Mar 10

Written by: Jayanthi
Monday, March 10, 2008

Submitted by: Sudarshan Madabushi

Introduction "All this world is verily "annam", food" -- is a famous saying from the sacred Upanishads. Most of you know exactly what the old wisecrack, "Money makes the world go around" is meant to convey. If one were to paraphrase it and say instead, "Food makes the world go around," one would get a true, although less than full measure of the profundity of the Upanishadic statement.  "annAdvai prajA prajAyantE yAh kAscha pruthiveem srithAh athO annae-naiva jeevanti athaina-dapiyan-yant-tathah: anna-nagum hi bhUtAnAm jyEshtam... annAd bhUtAni jAyantE jAtAn annEna vardantE...." (Taittiriya Upanishad: "Anandavalli")

Article Continuation… ●  Introduction ●  The Three Commandments ●  Anna Shuddhi ●  Sattvic Food ●  Rajasic Food ●  Tamasic Food ●  Anna Shuddhi and      Atma Shuddhi

(meaning): "Know this to be truth:
Everything that lives was born from Food
lives on Food and in the end,
shall merge into Food!
Food is verily the greatest amongst all Creation!"

Just take a moment to look all around you and you will see at once that all this world runs on energy -- from motor-cars and airplanes to air-conditioners, toasters and cell-phones. And all the energy needed to run the world is generated by a precious thing called "fuel". Without "fuel" -- whether fossil, thermal, hydroelectric, wind or nuclear -- without fuel, even the best model to roll out of a Cadillac assembly line in Detroit is little more than gleaming metal junk.

Planet earth has about 6.5 billion human beings. In much of their normal functioning, whether it is plain locomotion, strenuous manual work or great creative thinking, human beings are not unlike machines. They need "energy" too -- "prANa" and lots of lots of it. Humans need to guzzle energy just to be able to simply carry on in life. What generates this "prANic energy", the Upanishad says, is "annam", Food. A human being with no "prAni-c" fuel inside to energize him/her is just about as worthless as a Cadillac with no fuel in the tank. One is just beautifully engineered junk while the other is biologically evolved junk.

Read more articles submitted by: Sudarshan Madabushi

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Copyright ©2008 Jennifer Jayanthi Kumar

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