The Question offering food to God is told in Bhagavat Gita. Who will offer food, flowers, leaves, petals, or anything ? Only devotees who will offer with devotion. For this Krishna says that He will accept them. so, there is a connection between Krishna and devotees through Bhakti. Because of the devotion of the Bhaktas, Krishna says that He will accept anything if offered with devotion. Here, you are asking about the physical presence of God to accept our offering (and not gift). The gift is differing from the offering.
Here it can be discerned that unlike the deities of other gods who need extensive exertion and effort to gain their benedictions, the devotees of Lord Krishna feel perfectly at ease in worship ping Him. This is what He is indicating by the words me Katya parachute meaning offering to Him with loving devotion. Even if one of sinless mind and pure heart fully focusing on the Supreme Lord offers Him something that is obtained without effort such as water or even a leaf or flower; if it is imbued with devotion it is sanctified and the Supreme Lord, who is the fully content and cognizant controller of the entire creation indecipherable by Brahma and Shiva, becomes pleased and indeed He feels indebted to such a devotee. But whatever action is performed with bhaji or exclusive loving devotion to Him, He accepts with the utmost appreciative and affectionate love.
The Divine is always with us and we will have to experience it as we experience air we breath and we can not see air with our eyes. The heart is the seat of God. A true Devotee with true Devotion while offering will certainly feel that God is present there to take the offering by the feeling of inner heart and soul.
Does God physically exist? Everyone's answer is ''No''. But according to Ramakrishna Paramhansa the answer is ''YES'', even God can physically exist. We can see the presence. What we need is immense belief on God.
To your question my answer is Belief.
According to Hindu religion and spirituality, it is said that nature as a whole is the manifestation of God, so if we can love nature, we are serving God. In this way Love can also be the answer. The existence of God within ourselves comes from the belief on God itself and with love for the nature and all of its elements we are nurturing that belief.
In the Bhagavat Gita chapter 9, Krishna says whoever offers Me a leaf, a flower, a fruit, and water with devotion, that offer brought from the heart by a soul of good habits I accept. Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer, whatever you give away or whatever austerity you're in, o son of Kunt?, do that as an offering towards Me. Thus you will be freed from the auspicious and inauspicious consequences of being bound by karma and liberated in having your mind set on the renunciation in this yoga, you will attain to Me.
Krishna says this: I am equal to all living entities, no one is disliked or favored by Me, but those persons who render transcendental service to Me in devotion are in Me and I also certainly am [partially] in them. so, Krishna is physically present with us if we believe Him.
The Lord told it and if one follows the instructions of the Lord, it is the Lord's responsibility to accept the offering or not.
If the offering is made out of love, Lord Krishna will definitely accept it but if it is not made out of love, the Lord is not bound to accept the offering, however opulent the offering may be.
Duryodhana gave the Lord a very opulent feast to eat, but the Lord rejected since there was no love, but on the other hand, he accepted the humble offering of Sudama.
But, your question is when Lord Krishna is not physically present.
When Draupadi was being disrobed, Lord Krishna was not physically present, but he appeared in the form of the cloth to save her from being disrobed.
By definition, bhaji is one who believes in the words of the Bhagavan and thus when the Bhagavan says he completely has faith in the words of the Bhagavan and Krishna never falls short of his words.
The God's representatives can use them. The habit went to an extend that every Hindu believes and advised to feed a Brahmin to reserve a seat in the heaven.
The last paragraph from the purport to the verse in Bhagavad Gita (9.26), explains the process of Lord Krishna's accepting the offer through the sense of vision. Lord Krishna can do this, since the senses of Krishna are interchangeable. He can eat with his SPIRITUAL eyes SPIRITUALLY.
The impersonality philosophers, who wish to maintain that the Absolute Truth is without senses, cannot comprehend this verse of Bhagavad-git. To them, it is either a metaphor or proof of the mundane character of Kr?s?n?a, the speaker of the Bhagavad-git. But, in actuality, Kr?s?n?a, the Supreme Godhead, has senses, and it is stated that His senses are interchangeable; in other words, one sense can perform the function of any other. This is what it means to say that Kr?s?n?a is absolute. Lacking senses, He could hardly be considered full in all opulence's. In the Seventh Chapter, Kr?s?n?a has explained that He impregnates the living entities into material nature. This is done by His looking upon material nature. And so in this instance, Kr?s?n?a's hearing the devotee's words of love in offering foodstuffs is wholly identical with His eating and actually tasting. This point should be emphasized: because of His absolute position, His hearing is wholly identical with His eating and tasting. Only the devotee, who accepts Kr?s?n?a as He describes Himself, without interpretation, can understand that the Supreme Absolute Truth can eat food and enjoy it.
http://vedabase.net/bg/9/26/en
The devotees need not be disappointed in the physical absence of the Lord, though they may think of not being associated with Him. The devotional process of chanting, hearing, remembering, etc., (either all or some of them, or even one of them) can give us the desired result of associating with the Lord by discharging the transcendental loving service of the Lord in the above manner. Even the very sound of the holy name of Lord Kr?s?n?a or R?ma can at once surcharge the atmosphere spiritually. We must know definitely that the Lord is present wherever such pure transcendental service is performed, and thus the performer of offenseless k?rtanam has positive association with the Lord. Similarly, remembrance and prayers also can give us the desired result if they are properly done under expert guidance. One should not concoct forms of devotional service. One may worship the form of the Lord in a temple, or one may impersonally offer the Lord devotional prayers in a mosque or a church. One is sure to get free from the reactions of sins provided one is very careful about not committing sins willingly in expectation of getting free from the reactions of sins by worshiping in the temple or by offering prayers in the church. This mentality of committing sins willfully on the strength of devotional service is called n?mno bal?d yasya hi p?pa-buddhih?, and it is the greatest offense in the discharge of devotional service. Hearing, therefore, is essential in order to keep oneself strictly on guard against such pitfalls of sins. And in order to give special stress to the hearing process, the Gosv?m? invokes all auspicious fortune in this matter.
