Karmi Grains :What's the Big Deal ?

[Guest guest]

I am a concerned parent of a 3 year old who I send to a local temple nursery school. My concern is that the devotees running the nursery think nothing of giving the toddlers karmi grains like pretzels,rice cakes,etc... I have tried speaking about this to the head teacher but she says that the parents insist on giving these foodstuffs to their children.They see nothing wrong whereas I understand from the teachings of Srila Prabhupada that karmi grains make the mind wicked and impure so that it becomes impossible to think of Krishna.It is so unfortunate that from the tender ages of 2 -5 these little aspiring devotees are getting contaminated like this.How can I deal with this situation without making myself look like a fanatic.?

[I_love_krishna_]

Rice is a Karmi Grain? and by your definition it is bad, but then that would mean that people can't eat rice cakes.

 

Rice cakes contaminate people? how ?

 

This is another type of conditioning! What we take in does not contaminate us, when we are not our body.

 

Rice is not an animal, we are not killing it and then eating it. Rice cakes are filled with milk,sugar and rice.

 

How can it be so bad?

 

Come on, eating a rice cake does not make you forget about krishna.

 

Just the same, eating a pretzel does not make you forget about krishna.

 

I think you can just ignore these karmi grains.

 

 

[yasodanandana]

tapasya, austerity or renunciation have a sense only if we can do them all life long and only if we, doing like this, increase our chanting of hare krishna

 

(tapasya, in sanskrit, means also "COHERENCE")

 

if you are reasonably sure to mantain a vow to not eat anything cooked by karmis (provided we are not karmi too!!), and that it will be the same for your sons for a reasonably long time, then you can remove your sons from the gurukula

 

otherwise it is an offense to these devotees that maybe are struggling hard with finances and lack of personnel

 

of course everyone will be laughing at the first coming of your sons in a mac donald or a disco at their 14, 16, 18 years

 

but, if you help these teachers and the temple to find a solution, there is no harm if you gently work to obtain the improvement you desire

 

in my country we have not even the dream to have a nursery run by devotees

 

quote: "How can I deal with this situation without making myself look like a fanatic.? "

 

it's not a problem of "look", a problem is if you are fanatic or not, and it'is also heavily depending from how much time you and your sons will remain in a standard or a way of life

 

if you will break your "high" standard at a certain point, for the normal difficulties of life, the value of having done it for years is relatively little, and, most of all.. it will be a bad example for other people because it will increase the lack of faith in following strictly a spiritual path

 

( example: "it is impossible to avoid karmi's bread!!!!, also krsna das have stopped to make bread and now he's buying it at the store... maybe srila prabhupada was wrong..... he was imposing impossible things to us!!! ")

 

please do not take what i have said as a criticism for you.... i understand very well your concern and i do not minimize it in any way

 

i am very sorry to have not a decent english to explain better what i think

[Guest guest]

On eating foodstuffs cooked by non-devotees(grains).Does it affect the consciousness ? Does it make the mind wicked ? Isn't it the standard set by the acaryas that as aspiring devotees we should be careful about eating "outside " food ? How can these "foods" be offered to Krishna with love and devotion ? No bhakti,no prasadam,no spiritual life. yours in sri krishna's seva, jiva

[Guest guest]

You should avoid foods cooked by non-devotees. According to the subtle laws of nature, the cook acts upon the food not only physically but mentally as well. Food thus becomes an agent for subtle influences on your conscious. The principle is the same as that at work with a painting: a painting is not simply a collection of strokes on a canvas but an expression of the artist's state of mind, which affects the viewer. So if you eat food cooked by non-devotees-employees working in a factory, for example--then you're sure to absorb a dose of materialism and karma.

[I_love_krishna_]

The ideas of materialism do not spread through foods.

right?

 

I mean, if we eat food cooked by a person suffering from obessive compulsory disorder, we cannot get obsessive like them.

sorry, but i think that is ridiculous , in my view.

