Sadhana Panchakam - Post 43

 
Bhiksha & Prasad – A Sanctified Means for a Sanctified Object.

1. Traditionally, Bhiksha is food begged by Sannyasins from householders. The householder gives it, knowing that the receiver is especially dedicated to the spiritual path.

Equally, the Sannyasin receives it and blesses the giver, knowing that a share of his spiritual merit goes to the receiver. Thus both giver and receiver are blessed by this form of charity.

2. Food is viewed as coming from the Divine Mother Herself, and is received and given with great respect and reverence. It is treated as sacred Prasad of the Lord.

3. Prasad or sanctified food offered during a prayer is meant to be kept very simple. Usually a single grain is cooked or some fruit is cut and offered at the shrine and distributed to those attending after the prayer is completed. In the case of Bhiksha, it is to be obtained from visiting a maximum of 5 homes and should not contain any luxury items. It is not intended to be a feast.

4. Sanctified food, eaten as the Lord’s Prasad, becomes the medicine for the body, according to the first meaning of Step 25.

He who consumes food, without discrimination, is not freed from evil even as he who does not help others in this world nor turns the wheel thus set in motion is evil in nature, sensual in his delight and lives in vain, eating the food prepared by them alone eating verily their own de-merits. 

Food and rest should be taken of such quality and in such quantity as would promote healthy body and wholesome mind and rejects those which makes one dull and Food when eaten is transformed three-fold, the coarsest portion becomes the fasces, the intermediate one becomes the flesh and the subtle becomes the mind. 

Enlarging the meaning and scope of food, Gita says the food that brightens life, vitality, strength, health, joy and cheerfulness, succulent, soft, sustaining is agreeable to the luminous ones. Bitter, sour, salty, too hot and too pungent, rough and burning food producing pain, hurt and disorder are preferred by the energetic. 

Food that is spoilt, tasteless, putrid, stale, left half-eaten by others and impure is relished by the obscure ones. A human being should be wise in vision and austere in approach, accepting food as the need of the body and not for satisfaction of the senses. Then food consumed being useful as medicine and not an object of desire.

The mind is made out of the subtle essence of food. So it is attached to those persons from whom it receives the food. 

If you live with a friend for a couple of months and take food with him, your mind gets attached to that friend who feeds you. 

That is the reason why a Sannyasin lives on Madhukari Bhiksha from three to five houses, avoids attachment and travels from village to village. He is not allowed to stay for more than a day in a village during his Parivrajaka (wandering itinerant) life. 

The mind of a Paramahamsa who thus lives on alms is as clean as the Ganga water and is absolutely free from attachment of any kind. Attachment is death. Attachment is the root of all evils.

 

Love.

 

POSTPONED - Live Session on Moksha Gita - Part 1

Dear All,

The live session tomorrow on Moksha Gita Series is postponed until next week.

The YouTube link for the session will be posted in due course.

Love.

Sadhana Panchakam - Post 42

Sri Sankara seems to have deliberately and cleverly worded this to invite two different interpretations, both of which carry some merit.

1. Hunger as a Disease: Hunger is regarded as another bodily disease that needs to be treated with the appropriate medicine – food. As with any disease, so with hunger – we should not ignore it, but treat it properly with the most effective means to “cure” it. It comes three times a day – and is treated by breakfast, lunch and supper!

The body is the “temple of God”; it is wise to take good care of it, and not subject it to foolish austerity. It is the only vehicle we have for the soul’s journey to gather further experiences. If the body’s hunger is ignored, it will hit back at us with vengeance.

2. Hunger as a Treatment: Here, both hunger and disease are regarded as treatments. For what disease? The disease is our spiritual illness – ignorance of the Self. We do not cure the pangs of hunger and disease but are cured by the pangs. The cure is for the soul, not the body. In other words, self-denial or Fasting is advocated here as a purificatory or expiatory treatment. It is a Prayaschitta Karma. Hunger is voluntarily accepted as a Tapas.

Many seekers often are made to believe, on the basis of misinterpretation of the scriptures that there is separate and distinct identity of the physical form the spiritual essence, there being no need to attending to one's physical form in the evolution of the spiritual essence. 

The general impression is that the ego or the 'I' is transient and not the essence or the self within; therefore, it is not necessary or much less essential part to preserve the form for the essence. Intense austerity and perfection in penance with complete disregard to the physical body or its proper maintenance is often commended, assuming that noble thoughts can never arise in a gross body.

This is not proper because no noble thought could ever arise in a diseased body and a sick mind. Healthy mind is possible only in a healthy body. Therefore, seers recommend Yoga saadhana for perfection of the instrument for having a perfect body and mind. 

Bhagavad Gita (VI.16) declares that yoga is not for one who eats too much or abstains too much from eating; neither for one who sleeps too much nor for one who keeps himself awake. It is for one whose is heart is pure and mind receptive, with his self, well-equipped with Knowledge and Wisdom, master of his senses, clod, stone and gold being equal in perception, who is equal to friends and foes, saints and sinners, serene and fearless, consciously aware and firm in commitment to the Supreme Essence.

In Yoga Vashishtha, Rama is told that deluded by external forms of sacrifices, austerities, alms giving, pilgrimages and worship of gods, men pass many years in misery like beasts. Therefore, disciplined approach to life is recommended regulating thirst, disease and the rest for the body.

A monk writes,

"If we are hungry spiritually, we would like to take spiritual food. 

We feed our body; we should feed the body with good healthy food. 

We feed our mind through our studies—the ideas should be good. 

Similarly, we should feed the soul. How to do it? Through the practice of worship, japa, meditation.

There is a parable of Sri Ramakrishna: A child was going to bed and said, ‘Mummy, if I feel hungry, please wake me up,’ and the mother said, ‘I need not do that. Your hunger itself will wake you up.’ 

There comes a time in the course of the evolution of the soul when we become spiritually hungry and wake up from our age-long slumber. But then, mere waking up is not enough. We must be up and doing.

 

Love.