Food habits and personality

In a shrinking world we are able to get all kinds of food in any part of the world. In metropolitans, apart from local cuisine, restaurants serve every other type of food including French, Italian and Chinese. In malls, theaters and airports we have food courts with foods from any corner of the world. Even at home, we have started cooking food as per our choice which is different from tradition. However, even now, majority of the people, as a daily routine prepare and consume food that is prevalent in a given geography- for example, seafood in coastal areas, vegetables in fertile lands, meat in cold climatic locations. As more and more people travel and migrate, their food habits also keep changing. Therefore it has become important to be aware of the type of food that is suitable to one’s body and also character. Either you go for a type of food as per your natural character or you willfully choose a food to build a desired personality even though your tongue may not accept it in the beginning.

Human personality is developed due to various factors of which the type of food we consume plays an important role. Chandogya Upanishad says, “Begin with clean food for a clean character and spiritual growth”. Though food is essential for sustenance and growth of the body, the nature of food we consume describes our nature too.  The seventeenth chapter of Bagavad Gita describes the three-fold nature of food liked by the three types of people-sattvik(contemplative), rajasik(active) and tamasik(dull). Sattvik people love succulent, fortifying and pleasing foods, which increase longevity, mental clarity, strength, health, pleasure in taste and aesthetic pleasure. Sattvik character is pure, illuminating, free from affliction and connected to subtle form of pleasure and knowledge. Foods that are bitter, sour, salty, excessively hot, pungent, astringent, and burning, that gives pain, sorrow and ill health are liked by rajasik people. Rajasik character is dominated by greed, physical restlessness, undertaking activities, mental restlessness and longing. Food which is stale or inadequately cooked, from which the essence is gone, left over night, and also unfit as an offering is liked by tamasik people. Tamasik character is of dullness, absence of activity, indifference and delusion. From sattva is born knowledge, from rajas is greed and from tamas apathy and delusion.

There is no doubt that a person who wants to follow a life style suitable for spiritual growth and inner strength will prefer to have food suitable for sattvik life. In order to achieve the spiritual goal of self knowledge and freedom form bondage, the starting point is self discipline by regulating the body and mind. Body control starts from the intake of food. Taitteeyopanishad quotes a Rig mantra, which says, “All beings on earth are born indeed of food. They all exist, grow by food alone, and finally resolve in to this food alone. Food is eaten by beings and food eats the beings. One should take a vow not to disrespect food. If the food is prepared and served in the best manner, the food is served back to that person in the best manner”. As per the guidance of scriptures and also considering the present day conditions, let us now see some healthy food habits that will help in building a personality suitable for inner growth.

Sattvik food - Light vegetarian food, fresh and easy to digest is the best for a sattvik personality. Food should be freshly prepared (leftovers are tamisik). Fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, milk and milk derivatives are included in sattvik food. Apart from nourishment to body, subtle nourishment to mind is taken care by sattvik food. Pungent veggies like hot peppers, garlic and onion are excluded.

Offering to God (nivedanam) - It is a good habit to offer the food to God before eating. Anything that we get is offered to God and taken with reverence as a gracious gift (prasadam) from God. This habit helps to do all our actions like offering to God. When we dedicate our actions to God, we have a mature mind to accept the results given by Him as gracious gift.

Prayer - A simple prayer before every food is a great habit to show our gratitude to God, who in fact is the food giver and the material cause of food that we get. Usually fifteenth chapter of Bagavad Gita is chanted, if this not possible, at least the fourteenth verse of this chapter, ‘Aham vaishvanaro bhutva…’ can be chanted. The meaning goes like this-“Having become the digestive fire obtaining in the bodies of living beings, endowed with prana and apana, ‘I’ digest the four-fold food”. The twenty fourth verse in the fourth chapter of Gita, ’Brhamarpanam…’ and Adi Sankara’s, ‘Anna purne sadapurne….’ are popular prayers. The choice of prayer can be different but attitude is important.  

