THE HARMONIST

The Mahaprasad or 'the Great Favour'

(March–April 1929, Issues 10–11, Volume 24)

EATING is supposed to be a physical or mundane affair and to have no connection with the soul. I set forth below certain considerations that underlie this ordinary view regarding eating. We eat to live. It is necessary to take the proper quality and quantity of food in order to remain in sound health and have strength of body and mind. A sound mind in a sound body enables us to perform our duties in the proper manner in this world. It is of course not possible to be strong and healthy by mere regulation of the diet. Other factors, e.g. temperate and regular habits, cheerfulness of mind etc. etc. are also involved. The whole matter belongs to the jurisdiction of the medical science. We expect to be healthy and strong by obeying the principles of that science. The medical science itself is a codification of the experience of the race confirmed and elaborated by experiments. But its theories are constantly changing and much more rapidly than probably those of any other science. It may, therefore, be described as at once the most progressive and the least satisfactory of the sciences.

The researches of medical science have failed to find out the real nature of the vital principle in terms of material causation. Our mind understands nothing but matter. It, therefore, takes it for granted that life is the result of material conditions and then proceeds to find out those conditions with the help of experience, observation and experiment. It similarly tries to find out the cause of diseased and healthy states of the body and mind. But it has failed utterly to find any causal connection between the material conditions of the body and the states of health and disease. It has failed to find out the material cause of birth, death and life.

We may, therefore, pertinently enough ask, “Why are we required to place any reliance on the medical science at all?” A diseased person naturally seeks relief. Medical science contains our experience on the subject of disease and its proper treatment. If we are to attempt to render any help at all to a person afflicted with disease it is reasonable to avail of such experience although it is admittedly and extremely defective. We are not even sure whether the medical science is even on the whole a help to us.

The part of the science that deals of diagnosis of disease is no less unsatisfactory than that which treats of the treatment of disease. We do not know the relation of the medicine to the disease even when a cure is apparently effected by it. The medicine cannot be correctly administered for uncertainty as regards diagnosis. Patients are too often given the wrong medicine and even when the proper medicine is given the cure is wholly uncertain. There exist analogous uncertainties in the matter of food. The growing tendency among physicians is to leave the choice of diet to the judgment of the patient himself except in very exceptional circumstances. In the case of persons in normal state of health the scientific advice is to be guided by one’s own experience in the choice of articles of food and the method of taking it. So in regard to food at any rate one gets practically no help from science and is compelled to use his own judgment on the basis of past experience. Certain principles are found to be almost generally applicable. It is found harmful to overeat or to eat when one is not hungry etc., etc.

Then there is the important culinary aspect. How is the food to be prepared? Is it necessary to make it palatable? On this subject opinions differ most widely.

There is another point. Does the moral disposition of a person depend on the quality of the food? This is closely connected with the religious aspect in the opinion of those who consider religion to be identical with morality.

The conclusion to which it is possible to arrive is that hunger is appeased by taking food. If food is not taken when one is hungry he feels uncomfortable and prolonged starvation is productive of disease and even death. The body is maintained and grows apparently by taking food. The growth of the body is accompanied by the development of the mind. A sound body appears to be a necessary condition for the existence of a sound mind. One who is anxious for the well-being of the mind cannot ignore the body. One who confounds the soul with the mind cannot ignore these apparent needs of the body. Empiricism which does not admit the existence of a soul apart from the mind should not, therefore, regard eating as irrelevant or unimportant in the practice of religion which, according to it, aims at securing the welfare of the mind. But although he may be compelled by logical necessity to admit the importance of the subject of eating the empiricist has not been able to find out any definite principle for the regulation of taking food in such manner as to be beneficial for the mind in all cases. The mind is uncontrollable like the wind and defies all the efforts of empiric thinkers for its spiritual reform. The empiric speculations on this as on every other subject are thus found to end in describing the proverbial vicious circle which terminates after a long sojourn at the point from where the start was made and make us no wiser than we were.

The proved futility of all empiric effort for the ascertainment of the truth should incline us if only for this negative reason to lend our ear to the representations of the transcendentalists. Let us assume that the soul has a real existence and that it is categorically different from the body and the mind. Then let us hear what the transcendentalists have to say in answer to such questions as the following. Is the soul benefitted by eating? Are the activities of the body and mind of any concern to the soul? Is a strong and healthy body or a sound mind undesirable?

