All that you think you are is nothing but food. Your body is food, your mind is food, your soul is food. Beyond the soul there is certainly something which is not food. That something is known as anatta, no-self.  It is utter emptiness, shunya, the void. It is pure space. It contains nothing but itself; it is content-less consciousness.  While the content persists, the food persists. By food is meant that which is ingested from the outside. The body needs physical food; without it, it will start withering away. This is how it survives; it contains nothing but physical food.

 

Your mind contains memories, thoughts, desires, jealousies, power trips, and a thousand and one things. All that is also food; it is food on a little more subtle plane. Thought is food.  Hence when you have nourishing thoughts your chest expands, when you have thoughts which give you energy you feel good. Somebody says something good about you, a compliment, and look what happens to you: you are nourished. And somebody says something wrong about you, and watch: it is as if something has been snatched away from you, you are weaker than you were before.

 

The mind is food in a subtle form. The mind is nothing but the inner side of the body; hence what you eat affects your mind. If you eat non-vegetarian food you will have a particular kind of mind; if you eat vegetarian food you will certainly have a different kind of mind.

 

Do you know this immensely important fact about Indian history? India never attacked any country in its whole history of ten thousand years. Never — not a single aggressive act. How was it possible? Why? The same humanity exists here as exists everywhere else. But it is just that a different kind of body created a different mind.  You can watch it yourself. Eat something and watch, eat something else and watch.  Keep notes, and you will become aware and surprised to find that each thing that you digest is not only physical, it has a psychological part to it. It makes your mind vulnerable to certain ideas, to certain desires. Hence, down the ages, there has been a search for a kind of food that will not strengthen the mind but will help it to finally dissolve; a kind of food which, instead of strengthening the mind, will strengthen meditation, no-mind. No fixed and certain rules can be given, because people are different and each one has to decide for himself.

 

And watch what you allow into your mind. People are completely unaware; they go on reading everything and anything, they go on looking at the TV, any silly, stupid thing. They go on listening to the radio, they go on chit-chatting, chattering with people, and they are all pouring rubbish into each other’s heads. Rubbish is all that they have.

 

Avoid such situations in which you are unnecessarily burdened with rubbish. You already have too much as it is; you need to be unburdened of it. And you go on collecting it as if it is something precious. Talk less, listen only to the essential, be telegraphic in talking and listening. If you talk less, if you listen less, slowly, slowly you will see that a cleanliness, a feeling of purity, as if you have just taken a bath, will start arising within you. That becomes the necessary soil for meditation to arise. Don’t go on reading all kinds of nonsense.

 

Leave a few gaps in your mind unoccupied. Those moments of unoccupied consciousness are the first glimpses of meditation, the first penetrations of the beyond, the first flashes of no-mind. And then if you can manage to do this, the other thing is to choose physical food which does not help aggression and violence, which is not poisonous.

 

Now even scientists agree with this, that when you kill an animal, out of fear he releases all kinds of poisons. Death is not easy. When you are killing an animal, out of fear a great trembling arises inside. The animal wants to survive: all kinds of poisons are released.

 

When you are in fear you also release poisons in the body. Those poisons are helpful: they help you to either fight or take flight. Sometimes it happens that in anger you can do things which you could never have imagined yourself doing. You can move a rock which ordinarily you could not have even shaken, but anger is there and poison is released. In fear, people can run so fast that even Olympic runners will be left behind. Just think of yourself running if somebody is behind you with a dagger to kill you. You will do the best you can do, your whole body will be geared to function at its optimum.

 

When you kill an animal there is anger, there is anxiety, there is Fear. Death is Facing him: all the glands of the animal release many kinds of poisons. Hence the modern idea is that before killing an animal, make him unconscious, give him anaesthesia. In modern butcheries, anaesthesia is being used. But that does not make much difference, only a very superficial difference, because at the deepest core where no anaesthesia can ever reach, death has to be encountered. It may not be conscious, the animal may not be aware of what is happening, but it is happening as if in a dream.

