Even when one is not hungry or even when the food is not nutritious for physical health or for spiritual development, if one craves to possess, desiring to appropriate for oneself as one's and one's alone.
Sri Sankara says there should be no craving for delicious food, for it goes against the very spirit of Tapas. He hopes that this rule will help people to maintain simplicity in food for the sake of good health.
Cravings & Aversions
The key point in this Step is to “avoid likes and dislikes” over food. Swami Sivananda offers a golden guideline: “Don’t eat only what you like, nor avoid everything that you dislike.”
Elsewhere he says, “Everyday avoid at least one thing that you like; and everyday eat at least one thing that you dislike.” In this way, the great Master always alerted his disciples to the danger of likes and dislikes, the principle behind such rules.
Ask a Sadhaka living in a remote place where delicacies are not easily available, how disturbed he can get when he sees them coming to the Ashram!
Besides being a temptation to the senses, tasty foods have the added disadvantage of taking more time to prepare, and being invariably unhealthier. Since time and health are both precious, to render natural foods tastier by elaborate procedures is wasteful labour. This time can be made available for Sadhana.
Step 27 is meant to “keep the tongue in its place.” That is the spirit of the rule, but the intellect, as one may expect, finds a way to violate it.
Chandhogya Upanishad says that the only thing that should be sought is the self within the heart, for that assuredly is what one should understand.
The mind which is overwhelmed by desire for food and things palatable to senses, rejects or suppresses all other thoughts. If instead one desires the self then that would stimulate the mind to desire and that which is spiritual.
Craving diverts mind from the principal objective for which food is eaten of the food which is to nourish the body and invigorate the energies to fruitful enterprise.
Otherwise the purpose having been fashioned wrongly the objective fails to its goal.
20 GOLDEN INSTRUCTIONS BY
SWAMI SIVANANDA
1) Beware
of false hunger, eat only when hungry
2) Eat
less and chew more
3) Fast
once a week
4) Do
not overload your stomach
5) Include
raw food in your diet
6) Control
that craving for variety in food
7) Identify
the foods which match each other well from your experience and make more of
such combinations
8) Do
not eat when you are angry
9) Give
up greed of eating more food
10) Bad
sensations in throat or stomach are signs towards cleansing fast
11) Do
not take meals late at night
12) Skins
of apples and carrots contain valuable minerals and vitamins, do not remove
them
13) Rice
and Veggies taste best when steamed, try switching between polished and
unpolished rice
14) Take
food at fixed hours
15) Sitting
in Vajrasana for ten minutes after a meal helps in digestion of food
16) More
simple and natural food, better it is
17) Do not
make sudden and drastic changes in your diet, introduce gradual changes
18) Observe
silence while taking food
19) Do not
engage in strenuous physical or mental work immediately after a meal
AND…,
20) Thank God
every time for your meal!
Love.