 

Materialism and Karma exist in our minds, they are nothing more than notions entertained due to maya.

 

If they can spread through food stuffs then that would mean that we don't eat!.

 

The entire human race would go into extinction and we would just die off.

 

In the Vedic age, the kings and queens did not cook their own food , they got food cooked by the royal cook. The royal cook may have been really nasty, but that does not mean that the king who ate what the royal cook cooked pays the price.

 

 

 

 

[stonehearted]

I_love_krishna_: The ideas of materialism do not spread through foods.

right?

 

Actually, the the cook's consciousness is transferred into the food he or she prepares, according to our acharyas. That's why we avoid eating in restaurants and avoid eating grains that have been prepared by materialistic persons. And that's one reason that those who cook for the Deities in a temple must first have undergone purificatory processes, including initiation. This idea isn't understood only by devotees; in Laura Esquivel's novel, Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate), we see that the cook's emotions pervade the dishes she has prepared. When I bring brownies or cookies for my students, as I do at least once each semester, I tell them that I have made them with love. Even my students can appreciate that. What they may not be able to appreciate yet is that I made them with (whatever) love (I may have) for my Girirajas and Shalagram, and that this food is Their leftovers.

 

When we cook for Krishna, we offer both the food and the love; it's the love that really makes the food acceptable.

 

Does this make any sense to you?

 

Most of the things discussed here, though, were prepared by machines, which may make the subject a little more complicated.

[I_love_krishna_]

what if we can't ignore the food that is not made by pure devotional service to Sri Radha Krishna.

 

 

[yasodanandana]

seeing it in a practical way.... how many of you that are saying all these right things (in absolute) about this subject are really sure to mantain this standards in the years, in all the difficulties, economic changes, need to travel for job, marrying, having children, lack of time, etc..

 

personally i can easily open "folio" and quote 1000 prabhupada's instructions about this... but who cares if one is not reasonably sure to sustain this preaching with his example in the rest of his life?

 

i am sorry to say that the 99.99999999 % of devotees that i know who were strict in avoiding karmi's bread and grains, in a few years have stopped to do it.... and , of course, many, not admitting the defeat, are preaching that it is a fanatic thing........... so, what's the use of an austerity observed for a few time? a negative preaching

[raga]

How many of you follow Hari Bhakti Vilasa to the letter? How many of you have heard of the title? How many of you who heard about it have read one chapter of it, or more? Well, that is the "rules and regulations" book written according to the instructions of Mahaprabhu. Check it out.

 

Most people (about 99.7% of the devotees out there) do not or cannot follow every rule, or even say 20% of what's told in there. All hope is lost for them?

[I_love_krishna_]

I can't get food cooked by pure devotees because my mom cooks it for my family.

 

Yes you can think of me as a fanatic for krishna because I love being a fanatic of a good thing.

 

Anyway, Is there a way to purify the food that is not cooked by a pure devotee?

 

My mom is not a pure devotee, she just cooks .

 

Please answer me /images/graemlins/crazy.gif

[yasodanandana]

you are not a fanatic, or better, i cannot know if you are...... only reading your posts!... for me you are a devotee, and that should be enough

 

you purify the food cooked by you mother by your beeing a better devotee, because who is a devotee of krsna delivers from this material world (=purifies) parents, relatives and anyone who associates with him

 

food is prasadam basically when it is offered with love and devotion to krsna..... if you have that love and devotion to krsa, you will offer Him that food that your mother cooks with love and devotion (as a mother to his son) to you

 

something like we, for love and affection for our spiritual master, offer service to him, he (as we sing in guruvastakam) offers it to the gopis, they offer to radha and she serves to krsna........ in this way we can serve krsna

 

seeing by another point of view, you of course have to consider ( with the advice and help of your spiritual master) if the standard you have, represents the best you can do now.... pretending too little by ourselves or too much has the same result.... falldown