The Spiritual Seeker Can Change the Normal Human Focus on Food to a More Balanced Perspective That Supports His Focus on Sadhana

In the ordinary life in society, food plays an especially important and high profile role. We treat food as a centerpiece of our various celebrations, as rewards, as comfort when we are under stress and as something we consumer out of boredom or inattention. Food taste, food preparation, food choices all become major topics of consideration and discussion.

For those who live in a circumstance with modest or low food availability, there is obviously a focus on acquiring enough food for the basic needs of the body. This is tempered by other life needs and a recognition of the scarcity in the first place. Despite the need, food cannot occupy a central place in the lives of people who simply do not have access to sufficient food, although it still occupies an important place as availability becomes possible.

For those who are in a position to reside in a society with an abundance of food and wide availability, however, we see the role and focus on food actually increasing. There may be some habit or instinct, carried over from a past filled with scarcity, that overcompensates beyond current actual need. There is however a lot of social interaction that accentuates the desire for food, for special tastes or types of foods and which uses food as a reward, as a solace and as a compensation for other needs. Health professionals and researchers bombard us constantly with information on various nutrients we need, and the risks attendant on not acquiring those nutrients, which further increases our anxiety about getting enough and the right type of foods, and our fixation on food. So much for the ordinary life in society. All of this focus on the physical body and its needs or demands tends to create a dullness in the consciousness, accentuating the action of the Guna of tamas.

For the spiritual seeker, this focus on food becomes a major distraction if it is not addressed. By definition, the spiritual aspirant needs to direct his focus on the sadhana, on the aspiration, on the receptivity, on the surrender to the higher transformative forces and on the rejection of various distractions that come through the background that all human beings bring to the process, which includes all of this enormous focus on food and its availability, its taste, its preparation and its role in our lives.

The spiritual seeker, as he shifts his focus away from the physical body and the vital nature and begins to adopt the standpoint of the psychic being which uses the human instrument but is not bound by it, can begin to have an entirely different relationship to food.

If we look at our use of an automobile, we treat it as a tool or instrument for achieving certain objectives. We need to ensure it gets the fuel it requires, when it requires it, but we do not generally think about ‘feeding’ it fuel until the tank is close to empty. Similarly, the various ‘nutrients’ in the form of other fluids such as steering fluid, brake fluid, transmission fluid, windshield cleaning fluid, are only addressed occasionally during times of maintenance generally.

If we begin to look at the physical body along similar lines, we can find a more balanced approach in our relationship to food and thus, we can reduce the time and attention and importance we give to it at present. This opens up more time, focus and attention for the spiritual pursuits.

Sri Aurobindo notes: “Do not trouble your mind about food. Take it in the right quantity (neither too much nor too little), without greed or repulsion, as the means given you by the Mother for the maintenance of the body, in the right spirit, offering it to the Divine in you; then it need not create tamas.“

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 4, Desire — Food — Sex, pg. 66