Do Gods consume the Naivedya offered?

Once upon a time, there was a priest in a village. He used to worship and offer prasadam to his beloved deity every evening without fail. This priest has a wife and a very cute and playful son of 8 years old. Once, the priest went to the nearby town for a ritual and had to stay there for the night. Now in the evening time, the child wants to go for playing but as it was time to offer prasadam to the deity, his mother asked him to first offer the food to the deity. The mother after instructing the child and handling over the prasadam to offer, went to the market to buy some goods. As it was the first time of the child to do the offering without the supervision of anyone, he was very excited and put the food in front of the deity and waited impatiently to finish him the offering.

As the child wants to go for play, he wanted the deity to finish the food soon buy the deity eaten nothing from the offering (as the deity was a clay idol). The poor little boy thinking that the deity would actually eat the food waited there. As time passes yet food remains untouched, the poor little boy becomes impatient and started to cry and pray to lord to finish the food soon so he could go outside and play. By seeing the cries and prays of this little boy, God actually appeared in front of the child and finished the whole prasadam. The child was very happy and went outside for play.

Interestingly when the mother returns and found the prasadam plate empty, confronted the boy about the food. When the boy told them the whole story she and her husband become astonished as they offered prasadam for their whole life but god never appeared but for the pure heart and cries of a kid, the lord appeared himself and finished the food. So my friend, its all depends upon our faith. If our faith is strong enough, the lord has to appear and taste the food as the lord is said to be bounded by nothing except pure love and devotion.

Yes He does, if the offering is acceptable to the God. He doesn’t need to eat with His mouth though, He can eat with His eyes or ears, or any other part of His body. Srila Prabhupada explains: In the Brahma-samhita it is said that the Lord has a transcendental form and that He can utilize any one of His senses for any purpose. For example, He can eat with His eyes, and He can see with His leg. In the mundane conception of form, one cannot eat with one's eyes or see with his leg.

That is the difference between the mundane body and the spiritual body of sac-cid-ananda [Brahmasutra. 5.1]. A spiritual body is not formless; it is a different type of body, of which we cannot conceive with our present mundane senses. Formless therefore means devoid of mundane form, or possessing a spiritual body of which the non-devotee can have no conception by the speculative method. Shrimad Bhagwat 2.9.32

We can touch only with our hands or skin, but Krsna can touch just by glancing. We can see only with our eyes; we cannot touch or smell with them. Krsna, however, can smell and also eat with His eyes. When food is offered to Krsna, we do not see Him eating, but He eats simply by glancing at the food. We cannot imagine how things work in the spiritual world, where everything is spiritual. It is not that Krsna does not eat or that we imagine that He eats; He actually eats, but His eating is different from ours. Our eating process will be similar to His when we are completely on the spiritual platform. On that platform every part of the body can act on behalf of any other part.

We never offer “prasad” to a deity we offer “Naivedya” - after being offered the food items become prasad which means “blessing” or “grace”. This is a common elementary mistake made by the majority of Hindus (sighing and rolling of eyes)! The Shastra says: na devatā khādanti na pibanti - d???yeva t?pyanti - “the gods do not eat or drink anything we offer - merely by the sight thereof are the delighted”. In other words - the substance of the offering is not important - its presentation is the most important aspect of offering. This sūtra has been perfected in Bali as shown in the above picture.

Whatever be the food that you offer, god is only interested in the essence of your mind, heart and core feelings. You may offer a fresh fruit or a rotten one, god will definitely see it through your heart. If you believe in this truth, you can witness a miracle - Change in the taste of food after offering to god. Consider this example. Water on Earth. Sun rays heat water in oceans, rivers, and even muddy water in ponds and then form clouds. Eventually the clouds will rain only fresh water on the earth and makes the land fertile. Water do not get taken away and consumed by Sun but he(Sun) will extract the essence of it and give it to us.

But, God should not be mistaken as an idol or image. God means everyone and everything. So, food offered to God is distributed to all beings as Prasad. Means, God ate the food! Not only food, every piece of your wealth should be shared with others before you enjoy for yourself. What is shared with others is an offering or Naivedya to God. If one offers to God a little and eats the same himself and not distributing to others, it is not Naivedya. It is self deceiving. What is offered to God can be fed to other people or dogs or birds or even ants. Unfortunately, symbolic Naivedya before an idol only is considered as Naivedya ignoring the real purpose.

I have laddu ji or a child form of Krishna at my home. Every morning after taking bath, I would bathe him and offer him whatever I can. After that, I use the milk offered to him in my tea or cereals. My father’s very old aunt still takes care of laddu ji as if he is a little child. She cuddles him, feeds him, puts him to bed too. I have seen her do this as long as I remember it. The offering is made show the gratitude for what we have. It also promotes satisfaction because and makes us value what we have and most importantly not to waste the food. The food that is offered first cannot be wasted is the ground rule in Hindu families. The food offered to the almighty would definitely be satvik, which as per Ayurveda is the best kind of food for the human bodies. And the food would be prepared with hygienically.

Any person with common sense will know that nothing as such will happen. But then why do we offer cooked food/raw food items to such deities? Basically, The question has an error in it, The food we generally offer to the Deities we worship is called as Naivedya, which basically means offering. Naivedya is last part of the Pancha upachara puja (fivefold worship) and is the 14th part in Shodasha upachara puja (sixteen service worship). The Naivedya in most of the cases is cooked food or else sometimes raw Food material like sugar, honey, milk etc. These offerings differ from deity to deity based on scriptures and rituals. Any Naivedya, raw or cooked is basically kept in front of idol/deity after the Upachara of Deepam (Jyothi) and is sprinkled with sacred water while chanting certain Mantras. This is a symbolical act to show that Naivedya is being offered to the deity. Jay Guru Dev