14.36

ei-mata jagannatha karena bhojana

ei sukhe mahaprabhura judaya nayana

SYNONYMS

ei-mata—in this way; jagannatha—Lord Jagannatha; karena bhojana—accepts His food; ei sukhe—in this happiness; mahaprabhura—of Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu; judaya—become fully satisfied; nayana—the eyes.

Indeed, Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu was fully satisfied just to see how Lord Jagannatha accepted all the food.

PURPORT

Following in the footsteps of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu, a Vaisnava should be fully satisfied simply to see a variety of food offered to the Deity of Jagannatha or Radha-Krsna.

A Vaisnava should not hunger for a variety of food for his own sake; rather, his satisfaction is in seeing various foods being offered to the Deity.

In his Gurv-astaka, Srila Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura writes:

catur-vidha-sri-bhagavat-prasada-

svadv-anna-trptan hari-bhakta-sanghan

krtvaiva trptim bhajatah sadaiva

vande guroh sri-caranaravindam “The spiritual master is always offering Krsna four kinds of delicious food (analyzed as that which is licked, chewed, drunk and sucked).

When the spiritual master sees that the devotees are satisfied by eating bhagavat-prasada, he is satisfied.

I offer my respectful obeisances unto the lotus feet of such a spiritual master.” The spiritual master’s duty is to engage his disciples in preparing varieties of nice food to offer the Deity.

After being offered, this food is distributed as prasada to the devotees.

These activities satisfy the spiritual master, although he himself does not eat or require such a variety of prasada.

By seeing to the offering and distribution of prasada, he himself is encouraged in devotional service.