“To keep this body, the Annamaya kosha, the first layer of your ‘I’,…”

To keep this body, the Annamaya kosha, the first layer of your ‘I’, alive, active and fresh, three, three tips; if you understand this three is enough. First thing, there are three types of dosha. Dosha means, dosha word cannot be exactly translated in English. Dosha means defects, you understand that much. Three kinds of defects are there in the food. If you avoid these three kinds of defects, then you will see the body will be alive throughout the day. They call it jati dosha, nimitta dosha, ashraya dosha. These are sanskrit terms, if you understand the meaning.

Jati dosha means by its own nature, the food which should not be taken. There are many food, by its own nature, it’s not good for your health. How to find out? After eating if you feel your stomach or your body, you will feel the uneasiness - All the junk food, all the soda, all the soda items; all the junk food you can see, after eating if you just sit and watch your system… you never sit and watch your system. You watch everybody’s system, you watch everybody, but you never watch your own Being, your own Self. You know all the great Masters they say, your body always speaks to you, you never speak with your body. You never relate with your body. There’s a meditation technique in tantra to relate with your body, in which you are supposed to relate with your body, talk to your body. You feel awkward, what, how to talk with my body?

You talk with everybody but you never talk to yourself. You never sense or you never feel what happens in yourself, in your system. Whenever you take any junk food, you always, you can always see, you feel too much. It is called jati dosha. By nature the food, which is to be avoided: non-veg, onion, garlic, green chili; which makes you tense if you eat that hot, hot food. I have seen, especially this Andhra, the gongura chutney. Just chili, nothing else; eyes will be pouring, their body will beg them, please leave me. But for the sake of tongue (Swamiji gestures) not even they will touch like this, they will (Swamiji gestures), with all 2-3 fingers they will take and taste. 😊 Just the word, I think many mouths are giving saliva. 😊😊 Just the word is enough, gongura chutney, many mouths have started feeling. 😊 Body just begs and many time you can see your body begs you, to allow itself to live. But just for the sake of taste, you put everything, anything and everything inside, alcohol, smoke. By their very nature, the food which has to be avoided, vegetarian, the non-veg food, non-veg food has to, these are the first thing.

The next thing, of course, I am not going to give any rules, I am giving only the understanding. Because if I start giving rules, there will be one thousand question. If I allow this subject to be questioned, you will see, 😊 we will be stuck here itself. “No Swamiji, doctors say this is good, doctors say that is good.” Somebody came and told Me “Swamiji, doctors said me to drink wine, what should I do?” Doctor would have suggested only little bit, but you use that as a visa, what can be done? It is you, who has to decide, not Me. I am just giving you the understanding, if you want your Being to be alive, to expand to the energy. If you want to keep yourself active, then understand these things, try your best to follow. I am not giving you any rules or morality. I don’t believe in conscience, I believe in consciousness. I don’t believe in rules, I believe in experience. So I am not here to give you any rules. But I can give you some understandings. These are just the research reports. Of course, when you get into some trouble and go to some doctor or some psychiatrist, when he says- you’ll obey. When Rishis or Masters say, we have all our reluctance and all our questions. We want to have all sorts of exemptions, exemptions.

People come and ask Me, “Swamiji”... for the healing I give them one or two diets. “Swamiji can I have little bit of this, I have to eat with my kids Swamiji, I have no other way, I can have little bit of exemption?” I tell them, for cancers and all I tell them, please don’t eat non-veg for 21-days, so that healing will be effective. The healing will be more active. Please don’t drink, at least for 21 days, till you get healed. They say “No, no, no Swamiji, I have to go to this party, that party.” Then go and die, who doesn’t, who says no. It’s you decide, whether to go and die by cancer or should...should I get healed? It is your choice, it is their choice. They want the healing also and they want all exemptions also. Mm... Whenever you want, we go for exemption, we ask for exemption, what will I tell? If you come and ask, if they come and ask Me, what can I tell, I cannot say anything strict, I say, “All right, carry on.” It is only, they should decide. Whenever the doctors say, they will obey totally, when the Masters say it is little difficult. Then they think...they think, “No, no, no, He is giving it as a morality, He’s giving it as a regulations.” I am not giving these things as a regulations, I am not giving these things as a morality, I am giving these things as a understanding. The big difference is there, if you think you should not jump the red signal, if this is a, if you think this is a rule, you always try to jump. If you think this as a rule, what will you do? You will just see, if there is no cop (Swamiji gestures with hands).

If you take things as a rule, you always try to go beyond, because your nature is searching for freedom. Your instinct is asking for freedom. If you take anything as a rule, you will always try to go beyond it, you will try to break it. Don’t take these things as a rule. ‘You should not jump the red signal’ is an understanding. You should take that as an understanding - “If I jump, if everybody starts jumping, the whole road will be mess, it’ll be an accident. It’s a contract between Me and My next person, the other person, who drives the car. It’s a contract, mutual contract between all of us.” It is a contract between you and your next man, you and your other colleague. It is just a understanding, it is not the rule. When you look at the whole thing as this way, you will never feel like a jumping the signal. You will never feel like crossing the signal. Because when it becomes understanding, it becomes your blood and bone. If it’s a rule, it is only the skin deep. You try to go beyond. So, take all these things as understanding not as a rule. If you take all these things as a rule, as soon as you go out, what will you tell, “Swami spoke nicely, He can do, He’s a Swami, what we can do, we cannot pract ...practice all these things, these are all impractical for us, you see. And especially even if we are in Bharat, we could have done something. We are in America, it’s a different culture, different society.” Nothing! Simply our laziness, our misunderstanding, we put it on the society, we put it on the culture, we put on everybody’s head, except our head; except our head, we put everything on everybody’s head. Only it never reaches our head. Take all these things as understanding not as a rule.

