In our childhood, when I was a boy of eight or ten years, sometimes I used to accompany my father. My father was a great devotee. He would take prasadam from the temple

Expressions researched:
"In our childhood, when I was a boy of eight or ten years, sometimes I used to accompany my father. My father was a great devotee. He would take prasādam from the temple"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

In our childhood, when I was a boy of eight or ten years, sometimes I used to accompany my father. My father was a great devotee. He would take prasādam from the temple. So I have got experience that we paid for two dishes, four annas. Four annas means, according to modern exchange, it is five cents only, five cents according to your exchange value. For five cents we were, very nice prasādam we can get. Two persons we were fed. Still there is a place which is called Nāthadvāra. Nāthadvāra, if you pay there two annas, you will get worth prasādam, two dollars worth. So this system is going on still.

Lecture on BG 4.19-22 -- New York, August 8, 1966:

In India there are many thousands of Kṛṣṇa temple all over India, especially in Vṛndāvana. I have several times told you that Vṛndāvana is the city, only fifty . . . fifty thousand people—not even one hundred thousand—fifty thousand people within a small city. But there are five thousand temples, five thousand, all Kṛṣṇa temples. Now, in each and every temple you will find how nice foodstuff. According to the capacity of the temple owner, oh, very, I mean to say, costly foodstuffs are being offered. And those foodstuff is distributed amongst the poor class of men.

Now, at the present moment, after the, we have got sva-rājya, or independence, the government has interfered with this sort of service. They say that, "This is waste of money. Why you are offering?" They are becoming atheist. But this is not waste of money. At the cost of the rich men, the prasādam was being distributed to the poor class of man at a nominal cost. You see? Now, poor man, they go to hotel. But if they take prasādam at . . . in a temple, oh, the far better quality foodstuff is supplied to him only at nominal cost. In a hotel, what will be charged one dollar, he can have it in the temple for ten cents. So this is still maintained.

In our childhood, when I was a boy of eight or ten years, sometimes I used to accompany my father. My father was a great devotee. He would take prasādam from the temple. So I have got experience that we paid for two dishes, four annas. Four annas means, according to modern exchange, it is five cent only, five cent according to your exchange value. For five cent we were, very nice prasādam we can get. Two persons, we are fed. Still there is a place which is called Nāthadvāra. Nāthadvāra, if you pay there two annas, you will get worth prasādam, two dollars' worth. So this system is going on still.

So if one has got sufficient means, he should supply Kṛṣṇa to his best capacity. But when Kṛṣṇa wants that, "You give Me . . . He says . . . this is the lowest common factor. Patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyam (BG 9.26). Anyone, any poor man in any part of the country, they can supply Kṛṣṇa and take the prasādam. So that by taking that prasādam, you become free from the, I mean to say, responsibility of being sinful. That is the point. That you will find in Bhagavad-gītā, that yajña-śiṣṭāśinaḥ santo mucyante sarva-kilbiṣaiḥ (BG 3.13): "If you take the remnants after offering Kṛṣṇa, that foodstuff makes you free from all kinds of sins."

So anyone—it doesn't matter what he is—he can prepare foodstuff either family-wise or . . . just like I am here, single. I am cooking my foodstuff, and I am offering my food Kṛṣṇa, and I am taking, and as far as possible, some of the remnants is distributed to the devotees. So this process we can adopt, everyone, because we have to maintain this body. So if we do not take kṛṣṇa-prasāda, then I become responsible for all kinds of sins. But if we take, accept, kṛṣṇa-prasāda, then I have no responsibility, because Kṛṣṇa is taking.