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Need Based Food
In Master's own household one can see his principles being applied
exactly. It is an instruction in itself to observe how Master is the
living example of his own teaching. The accommodation provided for visitors
is of the simplest, while being comfortable. Luxury is not provided.
Similarly, the food offered to visitors is wholesome and nourishing
but of the simplest variety. There is no ostentation, no impressive
variety, and no pandering to taste.
I have found that this is akin to Nature's way of service. Such food
helps us to get what we need from it, nourishment, and prevents greediness
and overindulgence. Taste, artificially created taste, only creates
greed and leads to unnatural living. Simple food helps us to live
as Nature intended us to live, eating what the body needs for its healthy
existence and no more. This is a very valuable lesson which Master
teaches us by direct example. So we must eat enough to keep the body
fit to take us through life. Food is not for taste, it is only for nourishment.
What relates to the body applies to the body. We eat when we are hungry.
We drink when we are thirsty; what is wrong with it? Do not over do
it, let it be spontaneous. Suppose you see some halwa (sweet)
in a shop and you feel like eating it and you eat it. That is as wrong
as any other way of enjoyment; you are not eating because you are hungry;
you are eating because you feel like eating. So the fulfillment of the
needs of the physical existence are quite Dharmic.
Eating must give us spiritual benefit. But we divide life into spiritual
and material and compartmentalize it. It's our fault. For instance,
before we eat we are supposed to, just for a moment, offer it to the
Master and eat. Then when you eat in constant remembrance, it becomes
very good for us.
I asked my Master once, "What is it that brings taste to food?"
Because when we ate in his house, the food was simple, absolutely simple.
Wheat rotis just cooked on fire, some lentils boiled in water
with a little salt, and an apology for vegetables, one tiny bit of potato
in some broth. I mean, if any of you had really known what you were
eating, no minerals, no salts, no vitamins, no nothing and yet, it was
divine. It was so divine that we wished to, or longed to, be there eating
that food perpetually. The same thing, day after day, morning and evening!
Yet we never felt that we were eating the same thing. It was almost
tasteless, yet we were delighted. Why? Because it came from a divine
source.
Food handled by the proper person, given to us by his loving hands,
becomes something Divine, which contributes to our Divinisation, Divine
growth. And, at the lowest level it is a bestial injection.
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