 

 

He is passing through a nightmare. And to eat meat is to eat poisoned food.  Avoid anything that is poisoned on the physical plane, avoid anything that is poisoned on the mental plane. And on the mental plane things are more complicated.  If you think you are a Hindu, you are poisoned; if you think you are a Mohammedan, you are poisoned. If you think you are a Christian, a Jaina, a Buddhist, you are poisoned. And you have been poisoned slowly — so slowly that you have become attuned to it. You are addicted to it. You have been spoon-fed since the very first day; from your mother’s breast, you have been poisoned. All kinds of conditionings are poisons. To think of oneself as a Hindu is to think of oneself opposed to humanity. To think of oneself as German, as Chinese, is to think of oneself opposed to humanity; is to think in terms of enmity, not friendship.

 

Think of yourself only as a human being. If you have any intelligence, think of yourself only as a simple human being. And when your intelligence grows a little more you will drop even the adjective ‘human’ . You will think of yourself only as a being. And the being includes all — the trees and the mountains and the rivers and the stars and the birds and the animals.

 

Become bigger, become huge. Why are you living in tunnels? Why are you creeping into small dark black holes? But you think you are living in great ideological systems. You are not living in great ideological systems, because there are no great ideological systems. No idea is great enough to contain a human being; being-hood cannot be contained by any concept. All concepts cripple and paralyze.

 

Don’t be a Catholic and don’t be a communist — just be a human being — these are all poisons, these are all prejudices. And down the ages you have been hypnotized into these prejudices. They have become part of your blood, your bones, your very marrow. You will have to be very alert to get rid of all this poisoning.

 

Your body is not poisoned as much as your mind is. The body is a simple phenomenon, it can be easily cleaned. If you have been eating non-vegetarian foods it can be stopped, it is not such a big deal. And if you stop eating meat, within three months your body will be completely free of all the poisons created by non-vegetarian foods. It is simple.  Physiology is not very complicated. But the problem arises with psychology. A Jaina monk never eats any poisoned food, never eats anything non-vegetarian. But his mind is polluted and poisoned by Jainism as nobody else’s is.

 

The real freedom is freedom from any ideology. Can’t you simply live without any ideology? Is an ideology needed? Why is an ideology needed so much? It is needed because it helps you to remain stupid, it is needed because it helps you to remain unintelligent. It is needed because it supplies you ready-made answers and you need not find them on your own.

 

The real man of intelligence will not cling to any ideology — for what? He will not carry a load of ready-made answers. He knows that he has enough intelligence so that whatever situation arises, he will be able to respond to it. Why carry an unnecessary load from the past? What is the point of carrying it…?

 

If you change your poisonous foods you will be surprised: a new intelligence will be released in you. And this new intelligence will make it possible not to go on stuffing yourself with nonsense. This new intelligence will make you capable of dropping the past and its memories, of dropping unnecessary desires and dreams, dropping jealousies, angers, traumas and all kinds of psychological wounds.  Because you cannot drop psychological wounds, you become victims of psycho-fraud_   The world is full of psychoanalysts of many kinds, they come in all shapes and sizes. The world is full of all kinds of psychotherapies. But why are so many psychotherapies needed? They are needed because you are not intelligent enough to heal your own wounds.  Instead of healing them, instead of opening them to the winds and to the sun, you go on hiding them. You need psychotherapists to help you to open your wounds to the sun so that they can be healed, so that they can be allowed to heal. But it is very difficult to find a real psychotherapist. Out of a hundred psychotherapists, ninety-nine are psycho-frauds, not psychotherapists.

 

If intelligence is released in you, you will be able to do all that is needed. You will be able to heal your own wounds, you will be able to see your own traumas, you need not go to a primal therapist.

 

Intelligent kind of life should be created and the whole effort is to release the energy called love-intelligence. If love-intelligence is released, you are healed.

