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Chapter 17
PROGRAMME FOR THE SEEKER
97. Purity In Food
15. To enable us to render such a true service, we must be vigilant about aahaara (diet). The state of our mind depends on our diet. We should take food in regulated and measured quantity. How much we eat is more important than what we eat. It does matter what food we choose to eat, but it matters even more that it is in the right measure. 16. Whatever we eat is bound to have its effect. Why do we eat? To enable us to render the best possible service. Eating too is a part of yajna. We should eat because it is necessary to make yajna of service yield fruit. Look at the food with this feeling. Food should be clean and pure. There is no limit to an individual’s efforts for making his diet pure and sattvik. Our society too has made strenuous efforts for the same. Indian society made extensive experiments in this regard for thousands of years. It is difficult to imagine the hardships and austerities involved in those experiments. India is the only country in the world where a large number of communities have completely abjured meat-eating. Even non-vegetarian communities do not have meat as a main and regular item in their diet. Non-vegetarians too feel that it is unbecoming to eat meat; they too have renounced it mentally. Yajna was introduced to discourage meat-eating and it was to fulfill this very purpose that it was later abandoned. Lord Krishna changed the very meaning of the word ‘yajna’. He impressed upon the people the value and importance of milk. Krishna did a lot of extraordinary things, but in which form do the Indian people adore Him most? It is Gopalkrishna—Krishna the cowherd—that Indian people adore most. Gopalkrishna, with a cow by His side and flute on His lips, is the most familiar image for Indians. The great benefit of learning to cherish the cow was that people gave up meat-eating. Cow’s milk came to be greatly valued and the prevalence of meat-eating was reduced. 17. Still it cannot be said that we have reached the limit of making our diet pure and sattvik. We need to advance further. Bengalis eat fish and many are surprised at it. But it is not right to condemn them on that account. They have nothing but rice in their diet. It does not provide enough nutrition to the body. We shall have to make experiments for finding equally nutritious vegetarian substitutes for fish. Individuals will certainly come forward for such experiments and make extraordinary sacrifices. Society progresses because of such individuals. The sun keeps burning brightly and that enables us to have a normal body temperature of 98oF. and remain alive. Only when individuals whose vairagya (non-attachment) burns brightly like the sun are born in the society, when they free themselves from the shackles of circumstances and vigorously pursue their ideal, then ordinary beings like us can have a little detachment necessary in worldly affairs. In this context, I often think of the penance and the sacrifices of the sages, some of whom must have even laid down their lives to end the practice of meat-eating prevalent at that time. |
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