In the previous episode, we had witnessed Sage Dhurvasa explaining how our “Aahaara Shuddhi” enhances our “Sathva Guna” and how Mudgala was a perfect epitome of it. As we’ve witnessed, Mudgala had this unique way of collecting food grains for the meal of his family and they consumed food only once in fifteen days. Even with this, Sage Dhurvasa came six times and denied them their food. However, Mudgala was unfazed and he was prepared to sacrifice his physical health for offering the “Dhaanam” to Sage Dhurvasa. This is how Sage Dhurvasa’s heart melted and he provided his divine “Anugraha” to Mudgala and his family, with which they attained the “Svarga Lokha” and from there, the highest “Moksha” as well. Thus, in this context, Sage Dhurvasa explains how Mudgala’s “Aahaara Shuddhi” brought about enormous amounts of “Sathva Guna” to thrive in Mudgala. It is this “Sathva Guna” that made Mudgala obtain that enormous strength and will power to execute his “Dharma”.
This is where we had a short discussion yesterday upon the food that we consume today and how it contributes to our character and “Gunas” that we accumulate within ourselves. We’ve seen how our day-to-day culture has grossly changed these days and how we prefer to eat outside food more than home-cooked ones. Ideally, as we had witnessed yesterday, consuming outside food is quite dangerous as we never know the ingredients with which the food items are cooked. This might cause many physical ailments, which we might not even realize for a long period of time. Apart from this, the “Gunas” that we accumulate within ourselves by eating outside food is under a big question. We never know with what mood and thought process the chef at the restaurant cooks the food. If he / she is in a bad mood and with a lot of anger and frustration and is cooking the food, our “Rajo Guna” increases by consuming that food. This is something that all of us should give a thought. It is for this reason, in our olden days, people were not consuming outside food at all. People in those days preferred only home-cooked food, not because they did not have the disposable income at their bank accounts, but to be careful of nurturing the “Sathva Guna” within themselves. Moreover, if we consume food that is not offered to Bhagawan as “Naivedhya”, it is also considered to be something that doesn’t foster our “Sathva Guna”.
Of course, in the modern day if we talk of all these things, people would immediately discard us as those who follow the “Old school of thought” and would brand us as “Oldies” who do not know anything and who aren’t in sync with the “modern world”! We should understand one thing very clearly here – The more “modern” we go in our food habits, the more diseases we imbibe each day! For instance, how many cases of cancer are we seeing today? Did we see such a huge number of cancer patients in the past – Maybe 30-40 years ago? It was never the case! This can be felt by the number of “cancer hospitals” that are blooming today in various cities and how much business that these hospitals are making! If we perform a small bit of research on this, we would come to a startling finding – Most of the cancer types that we see today are because of the food habits that we follow in the so-called “modern day”! This might be alarming to many, but this is a fact! We cannot deny this! This is why we always say that whatever food that we eat, should be pure and offered to Bhagawan before consuming. It is always better to avoid outside food, of course, barring a few exceptions here and there. Of course, I’m not making a sweeping statement by saying that we should never visit restaurants, but all that I’m saying is we can always limit our visits! Moreover, even if we prepare our own food at home, we should never consume it without offering it to Bhagawan. This will remove all the toxins that the food might contain, which in turn would enhance our “Sathva Guna”.
So for today, let us once again ponder over this point, and in the next episode, we shall wait to see whether Mudgala really accepted Sage Dhurvasa’s “Anugraha” to transcend to the “Moksha”! Stay tuned for an interesting accord! 🙂
The Indian Dharma 