 

And the third kind of poisoned food is spiritual. That’s what the self is. The self needs continuous attention: it feeds on attention, attention is its food. It is not only the politician who hankers for attention, more and more attention from more and more people —saints are doing the same. There is no difference between saints and politicians and actors, no difference at all. Their basic need is the same — attention: “More people should pay attention to me, more people should look up to me.” That becomes food for the ego, and it is the subtlest kind of poisoned food….

 

Physical, psychological, spiritual…. Let your physiological body be pure of all poisons and toxins, and your mind be unburdened of all kinds of rubbish and junk. And let your soul be free from the idea of the self. When the soul is free from the idea of “1” you have arrived at that inner space called no-self, antra. That is freedom, that is nirvana, that is enlightenment. You have come home. Now there is nowhere to go; now you can settle, rest and relax. Now you can enjoy the millions of joys that are being showered upon you by existence.

 

When these three poisoned foods are dropped, you become empty. But this emptiness is not a negative kind of emptiness. You are empty in the sense that all poisons, all contents, are gone. But you are full — full of something which cannot be named, full of something which devotees call ‘God.'”

 

There are two types of food. One is that which you like, which you have a fancy I for, about which you fantasize. There is nothing wrong in it, but you will have to learn a small trick about it. There are foods which have a tremendous appeal. The appeal is not because you see that the food is available. You go into a hotel, into a restaurant, and you see certain foods — the smell coming from the back room, the colour and the aroma of the food. You were not thinking about the food and suddenly you are interested in it — this is not going to help. This is not your real desire. You can eat this thing — it will not satisfy you. You will eat and eat and nothing will come out of it; no satisfaction will come out of it. And satisfaction is the most important thing. It is the dissatisfaction that creates the obsession.

 

Simply meditate every day before you take food. Close your eyes and just feel what your body needs — whatsoever it is You have not seen any food — no food is available; you are simply Feeling your own being, what your body needs, what you feel like, what you hanker for.

 

Dr. Leonard Pearson calls this ‘humming food’ — food that hums to you. Go and eat as much of it as you want, but stick to it. The other food he calls ‘beckoning food’ : when it becomes available, you become interested in it. Then it is a mind thing and it is not your need. If you listen to your humming food, you can eat as much as you want and you will never suffer, because it will satisfy you. The body simply desires that which it needs; it never desires anything else. That will be satisfactory, and once there is satisfaction, one never eats more. The problem arises only if you are eating foods which are beckoning foods: you see them available and you become interested and you eat. They cannot satisfy you because there is no need in the body for them.

 

When they don’t satisfy you, you feel unsatisfied. Feeling unsatisfied, you eat more, but howsoever much you eat, it is not going to satisfy because there is no need in the first place.  The first type of desire has to be fulfilled, then the second will disappear. What people are doing is that they never listen to the first, so the second becomes a problem. If you listen to the humming food, the beckoning food will disappear. The second is a problem only because you have completely forgotten that you have to listen to your inner desire, and people have been taught not to listen to it. They have been taught, “Eat this, don’t eat that” — fixed rules. The body knows no fixed rules.

 

They have found that if small children are left alone with food, they will eat only that which is needed for their body; and they were surprised. Many psychological findings are available now; they were simply surprised. If a child is suffering from some disease, and if apple is good for that disease, the child will choose the apple. All other foods are available but the child will go to the apple.

 

That’s what all animals are doing; only man has forgotten the language. You bring a buffalo and leave her in the garden. The whole garden is there — all the greenery is available; she will not bother. The flowers and the trees may be beckoning but she won’t bother with them. She will go to the grass that hums to her, and she will choose only certain grass that is her need. You cannot deceive a buffalo; you can only deceive man.

 

Man has fallen even below buffaloes. You cannot befool a donkey — he will eat his food. Man is befooled. Everywhere through advertisements, coloured pictures, TV, movies, you are being attracted and distracted from your humming body. Some company is interested in selling something to you. That is in the favour of the company, it is beneficial to the company, not to you.

