'Truths' on your food

K Vijayaraghavan

'Truths' on issues concerning one's own life and living commences with the most basic of it all: 'truths' on one's food intake and eating.

Bhagavad Gita (VI,17), exhorting moderation in eating, recreation and sleeping, also categorises (III, 13) those, who dress food for themselves, as sinners, who eat sin itself. Particular types of food are also dealt with (XVII, 7-10): those, inducing health ( sat), inducing passion ( rajas) and inducing dullness and ignorance ( tamas).

True, one's food could be another's poison (both literally and figuratively). Nevertheless, general 'truths' could guide, including on neutralising past misuse, abuse and disuse of the system. Thomas Fuller rightly noted, "Hethat eats till he is sick must fast till he is well."

Gandhi's own "experiments with truth" included, besides fasting, long walks and also abstaining from sweets, which taught him that "the real seat of taste was not the tonguebut the mind".

Right exercises that also go with right eating, even if not done for themselves, could be incorporated into one's natural chores, outings, etc. The concept of "healthy mind in a healthy body" is similar to Kalidasa's observation that a good body is the first requirement for all accomplishments.

Slovenly and mindless eating arises from lack of inner fulfilment, inducing one to resort to such eating as escapism or 'tranquilisers' for the disturbances within. Indeed, 'truths' concerning eating and those on effective living go together - each contributing to the other, in a virtuous cycle!