http://vedabase.net/sb/2/4/15/en
Devotion means deep love and if we offer any thing with devotional feelings then we feel love and love is GOD, so we feel godliness in our self .Since an object is required to create devotional offering situation , so we have Named Him Bagwan, Krishna, Rama, GOD,ALah, Waheguru ,Satguru,Budha, Mahvira, and thousands of name
By prayer of a loving devotional heart, we offer every thing to our omnipresent God, in astral form. Such an offer is certainly accepted and approved at His door, then we distribute that approved Prasaad of holy food amongst the general beings and His congregation of devotees present there.
Also remember He is present in each and every heart, so if we do a favor to poor needy, that is always approved and accepted by Lord God happily.
Once a Sikh of Guru extracted pure honey from a bee hive, he was carrying that honey to offer it to his Guru, in the way one needy sage asked him to give that honey to him, but Sikh said it is for Guru and not to be given to any one else. When he offered that to Guru, Guru said it is not worth accepting being polluted, Sikh said no sir, it is very pure I my self have extracted, Guru said just open it and see, when Sikh uncovered the pot, he saw huge numbers of worms were there in honey. Then Guru said, "you didn't give me this honey, when I had asked you for?"
We see even if the Lord God is physically present, He does not eat that, but accepts and asks to distribute amongst congregation. The glory of the loving devotee worshipers is different.
A A A A A A???? ?
Carry water for, wave over and grind corn for the Lord's slave and then shalt thou be happy.
??? ???? ???????? ???? ??? ???? ???
Burn thou in fire Thy dominions, property and over-lordship.
??? ??? ?? ????? ???? ???? ???? ?
The servant of the holy men; repair thou to his feet.
???????? ??????? ????? ???? ????? ??? ???? ?
The wealthy men and the Lords of umbrella and throne; abandon and forsake thou them. Pause.
???? ?? ???? ???? ?? ??? ????? ?
The dry dread of the saints, that is equal to all the treasures.
?????? ???? ???? ?????? ?? ???? ???? ???
Thirty-six sorts of dishes in the house of the mammon-worshipper; they are like poison.
??? ??? ?? ????? ??? ??? ? ??? ?
Wearing the Old blanket of the pious persons, the mortal becomes not naked.
???? ?????? ????? ????? ??? ??? ???
He loses his honour by putting on the silken raiment of the mammon-worshipper.
???? ??? ???? ????? ?? ????? ???? ?
The friendship contracted with an infidel is dissolved half-way.
??? ?? ?? ???? ?? ??? ?? ???? ???? ???
Who-so-ever serves God's slave is emancipate here and here after.
?? ???? ????? ?? ?? ??? ??? ??? ???? ?
Everything has emanated from Thee O Lord, Thou Thyself hast created the creation.
????? ???? ??? ?? ???? ??? ??? ?????????
Blessed with the saints' vision Nanak sings God's praise.
{{{Guru Arjan Dev Ji, Raag Bilaaval 811}}}
Therefore the great prophet Lord Krishna, sees the love of His devotees, present every where in astral form, and not the thing being offered. Also, He accepts favor of poor needy people, being present in every heart.
Very interesting quote, which I will attempt to answer in my small way (not being a philosopher).
"Any who offers me even the flowers, leaves or petals fruits or even water,..with devotion, I accept them"
Please note the word "even"..indicating that all the offerings are symbolic. The actual offering does not matter, but the quality of the offering matters. That quality is "devotion". In other words all offering when qualified by devotion is acceptable.
Yes God is physically present and yet not physically present, because he is beyond duality.
He was ever present even when there was nothing present so much so that even the essence of HQ (truth) was unknown. Quoting from Sufi poem Allah oho
"Yeh semen jab Na Thai yeah jahaan jab na thaa
Chaand suraj na thay aasman jab na tha
Raaz-e-haq bhi kisi per ayaan jab na tha
Tab na tha kuch yahaan tha magar tu hee tu
Allah Hoo, Allah Hoo, Allah Hoo
Allah Hoo, Allah Hoo, Allah Hoo"
To comprehend the Lord is beyond us because we are a small pot of water in the ocean. Realization is impeded by our boundary (ie the pot) but in our small way we can offer him our devotion so that when the pot breaks we are ready to merge.
Thanks for the excellent question, brought to my notice by Jagjit bhai's answering it.
He surely didn't mean practically offering flowers, or petals fruits or water.The statement has to be taken in a Karmic sense.
Here flowers, fruits, water, etc. mean the fragrance, the nourishment, the essentials that we can offer to this world - to our society, and to this mother nature.
People usually lead a self centered lifestyle. But for a few moments in our life, we make contribution towards the world directly or indirectly (off course not monetary). And these are the moments of bliss. These are the moments that induce a certain level of peace into our minds.
These blissful moments are when we know that the GOD has accepted our offerings.
Lord Himeslf has said in the Gita that He is in the Heart of each and every individual(reddish Arjuna testate), in our body, and hence body has to be nurtured in such a way that it not only nourishes the body that contains the Lord but also pleasing to the Lord residing within us. And what pleases the Lord is pure static foods: fruits, flowery vegetables(grains), leafy vegetables and water. In fact, they are the most healthy food not only to the body but to the spiritual (Lord) enhancement as well.
HINDUISM ~ A Question from Geeta about offerings to god...?
