There is one aspect of eating that is seldom discussed in our matter-centered world. Yet, it can transform a meal of water and stale bread into a healthy and sumptuous feast. It can do wonders to your health (even cure acute disease), bring clarity to the mind, resolve emotional fixations and immunize you against matter-centered thought. This "secret" aspect of eating is remembering that meals are also opportunities for practicing devotion (Bhakti Yoga).

Offering your meal to God, at the very least, reduces formation of karma and infuses eating with Divine ideation. As a matter of fact, seeing meals as an opportunity for worship raises preparation and consumption of food above concerns of health, economics, ethics, religion, and even karma. Offering food to the Divine transforms eating from being an act that separates us from God into an act that brings us closer to the Supreme.

When we eat, we engage ourselves in one of the most base aspects of human existence: we consume another life so that our body may live. (It may be just a vegetable but it is alive.) Hunger harshly reminds us that our minds and souls are imprisoned in our body and we will starve without food. All our wonderful dreams of a spiritual life, fulfilling career, deep relationships, etc. will come to a grinding halt after just a few days without food. Moreover, since eating is a willful action, it activates the laws of karma each time we eat and binds us further to this transitory world of opposites. We need to learn how to make eating an actionless and, therefore, karmaless affair. The way to do it is by consciously transforming eating into an act of worship: offering the object (food), the subject (eater) and the action itself (eating) to the Supreme Being.

By offering food to the Divine and seeing eating as an act of worship, we transfer the responsibility for this otherwise gross act to God. Thus, eating does not bind us through the law of karma because the reaction will not be experienced by you but by the Supreme Being Itself. Moreover, meals become another special opportunity to engage in dialogue with our Creator and to rejoice in the love and care that the Divine constantly extends to us (Grace). By transforming eating, which is ordinarily a spiritually useless pursuit, into an act of devotion, meals become another occasion to renew our relationship with God. In fact, when a person is ceaselessly engaged in such dialogue (Parabhakti) he has already attained God-realization. For, as beloved Rumi once said, one-pointed devotion to God is indistinguishable from God.

How do you offer food to the Supreme? Very simply and sincerely! Mentally visualize your guru or your deity (which should be the same if you are a true tantrik) and offer the food to him or her. If truly done from the depth of your heart, you will know if the offering has been accepted. When the offered food has been accepted, it becomes prasada—God’s transcendent nectar.

When offered with true gratitude and reverence to God, the food acquires incredible properties because it becomes infused with spiritual energy. The same ingredients take on extraordinary flavors and develop remarkable fragrances. The food makes us feel better and has been known to cure disease. By eating prasada (food that has been offered to and accepted by the Supreme) your body is nourished not just physically but spiritually. Prasada helps cleanse your mind of negative thoughts and infuses it with spiritual ideation. Your body and mind become protected against the harmful influence of the materialistic thoughts which are plentiful in our consumer oriented society. The tantrik traditions speak of many people whose lives were transformed by eating prasada, and many tantrik practitioners will attest to the spiritual potency of prasada and the effect it has had on their life.

Eating only food that has been offered with devotion to the Supreme is the ultimate perfection of a vegetarian diet. After all, many animals are vegetarian, so becoming a vegetarian is not in itself the greatest of accomplishments. Since the purpose of human life is to reawaken the soul to its relationship with God, only when we go beyond mere vegetarian eating to partaking prasada can our eating be helpful in achieving enlightenment.