When I go to my village, the people who cook for me there are all non-vegetarians. I cannot avoid that, what can I do? -HH JPS GM answers

[Anadi Jagannath Das]

Question: When I go to my village, the people who cook for me there are all non-vegetarians. I cannot avoid that, what can I do? 

Srila Guru Maharaj: Like my mother, she wants to cook for me, but she is not a pure vegetarian. She is partially non-veg, more or less vegetarian. Still I don’t allow her to cook for me because she is not a vegetarian. But I either cook for them, or have some devotees cook for them and bring the prasadam to feed my mother, my brothers, in-laws, my nephews. So you can also cook for everyone else. You can say that I want you all to become vegetarian and I want you to know how nice vegetarian food is, this is not only vegetarian, this is prasadam. That’s one way.

The other way is you cook the grain. When you go there you put the rice on the fire. Because whoever puts the grain on the fire is the one who is doing the cooking, the others are just assistants. They can cook the other vegetables without onion and garlic. The grain transfers more sin than the vegetables. So she can cook the grains and say ‘I want to offer the things to Krsna, so allow me to put them on fire. Now I am devotee, so I should eat Krsna prasadam.’ Like this you present it. 

Don’t make them feel low or rejected or anything but at the same time you be a little insistent because you want to offer. ‘So let me put the rice on the fire.’ You can be with them cooking also. All of them can have Krsna prasadam. If you are overseeing them, then that is also offerable.

HH Jayapataka Swami Srila Guru Maharaj

26 Nov 2007,

Vizag,India