The attitude of “eat, drink and be merry” has been condemned down the centuries as materialistic and unspiritual. But I have a different view: it says that to live life with totality needs fire, intensity. We need to learn that how to transform the ordinary act of eating and drinking into a meditative and healthy experience if done merrily.
ONE
Be In The Moment
- At the same time as you eat the food, do nothing except eating; and let the thoughts of past or the future disappear and be present in the act of eating. Let your whole liveliness be poured on your food. Let there be love and affection and gratitude towards food.
- Chew each bite with tremendous energy, and you have not only the taste of the food but the taste of existence – because the food is part of existence. Reclaim your forgotten language.
- Whenever you have time, be more in your senses. Eating – don’t just eat; try to learn the forgotten language of taste again.
- Touch and feel the texture of your bread. Feel it with open as well as with closed eyes. While chewing, chew it as if chewing it for the first or the last time. Remember it! It will be disrespectful not to chew well, not to taste well.
- Let it be a prayer, and you will start the rising of a new consciousness in you.
- Become thirst, while you are drinking; do nothing except drinking. Let there be intensity to each sip, so each drop of cool or warm water gives you tremendous joy. In that very experience of those sips entering your throat and giving you great contentment, you will taste reality.
TWO
Be A Watcher
- While eating, suddenly become a watcher for a moment.
- Watch your hand picking up the food;
- Watch your mouth chewing the food; watch the food reaching your stomach.
- Stand at a distance and simply watch. You will suddenly find the taste has disappeared. All of a sudden, the act of eating will take on a different meaning. You will find that you are not eating – food is being taken and you are merely watching.
