What shall be our food habits?

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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dattaswami
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Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:42 am

What shall be our food habits?

Post by dattaswami »

The Veda says that you should not take food more than twice in 24 hours. If you take food more than twice, you should work like the animal ( dvirahnaah manushyaah trirahnaah pashavah… Veda). But, you are taking the food three times and not working like the bull in agriculture.

Due to this, the sugar levels rise in the blood leading to several calamities of the health. When you become rich, you like to eat oily foods and sweets, which are fast vehicles to death. Poverty controls all the desires and gives best health and best happiness in the life.

Hence, Shankara told that the poor man is the most fortunate fellow ( Kaupeenavantah khalu bhagyavantah ). If you realize this wonderful truth, your ambition to become more and more rich even through corruption and crime disappears.

Such realization comes only through spiritual knowledge and not through the study of science and management of business administration. Hence, the education system must be thoroughly rejuvenated to fill more with spiritual knowledge and less with materialistic line of learning . If this is done by the Government, there need not be any effort to bring balance in the society with peace and happiness in the humanity.
You must eat to live and not live to eat! The food must be in limited quantity. If the food is eaten in limited quantity, it is eaten by you (adyate) and if it is eaten more, you will be eaten by it (atti) since it (unlimited food) brings illness to kill you! This is said by the Veda ( adyate atticha bhutaani tasmaat annam ).

Only little food is converted into energy. All the rest remaining food brings disease only. More food is eaten due to ambition for self only. Limited food is converted into limited energy. Since the energy is limited, you should not waste your energy in luxuries and in killing the time by useless entertainments. The digestive system is not a machine generating endless energy since the system has limits of work and efficiency.
You may be very rich to procure unlimited quantity of food, but, your digestive system has limit in its work-efficiency. Hence, whether you are rich or poor, you have to take care about eating limited food and preserving the limited energy generated.

This limited energy should be carefully and precisely used in worldly activities so that as far as possible more and more energy can be available for divine service. Full meal gives sleep. It means that sleep is indicating the full meal. Exactly half of this full meal should be taken so that half vacant stomach is partly filled with water and partly filled with moving gas.

The food must be suitable to your body ( hitam ), limited ( mitam ) and just cooked ( hutam ), which alone gives perfect health ( hitabhuk mitabhuk hutabhuk ). You must rest a little after lunch and walk a little after dinner in the night ( katipaya padachamkramanah ).

You must never resist urine and motion for a long time ( anibaddha mutra pureeshah ). You must have little frequency of sex as far as possible ( streeshu yo jaagarti ). All these are tips of health science given by yoga scripture. Health is the real wealth not only in Pravrutti (social justice) but also in Nivrutti (serving God).
Extreme steps must be avoided as per authority also.

[Both extreme steps of fasting and overeating to pain the soul shall be avoided as said in the Gita ( naatyashnatastu… , karshayantah… ). Fasting gives weakness in doing ritual and overeating brings drowsiness. Even the Veda recommends light food in rituals ( payo braahmanasya... ).]
The food must be in three ways, devoid of three defects and first of three qualities.

[Precautions must be taken in taking food: 1) It must be limited in quantity, but, high in quality. 2) It must be well cooked to eliminate bacteria and 3) It must be non-allergic to be known by test of a specific human being ( mitam hutam hitam ). The food must avoid three defects also: 1) Gas (vaata), 2) Damage of liver (pitta) and 3) effect of cold (sleshma). The food must be selected for the first quality and the other two qualities must be limited: 1) Sattvam with neutral taste, 2) Rajas with salty, chilly and sour tastes and 3) Tamas with killed taste due to long delay after cooking.]

Deep sleep must be 1/3 or 1/4 of the day without the three types of dreams.

[Sleep must not be lesser then 1/4 and must not be more then 1/3 of the duration of a day (24 hours). This sleep must be deep devoid of any dream. Dream comes for three reasons: 1) God may use it for communication with the soul. 2) The strong feelings of subconscious state of previous births may appear and 3) Some strong feelings from general conscious state of awakening of present birth may appear.]

Gas generated from potato etc., cold generated from sweet and cool foods, indigestion coming from oil etc., spoil the health. You must stop the journey in rainy season since you will be attacked by illness. The secret of Chaaturmaasya (staying in one place during rainy season) is only this. You must have proper quantum of sleep to keep mind fresh and body also healthy. You must adapt yourself carefully according to changing seasons.

