Ma Prem Naina
In the Upanishads there is a beautiful story of Shvetketu, a brilliant student, who came back home full of knowledge and proud, from the gurukul. His old father, Uddalak, asked him a question, “You have come full ofknowledge, but do you know the knower? You have accumulated much information; your consciousness is full of borrowed wisdom. Do you know who you are?”
Shvetketu said, “This question was never raised in the university. I have learned the Vedas, language, philosophy, poetry, literature, but this was not a subject at all. You are asking a very strange question; nobody ever asked me in the university. ”
Uddalak told him to wait and fast for two weeks. Although his father told him to wait and fast, he started talking about the ultimate, the absolute, the Brahman.Uddalak said, “we will discuss about Brahman after two weeks.”
As days started to roll, his father started asking him, “What isBrahman?” In the beginning he answered a little bit, recited what he had crammed, displayed. But by the end of the week he was so tired, exhausted and hungry, that when the father asked about Brahman, he said, “I think only of food and you are asking me what Brahman is. Right now, except food nothing is Brahman.”
Uddalak said, “So your whole knowledge is just because you were not starved. Because you were taken care of, your body was nourished, it was easy for you to talk about great philosophy. Food is the first step towards Brahman. Food is Brahman – ANNAM BRAHMA.”
Food itself is Brahma. The whole universe originates from, sustains on and merges into Brahma. Similarly, all living beings originate from, survive on and merge into food.
Ahara or food is the primary need of every living being and each being is the reflection of the sort of food which has been ingested by him or her. Today the food and food habits are changing according to the changing lifestyle of the people. Life cannot be sustained without food. According to the concept of Trividha Upastaabha, food can be broadly divided in two types i.e. Hitahara and Ahitahara.
Hitahara is responsible for the normal growth and development of the body and Ahitahara or Viruddhahara, interferes with normal body function, thereby causing diseases or ill health.
Our wrong attitudes towards food are becoming dangerous for us and proving to be very costly. They have taken us to a point where we are somehow just alive. Our food does not seem to create health in us, it seems to create sickness. It is a surprising situation when food starts making us sick. It is as if the sun rising in the morning creates darkness. This would be an equally surprising and strange thing to happen. But all the physicians in the world are of the opinion that most of the diseases of man are because of his wrong diet. The state of our mind when we eat is very important than what we eat. Food will affect us in a different way if we eat with joy and happiness and in another way if we eat with sadness and worry. If we eat in a worried state, then even the best food will have a poisonous effect.
If a person can take his meal in a joyous and relaxed state, that food starts becoming the right food. A violent diet does not only mean that a man eats non-vegetarian food. It is also a violent diet when a man eats with anger. The other part of right food is that one should eat in a very peaceful and happy state. If one is not in such a state, then it is better to wait. When the mind is absolutely ready, only then should one take his meals. We have made eating food a completely mechanical process. One has to put food into the body and then leave the dining table. It is no longer a psychological process and that is dangerous.
Whenever we are half-hearted in anything, it lingers longer.If we eat half-heartedly, our hunger remains, we will continue to think about food the whole day. That’s why while fasting people continuously think about food. Wecan eat well and that doesn’t mean stuffing our stomachbecause eating well is an art. The art is to taste the food, smell the food, touch the food, chew the food, digest the food, and to digest it as divine.
Osho explains, “Hindus say, Anam Brahma – food is divine. So with deep respect you eat, and while eating you forget everything, because it is a prayer. It is an existential prayer. You are eating the divine and the divine is going to give you nourishment. It is a gift to be accepted with deep love and gratitude. You don’t stuff the body, because stuffing the body is being anti-body. It is the other pole.
There are people who are obsessed with fasting, and others who are obsessed with stuffing themselves. Both are wrong because in both the ways the body loses balance. A real lover of the body eats only to the point where body feels perfectly quiet, balanced, tranquil; where body feels to be neither leaning to the left nor to the right, but just in the middle. It is an art to understand the language of the body, to understand the language of your stomach, to understand what is needed, to give only that which is needed, and to give that in an artistic way, in an aesthetic way.”
What makes humans different from animals because both eat to sustain life. But humans make a great aesthetic experience out of eating, a beautiful dining table, candle-lit dinners and inviting friends to partake. It is to make it an art, not just stuffing. But these are outward signs of the art; the inward signs are to understand the language of our body, listen to it and be sensitive to its needs.
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