Ambience - Always wash hands before eating and sit in a proper place and eat (not on the sofa in front of a TV). The environment must be neat, calm and help enjoy the food while eating. The atmosphere and the people with whom you eat also contribute to the subtle development of your personality.

Enjoying food- Food should be enjoyed for its inherent taste and quality, rather than spices and seasonings. Eating in haste without chewing is not good for health. While eating, avoid doing anything else like reading, watching TV, chatting etc. Respect the food you eat and the people who have prepared it.

Moderation - Moderate eating is good for a contemplative mind and healthy body. Thiruvalluvar, the Tamil sage says, “No medicine is needed for the one who eats only when hungry, after fully digesting the food eaten before”.

Fasting (Upavasam) - Upavasam in Sanskrit means ‘living with’. So fasting is for living closely with God, not just skipping food. This is to think of only God, keeping the stomach empty. Traditionally there are several days in a year considered as best for Upavasam. Ekadasi (11th lunar day) is generally observed as Upavasam day. However, considering the present day conditions, regular fasting of one time (one meal) in a week is good for purifying the mind and body. Skipping either lunch or dinner is a good spiritual practice, if necessary fruits or juice can be taken. This practice helps one focus on superior goal of Atma(Self),leaving the body notion and pampering it. However, extreme practices of emaciation and torturing the body should never be done. Hurting oneself in the name of discipline is condemned by Lord Krishna in Bagavad Gita.

Self cooking- Sage Chandrasekarendra Saraswati has advised self cooking where ever possible, considering various factors in present day conditions. It is better to teach cooking to the boys and girls so that they are self supporting when grown up. It is easy to make simple food that can be cooked in a few minutes. As a result one can get clean, healthy, fresh food at a very economic cost.

With love- In Kamba Ramayana, Rama, on seeing the food offered by Guha tells him, “The food offered with love is sweeter than nectar”. There is nothing sweeter than the food cooked and served with love. Cook and serve the needy with love and feel happy.

-Arasu Ramanujam

Towards the ultimate goal

 

If you draw a line on a paper and ask whether it is short or long, there is no answer to this. You need another line to compare with. When a wheel from a car is removed, you say, ‘a part is missing’. When you look at the sky, there is no part or whole. It is just space. You can’t speak of distance without a second object and cannot even know the existence of space if there are no objects. Is there a way to describe God, the substratum of all that exists? The cause of everything here in this world is God but that God is not available for you to see and interact. Hence there are different versions of God. The moment you describe God, you have to give an attribute and hence it is something short of Nirguna Brahman (God without attributes). We need right means to understand God and the relationship of individual with God to know the reason for our existence and reach that goal. The Upanishads have special methods to reveal ‘Brahman’. This is further supported by the Upangas(subsidiary limbs of Veda)for clear understanding.

The intention of Upanishads

When Upanishads introduce the creation, it is called Adhyaropa. This is not just to teach the origination of creation. This is only to temporarily concur with what we ordinarily see. The intention of Upanishad is to gradually shift our attention from the creation to Brahman. In other words, the shift is from the effect to cause of creation. As the vision is shifted the effect gets dismissed since it does not exist separate from the cause. This dismissal through the shift is called Apavada. However the shift from the grossest level of effect to the subtlest level of cause cannot take place in a stroke. Hence the Upanishad takes us gradually through stages. This method is followed in Taittireeyopanishad and finally Brahman is revealed as the substratum of all. The Upanishad establishes that Brahman is the one, which converts itself to the world. It is self- creator and created. The Upanishad declares that the wise man that is established in Brahman is fearless and happy. His fearlessness does not come from worldly security; it is because he is established in Brahman. The very same Brahman appears as the dualistic world for the ignorant one, causing limitation and fear. This does not mean that the Upanishad thinks low of the common worldly life, which stops at the level of body-Annamaya. One must understand the highest truth even whilst pursuing worldly objectives. By leading a dharmic existence, this life should be treated as a means, as it were, to reach higher stages. That is why the Upanishad also states,”do not waste food; grow more food”. Kenopanishad which occurs in Sama Veda is in the form of dialogue between student and teacher. The dialogue method is to indicate that Upanishads must be learnt from a teacher. The Upanishad says,” Brahman is the very consciousness which one does not perceive with the eye and by which consciousness one perceives the eyes. One who says he knows Brahman, knows it not;  one who says of not knowing it, knows it; one who sees it sees it not; one who cannot see it can see it” Thus the Upanaishad reveals that Brahman is ever the subject and never become the object of knowledge. Even though the subject is not an object of knowledge, we cannot doubt its existence, because it is self evident as ‘I’.

