Chapter 3Food · Greed for Food

The first thing to be attained about eating, is to get rid of the greed of food, the attachment and desire, — to take it only as a need of the body, to think little of it and not to allow it to occupy a big place in the life; also to be satisfied with what you get, not to hanker. At the same time sufficient food should be taken, avoiding either deficiency or excess; an excessive coercion or nigraha in this respect (as opposed to reasonable control) often brings a reaction. One should go steadily, but not try to get too much done at once.

* As for Sannyasis and food, Sannyasis put a compulsion on their desires in this and other matters — they take ascetic food as a principle; but this does not necessarily kill the greed for food, it remains compressed and, if the compulsion or principle is removed, it can come up again stronger than before — for compression without removal often increases the force of these things instead of destroying them.

* Not to eat as the method of getting rid of the greed of food is the ascetic way. Ours is equanimity and non-attachment.

* These things [persistent desires] still rise in you because they have been for so long prominent difficulties and, as far as the first is concerned, because you gave it much justification from the mind at one time. But if the inner consciousness is growing like that they are sure to go. Only if they rise, don’t give them harbourage. Perhaps with regard to the greed for food, your attitude has not been quite correct. Greed for food has to be overcome, but it has not to be given too much thought. The proper attitude to food is a certain equality. Food is for the maintenance of the body and one should take enough for that — what the body needs; if one gives less the body feels the need and hankers; if you give more, then that is indulging the vital. As for particular foods the palate likes, the attitude of the mind and vital should be, “If I get, I take; if I don’t get, I shall not mind.” One should not think too much of food either to indulge or unduly to repress — that is the best.

* One does not need to get a hatred for food in order to get rid of the greed for food. On the other hand, to develop dislike for certain things may help to reject them — but that too is not always the cure, for they may remain in spite of the dislike.

* It is true that the greed of food, the desire of the palate are very strong in a great many if not most of the sadhaks; this is one of the things that they take as natural and seem not at all anxious to get it out of them. I do not think it is active in you; what you felt must have come in from the others, — for very often one feels the things that are in the atmosphere and one must be careful to distinguish that from one’s own feeling.

* As to taking tea or food there [at a friend’s place], you must always remember that to be governed by these desires is not at all an ideal condition. But if you have the impulse and are not able easily and naturally to reject it, you can take on condition you scrupulously inform the Mother both of the act and of the movement and state of mind accompanying it. Also often the imposed on you silently or otherwise by suggestion by the others; you must learn to see when it is like that and then you must reject it. Your aspiration must be for an inner change so that there will be no longer any need to indulge the desires, because they will no longer have a hold on you.

You must learn to watch yourself and know what is the true nature and source of the movements in you and report them carefully — as in fact you had begun to do when you first had the psychic opening and could see the movements in you or many of them at least very clearly.

* Of course — the vital is insatiable.1 There are only two things that interfere with it [greed for food] — the limitations of the body and the disapprobation of the mind — but the latter is not always there. There is also of course the possibility of the psychic interfering, but to that the vital becomes pervious only at a certain stage. It is therefore the body that is the only check for most people.

* These complaints about food are of long standing with many — they come from the animal man and will go on so long as the sadhaks identify themselves with the physical animal in them.