it as Mahaprasada. This is the system. Everything is offered to the Spiritual Master first, with the prayer ``Nama Om Visnupadaya . . .''15th May, 1970letter to Tamala Krsna,Regarding the means of worship, our Vaisnava process is first offer respects to the Spiritual Master, then Lord Caitanya, and then Lord Krsna. Vyasa is the Spiritual Master, therefore the Spiritual Master is the representative of Vyasa. Therefore the Spiritual Master's seat is called "Vyasasana."There is also one letter where Srila Prabhupada describes that everything is offered through the spiritual master to Krsna then the prasada remnants are automatically distributed to the associates, unfortunately I could not find this one.Arcita (Dasa) ACBSP28-Jun-95------------------------------------------------------------Thanks for making those posts. While conceding the order of offering for foodstuffs some devotees are confused about offering articles and paraphernalia. They reason that one would not offer a garland worn by Srila Prabhupada to the Deities. However, we must reiterate that whatever (foodstuffs or otherwise) is offered to Srila Prabhupada is not used by him but passed on up the parampara chain to Krsna. We are servants of the servants.Devaprastha (dasa) MG28-Jun-95------------------------------------------------------------Maybe I'm missing something - but it seems that the word "offered" is causing some confusing - when we "offer" first to the Guru, then to the Deity, we are are really asking the Guru to offer the item(s) to Lord Chaitanya, Radha-Krsna, etc. Not that we are first offering items to the Guru, then offering the same item to the Deity - but actually the Guru is making the offering, we are only assisting.Nrsimha Kavaca (das) IDS01-Jul-95------------------------------------------------------------There is also another interesting quote from the Caitanya-caritamrtaMadhya-lila Chapter Twenty-four, Text 334(5) There must be an asana, a sitting place before the altar. This asana is for the spiritual master. The disciple brings everything before the spiritual master, and the spiritual master offers everything to the Supreme Personality of Godhead.Srila Prabhupada does say that the disciple brings everything before the spiritual master, not just bhoga or whatever. Also he does say brings before, not offer. Therefore we can understand the system Srila Prabhupada taught was to worship Krsna through the transparent via medium of the spiritual master.Nrsimha Kavaca (das) IDS01-Jul-95------------------------------------------------------------The mood of presenting the item, whether food bhoga or arati paraphernalia bhoga, or whatever, to the spiritual master is not one of offering it to him to enjoy, but one of offering it to him to present to the parampara which eventually reaches Krsna. I think this misconception is the cause of all the misunderstandings about the system of offering.Nrsimha Kavaca (das) IDS01-Jul-95------------------------------------------------------------I can’t understand why you are confused by such a simple thing. The disciple brings everything to the Guru who then offers it to his spiritual master who then offers it to his spiritual master etc. until it gets to Radharani, who then offers it to Krsna. Then all the associates of the Lord, including our spiritual master take the remnants. I for one feel that this has been quite clearly explained by Srila Prabhupada, and also Krsna Ksetra Prabhu in the publication Pancaratra Pradipa.Maybe Krsna Ksetra Prabhu would like to add some comment to help clear up the apparent confusion.Hari Sauri (Dasa) ACBSP (Alachua, FL)01-Jul-95------------------------------------------------------------I am intrigued by Urmila's comment >"Of greatest concern is that we've been taught to offer to guru first, whereas it seems we should be offering to guru last.<" Surely the standard of offering to our guru first and then on up to Krsna was introduced by Srila Prabhupada himself, otherwise how did it come about? If that's the case, maybe what's of greatest concern is that, having been given a standard by Srila Prabhupada, we now think that we are so intelligent that what he gave us is back to front and incorrect.I have always understood the process in the same way mentioned by Archita prabhu--that we offer it to Srila Prabhupada, who in turn offers it to his guru and in this way it goes all the way up to Krsna and then comes back to us as prasadam. Its not that once it is offered to Srila Prabhupada it immediately becomes prasadam, without it having reached to Krsna.[NOTE: Since I wrote this Nrsimha Kavaca has enlightened us all with his letters from Srila Prabhupada, which are much appreciated.]I remember in 1977 during the last six weeks with Srila Prabhupada, Kuladri came from New Vrindavana. Srila Prabhupada had given us a prayer "My dear Lord Krsna, if You so desire, please allow Srila Prabhupada to remain with us." (or words to that effect).Kuladri told Srila Prabhupada that Kirtanananda Swami didn't want to say that prayer but rather he asked Srila Prabhupada to pray to Krsna on our behalf that he could stay with us. Kirtanananda's reasoning was that we were not qualified to pray directly to Krsna. Our link was through Srila Prabhupada and it was only through him that we could approach Krsna with our request. Srila Prabhupada very much appreciated the devotional sentiment of that. Anyway, I think its time, after having worshipped deities for the last 30 years, that we get this finally sorted out, using the standards that Srila Prabhupada gave us as our guidelines. How is it that after all this time we are still caught up in the kind of mental gymnastics put forth by Bhanu Maharaja recently (sorry Maharaja, no offense intended) about who to worship first?Urmila (Devi Dasi) ACBSP11-Jul-95------------------------------------------------------------I'm sorry to be so stupid as to be confused about such a simple thing, but, it is still unclear about the authorized order for offering arotik paraphernalia. Some devotees have given us Prabhupada's quotes about offering food, but haven't necessarily shown that those quotes apply to arotik. I gave the example that we would not take a garland which we had given to Prabhupada and then put that same garland on the Deities. Is there a devotee whom Prabhupada personally trained who could give first-hand evidence? What about the traditions in our line? Even if it is not "traditional" to have several altars with several sets of deities who are worshipped with the same set of paraphernalia, surely it is traditional to have a picture of one's guru and paramaguru on the altar with the deities. What is done in the rest of our sampradaya?And the issue is not just one of whether to offer to guru first. It is also an issue of who do you offer to first--Lord Caitanya or Lord Nityananda? Radha or Krsna? Jagannatha, Baladeva, or Subhadra? Surely this is not a matter of speculation as to whether we are gaining permission (going "up" so to speak) or offering remnants (going "down" so to speak), but a matter of finding the authorized instruction.
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