Question: I recently heard a lecture on the Bhagavad-Gita, Chapter 9 texts 26-34. The verses speak about offerings to Krishna, how we should make our offerings with genuine love and devotion.
In the Dharma book published by the BBT, Chapter 8 page 59 it says: “A spiritually advanced Krishna conscious person sees all moving and non-moving things, but he does not exactly see their forms. Rather, wherever he looks he sees the manifestation of His worshipable Lord.”
My question is: If a person like the one described above is able to see Krishna in every moving and non-moving things, is this person a living offering to the Lord?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
Yes, one could say that such person is a living offering to the Lord. The advanced devotees dedicate all their life energy and their very selves to Krishna.
Krishna’s multifarious energies are broadly divided into three categories – internal energy, external energy and marginal energy. The living entities are described as superior to dull matter, and are marginal in nature, i.e. in between material energy and the Lord’s internal energy; the Lord’s marginal energy, jiva souls, are capable of choosing either the spiritual energy or or the material energy to associate with and thus identify with (see Bg 7.5). The self-realized souls understand that the material energy belongs to Krishna and thus they try to engage whatever they come in contact with in His service. Beyond that, they understand that even their own body, mind, words, all their relationships, and even their very soul do not belong to them but are Krishna’s energy. Thus they offer their very *selves* to Him. This is called atma-nivedana, or total self surrender.
