Once while serving breakfast to Poojya Swami ChinmayanandaJi, I happened to ask, “Swamiji, what can I give you?” Stern and quick was his retort, “You can give me NOTHING!” I was shaken and stepped back from the table to where my father was standing. My dad then explained to me: “That is not the way to speak with a mahatma. Who are you to be able to give him anything? You should have asked ‘May I offer you something Swamiji?’” I got the point.
There is a very delicate difference between give and offer. While giving you have already placed yourself higher than the receiver, and in offering you are humbly submitting your offer to the revered one’s will.
While offering the palms are upturned, and the receiver picks up the offering. Whereas in giving the palm is turned down, as in blessing someone bowing to an elder. In offering flowers to the lord also you use an upturned palm and slowly let the flower fall at his feet. Many devotees and even priests are found “throwing” flowers and coins at the lord in temples! That is very disrespectful. While doing havan also, the Samagri should be offered with an upturned palm, the fire is the symbol of the lord to whom the offering is made.
When showering flowers on a child in namkaran (naming ceremony) or on a young married couple when they seek your blessings, or on a young bride walking to the mandap, or on your daughter after marriage leaving the house with her husband, you are giving blessings, so you shower the flowers on their heads. But if you are welcoming a great personage, a saint, then you strew flowers at his feet and the path that he is treading on, not on his head. Our culture is rich and deep in every expression of emotion, thought and deed, secular or sacred.
Prarthna Saran, President Chinmaya Mission Delhi.
Email: prarthnasaran@gmail.com