Now About Food.

One of the many questions that are put forward to a master by many of the aspirants on the path of yoga is: What can I eat?  What should my diet be like? Can I eat meat?

I still remember the day I asked the same question from my teacher, Swami Shivom Tirth. The depth of his wisdom still reverberates within my being.

His answer was: Keep doing your Sadhana. That is all you need to worry about now. Just keep doing your Sadhana. Once you do that, all else will fall in place.

Being born in a Catholic family it was a difficult task for me to stop eating meat. It was an essential ingredient to be found at our family dinner table. It is not easy to lose one's taste for meat but as I continued practicing my Sadhana, I began to see beyond the taste. I began to experience the pain of the animals that had died in order to satisfy my hunger.

One day, as I was sitting in the compound outside my house, I saw a group of my Muslim friends come up to the fig tree in the compound and they were carrying a goat that had been hog-tied. After reciting some prayers, they slit the throat of the goat and left it writhing under the tree. I was transfixed by the sight of that goat  as it gasped for breath, dying right before my eyes. I realized as I sat down there,  that my meat eating days were over.

But before we can pass any judgment on the meat eaters let us review the whole process of diet and food and what we should eat on the planet. This would very clearly fall under the title of Ahimsa ( Non-Violence ) which was expounded by the 'great soul' Mahatma Gandhi.

In order to do so we have to first understand the way the planet was created and what forms of life really exist on it. As we evolve, we begin to notice that there are 5 types of living beings on planet earth

They are the beings with:

 a) One sense organ

The lowest on the evolutionary ladder of living beings are the ones with one sense organ. They have only the sense of touch. We call them plants and they belong to the vegetative kingdom. Most of them also lack locomotion.

 b) Two sense organs

Then there are those with two sense organs. They have the sense of touch and taste. They are mostly microbes like the amoeba, hydra, etc.

 c) Three sense organs

The next in line are living beings with three senses. The sense of touch, taste and smell. A vast majority of the insect world come under this category.

 d) Four sense organs

And yet higher still are those that are gifted with four senses. They are the sense of touch, taste, smell and seeing. Most reptiles come under this classification. The have no ears and they sense the vibrations around them.

 e) Five sense organs

Finally we have creatures that have all the 5 senses. Certain creatures like humans are attributed to have six senses. According to eastern philosophy a sense organ is on that can independently receive sense impulses and if this were to be the case than the brains of certain mammals is able to function in a similar capacity making it the 6th sense organ.

It was necessary to digress from the main topic of diet in order to understand the proper form of diet for a highly evolved being. We need to realize that all the beings mentioned above are living beings and just because they have no eyes or ears or locomotion does not make them any lesser in the eyes of the creator. In fact all living beings on this planet are interdependent on each other and if one particular species is more powerful than the other, they also have received from the Cosmic Master the intelligence to understand how to help the other species and not to destroy it.

Plants and trees are alive. They breathe just like us humans and they procreate just like us. In the whole scheme of things the Cosmic Master made it possible for us to live and grow with each others assistance.

The Plants give us fruits and we propagate their seed. They give honey to the bees and insects and they in turn transfer the pollen and help the trees to propagate. This was the original order of things. So the only right food for a yogi is fruits, tubers and squashes. The seeds are the babies of the plant kingdom and must be returned to the soil.

In humans we call it a fetus. In birds we call it eggs and in plants we call it nuts and grains. Just because a plants does not have the ability to communicate to us in a language we can understand, it does not make them food for the human being. What we can only eat in humility is  the wombs of the plant kingdom. In just the same way we receive the oxygen that they generate for us, so also must we respect the food that they generate for us for our sustenance.

And before we pass judgment on meat eaters, let us not forget that a person who eats a chicken, kills one living being, whereas a person who eats a bowl of rice destroys thousands of potential rice plants.

The next time you eat any fruit, please take time to go out and  plant its seed into the soil. The planet earth is dying and the greatest contributor to its demise is called 'Human'. If we start living by the principles that were laid down by the Master's, we will be able to bring back the ecological balance to 'Mother Earth'.

Let it begin with me.........

Swami Kripananda.

Please use your Browser Button to return to the previous page