Food

Those who take wisdom as their highest goal, whose faith is deep and whose senses are trained, attain wisdom quickly and enter into perfect peace. But the ignorant, indecisive and lacking in faith, waste their lives. They can never be happy in this world or any other.

--Sri Krishna to Arjuna. The Bhagavad Gita, chapter four, Wisdom in Action. paragraphs 39/40

I find that I don't "crave" any food besides oatmeal the last 3/4 weeks. I don't even crave oatmeal, it is what I eat, what sustains me and what my body easily and happily digests. Today I had a vegetable burrito at Chevy's. It tasted like the burrito you would find on a menu: four-color-processed, arranged, photographed with a flash. Sensual cravings, especially food, is less of a challenge than it has ever been. I am going to have to figure out where to eat lunch downtown.

Food has always subconsciously served as a substitute for whatever emotional need I've wanted met/fulfilled. Food has been a crutch in the past. There is a flavor, texture, aroma to satisfy every desire, sensual longing-I find I am not grasping to be emotionally fulfilled.


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I am not sure when I wrote that - about a week and a half ago perhaps. As I reread the above and think about how I feel like I am eating in the old patterned unconscious ways it saddens me. I know it is all a process of contraction and expansion and I am definitely in a contraction period with food. Part of it has to do with the law of physics that talks about a body in motion staying in motion and a body at rest staying at rest; well, for me with my eating habits, when I allow myself to eat something I wouldn't otherwise eat I then tend to want to keep eating that way, unconsciously - and it feels more difficult to get "back on track," retraining my brain to be satisfied with oatmeal and a small amount of fruit. So just now I put down the yummy bowl of broccoli and rice with cheese because I am full and don't need to finish every morsel. I have always eaten every morsel on my plate. I do keep in mind what one of Amma's swamis said when he recommended we eat only what we need, that is what had me put the cheesy-broccoli down. I want to not need food, not be driven by it. I read something else recently about one of the reasons we need to sleep so many hours is because we eat so much so soon to the time we are going to sleep that the digestion process tires us out and slows us down, before our mind has a chance to shut off. Sleeping gives our brains a chance to turn off for some hours.