Why are Krishna devotees not allowed to eat garlic and onion?

[Guest guest]

Short answer: Devotees don't eat garlic and onions because they cannot be offered to Krishna. They are members of a botanical family (alliums) that stimulate the central nervous system and are counter-productive to devotions. Long answer: You may know that onions and garlic are botanical members of the Allium family - along with leeks, chives and shallots. According to Ayurveda, India's classic medical science, foods are grouped into three categories - sattvic, rajasic and tamasic - foods in the modes of goodness, passion and ignorance. Onions and garlic, and the other Alliums are classified as rajasic and tamasic, which means that they increase passion and ignorance. { " Garlic and onions are both Rajasic and Tamasic, and are forbidden to Yogis because they root the consciousness more firmly in the body " , says Dr.Robert E.Svoboda}

Those that to pure brahmana-style cooking of India, including myself, and Vaishnavas - followers of Lord Vishnu, Rama and Krishna - like to only cook with foods from the sattvic category. These foods include fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs, dairy products, grains and legumes, and so on. Specifically, Vaisnavas do not like to cook with rajasic or tamasic foods because they are unfit to offer to the Deity. Rajasic and tamasic foods are also not used because they are detrimental to meditation and devotions. Of course some of the Alliums have specific health benefits

; garlic is respected as a natural antibiotic. In recent years, the cardiovascular implications of vegetable Alliums has been studied in some detail, although the clinical implications of onion and garlic consumption from this point of view are not well understood (Block 1992; Briggs et al. 2001).

Nevertheless, despite medical comings and goings, alliums are still avoided by spiritual adherents because they stimulate the central nervous system, and can disturb vows of celibacy. {Garlic is a natural aphrodisiac. Ayurveda suggests that it is a tonic for loss of sexual power from any cause, sexual debility, impotency from over-indulgence in sex and nervous exhaustion from dissipating sexual habits. It is said to be especially useful to old men of high nervous tension and diminishing sexual power.}

 

You may be aware that many strict vegetarian Buddhists also do not eat any of the Alliums for the same reasons as adherents of India's Ayurveda - they disturb meditation. If you visit any strict vegetarian Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, or Japanese restaurant anywhere in the world you will most likely find no Alliums in any of the cooking. In ancient Tao writings, one sage Tsang-Tsze described the Alliums as the " five fragrant or spicy scented vegetables " , and that each have a detrimental effect on one of the following five organs - liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, and heart. Tsang-Tsze said that these pungent vegetables contain five different kinds of enzymes which cause " reactions of repulsive breath, extra-foul odour from perspiration and bowel movements, and lead to lewd indulgences, enhance agitations, anxieties and aggressiveness, " especially when eaten raw.

That in a nutshell is why I don't cook with garlic and onions.

Garlic Toxic Shock

 

 

 

 

[i am as surprised and shocked as you will be to hear such a respected scientist as Bob Beck telling us that garlic is highly toxic. Editor]

 

The reason garlic is so toxic, the sulphone hydroxyl ion penetrates the blood brain barrier, just like DMSO, and is a specific poison for higher life forms and brain cells. We discovered this much to our horror, when I was the world's largest manufacturer of ethical EEG biofeedback equipment. We'd have people come back from lunch that looked clinically dead on the encephalograph, which we used to calibrate their progress. " Well, what happened? " " Well, I went to an Italian restaurant and there was some garlic in my salad dressing! " .

 

 

So we had 'em sign things that they won't touch garlic before classes or we were wasting their time, and money and my time. I guess those of you who are pilots or have been in flight tests... I was in flight test engineering in Doc Hallan's group in the 1950's. The flight surgeon would come around every month and remind all of us: " Don't you dare touch any garlic 72 hours before you fly one of our airplanes, because it'll double or triple your reaction time. You're three times slower than you would be if you'd [not] had a few drops of garlic. "

 

 

Well, we didn't know why for 20 years later, until I owned the Alpha-Metrics Corporation. We were building biofeedback equipment and found out that garlic totally desynchronizes your brain waves.So I funded a study at Stanford and, sure enough, they found that it's a poison. You can rub a clove of garlic on your foot - on the sole of your foot - and you can smell it shortly later on your wrists. So it penetrates the body. This is why DMSO smells a lot like garlic: that sulphone hydroxyl ion penetrates all the barriers including the corpus callosum in the brain.