Jati dosha is the thing, food, by its own nature to be avoided.

Next thing: nimitta dosha. If it is, if there is a dirt, if it is someway became dirty, you shouldn’t take. Of course, the hygienic standard of America is really good, so there is no need to bother about the nimitta dosha here.

Third is ashraya dosha. This is the great thing, this is the thing which you need to understand. Never ill treat or misbehave with your cook. Don’t think it’s a rule. Now I read the report, there’s a book called Mind Matters. In that they say, if you eat the food which is cooked by your enemy or a person, who is not happy with you, who is continuously having a negative thoughts about you, within 21 days you get ulcer. Within 21 days your stomach gets disturbed. Please be very clear, they say it is not that when you cook, you put only ingredients, you put your thoughts also. You put your thoughts also; your thoughts play a major role in all your deed. And the one more thing they say, the same physical, the physics experiment in the physics, the same experiment done with the same instrument, in the same temperature, with the same things, by two persons, shows two different results. By this they come to the conclusion, the person, the thoughts, the being also plays a role in the outer activities. Your thoughts do have a major effect in all your deeds, and whatever you touch.

Ramanuja says, Ramanuja is a great acharya, He says, don’t eat the food cooked by wrong persons. Don’t eat the food touched by your enemy. It’s not that … it is given as a morality. You need to understand one thing, your thoughts play a major role in your deeds. And not only that, you radiate your thoughts. That’s why with some people you feel naturally attracted. With some people you feel, just by one, one seeing or twice seeing, you feel as if you want to know about that person, as if you have known him for a long time, you wanted him or her to be around you, or you want to meet them again. For some persons, as soon as you see, you feel like a (Swamiji gesturing with hands) escaping. You somehow wants to run away. Even if they come, you say thank you, thank you - you just move, walk off. Why with somebody you fall in tune, with somebody you just run away. Thoughts radiate a special miru. Thoughts radiate a special light, it is called Aura Body. Just around your body, your thoughts just emit energy, so don’t think, thoughts are dead things, they are alive energy. Whenever somebody touches some food, their thoughts also enter into that food. So, if you eat the food cooked by person who is not happy with you, what he will be thinking when he cooks? He’ll be only cursing you.

I always tell them, never disturb your cook and the driver. Of course here, the problem, no driver, so no problem. Never disturb your cooks, never misbehave with them, give them all your respect and keep..keep them always in a good mood, keep them always in a good way. Because when they cook, don’t think they put only the ingredients, they put also the… their thoughts. Jati dosha, nimitta dosha, ashraya dosha. When you understand these 3 basic things about the food, I’ll tell in the English, the nature of the food and the hygienic - food should be totally clean. Third thing, main, the food should be handled only by the person who has got good thoughts, and the sameway if you cook, cook always with the divine name in your heart. Or the good thoughts in your being, then you will see, the whole house will have a beautiful happy stomach. They will have nothing, no problem with the stomach. And even if you have to go and eat in the restaurants outside, before taking the food, any food, just meditate for few minutes, send the positive energy to the food, then you take that food. You will see, your body feels light, your body feels very light. When you take the food which is cooked by the person who has got negative emotions, you will always see you are affected by it.

One more thing, this is the main thing to be understood, whenever you eat how to eat, the attitude of eating.

There’s a small story. Once a king went to a Zen Master and asked: ”Master, I heard that you are a great Enlightened man, you are always happy, you are so joyful, radiant, alive! You just emit energy, just by your Presence, we feel so happy. What you do, what is the practice you do, to reach this state, to be in this state, tell me. What kind of meditations you do? What all the spiritual practices you are observing?” He said, “What? Practice? I eat when I eat, I sleep when I sleep, that’s all.” He could not understand. He asked, please give me little more explanation. Master says, “No, when I eat, I eat, when I sleep, I sleep that’s all. This much only is my practice. I am quite happy.” Actually when you eat you don’t eat. When you eat, at that time only you bring all your worries, all your troubles, all your planning. Just imagine or remember the scene of your eating - quickly grabbing, that’s one thing. Next thing, you’ll be having all sorts of planning mentally - what to do next, where to go, how about this, how about that, everything. Except eating, your mind does everything, your mind does everything. Your mind never enjoys, or your mind never feels the food, your mind never feels the food. Your Being never feels the food. You just grab the whole thing, you just put it inside and fill your body, over.

When the Upanishad says: annam brahmeti vyajanat - Food is God, don’t waste it. If you eat without paying the attention to the food, you are disrespecting the food. It is just like throwing into the dustbin. When you throw it into the dustbin you don’t bother what is there in the plate. The sameway, when you throw it in your body, into your mouth, if you don’t bother what you are eating, what is the food, if you don’t, if you are not sensitive to the food, what is happening? Again you are just misbehaving with the food, that is what is the right word. If you eat without enjoying it, without tasting it, if you eat thinking of something else, you are disrespecting the food. You are misbehaving with the food. You are just wasting the food. Nothing else, you are just wasting the food. When Upanishad says don’t waste, they say, eat with respect. But you never do it. Understand this one thing, whenever you eat, that ten minutes, twenty minutes, give it for eating. Give it for eating and give it for drinking.

You will see, first thing, the food becomes tasty, next thing, your body becomes alive. You will not feel the heaviness. If you eat with awareness you will never overeat, because your body has got it’s own intelligence to control. If you eat with awareness, you will never overeat and you can very clearly find out, which food suits you, which food does not. If you just eat with awareness, that itself is a great meditation, nothing else. You don’t need any other technique. Eating with awareness, itself, itself is enough; itself is enough unto itself. Eating itself can become a meditation. Next thing, you will never overeat. Third thing, your body itself will understand what is good for you and what is not good for you. Your whole food habit will be regularized, if you eat with the awareness.