GURU SPEAKS:
Always remind yourself that this material world is not fit place for any sadhakas. Why? Everyone is trying to get happiness by pleasing the senses. These senses will never be satisfied. Don’t lie to yourself. Only by pleasing Sri Krishna senses will one be totally satisfied.T herefore always ask yourself am I performing certain activity for my personal sense gratification or to please Sri Krishna? For example when we eat, we want tasty food. Why? Is this is please Sri Krishna or my senses? Eat nutritious food to keep body and soul together, not for taste. Raw foods are best for nourishment. Cooked food kills all the natural nutrition. Therefore steam or boil food and eat without salt and after some time you will thank me for helping you control your senses. Hare Krishna.
Please take care of your health now and a healthy body gives you a healthy mind. The easiest way to stay healthy is to eat healthy meaning mainly fruits and raw foods. One should start with 50 percent raw food daily and gradually increase to 80 percent. Refined sugar, white flour and salt are poisons invented for sense gratification. Eating raw foods and fruits have all the salt and sugar necessary. I am sure many of you are understanding. Diet is also hinted at by Rupa Goswami in the nectar of instruction. Ragunatha dasa Goswami lived only on buttermilk. Why was it austerity? Certainly not. Shows that we can just live on buttermilk. My personal diet is fresh fruits in the morning and buttermilk. Lunch little saltless kichidi to keep my body together. I do regular yoga and pranakriyas for one hour daily. Chant Harinama for minimum 6 hours daily and hear Srila Prabhupada for one hour and make notes. Unfortunately I know many of you who work like asses are not able to do this. But at least control your eating and do pranakriyas regularly. Pranakriyas is real food for the body. Without prana you will not live therefore you breathe unconsciously. When we breathe consciously then the Prana is more subtle and beneficial. Hare Krishna.
Instructions on Eating
What you eat, you become.
Do not eat luxurious foodstuffs in the name of Prasada.
*** Srila Prabhupada Translations and purports ***
Caitanya-caritāmṛta Antya 6.278
“When one eats food offered by a materialistic man, one’s mind becomes contaminated, and when the mind is contaminated, one is unable to think of Kṛṣṇa properly.
Caitanya-caritāmṛta Antya 6.279
“When one accepts an invitation from a person contaminated by the material mode of passion, the person who offers the food and the person who accepts it are both mentally contaminated.
Bhagawad Gita As It Is 6.16
There is no possibility of one’s becoming a yogī, O Arjuna, if one eats too much or eats too little, sleeps too much or does not sleep enough.
Too much eating means eating more than is required to keep the body and soul together.
Srimad Bhagawatam 4.26.13, Purport:
Sāttvika-āhāra, foodstuffs in the mode of goodness, are described in the śāstras as wheat, rice, vegetables, fruits, milk, sugar, and milk products. Simple food like rice, dāl, capātīs, vegetables, milk and sugar constitute a balanced diet, but sometimes it is found that an initiated person, in the name of prasāda, eats very luxurious foodstuffs. Due to his past sinful life he becomes attracted by Cupid and eats good food voraciously.
Comments by Dharmavira Prabhu
If one wants to control one’s senses than one must control one’s eating. The tongue belly and genitals are a straight line as explained by Rupa Goswami in the nectar of instruction. Srila Prabhupada has given all these purports regarding eating and Prasad and one should not just give lip service to Srila Prabhupada’s teaching. Over-eating is the number one reason why members even sannyasis fall down in our movement. The beginning stage of spiritual life is to control the tongue and if one cannot control the tongue then one’s spiritual practices is just a pretension.
Just by observing how one is controlling one’s tongue one would be able to assess one’s controlling of one’s senses. In fact Prasad and especially Mahaprasad should be honoured by just taking a grain and not eating Mahaprasad as meal. Eating Mahaprasad as a meal is definitely an offense.
“So Rūpa Gosvāmī gives the instruction, anāsaktasya viṣayān. Anāsakta… means no attachment. Sleeping required, but not for attachment. Somebody is living for sleeping, and somebody is sleeping just to give rest to the body. Similarly, eating also. You have to eat, because you have got this body. But not that simply for eating I am living. You eat simply just to keep your body fit, not extra. Don’t eat more than it is required for maintaining your body.” [Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.1.3, Delhi, November 6, 1973]
Cleanliness inside and outside
“Śuci, śaucam, śuci. So the devotee must be clean, inside and outside, both. Outside cleaning by taking bath, washing the body with oil or soap or soda, and inside, inside, materially, there will be no unclean things, stool, unnecessary stool. That means one must evacuate every morning and evening. If we eat more, then we have to evacuate twice. But if we eat less, then once evacuation is sufficient. It is said, yogi, bhogī, and rogī. Yogi means spiritually advanced, and bhogī means materialist, and rogī means diseased.
It is a common saying. A yogi evacuates only once. That is yogi. And bhogī, because he eats more, so he evacuates twice. And one who evacuates more than twice, he’s rogī, diseased. Yogi, bhogī, rogī. So everything has got routine work. śaucam. So you’ll feel healthy. If you have evacuated nicely, you have washed inside and outside, taken your bath, then you’ll feel always refreshed. And unless you feel refreshed, you cannot very nicely chant Hare Kṛṣṇa mahā-mantra or serve Kṛṣṇa. Therefore cleanliness is required.”
From the lecture on Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 1.16.26-30, Hawaii, January 23, 1974
Food combining suggestions – free e-book
Note: As always with books written by non-devotees, use caution – take what is good, leave what is not.