Digestion of food is depends upon the state of our mind
when we eat is much more important than what we eat. Food will affect you differently if you eat joyously, happily, or if you eat when you are filled with sadness and worry. If you are eating in a worried state, then even the best food will have a poisonous effect. And if you are eating with joy then it is possible that sometimes even poison may not be able to have its total effect on you. It is very possible. So what state of mind you eat in is important.
In Russia there was a great psychologist called Pavlov.
He did some experiments on animals and he reached an amazing conclusion. He experimented on some dogs and some cats. He gave food to a cat and he observed the cat through an X-ray machine to see what happened in her stomach after she ate her food. When the food went into the stomach the stomach immediately released digestive juices. At the same time a dog was brought to the window of the room the cat was in. When the dog barked, the cat became afraid and the X-ray machine showed that the secretion of digestive juices within her stopped. The stomach closed. It shrunk. Then the dog was taken away, but for six hours the stomach remained in the same condition.
The digestive process of the food did not begin again and the food remained undigested in the stomach for six hours. After six hours, when the juices started flowing again, the food was not in a digestible state, it had become solid and had become difficult to digest. When the cat’s mind became worried about the presence of the dog the stomach stopped its work.
Then what about our situation? We live in worry for twenty-four hours a day. It is a miracle how the food we eat gets digested, how existence manages it in spite of us! We have no wish to digest it.
It is absolutely a miracle how it gets digested. And how we remain alive! This is also a miracle!
Our state of mind should be graceful and blissful,The more happily and joyously and the more relaxed and without worry a person can take his meal, the more his food starts becoming the right food.
A violent diet does not only mean that a man eats non-vegetarian food. It is also a violent diet when a man eats with anger. Both of these things are violent. While eating in anger, in suffering, in worry, man is also eating violently. He does not realize at all that just as he is violent when eating the flesh of something else, so when his own flesh burns up inside due to anger and worry, violence is present there too. Then the food which he is eating cannot be non-violent.
The other part of right food is that you should eat in a very peaceful, a very joyful state. If you are not in such a state, then it is better to wait until you are and not to eat for a while. When the mind isabsolutely ready, only then should one take his meals. For how long will the mind not be ready?
If you are aware enough to wait then at the most it can remain hungry for only one day – but we have never bothered to listen to it. We have made eating food a completely mechanical process.
One has to put food into the body and then leave the dining table. It is no longer a psychological process – that is dangerous.
On the body level, the right food should be healthy, non-stimulating and non-violent; on the
psychological level the mind should be in a blissful state, graceful and joyous; and on the level of the soul there should be a feeling of gratefulness, of thankfulness.
These three things make food the right food.
- Excerpt From Inner journey
when we eat is much more important than what we eat. Food will affect you differently if you eat joyously, happily, or if you eat when you are filled with sadness and worry. If you are eating in a worried state, then even the best food will have a poisonous effect. And if you are eating with joy then it is possible that sometimes even poison may not be able to have its total effect on you. It is very possible. So what state of mind you eat in is important.
In Russia there was a great psychologist called Pavlov.
He did some experiments on animals and he reached an amazing conclusion. He experimented on some dogs and some cats. He gave food to a cat and he observed the cat through an X-ray machine to see what happened in her stomach after she ate her food. When the food went into the stomach the stomach immediately released digestive juices. At the same time a dog was brought to the window of the room the cat was in. When the dog barked, the cat became afraid and the X-ray machine showed that the secretion of digestive juices within her stopped. The stomach closed. It shrunk. Then the dog was taken away, but for six hours the stomach remained in the same condition.
The digestive process of the food did not begin again and the food remained undigested in the stomach for six hours. After six hours, when the juices started flowing again, the food was not in a digestible state, it had become solid and had become difficult to digest. When the cat’s mind became worried about the presence of the dog the stomach stopped its work.
Then what about our situation? We live in worry for twenty-four hours a day. It is a miracle how the food we eat gets digested, how existence manages it in spite of us! We have no wish to digest it.
It is absolutely a miracle how it gets digested. And how we remain alive! This is also a miracle!
Our state of mind should be graceful and blissful,The more happily and joyously and the more relaxed and without worry a person can take his meal, the more his food starts becoming the right food.
A violent diet does not only mean that a man eats non-vegetarian food. It is also a violent diet when a man eats with anger. Both of these things are violent. While eating in anger, in suffering, in worry, man is also eating violently. He does not realize at all that just as he is violent when eating the flesh of something else, so when his own flesh burns up inside due to anger and worry, violence is present there too. Then the food which he is eating cannot be non-violent.
The other part of right food is that you should eat in a very peaceful, a very joyful state. If you are not in such a state, then it is better to wait until you are and not to eat for a while. When the mind isabsolutely ready, only then should one take his meals. For how long will the mind not be ready?
If you are aware enough to wait then at the most it can remain hungry for only one day – but we have never bothered to listen to it. We have made eating food a completely mechanical process.
One has to put food into the body and then leave the dining table. It is no longer a psychological process – that is dangerous.
On the body level, the right food should be healthy, non-stimulating and non-violent; on the
psychological level the mind should be in a blissful state, graceful and joyous; and on the level of the soul there should be a feeling of gratefulness, of thankfulness.
These three things make food the right food.
- Excerpt From Inner journey
No comments:
Post a Comment