Food for Thought

When to eat?  What to eat?  How to eat? and Should we eat?.

The questions that haunted me for long.

Having born in an environment where eating non-vegetarian was a norm. During the days when i used to eat non-veg food, i dont involve in cutting or even cooking as it squeezes the heart a little.

The concept of jeevakarunya got in. One fine day the neural connections rewired themselves and converted me to become a vegetarian.  Then somebody said, plants are also living things. I did not find a choice and hence remained a vegetarian for almost 19 years.

In the mean time, i had been hearing of people who lived only on water, my guru living on one time food, long duration fasting etc

The concept of palio diet gave another perspective. My understanding of palio diet is that; some one observed carnovorous animals (tigers, cheetah etc) that eat once in a day and are fit and active. Herbivorous animals (elephants, cows etc) are generally fat and found eating most of the time.

Recently i came across Nature Cure - http://akarma.life/akarma-health/ in coimbatore. Just by adjusting food habits the common ailments of sugar, BP, diabetes etc are gone. Even chronic head aches and asthma. Have personally interacted with them and have just about altered my diet plan. The plan is more or less - No Oil - No Boil - Hence No Kitchen.

You may check out this video for more details.

During one of our tekmonks sharing session, this topic came up and one of them made a startling remark.  "Extending jeevakarunya on these lines, i think we should not eat any form of seeds. The seeds are their children. They grow and keep the species alive".

So, we are just left with some fruits and vegetables to feed upon.

May be some day, some one would make another observation and we might start living on water and air alone.

May be that is why we are asked to enter into deep meditation for years togather.

Looks like anything a human being does, leaves a disturbing footprint for other species. May be the purpose of humanity is to disturb the ecosystem or maybe we are the highest form of intelligence which is supposed to sit and enter into a trance. Not sure why we should have a physical form? May be someday we would realize.

No Childs Play

Lets begin at the end.

"Children need not play". They have better things to do. Play as in todays context is destructive to children and society.

The moment this thought occured, i thought, may be i have lost all faculty of mind and got insane. A few moments later, once the distrubances in neural connections gradually settled down, realization started to dawn.

Now lets move on to the beginning.

"Once I complete my work, my teacher allows me to play. so i complete my work as fast as i can and go on to play". This was a casual statement from my daughter when she was some 6 years old. This happened atleast 2 years ago.

"Toys, reading books, listening to stories are not a must for children". A statement made by a minimalist and mother of 2 while sharing her experience. This happened a few months ago.

The above 2 incidences got registered in my mind. Without any prejudice or judgement.

A few weeks back, during a workshop with children, i happened to notice that the children were longing and waiting for a break... Felt bad for not being able to motivate and handle a group of them. May be i should find a way of making things interesting. maybe integrate play within the session. so many ideas...

 As usual, with a worried mind and a not so sound a sleep, the first statement that flashed through my mind when i woke up was "Children need not play". Why? I asked my mind.  Brain and Mind got into a war to justify this statement.

A few seconds later, the mind proposes the following.
In the earlier days of human evolution, children would just observe and repeat what theirs parents did. May be explore a little bit beyond that.
There was no concept of gathering food and staying in a specific place. It was a nomadic lifestyle. So, life was a play and every day would be new.
Children had to learn to feed themselves. They grow up and the cycle repeats.

Now that we have become gatherers and better still parents gather enough and more for the child until the age of 20 or even to the age of 30. some times more. for the child.

So. There is no challenge for the child. Boredom sets in.  Parents are too preoccupied with their own jobs. The jobs are too varied in nature (it was just basic survival skills that humans needed in the earlier days). The child does not have enough experince to understand what career to choose. Workplaces are different for parents and often not possible to work as a family.  No more joint families...

The way out to keep children occupied. Ask them to play. There is the opportunity knocking on the doors of commerical world. Sell them bats, balls rings, software games....  create competetion among them.. break the unity. In the name of expressing their passion towards the game, the eyeball industry sets in. The Televisions and digital content glue (gravity of photons) them to the chairs.  The spice of advertisements promote packed food. That food takes them to the noble practitioners of medicine. Expense of time, money and health for the family and child; all along the commercial chain.

In the process, energy is drained sufficiently and there would no room for productive work. What a beautiful way to end up in slavery. Not even realizing the process of enslavement.

What is the way out?

Lifestyle change.  Minimalism and Sustainable living practices may be adopted so that humanity would be humane and leave minimal footprint on this earth.

I hear people quote the famous poet Bharathiyar. To my kowledge, the great poet would not have thought of competition and winning. The play as he means would be for fitness of body and mind. May be he saw this coming..