Any of you who are organic gardeners know that if you don't want to use DDT, garlic will kill anything in the way of insects.Now, most people have heard most of their lives that garlic is good for you, and we put those people in the same class of ignorance as the mothers who at the turn of the century would buy morphine sulphate in the drugstore and give it to their babies to put 'em to sleep.

If you have any patients who have low-grade headaches or attention deficit [disorder], they can't quite focus on the computer in the afternoon, just do an experiment - you owe it to yourselves. Take those people off garlic and see how much better they get, very,very shortly. And then let them eat a little garlic after about three weeks. They'll say: " My God, I had no idea that this was the cause of our problems. " And this includes the de-skunked garlic's, Kyolic, some of the other products.

Very unpopular, but I've got to tell you the truth.(Source: From a lecture by Dr Robert [bob] C. Beck, DSc., given at the Whole Life Expo, Seattle, WA, USA, in March 1996)

 

Bob Beck also found in his research on human brain function in the 1980's that garlic has a detrimental effect on the brain and researching this further he learned that many yoga groups and philosophical teachings caution against the use of garlic and onions as they are known to interfere with meditation practices. Some aware individuals have actually described themselves as experiencing brain fog after having garlic.

 

 

Garlic is toxic to humans because its sulphone hydroxyl ions penetrate the blood-brain barrier and are poisonous to brain cells.(1) For precisely the same reason the garlic family of plants has been widely recognized as being harmful to dogs.(2)

 

As far back as the 1950s it was known that garlic reduced reaction time by two to three times when consumed by pilots taking flight tests. This is because the toxic effects of garlic desynchronize brain waves.

 

The Taoists realized thousands of years ago that plants of the alliaceous family were detrimental to humans.(3) They labeled this group of plants – onions, garlic, leeks, chives and spring onions – the 'five spicy-scented plants.' They noticed that onions are harmful to the lungs, garlic to the heart, leeks to the spleen, chives to the liver and spring onions to the kidneys. Hindus also avoid this group, which they have called the 'five pungent plants.'(4) As well as producing offensive breath and body odour, these plants induce aggravation, agitation, anxiety and aggression. Thus they are harmful physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

 

Even when garlic is used as food in Chinese culture it is considered harmful to the stomach, liver and eyes, and a cause of dizziness and scattered energy when consumed in immoderate amounts.(5) Nor is garlic always seen as having entirely beneficial properties in Western cooking and medicine. It is widely accepted among health care professionals that, as well as killing harmful bacteria, garlic also destroys beneficial bacteria,(6) which are essential to the proper functioning of the digestive system. Furthermore, Ken Bergeron, in Professional Vegetarian Cooking, p. 16, writes: "garlic in the raw state can carry harmful (potentially fatal) botulism bacteria." Perhaps it is with an awareness of this that the Roman poet Horace wrote of garlic that it is "more harmful than hemlock."(7)

 

In the practice of Reiki we have noticed that garlic and onions are among the first substances to be expelled from a person's system – along with tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical medications. This makes it apparent that alliaceous plants have a negative effect on the human body and should be avoided for health reasons.

 

Homeopathic medicine comes to the same conclusion when it recognizes that red onion produces a dry cough, watery eyes, sneezing, runny nose and other familiar cold-related symptoms when consumed.(8)

-- ChantHare Krsna, Hare Krsna, Krsna Krsna, Hare Hare II Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare II --is the sublime method for reviving our Krsna consciousness. As living spiritual souls we are all originally Krsna conscious entities, but due to our asociation with matter since time immemorial, our consciousness is now poluted by material atmosphere. In this polluted concept of life, we are all trying to exploit the resources of material nature, but actually we are becoming more and more entangled in our complexities. This illusion is called Maya, or hard struggle for existence over the stringent laws of material nature. This illusory struggle against the material nature can at once be stopped by revival of our Krsna consciousness. And Be Happy