Great contribution of Adi Sankara

Adi Sankara highlighted the non-dualist (Advaita) nature propounded in Vedanta by writing commentary on ten major Upanishads selected by him. He beautifully expresses this principle in his Nirvana Satkam, by saying,” I am not the mind, I am not the intelligence; I am neither air nor water; I know of no pleasure and pain; I am neither eater nor the object of eating; I have no death; I am eternal bliss and awareness.” Though Adi sankara’s advaita talks of giving up rituals and concentrating the mind in Atma in the ultimate stage, it does not recommend it in the initial stages. First one has to abide by the karmas (duties) and go ultimately to the stage of giving up the karmas after attaining mental purity. The greatness of Adi Sankara is that he has taken what is correct from various schools of thought and rejected those that are unacceptable. He thus established the basic Vedantic faith, which is the cause of these other theories as well. Adi Sankara considered that each doctrine of individuals stresses one aspect of Veda and make it the goal of human existence. In fact they have to be harmonized into a single entity, acceptable to reason and intellect. The Meemamsakas while accepting the Vedic rituals, did not accept Isvara(God) as the authority to award results of actions. They condemned Buddhism, which preached that there was no need for any ritualistic karma as prescribed in Vedas. Adi Sankara firmly established that there is Isvara(God) who is the creator of the phenomenal universe and He alone awards the fruits of one’s actions. Adi Sankara while accepting the tenets of Buddhism, Meemaamsa, Sankya and Nyaya to certain stage rejected their stands beyond that stage.

Logic as a step

Advaita of Adi Sankara accepts the 24 principles of Prakriti or Maya but rejects Sankya’s Nireeshwara vada(Godlessness).With regard to Buddhism, Adi sankara accepted the conclusion of Buddhism at the stage of pure consciousness. The Nyaya Sastra is considered as one of the four subsidiary limbs (upanga) of Vedas. This was composed by sage Gautama. Its main aim is to establish that Iswara is the creator of this universe by means of disputation. The Nyaya sastra discusses the fundamental truth through four devices. They are 1. Pratyacha(What is experienced by sense organs)2.Anumana(reasoned deduction or knowing the unknown through known)3.Upamana(simile or example)4.Sabda(sound, this includes the Vedic text and the sayings of great men like Rishis). In addition to these four, Advaitins have accepted two more devices (pramana) propounded by Kumarila Bhatta. They are 5. Arthapat (reconciliatory approach which eschews absurd conclusions) 6. Anupalabdhi(What comes to be known in the absence of an object).In order to dispel all kinds of doubts in understanding the Vedas, Nyaya Sastra or logic is used. This is an intermediary step to reach Advaitic conclusion of ekatma. But logic should be used as a means to arrive at the ultimate truth and not for indiscriminate arguments. Adi Sankara had mastered all these doctrines and his Advaita contains in itself various other faiths and due recognition and importance is given to all levels of development towards the goal.  

All the steps are for understanding the ultimate knowledge given by Upanishads beyond any doubts-“Awareness, which is without second, is Atma. There is nothing else that can be known different from it”. Adi Sankara, the personification of wisdom of Vedas, travelled the length and breadth of India, teaching the oneness of existence. He also established monasteries in Sringeri, Dvaraka, Puri and Josi Math and had placed four of his disciples each well versed in one of the four Vedas. There are many seeming contradictions when studying scriptural texts. It is important to study the scriptures systematically under the guidance of a Guru.

-Arasu Ramanujam