Association with worldly people is not holy. Association with spiritual people makes you holy. Don’t aspire to become popular in this society of worldly people. This is the reason for the sages to go to forests to live in association with birds and animals, who do effort for the meals of that day only. The worldly people in cities and villages always put efforts even if they have earned wealth sufficient for 10 future generations! Take even simple food offered by spiritual people and don’t take even a feast offered by worldly people. You have to spend 1/3rd time of day (24 hrs) for sleep. Sleep is very essential for the brain and body. In the rest 2/3rd time (16 hrs), spend as much as possible for the sake of God after finishing your duties for earning and other responsibilities of your family.

Rest a while after lunch and walk a while after dinner. The food taken should be 1/4th of your stomach. Water should be in another 1/4th part. Another 1/4th part should be for the movement of gas. The last 1/4th part should be free space. The scripture of Yoga prescribes this. Control of external and internal senses is the very foundation of Yoga. Doing regular exercises and avoiding polluted air by exposing to fresh and pure air are the associated steps for good health. You must take lot of care about your health, which is very much essential for the spiritual journey.

You must always analyse food you take regarding its effects on your body. The food also affects your mind and intelligence. Food is the source of good health as well as disease. The qualities of food and its quantity should be always analysed. You take food through your mouth and similarly you hear the sentences through your ears. You must analyse the quality and quantity of speech grasped by your years. Both these decide your spiritual future.

The effects of food on the body and mind

We are talking about the force used by God to influence the thoughts, words, and deeds of souls in the Kṛta Age (initial ages) on earth. Earth is called Martya Loka which is a karma loka. It means that it is a world in which souls choose their own actions. It is only in this world that above-mentioned little freedom is possible. The upper worlds are called bhoga lokas in which the soul is destined to enjoy the fruits of its actions without the slightest freedom to alter the fruit. Hence, we need not touch the upper worlds in which there is not the slightest possibility of getting even a trace of freedom. In this karma loka or earth, during the Kṛta Age, all human beings ate only the prescribed food, which helps the soul in thinking, speaking and doing good alone.

The state of the soul was like that of a hospitalized patient, who has the restriction of eating only the prescribed food. Food is said to influence the physical state of the body as well as the thoughts and the state of the mind (Annānurūpāṁ tanurūpabuddhiṁ, Kāryam nidānāddhi guṇānadhīte). Today, after getting freedom from God, human beings can eat any type of food. They can speak and do anything they want. If required, they can even do things that they want secretly! But the scriptures, the preachers and finally the Human Incarnations always exist in every generation to give souls all the information with full clarity about merit and sin. The ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it!

Freedom can be enjoyed while simultaneously taking the necessary precautions of avoiding sin. The freedom allows you to do any type of meritorious action. Within the boundaries of meritorious action, there is a great variety of actions that one can do. Meritorious actions are like sweet, mild and good food which is called sāttvika āhāra. One has the freedom to choose any such good food for good physical and mental health. Hot and spicy dishes are like sins. You must take precautions to avoid all types of hot and spicy dishes in order to maintain good health. There are actually several saints who eat only sweet and mild food in limited quantities. They totally avoid hot and spicy dishes.

The majority, like us, chooses to eat some spicy dishes too since God has given us the freedom of choice. Would you not criticize God if He had not given this freedom to us? Further, you may avoid sin and do only meritorious deeds. But if you do the meritorious deeds with the aspiration for heavenly enjoyment, here is a warning for you. It is like eating sweets which causes diabetes. Avoiding sins and doing meritorious deeds must be associated with true devotion to God. The devotion is like preventive medicine. It prevents the disease.

The type of food we consume affects our mind. The qualities inherent in the food we eat produce corresponding qualities in our minds, which force our decision-making. But we must clearly note that it is we who are responsible for these forces acting on our mind arising from the qualities in the foods consumed by us. After all, we use our freedom to choose what we eat. God has given us intelligence and has also described the effects of different types of foods in the scripture such as the last chapter of the Gita. We had the freedom to choose any type of good food. Yet we also chose some food that is not good. Thus, we see that within certain limits, we have full freedom.

We can similarly analyze the association with good and bad people. We have the freedom to associate with bad people just as we can choose bad food. But we can also use our intelligence and follow the divine instructions given by God. With right analysis, we can select the company of good people which is like good food. Among good people, we have full freedom to select any type of good people. In the Kṛta Age, souls only had the freedom to choose any type of good company. They had no freedom to choose bad company. Later on, God even granted the freedom to choose bad company. Some souls used that freedom, chose bad company and got spoiled. For that one cannot blame God because He always preaches to us all about good and bad without any partiality.
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