How should we eat at home and when we travel?

Conditioned souls think they control their own lives. This is because maya acts on them in this way. It is like sitting in a car. The driver or passenger feels that everything is rushing past while they sit still. But really, they are inside the car, and they are the ones moving. Everything outside stands still. You can see this clearly in a boat. When you sail in a boat, it seems that everything is floating past you. But really, everything is still, and you are moving.

In the same way, a conditioned soul is under the influence of maya and acts because of it. Maya makes a person act according to his past karma. Past karma is very strong, and it affects a person. The three gunas of maya also affect him.

Arjuna asked Krishna: “I know that some things are bad and some are good. But what pushes me to do these things?” And what did Krishna answer? “Kama, krodha”: lust and anger. Arjuna asked: “Sometimes I think, ‘This is good, this is bad,’ but how do I decide?” If you do not decide, that is a problem. But how can you decide correctly?

Sometimes the conditioned soul cannot do anything about it. Maya and the three gunas (sattva, raja and tama) are very strong. They affect a person according to his past karma. So karma and the three gunas work together, and they push a person to act.

How can we avoid the influence of the three gunas? If rajas and tamas do not influence us, then sattva will. How can we make sattva influence us? Do you know what sattva-guna is? It is peace, calm, kindness and quiet. Everything good is sattva-guna. And it comes from what we eat and who we spend time with.

Krishna also tells us in the Bhagavad-gita how the gunas show themselves in people. It depends on food. What we eat is very important. Bad food creates bad thoughts. What we eat today will affect us after five days. Changes happen all the time. Every five days there is a change. It affects the blood, and slowly it changes our consciousness.

Some foods are in the mode of ignorance. Some things affect the mind very fast: alcohol, drugs, ganja. So you must watch your food. I stress this. Mahaprabhu also said it. If you eat the food of vishayis, people who are attached to the material world, your mind will become disturbed.

Let me give an example: Shravana Kumara. He gave his whole life to his parents. They were blind. One day his parents said: “We want to visit holy places.” So Shravana Kumara decided to carry them. He made seats for them on a pole. He put one parent on each side and lifted the pole onto his shoulders. In this way he carried them from place to place, and they visited the holy places.

One day, in one place, his mind became very restless. He did not know why. Suddenly his mind changed. He began to speak very rudely to his parents. He had never done this before. He shouted at them: “Why must I carry you? You are blind because of your own bad karma. Why should I carry you? I gave my whole life to you. I lived as a brahmachari. I have seen nothing of life.” He insulted them in many ways.

His parents answered very humbly: “Yes, you are right. We are blind because of our bad karma. We are stopping you from enjoying your life. Please carry us across this river, and then you can leave us there.” Shravana Kumara agreed. He carried them across the river. On the other side, he took some water. A few minutes later, he felt deep regret. Before, he was under tamo-guna. After crossing the river, sattva-guna came to him, and with it great sorrow. He thought: “Why did I speak to them like that?”

This happened because he had drunk the water on the first side of the river, where bad people lived. His mind was disturbed. Now he had come to another place, where religious people lived. He drank the water there, and his peaceful mind came back.

This story shows us: if you eat food from materialistic people, your mind will be disturbed. Sometimes they add onion and garlic to the food, and you may not know. This happens a lot in the West. They may even add meat, because it is a tradition, and still call the food “vegetarian”. Some food has egg in it. The sahajiyas even think fish is vegetarian. They say fish is a fruit that comes from the water. So be careful.

When you travel, remember this, and control your stomach’s wishes. When you travel, eat less. You may think: “Today is Ekadashi. My Gurudeva is travelling, so he will not eat much.” In fact, Ekadashi is very easy. You just need to eat less. All the teachers in our guru-varga travelled on Ekadashi. There are no strict rules about this on Ekadashi.

When I take long flights, for example to India, I take nothing. The devotees give me food, but I do not eat it. It just stays under my seat. Sometimes I take a little fruit if I am very hungry. They sometimes pack so much for me, but I do not eat on the plane. I take only what the body needs. If you eat a lot, you will have to keep running to the toilet. So I eat less. Yesterday I ate two chapatis. They were good and tasty, but too salty. When you travel, try to eat less, especially on Ekadashi.

Materialistic people add meat and eggs to food. Even if they do not, they often cook in the same pots that they use for meat.

[Devotee: “The consciousness of the cook is also important.”]

Yes. If you eat such food, your mind becomes dirty and lust comes. The scriptures say clearly: if you do not control this, your consciousness will no longer be peaceful. So fruit is a good choice when you travel. When I am hungry on a plane, I take fruit and drink water.

[Devotee: “What is food in the mode of passion?”]

Food with a lot of spices.

[Devotee: “What about parikrama? There are often a lot of spices there too.”]

Food offered to the Deities is already nirguna. It does not belong to any guna. If chilli does not suit your body, do not eat it.

[Devotee: “Why do they put so much chilli in India?”]

And why do you drink alcohol? At least you did before. Now you are Vaishnavas and you do not drink. Why do people in Western countries drink alcohol? Alcohol is poison. How can it be good or bad? It is just a tradition. In the West, people like alcohol, even though it is foolish. In the same way, people in India like to put chilli in everything. It is a tradition. Do you understand?

Here, people run around half-naked on the beaches. I have not seen this on the beaches in India, although things are changing now. But here it is normal. Why? Because it passes from parents to children, from one generation to the next. Animals, for example, do not wear clothes. They watch their parents and do the same. It is simply tradition.

[Devotee: “What if the parents help? They know you do not eat onion and garlic, and they take them out when they cook.”]

Then you can offer that food to the Deities and eat it afterwards. That is fine. You should always offer everything to the Lord. There are two ways to offer. The first is to offer according to the rules. The second is to offer in your mind.

For example, food is not offered to Jagannatha with mantras. They simply show Him the food, and Jagannatha accepts it with His eyes. This is called drishti. If you go to Jagannatha Puri, you will see that they offer food to Jagannatha without mantras. They just show it to Him.

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Date: 14 December 2018 Location: Brazil