Related Questions

How to deal with food temptations? What is spiritually balanced diet?

Dadashri: When you sit down to eat and you only like certain vegetable dishes, for example only those made with tomatoes, and you keep thinking about it later, it is called 'lubdhapanoo.' There is nothing wrong with eating tomatoes, but you should not keep having thoughts about tomatoes, otherwise all your energies are drained in lubdhapanoo. So what you have to say is, "Whatever is served, is fine with me." There should not be lubdhapanoo of any kind. Eat whatever is served on your plate, quietly. You have to accept whatever comes to you on your plate. You should not be thinking about any other things. 

Questioner: Then what is "samrassi"?

essence of all religion

Dadashri: Samrassi means you have to eat everything; the sweet bread, lentil soup, rice, vegetables etc. and not just indulge yourself in one thing, like eating just the sweet bread.

Some people stop eating sweets. These sweets will place a claim against them: 'What have you got against me?' The crime is committed by one entity, but another gets punished. You cannot succumb to your tongue (taste buds). The blame lies with ignorance.

Questioner: But what is a samrassi meal? How can the same amount of bhaav go into it?

Dadashri: In your caste, when they cook anything, they will cook whatever is samrassi for the caste, but if you serve that to somebody from another caste they will not consider it samrassi. Perhaps your own caste eats fewer chilli peppers than the other caste does. A samrassi meal means that it is different for each caste. Samrassi means tasty food. It means that no one ingredient dominates. All the ingredients are proportional and within normal limits. Just drinking a glass of milk is not a samrassi meal. It is samrassi when you enjoy all the six different types of tastes together. If you cannot endure bitter taste, then substitute this taste with vegetables like karela (bitter gourd), kankoda (green vegetable in gourd family) etc or the leafy greens of fenugreek seeds (all these have some degree of bitterness in them). You have to eat something that is bitter. Lots of diseases arise as a result of not eating anything bitter. Then in the end you have to end up taking quinine (extremely bitter medicine to combat malaria). Because there is a lack of the bitter taste in our diet, we have problems. All the six tastes must be included.

Questioner: Is it for the balance of various tastes that we say, "Dada Bhagwan! Give me strength to eat a samrassi meal."

Dadashri: Yes, you have to ask for the strength. What is your bhaavna? Your bhaavna to take samrassi meal is your purusharth (effort with awareness, independent will) and when I give you the strength, your purusharth becomes stronger.

Questioner:  Is it true that there should not be any lubdhapanoo in the taste?

Dadashri: Yes, you should not feel that you do not like anything other than things that are sour in taste. Many people will say that they do not like sweet things at all and that they only like foods that are spicy. This is not called  samrassi. Samrassi means that every taste is acceptable. Perhaps a particular taste may be taken to a lesser degree, but everything should be acceptable. 

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