 

Some Cola company is interested in selling Cola to you. It has nothing to do with your body; it allures you. Wherever you go, there is Cola; Cola seems to be one of the most universal things. Even in Soviet Russia — nothing else American is allowed, but Cola is there.  From everywhere the bottle is calling you, beckoning, “Come here.” And suddenly you start feeling thirsty. That thirst is false. I’m not saying don’t drink Cola — but let it hum; make it a point.

 

It will take a few days, even a few weeks for you to come to feel what appeals to you. Eat as much as you want of what appeals to you. Don’t bother about what others say. If ice-cream appeals to you, eat ice-cream. Eat to your satisfaction, to your heart’s desire, and then suddenly you will see that there is satisfaction. And when you feel satisfied, the desire to stuff disappears. It is an unsatisfied state that makes you stuff yourself more and more and still to no purpose. You feel full and still unsatisfied, so the problem arises.

 

So first start learning something which is natural and which will come because we have only forgotten; it is there in the body. When you are going to take your breakfast, close your eyes and see what you want; what your desire really is. Don’t think about what is available; simply think what your desire is, and then go and find that thing and eat it. Eat as much as you want. For a few days just go with it. By and by you will see that now no food beckons you.

 

The second thing: when you eat, chew it well. Don’t swallow it in a hurry, because if it is oral, you enjoy it in the mouth, so why not chew it more? If you take ten bites of something you can enjoy one bite, chew it ten times more. It will almost be like taking ten bites if your enjoyment is only of the taste.

 

It happened once that a man drank some hot coffee somewhere in Japan and he burned his throat inside. Some complication arose and his throat was completely cut from inside; the passage had to be closed otherwise the man was going to die. The doctors fixed a pipe into his stomach so he had to chew the food, throw it into the pipe, and the pipe would take it into the stomach.

 

The man was surprised because he continued to enjoy his food as much as before. And even the doctors were surprised. They were at first feeling very sympathetic towards him because the poor man would no longer enjoy his food. But the man continued to enjoy it. In fact he started to enjoy it more because now he would chew it and if he did not want to take it into the stomach, he would simply throw it out. Now he could eat as much as he wanted.   There was no need to take it into the stomach; the mouth and the stomach were completely separate.

 

Whenever you are eating, chew more, because the enjoyment is just above the throat. Below the throat there is no taste — nothing of the sort — so why be in a hurry? Just chew it more, taste it more. And to make this taste more intense, do all that can be done. When you are eating something, first smell it. Enjoy the smell of it because half the taste consists of smell.

 

Many experiments have been done. If your nose is completely closed and then something is given to you, you cannot taste it. Then you will understand that the food was more smell than taste. If your eyes are closed, you cannot taste it even that much, because the colour, the appeal to the eyes, is no longer there. They have done beautiful experiments: eyes closed, nose completely closed, and then they give you something; you cannot even tell what it is. They may give you onion and you cannot say that it is onion because much depends on the smell. That’s why when you have a cold you cannot enjoy food, because the smell is not there, the taste is not there. When people are suffering from a cold they start eating spicy food because only then can they feel a little tingling.

 

So smell the food, look at the food. There is no hurry…take time. Make it a meditation. Even if people think you have gone mad, don’t be worried. Just look at it from all sides. Touch it with closed eyes, touch it with your cheek. Feel it in every way; smell it again and again. Then take a small bite and chew it, enjoy it; let it be a meditation. A very small quantity of food will be enough and will give you more satisfaction.

 

You may have observed it: if you are in a very loving and flowing relationship you will not eat too much, you will never need to diet. Love fills you so much that there is no need to go on stuffing yourself with all kinds of junk. If there is no love you feel so empty. That emptiness hurts, you want to fill it with something. And why do you choose food? — because love and food are associated psychologically.