Eating With Spirit

While shopping today I watched an overweight person place item after item of unhealthy food choices on the belt. I thought about how healthy eating begins with healthy shopping - the food we have at home is what we will mainly consume obviously. Yet this is only partially true - lets trace this back just a little bit further: healthy eating begins with healthy thoughts. If we are thinking in terms of feeding our bodies and satisfying surface desires instead of nourishing body and soul - then our shopping, along with our kitchen and body - will reflect that. The Katha Upanishad makes this distinction with the description of two types of action - Preya, or what is pleasant, and Shreya, that which is beneficial. Eating for temporary satisfaction is pleasing for a moment, ultimately leaving us unfulfilled (which is why we continuously eat more) and undernourished. This is Preya from thought to action. Postponing the sense desire for nourishment and the true satisfaction of feeding mind, soul and body is Shreya - and is the ultimate choice for health and well being. The key is to trace our impulse to the source - we ask ourselves the all important "why" of this choice - which desire are we fulfilling. With practice we soon find an honest accounting, a stronger will and a firmer body. It's a spiritual strength that we are employing. Of course this doesn't mean to deny ourselves from all impulses (taste or other wise) but it does give us something much more important that seems to be missing from many of our lives - emotional freedom. We are no longer a slave to our appetite and the choices we make are based on free will and not mindless consumption. That alone is worth the price of practice. So perhaps the next time we shop, or dine out and find ourselves choices- we trace the thought towards it's origin (Preya or Shreya) and choose with spirit.

Peace,
Eric