“If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it.” (Bg.9.26)

This verse shows a few things. First it shows how simple the worship of God can be. Often times it seems expected that Vedic or Hindu rituals cost much money, especially those performed in the temples. Sometimes when we visit certain temples in India the priests try to force us into engaging in a ritual and then ask for a large offering of money, dakshina. However, we should not feel forced to make extravagant offerings or pay a priest large amounts of money if we have no such facility. Devotional service is not meant to be a business, but a means of offering our love to God. Without that even the most opulent offerings do not gain much favor in the eyes of God. If we have much love and devotion, that is the biggest asset even if our offering is simple. Such a modest offering filled with love and devotion is more than acceptable to Lord Krishna.

So we can certainly worship God by going to the temple, seeing the Deity, saying our prayers, and provide a little offering according to our capacity. Or we may simply have a Deity or a picture or symbol at home and offer a little something there. Of course, if we do have plenty of funds, then we can even help build a temple if we want, or sponsor a huge festival or something else. The point is that it must be a sign of our love and devotion to be accepted.

The second thing this verse shows is that God asks for items which cause no harm to others. He asks for no blood offerings or for the meat of slaughtered animals. Thus, as He outlines here, we offer nice flowers, fruits, grains, or sumptuous vegetable preparations. Similarly, after the items are offered, we accept the remnants of such offerings as prasada, known as His mercy on us. Because we partake of such sacred food that has been offered to God, we also make great spiritual advancement. The prasada purifies our minds and bodies.

There have already been experiments that show how praying over food will subtly change its molecular structure in a positive way. So when we prepare food in the proper consciousness, with the intent of offering it to God, in the form of His Deity or picture, with prayers and worship, then we can imagine how much more the food changes and becomes purified.

Furthermore, if we are serious about making spiritual advancement, we do not want to put things in our body which depletes our energy, our health, or lowers our vibration, thoughts and consciousness. So a few things that will do that are tobacco, intoxicants like drugs or alcohol, as well as meat. Meat is a product of violence since the animal has to be killed. No entity wants to be killed. So this kind of violence enters your system when you eat the meat. It lowers your consciousness and sensitivity to the point where you may no longer perceive anything wrong with killing the lives of animals so you can satisfy your tongue. This, of course, does not take into consideration how many drugs are put into the bodies of livestock which are bred to be butchered, nor the conditions in which they are slaughtered. But if you are sincere about raising your own consciousness, and keeping yourself free from the karma of contributing to the violence of unnecessary killing, then you should consider these points and adjust your intake of foods accordingly and at least take to the vegetarian diet. In other words, we do not want to cause harm to others or ourselves, so we do not partake in eating things that will do that, or that will cause resistance to our spiritual progress. And the meat diet is not difficult to give up when we have experienced the higher taste of what can be done with delicious vegetable preparations.