Friday 24 July 2009

Food - Its gunas

Food plays an important role in our lives,and it is deep rooted in our culture.According to the vedas,food is the mother essence of healing.Again I quote the vedas
"I speak the truth,it is indeed his death.He who nourishes neither the god nor a friend,he who Add Imageeats alone,gathers sin"(Rig veda X.117).
"Ahimsa is the highest Dharma. Ahimsa is the best Tapas. Ahimsa is the greatest gift. Ahimsa is the highest self-control. Ahimsa is the highest sacrifice. Ahimsa is the highest power. Ahimsa is the highest friend. Ahimsa is the highest truth. Ahimsa is the highest teaching". Mahabharat 18.116.37-41
Of the Vedas stem the techniques of Ayurveda-the Science of Life, that we gives us a curious and practical classification of food, which shows us how to use them in order to improve our lives. One of the classifications of food, which must be adopted by anyone who seeks to improve his/her life, is the classification of foods into three types: tamas, rajas and satva, which are the three gunas, or qualities of the area. According to the selection of food in these parameters, you can have a body more or less subtle, and the emotions and thoughts have a feature correspondent.
Food satva are those that promote spiritual sensitivity, which are the soul like their growth, which purificates the body and suavizate the mind, soothing it and facilitating meditation. They are light and soft, such as cereals (wheat, rice, barley, rye, wheat sarraceno, corn, etc..), The fresh milk, soft fruit, food naturally sweet, honey, nectars, etc.
Food rajas are stimulants, which encourage the work of the mind, that cause reactions, which tonificates. Food rajas are of tempero strong, such as pepper, garlic, onion, assa - ginger, and so on. As well as coffee, tea stimulants, plant tonificates and alcohol.
Food tamas are those who block the spiritual perception, which blinds the thoughts, which intoxicates the physical body, making it less able to understand the subtle side of things. Food tamas are generally those conditioned, dried, defumateds, stinky, a bad thing, very condimentates, salted meat, the fat dense, ham, salmons, sausages, and the red meat in general and the viscera animals, some fruit the sea, such as shrimp, seafood and others. The choice of food according to the vision aiurvédica, may determine our mood, our temperament, our ability to discern. Therefore, the foods most suitable for those seeking to understand the dharma-Law Superior - are those of satva, using perhaps some food for rajas.
Satvic food is mostly the vegetarian food which livens up our body and spirit.There are five major motivations for being a vegetarian:
1. The Dharmic Law Reason
Ahimsa, the law of noninjury, is the Hindu's first duty in fulfilling religious obligations to God and God's creation as defined by Vedic scripture.
2. The Karmic Consequences Reason
All of our actions, including our choice of food, have Karmic consequences. By involving oneself in the cycle of inflicting injury, pain and death, even indirectly by eating other creatures, one must in the future experience in equal measure the suffering caused.
3. The Spiritual Reason
Food is the source of the body's chemistry, and what we ingest affects our consciousness, emotions and experiential patterns. If one wants to live in higher consciousness, in peace and happiness and love for all creatures, then he cannot eat meat, fish, shellfish, fowl or eggs. By ingesting the grosser chemistries of animal foods, one introduces into the body and mind anger, jealousy, anxiety, suspicion and a terrible fear of death, all of which are locked into the the flesh of the butchered creatures. For these reasons, vegetarians live in higher consciousness and meat-eaters abide in lower consciousness.
4. The Health Reason
Medical studies prove that a vegetarian diet is easier to digest, provides a wider ranger of nutrients and imposes fewer burdens and impurities on the body. Vegetarians are less susceptible to all the major diseases that afflict contemporary humanity, and thus live longer, healthier, more productive lives. They have fewer physical complaints, less frequent visits to the doctor, fewer dental problems and smaller medical bills. Their immune system is stronger, their bodies are purer, more refined and skin more beautiful.
5. The Ecological Reason
Planet Earth is suffering. In large measure, the escalating loss of species, destruction of ancient rainforests to create pasture lands for live stock, loss of topsoils and the consequent increase of water impurities and air pollution have all been traced to the single fact of meat in the human diet. No decision that we can make as individuals or as a race can have such a dramatic effect on the improvement of our planetary ecology as the decision not to eat meat.
It is through food that we channel our energies to our inner cosmic order.so the type of food we eat determines the type of person we want to become.So eat healthy vegetarian food and make a atman out of you and not a demon.
"What is virtuous conduct? It is never destroying life, for killing leads to every other sin". Thirukural 312, 321

5 comments:

  1. As usual a very good post. This topic is often raised at school and also with colleagues and friends. In order to frame my questions I would like to like classify living being into 3 groups humans, animals and plants. When you discussed ahimsa you only mentioned animals but plants are also livining beings and also have a soul. so here are few questions for futher clarification.

    1. is it ok. to hurt one type of living beings and is hurting plants not considered ahimsa and why?

    2. actually this question goes back to your older post. is the atma (soul) in all creation of god one and the same.

    a) once we have reached human level do we go back to other forms because you mentioned in this post that "By involving oneself in the cycle of inflicting injury, pain and death, even indirectly by eating other creatures, one must in the future experience in equal measure the suffering caused."

    b) this question is directly from the boys. to attain salvation do you have to reach human form or can animal and plants also attain salvation.

    -Ramesh & the boys

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  2. 1.To answer the first question,let me quote the food chain.The universe is a balance of maintaining the ife cycle.if the chain is disturbed then the nature is upset.so it should be kept in mind and also the religious text talks about inflicting pain to the animals and there is no mention of plants in the text.The plants don't experience pain because they have no sensory cells in them.so we as civilized humans should take science and the religious text together and act to the best of our knowledge.
    .Man is much superior to all creations.its atma is a refined one knowing the good and the bad that is what is so different about.
    2.the second question,when we say tat the same suffering I meant the suffering is not being born as a lower creatures,but being human itself you can sill suffer, you seem to be ignorant in that aspect that is because you haven't experienced such things in life.
    3. there is nothing as salvation or moksha for the plants and animals.

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  3. Asha aunty how come animals do not attain salvation? because they have heart , feelings and soul. They also feel the pain when they are hurt, just like humans. In fact they are the ones who are insync with the mother nature(they do not do anything which is against mother nature) when compared to humans.They also know what is right or wrong for them (eg: a mother(lioness or anyother animal tries to corrects the cub if it tries to do something wrong) So when it comes to salvation , both are equal in the eyes of God, so why there is nothing as salvation for animals?

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  4. your question itself has the answer to it.

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  5. I got my answer aunty. Asha aunty , while I was reading about reincarnation , a question struck my mind. As you said becoz of our past karmas(gud or bad) we take birth again to njoy the merits or go thru the sufferings . So my question is that, by doing good deeds in the present janma , right from the childhood will the impact of the sufferings of the past karma gets reduced or compromised? what best can be done to avoid sufferings of the past karma or reduce the impact of it?

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