What Is the Relationship Between Diet & Spirituality

I read a quote where you were discussing people's food choices and how that's connected maybe to their spirituality. And I'm wondering if you can elaborate on how that's connected, especially concerning ahimsa.

Thank you. I would say I've never, as I never do, to tell people, you should do this or you should not do that, but you should be present with whatever your food choices are, and then the right food choice will happen for you. Rather than giving an abstract guideline, it needs to come from within rather than as something from without. So if you are vegetarian, that's wonderful. It doesn't mean that immediately makes you into a person who is spiritual. You could be egoically identified with being vegetarian, in which case it would be a hindrance to the realization of the spiritual dimension. So I shocked a vegetarian once when I said, did you know that Hitler was a vegetarian? That person was very strongly identified with a mental image of me as a spiritually evolved vegetarian. And so, yes, he was a vegetarian. I don't know why he was a vegetarian, perhaps. I don't know. I haven't read about it. But I know that whenever people around Hitler were eating chicken soup, so he said condescendingly, so you're eating dead bird soup. So it really is the answer to that comes from within you. And you have to do what feels right, what corresponds to your state of consciousness. At any time. When you go into. When you even look at food or even think of food, it is helpful to. Sometimes when I buy some food, I go into a supermarket or somewhere and I look at the shelf, I imagine that this is going into my body. And then the body either opens up to it or closes down. And so if you're in touch with the body, then that is quite helpful. It makes it easier. The mind often doesn't really know what the body really wants. The mind remembers some past pleasure and wants to repeat it. And that's where overeating also occurs. Because it's just overeating is on the external level, on the physical level, the need to fill a sense of insufficiency that is ultimately there. On the psychological, spiritual level, the sense of not enough is ego. The ego lives from that sense of insufficiency, of not enough and of needing more. And for some people, that comes into the physical realm, in which case then you eat more than the body really needs or wants. And again, it's a spiritual dilemma. It can only be really ultimately transcended if you realize that you are not that needy entity that says, I need more. So body awareness helps a lot in food choice. And then it's up to you what it is that you feel. And you will know. You will not be in a dilemma. You will know what is right for you. And so this is all important. Answers need to come from within you.

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