VEGETARIANISM
By Master Sivananda
Sage Uddalka instructs his son Svetaketu: "Food when consumed becomes threefold. The gross particles become that excrement, the middling ones flesh, and the fine ones the mind. My child, when curd is churned, its fine particles which rise upwards form butter. Thus, my child, when food is consumed the fine particles which rise upwards form the mind. Hence, verily, the mind is food."
The mind is formed of the subtlest portion of food. If the food is impure, the mind also becomes impure in its workings. This is the dictum, of both the ancient of India and of the modern psychologists.
That food does wield a tremendous influence on the mind can be seen in everyday life around us. After a heavy sumptuous, indigestible meal, it is very difficult to control the mind; it runs, wanders, and jumps like an ape, all the time. Alcohol, similarly, causes great excitement in the mind.
THREE KINDS OF DIET
Diet is of three kinds, viz., Sattvic diet, Rajasic diet and Tamasic diet. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Lord Krishna says to Arjuna: "The food which is dear to each is threefold. The foods which increase vitality, energy, vigor, health, and joy and which are delicious, bland, substantial, and agreeable are dear to the pure. The passionate persons desire foods that are bitter, sour, saline, excessively hot, pungent, dry and burning, and which produce pain, grief and disease. The food which is stale, tasteless, putrid, rotten and impure, is dear to the Tamasic."
Milk, barley, wheat, cereals, butter, cheese, tomatoes, honey, dates, fruits, almonds, and sugar candy are all Sattvic food-stuffs. They render the mind pure and calm and play a very important part in the practices of spiritual aspirants, in the mental development of the student, and in the personality-power of the leaders of mankind. Fish, eggs, meat, salt, chilies and asafetida are Rajasic food-stuffs; they excite passion and make the mind restless, unsteady and uncontrollable. Beef, wine, garlic, onions and tobacco are Tamasic food-stuffs. They exercise a very unwholesome influence on the human mind and fill it with emotions of anger, darkness and inertia.
By Master Sivananda
Sage Uddalka instructs his son Svetaketu: "Food when consumed becomes threefold. The gross particles become that excrement, the middling ones flesh, and the fine ones the mind. My child, when curd is churned, its fine particles which rise upwards form butter. Thus, my child, when food is consumed the fine particles which rise upwards form the mind. Hence, verily, the mind is food."
The mind is formed of the subtlest portion of food. If the food is impure, the mind also becomes impure in its workings. This is the dictum, of both the ancient of India and of the modern psychologists.
That food does wield a tremendous influence on the mind can be seen in everyday life around us. After a heavy sumptuous, indigestible meal, it is very difficult to control the mind; it runs, wanders, and jumps like an ape, all the time. Alcohol, similarly, causes great excitement in the mind.
THREE KINDS OF DIET
Diet is of three kinds, viz., Sattvic diet, Rajasic diet and Tamasic diet. In the Bhagavad-Gita, Lord Krishna says to Arjuna: "The food which is dear to each is threefold. The foods which increase vitality, energy, vigor, health, and joy and which are delicious, bland, substantial, and agreeable are dear to the pure. The passionate persons desire foods that are bitter, sour, saline, excessively hot, pungent, dry and burning, and which produce pain, grief and disease. The food which is stale, tasteless, putrid, rotten and impure, is dear to the Tamasic."
Milk, barley, wheat, cereals, butter, cheese, tomatoes, honey, dates, fruits, almonds, and sugar candy are all Sattvic food-stuffs. They render the mind pure and calm and play a very important part in the practices of spiritual aspirants, in the mental development of the student, and in the personality-power of the leaders of mankind. Fish, eggs, meat, salt, chilies and asafetida are Rajasic food-stuffs; they excite passion and make the mind restless, unsteady and uncontrollable. Beef, wine, garlic, onions and tobacco are Tamasic food-stuffs. They exercise a very unwholesome influence on the human mind and fill it with emotions of anger, darkness and inertia.
STRESS ON MORAL AND SPIRITUAL VALUES
No doubt, animal diet may produce a strong Sandow, or a dauntless soldier, or a keen, brainy scientist. But, in the Hindu view of life, the real value is placed upon the moral and spiritual worth of the man. Man is more than just body and mind; he is essentially an ever-perfect, ever-pure, and ever-free spirit in his true inner nature. Human birth is given as an opportunity and a means to attain this sublime knowledge of his inner spiritual nature and to regain his divinity. In this process, all grossness and animalistic tendencies have to be totally eliminated from the human personality. Non-vegetarian diet, which is gross and animal by its very nature, is a great hindrance to this process. Whereas, pure Sattvic diet is a great help to the refinement of the human nature.
The chemical components of different foods vibrate at varying rates. Each particle of food is a mass of energy. The intake of certain food-stuffs sets up discordant vibrations in the physical body which throw the mind into a state of oscillation and disequilibrium. Concentration of mind is rendered difficult and high thinking is disturbed; elevating thoughts lack because of missing fine vibrations.
MEAT DIET GENERATES DISEASE
Meat generates diseases, excites passions, and produces restlessness of mind. Scientists we coming to the conclusion that in meat there are certain things which are absolutely poisonous. A very large number of medical professionals who have studied the subject of diet in relation to health are forbidding their patients to eat animal flesh, not only as a means Of cure for such diseases as gout, rheumatism etc., but also as a preventive measure against uric-acid ailments, cancer and appendicitis.
Meat is not at all necessary for the keeping up of perfect health, vigor and vitality. On the contrary, it is highly deleterious to health; it brings in its train a host of ailments such as tapeworm, albuminuria, and other diseases of the kidneys. In large meat-eating countries, cancer mortality is admittedly very high.
FLESH EATING INVOLVES CRUELTY
Moreover, flesh-eating involves the exercise of cruelty which is not an elevating virtue. It is a bestial quality which degrades us all. Cruelty has been condemned by all, for example, Pythagoras condemned meat diet as sinful food The cruel slaughter of animals and the taking of innocent lives, which flesh- eating, makes it an abhorrent act.
Butchery and bloodshed is a great disgrace to civilization and culture. Killing of animals for food is a great blunder. And the mentality it engenders is fraught with potential danger for the life of humanity, a recognition which made George Bernard Shaw say, "As long as men torture and slay animals and eat their flesh, we shall have war."
GIVE UP ANIMAL FLESH AS FOOD
If you want to stop taking mutton, five, etc., just see with your own eyes the pitiable, struggling condition of the animals at the time of killing. Now mercy and sympathy will arise in your heart. You will determine to give up flesh things. If you fail in this attempt, just change your environment and live in a vegetarian hotel where you cannot get mutton and fish, and move in that society where there is only vegetable diet. Always think of the evils of flesh-eating and the benefits of a vegetable diet. If this also cannot give you sufficient strength to stop eating meat, go to the slaughter house and the butcher's shop and personally see the disgusting, rotten muscles, intestines, kidneys and other nasty parts of the animals which emit bad smell. This will induce Vairagya (detachment) in you and a strong disgust and hatred for meat-eating. The use of animal flesh as food should be absolutely given up. Flesh-eating is unnecessary, unnatural, and unwholesome. The countless instances of reputed philosophers, authors, scholars, athletes, saints, yogis and rishis who have lived on vegetable diet conclusively prove that vegetarian diet produces supreme powers both of the mind and the body.
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