Friday, March 27, 2009

Shabari

Did Ram actually eat shabari's uchchistha [left over] . No. According to shastra what we surrender to God is known as naivedya. There are lot of rules and regulation that applies to Naivedya. Naivedya has to be clean sacred and untouched by anyone before offering to Lord. Fruits are never washed before naivedya as they are thought to be offered to Varuna whle washing. As such every entitled gyani and bhakta [ a qualified bhakta is necessarily a gyani ] can never make a mistake of offering impure tasted food. However whateer we offer to Lord comes back to us infinitely and hence a real bhakta makes a maximum effort to offer the optimum elements to Lord . like the best food , best dress , best flowers. Sour fruits bring infinite sourness in life , Moksha is a sweet infinite fruit so obtain it one must offer sweet fruits. It is also known a tree which gives a sweet fruit all other fruits it bears necessarily are sweet. Also when a collection of fruits are present one fruit tasted ensures other fruits are also sweet At the same time , the whole collection is deemed tasted . while eating in a plate once a man touches his food in aplate it becaomes his uchchista for all bramhinical purposes. Others may not feel so. further this plate is not shared. as human body is considered abode of Lord and dining is navaidya to this lord , thus , once plate is not shared as it becomes uchchista [prohibited] when touched by others.
Sim ilarly when shabari tasted few fruits in a collection of the fruits to ensure sweetness and offered other fruits intouched by her to Lord . Lord Ram accepted it owing to her bhakti , but technically it was uchchista by very high standards. In this way Valmiki suggests Lord's grace on Shabari to have accepted her uchchista and never Sage mentions that Shabari offered half eaten tasted fruits to Ram .

Happy Yugadi to all .