The Ritual of Eating

[Guest guest]

Ayurveda and food

A fleeting glimpse of Ayurveda

The Science of Life and Health

 

By Dr.Robert E.Svoboda

Dr.Svoboda acquired proficiency in Ayurveda at the

Tilak Ayurveda Medical College in Poona, India.

 

Do not eat when angry, depressed, bored, or otherwise emotionally unstable, or

immediately after any physical exertion.

 

Bathe, or at least wash your hands, face and feet, before you begin to eat.

 

Sit while eating, in an isolated clean area. Face east if possible, the

direction of the sun,

the earth's source of heat and fire. Eat alone, or with people you know and

trust. Ensure

that all your sense organs are satisfied by providing your dining room with

pleasant music,

fresh flowers, and the like.

 

Avoid habitual use of restaurants. Most people who sell you food are more

concerned with

their own profits than with your digestion. Satiation is not determined by how

much you

eat. A small amount of food presented to you lovingly will satisfy your soul,

whereas large

heaps of food from a fast-food restaurant may temporarily fill your belly but

will leave

your mind and spirit unsatisfied.

 

Only someone who loves you should be permitted to cook for you. Cooks in India

are

often selected from the priestly class so that there is at least some chance

that while

cooking some spiritually uplifting vibrations may be transferred into the food.

Women

should not cook when they are menstruating because they are undergoing a

cleansing

process and should be relaxing instead.

 

It is best if your right nostril functions when you eat, since it increases your

digestive fire.

You can cause it to function by lying on your left side for a few minutes before

the meal,

By plugging your left nostril, by closing your left nostril with the middle

finger of your

right hand and breathing rhythmically through your right nostril for a few

minutes, or by

hooking your left arm over the back of a chair.

 

Once all is in readiness, pray. Give thanks to Nature for providing you with

food, and thank

whichever deity you worship for being alive to eat it. Approach each food item

with

reverence and love, even if you are served something which you dislike but must

eat.

Suppose your mother-in-law, whom you dislike, serves you rutabagas, which you

hate. If

wishing to maintain family peace and you eat the rutabagas under duress, those

vegetables will carry your dislike and hatred deep into your system and disturb

your

balance. Consume your food, even if you dislike it, with respect for the

sacrifice it is

making for you, and it will carry the harmonising power of your prayer inside

you instead.

 

Before you begin your meal, feed someone else. Traditionally in India a

five-fold offering is

made: to the sacred fire, a cow, a crow, a dog, and another human being, who

might be a

child, a beggar, or anyone else outside one's own family. This is a practical

thanks to

Nature, a feeding of some of Her children in gratitude to Her for providing you

some of

Her other children as sacrifices for consumption. And, it is another way of

controlling

Ahamkara (egoism), an admission that the food is intended not for mere

self-gratification

but for the greater good of all beings. Feed anyone - a pet, a plant, a

neighbour, a

stranger- so you can experience a little of Nature's joy, the joy which a mother

feels when

she feeds her children and watches them grow and develop in consequence.

 

concentrate on your meal. No television, radio, stereo or conversation should

distract your

attention. Observe silence while you eat; sit and chat afterwards. Chew each

morsel slowly

and attentively many times. When feasible, eat with your hands so that your skin

can send

temperature and texture cues to your brain.

 

Just as our bodies are made up of trillions of independent cells, we are all

little cells in the

universal organism. Like our cells, each of us humans has an individual

existence but none

of us is " free' enough to live independently of the whole. In fact, everything

which exists in

the external universe has its counterpart in a living being's own personal

internal universe.

Every cosmic force is represented, in altered form. The flow of nutrients into

the body and

wastes out of the body cells also characterises the continuous flow of nutrients

and wastes

into and out of plants, animals and humans.

 

There is therefore no inherent difference between, say, cooking your food in a

pot on the

stove and cooking your food in the pot of your stomach on the stove of your

internal

digestive " fire " . Both use heat to prepare the food for easier assimilation.

Flames are used

on the external stove and acid and enzymes on the inside, but the principle of

cooking is

identical to both.

 

The Rishis (seers) used the theory of the Five Great Elements, more properly

known as the

Five Great States of Material Existence, to explain how the internal and

external forces are

linked together.