Food – essential to life.
You come home from the grocery store and drop the grocery down. Question: how do you treat the food? Do you chuck it on the floor like trash or do you thing of it as your precious cargo? As I shared earlier in a previous video about where out food comes from, now where it goes when it reaches your home is another thing to think of. The way we take care and treat our food is important. It’s just as sacred as the one who created it. We get busy but if we get in the good habit of putting it away in the pantry and refrigerator with a good feeling then we are already putting good vibes in our food. Our food puja starts there. Because food is plentiful here in America, we kind of take it for granted. – like it’s just something we eat. The quality of food is tied to the way we treat it also.
How do you eat an apple? Do you cut it up and eat it with a fork? After washing the apple and your hands, you can cut it up or just bite into it. You might find you enjoy it better by using your hands to eat it rather than using cutlery because our hands give out energy also. If you have good vibes your energy is transmitted to the apple. Also natural intelligence in the body is sort of connecting to the apple. This is why many people will ask someone such as a saint or guru to touch or bless their food. So, as you form a sacred relationship with God and even have a reverence for your food then the food will actually taste better and have good vibrations. You can check about the effects of prayer or good thoughts on water.
In Ayurveda food is classified into 3 types – sattvic, rajasic and tamasic. You can read about them if you wish. As I did sadhana I began to become aware of the affect of foods on my system. I never tried limiting myself from foods such as onions and garlic but I moved away from them because I would notice the difference in my body. Usually you get advice on what to eat on the path(more sattvic food) but the path was leading me to experience the effects of the food on the body. So, when I go to the grocery, I can hold the foods in my hand and sometimes I need to put it up to my forehead and I would know the nature or effect of that food so I would buy it or not. Sometimes it may be a little cloudy in knowing and I would buy but the moment I put it in my mouth I can feel it. So, after many years, guess what? All the foods that yogis would say to stay away from, it naturally came about in me to not have those foods because of the way I felt when I eat it. Then it had dawned on me, that this is how the science of food classification came about in Ayurveda. My Guruji always said that things would happen automatically. This is why I believe in this path, although I sometimes I doubted it a bit at first.
Nowadays, some people are thinking about going back to a diet that our ancestors ate. Would that work – maybe, maybe not. Here are some things to consider:
Our whole digestive system has changed. Our digestive system is made up of different organisms that help us digest. With the kinds of food and preservatives we have been using for decades has caused some of the organisms to die off so we are having a hard time digesting some food.
We as a species have changed from our ancestors and the needs of the body will keep changing. Because of some reason our bodies can no longer digest wheat products whether it is our change or the wheat changed. Also, there is a psychological change in consciousness in our feelings as conscious beings towards the animals and the planet. So is nature changing our nature? An adult does not eat the food of a toddler. In the same way as more humans becomes more conscious beings then is it possible that diets have to change?
Our job and lifestyles have changed so the amount and kind of food we eat have changed and will continue to change. This is why experts come up with one diet after the next. The portions and other things will keep changing. We live in a changing universe. Nothing is stagnant.
They come out with one superfood after the next and everyone gets on it but food alone does not make us healthy – our habits, our thoughts, energies from our relationships(people) places, animals and things also. Of course, you have to eat plenty of fresh food and vegetables, stay away from junk food and don’t eat things that have too much additives as all experts say. But as you do sadhana you will have to pay attention and change your diet as you change – sattvic thoughts, sattvic food, sattvic energy etc.
May God bless you and keep you healthy and safe.