We Are What We Eat🔗

17.8 The foods that promote longevity, virtue, strength, health, happiness and joy are juicy, smooth, substantial and nutritious.

Such foods are liked by persons in the mode of goodness.

17.9 People in the mode of aggression like foods that are very bitter, sour, salty, hot, pungent, dry, and burning, and which cause pain, grief and disease.

17.10 People in the mode of ignorance like foods that are stale, tasteless, putrid, rotten, refuse and of impure energy.

Krishna talks about the nature of food consumed by people of satva, rajas and tamas temperaments.

He explains what kind of food these people like, what kind of lives these people lead and what kind of understanding these people experience in their lives. The most important thing is what kind of understanding they acquire. See, the same words can be understood in many different ways.

The other day, I related the story of a scholar who narrated the story of Harishchandra, a king who sacrificed his wife and child in order to keep his word. At the end of the story the narrator asked two people, ‘What did you understand from the story?’

One person said, ‘Even if you die, you must speak the truth.’

The other person said, ‘If it is an emergency, you can sell your wife. There is nothing wrong with that!’

From the same story, two different understandings arose. In the story of the great king Harishchandra, he gave away his kingdom, sold his wife, and allowed himself and his son to be killed in order to fulfill his promise and uphold the truth of his commitments. We need to understand the word in the context of its spirit.

A small story:

A monk was sent to Alaska to spread God's word. Before going, the Pastor Father blessed him and said, 'Your rosary and wine will take care of you. Don't worry.' A Rosary is the prayer beads, and wine is given as offering at prayer symbolically representing Christ's blood and sacrifice. 'Rosary and wine will take care of you.'

After one year, the Pastor Father visited the monk to see how the mission work was going on. The monk received him with the due honor.

The Father asked, 'How is the mission work happening?'

The monk said, 'Father, just as you said, the rosary and wine are taking care of me. If it were not for them, I would have died in the cold.'

In the course of their conversation the monk asked, 'Father, would you like a cup of wine?'

Father replied, 'Why not? Please get it.' The monk turned towards the kitchen and said, 'Rosary, bring a cup of wine!'

Words can easily be misunderstood! Please don't miss the essence of the words. It is easy to miss the spirit behind the words, the true meaning behind the words. Experiment with courage. And if you can't, if this is not the truth for you, forget about it. At least you will be free to search somewhere else.

If you think that it is the truth and you don't execute it or experiment with it in your life, then drop it! Otherwise it will become a habit to listen to the truth and not practice it. It will become a mental setup. It is the most dangerous mental setup. People ask me, 'Swamiji, should I renounce everything to become enlightened? Should I become a sanyāsi, a monk?'

I tell them, 'No. There is no need. Just do one thing. Don't have the mental setup of receiving the truth and not practicing it, that's all.' That is the most dangerous thing that can happen to any being. Please be very clear, receiving the truth and understanding it intellectually without having the courage to practice it is the worst possible mental setup. That is the worst devil or demon that can catch hold of you. So at least have the courage to decide, 'This is not for me because this is not the truth.' If you believe this is the truth, then have the courage to experiment with it.

You have heard many things. Krishna does not say anything new in this chapter. He says only one thing, ‘Be sincere.’ Sincerity is the straight way. I tell people, ‘Honesty is the basic spiritual virtue. Sincerity is the basic spiritual virtue.’ First be a gentleman, then you can be a spiritual man. Gentleman means to be honest to what you believe, truthful to the core. Never do anything without being clear about the truth, and never stop doing anything if you know it is the truth. The scientist is courageous enough to go after the truth. Wherever the research takes him, he is ready to experiment.

In the same way, you must become an inner scientist, a spiritual scientist. You must have the courage to go behind the experience within the words. You must be able to play with them.

A small story:

An enlightened Zen master and his disciple went to the river to bathe. Suddenly, the disciple fell into the river and shouted, ‘Master, save me, save me.’

The Zen master said, ‘You are ātman (soul), save yourself. You are God, save yourself.’

The disciple shouted, ‘Master, first save me, then you can teach me philosophy. Then you can teach me meditation. First, please save me.’

The master replied, ‘Stand up and save yourself.’

The disciple shouted, ‘No, No, master, save me. Then you can teach me.’

The master shouted back, ‘Fool, I am telling you to stand up.’

The disciple became frightened. Just out of fear, he simply stood up, and realized that the water was only up to his knees!

When you stand up, you understand the whole saṁsāra sāgara, the ocean of life. Whatever you consider to be the great worries of your life are not even up to your knee level. They are just up to the ankle level. Because you are lying down, because you never stand up, you think you are drowning; you think you are going to die.

I tell you from my personal experience, if you stand up, you will realize that the water is only knee-deep. Whatever you regard as the saṁsāra sāgara (ocean of life) is only knee deep. It is nothing. There is no way it can affect you. But you need courage to stand up. For example, if the disciple had decided, ‘No, no, I am drowning and instead of pulling me out and helping me, master is teaching me impractical things. What kind of a master is he?’ If he simply blamed the master, he would have gone with the river.

He had the courage and in a minute, he got the guts to experiment with the master’s words and was saved. You need the guts. You need the courage to stand up and see the truth by yourself. It is having the courage to experiment. Nothing will be lost. If something can be lost, it is better to lose it as soon as possible. May you be rid of that thing or situation. If something can be lost by practicing the truth, may it be lost as early as possible. The earlier it is lost, the better for you.

