When you make an offering (Naivedya) to God, the essence in that offering is taken by God. With a lot of love for Swamiji if you take a sweet, Swamiji gets the experience of having eaten that sweet. It reaches Him. So if you keep doing good, it goes to Him.

One day Ramakrishna Paramahamsa was sitting with his brother. His brother was an alcoholic. He had requested him many times to kick this habit, but his brother had told him, “You find bliss in spirituality, I find bliss in this. So what is wrong??” One day, Sri Ramakrishna told his brother, “From today I want to start smoking and drinking”, and asked his brother to get him some. His brother was shocked and told him that all these days he was asking him to give up his bad habit, why is he now trying to indulge in the same? Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa said, “You said you are very blissful in your drunken state. Even I want to experience that.” Then his brother gave up his drinking habit.

So many people offer coffee to Sri Swamiji’s photo with a lot of love and a clean heart! Swamiji would have accepted the essence in that offering. Sometime boys around Swamiji wonder why He is smelling of coffee. They never took any coffee to Him! Similarly, all the negative you do also reaches Sri Swamiji, you get the sin of having caused it. So you must always engage in good actions. Naivedyam is a very important offering. It is a practice of consuming the food with a sense of gratitude towards God, who has blessed you with food.

During the times of British, in Tirupati, there was once an accusation made by the British officer that the priests were eating the offering made behind the screens in the sanctum. And the idea of Naivedyam was all false. The chief priest decided that even if he begets sin, it is ok, he has to make these people understand the significance of Naivedyam to God. He gave some portion of the offering yet to be taken to the temple, to the officer to taste. He then took the offering to God and begged forgiveness stating that this will be his last offering as he committed a big mistake by offering the food to the officer before it was offered to God. One is not even supposed to smell it before offering it to God. He then offered the Naivedyam to God and brought the prasadam outside and gave it to the officer to try again. The food tasted so much better and different than before! It means God partakes your offering! This is in the history of Tirupati.