May you flood your being with the truth. Whatever cannot stand, whatever is washed away, let it be washed away. May it be lost from your being as early as possible.

Krishna explains here about the energy of various food substances. Generally, all food that is not from plants i.e., from animal origin, has negative energy. Food that is hot and spicy tends to aggravate desires. Vegetarian food that is fresh and not spicy is ideal for spiritual practices.

In our Nithya Spiritual Healing system, it is essential that the healers become vegetarians and give up substances such as alcohol, tobacco, drugs, etc. I have nothing against alcohol or meat. I have no theories about cruelty to animals and so on. Plants also have life, just perhaps not at the same frequency. So if one argues from the point of cruelty to animals, eating vegetables also is cruelty to plants.

The Nithya Spiritual Healing system is based on deep meditative techniques. For the meditative energy to be effective, negative energy substances should not be used. I have seen that these meditations do not go together with meat as well as with tobacco and alcohol. If healers eat meat, smoke or drink, they are affected physiologically and psychologically.

Many people complain that this condition is restrictive. What can I do? To satisfy especially the followers who wish to become healers, I have modified the system for self-healing, which allows them to eat meat, drink or smoke. But the interesting development is that many of these healers drop meat, cigarettes and liquor on their own! After a while the mind-body system rejects these low energy food substances automatically.

Any serious meditation technique requires one to be in the energy field. The word ‘āhāra’ used by Krishna can be expanded to mean food for all senses, not merely for the tongue. All sensory inputs need to be of the same description that Krishna uses here, promoting ‘longevity, virtue, strength, health, happiness and joy’ to aid one’s progress in one’s spiritual path by the satvic route.

Q: Swamiji, the vedic science of medicine, Ayurveda recommends food types in line with one’s constitution. Are those similar to what Krishna says?

Ayurveda, which literally means the knowledge or science of life, is the ancient Indian system of wellness. Ayurveda is essentially about lifestyle and wellness unlike most other sciences of medicine whose focus is to cure diseases.

The principle of Ayurveda is based upon our relationship with the universe. It arises from the fundamental assumption that we are the same energy as the universe. The Taittreya Upanishad explains the five elements of energy in the universe and how they are interconnected. First, ether or ākāśa arose from the universal energy. From ākāśa, air or vāyu arose. From vāyu came fire or agni. Agni gave rise to water or āpa, from which earth or pṛthvī developed. Herbs and plants grow from earth and support humans, whose energy is the same as the universal energy.

These five elements of the cosmic energy that exist in foods of plants and herbs sustain all living beings. Ayurveda connects the source of energies, the energies, the carriers of energies and consumers of energies, in a holistic way. Food is therefore an integral part of this system of wellness.

Ayurveda classifies human beings into three types or doṣas. Unlike guṇas that are the essential behavioral attributes in which we operate, doṣas are a combination of the kinds of energies predominant in us. There are three doṣas called vātha, pitta and kapha. Vāta, for instance, is a combination of ether and air in us. Ayurvedic diagnosis can tell which constitution we belong to and our physical and mental attributes.

Ayurveda recommends different foods for each constitutional type based upon tastes such as sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, etc. These are specific recommendations as to what tastes would be healthy for which constitutions and based on this what kind of vegetables and fruits one should eat and so on. Even cooking methods are specified that can be used to provide wholesome ayurvedic food.

Krishna outlines a more general classification based upon the purity and nature of food. Krishna explains that tamasic food, putrid and stale, is forbidden for consumption by vedic tradition. The injunction is to eat food within a few hours of cooking. Beyond that, the food should be discarded.

Today we store food in freezers for months! How can we be healthy? Rarely do people eat food within a few hours of cooking. Everything is prepared in advance and then mixed and micro waved. God knows what kind of genetic modification will happen to people who eat only such food.

Eat fresh food. It is not necessary that it be raw as some people claim. Fire and heat are good energy. But you should know what materials should be used as containers. Cooking in plastics can only give you disease, not energy.

We have forgotten how to prepare food and eat it. Soon, children will think that food grows in supermarkets. They will have no knowledge about farms and plants. Even our flowers are artificial. We touch them and the plastic cuts our fingers.

To preserve such food, we need chemicals. How can we stay healthy when we ingest chemicals instead of energy?

We eat on the run. I see people in America walking down the street holding a phone to the ear with one hand and shoving a burger into the mouth with the other hand. They call it multitasking. This is the easiest way to stress, depression and disease. The food that we disrespect so much eventually abuses us. It settles in places that make us unhealthy. Eating an apple in this manner is bad enough; imagine eating a hamburger in this fashion!

Eat fresh food in silence and with attention. Pay attention to each morsel of food and eat with gratitude and love. Eating does not need to be a social occasion. It should not be. Enjoy your social interactions before and after meals, not while eating. Be in the present moment while you eat.

What Krishna says makes pure sense for wellness. Natural foods contain their own flavor and goodness. You do not need to add spices and flavoring agents to corrupt their taste. He says eat food as it comes, fresh from the earth, and cooked with the energy of fire. Eat it while it is fresh. You will be in satva. You will be in bliss.