The transcendentalist looks at the whole question from an altogether different point of view. He declares that all jivas in the state of bondage to the illusory power live only to eat, sleep and gratify other needs of the body through the mechanism of the mind. There is and can be no other purpose of life regulated by the mental speculations. All mental speculation has its root and its termination in the pursuit of material needs which is regarded by the mentalist as identical with spiritual activity. As a matter of fact it is not possible for the mind to conceive of anything else except the tangible, gross physical body in terms of its relations with the mundane world of which it is a constituent part. The Soul as categorically different from matter cannot be a subject of empiric thought. Matter in the subtle form of thought is the condition of the substantive existence of the mind. Mind is the producer of thought which is only a subtle form of matter and the complement of its gross form. The conscious principle itself is incapable of being the substance of mental thought. The mind has no idea of an immaterial, conscious, eternal principle except by way of abstraction or denial of the positive aspect of matter and material thought. The spiritual claims of the abstractist is the hollow vanity of a rabid obscurantism absurdly proud of his utter ignorance. As the soul does not practically exist there can be and is no duty towards it. This is the true position of all bound jivas who identify themselves with the mind and body.

But can a rational being be really satisfied with an ideal of life consisting exclusively of the perishable and mechanical activities of eating, drinking, sleeping &c. &c.? It is no doubt fashionable to say ‘No’. But there are very few persons, indeed, who according to the view set forth above are capable of doing anything else. In order to avoid making a confession of this unpleasant fact even to themselves they turn abstractists or denialists. They maintain that there exists an undefinable and inexpressible sphere of spiritual activities which are not material but mental. This is of course, self-contradictory. A mental activity should be fully capable of being described in terms of matter as the two are really identical. But as the generality of cultured mentalists consciously or unconsciously belong to the class of denialists they affect to be surprised when they are asked to believe that the act of taking food can and ought to be no less a spiritual function than any other form of activity. If it be possible to prove really that eating is incapable of being a spiritual function, then it should be impossible by parity of argument to prove that any activity can be spiritual. This is, in fact, the conclusion to which all mentalists needs must to be driven by the pitiless force of their own logic. If they look down upon eating, drinking etc. and pretend to hold that they are not a part of religion they thereby deny the principle of existence itself, which is the proper definition of atheism. It is not without a very good reason that atheism has been euphemistically termed free-thinking or thinking freed from the conditions of rationality.

The transcendentalist admits the real existence of this world as well as of the Soul. He says that the soul is not a thing of this world but has a substantive existence of its own on a different plane to which the mind has no access. The fallen soul wrongly identifying itself with the mind embarks upon a course of activities for extending the scope of mental speculation which it supposes to be its proper function.

These speculations mislead the soul into the futile attempt to establish, consolidate and extend its supposed relationship with the material world. The body enables the Soul to come into apparent tangible contact with the gross physical world. The body and mind thus join in a conspiracy to prevent the Soul from realising that it has no real affinity with them or with their naturalistic or material activities. Once the soul awakes to a perception of the real truth it easily gets rid of this unnatural domination of body and mind. It now becomes the master in its turn and compels the mind and body to obey itself. Under these circumstances the mental and bodily activities of the jiva undergo a radical change and become spiritualised or dominated by the soul.

The awakened soul says in effect to the mind and body, “I am not identical with you. I do not want what you require. I have so long believed that I was identical with yourselves and that our interests were the same. But I now find that I am really and categorically different from you. I am made wholly of the principle of self-consciousness while both of you are made of dead matter. Being matter you can act and be acted upon by the matter under the laws of Nature. Nature makes and unmakes you but she has no power over me. I am not benefitted by your growth or harmed by your decay. You grow and decay by the laws that govern your relationships with this physical universe. Falsely identifying myself with you I find myself compelled to suffer pain and pleasure due to physical vicissitudes that overtake you. I find myself unnaturally yoked to your functions such as eating, drinking, producing thought etc. etc. and am forced to believe them to be my own functions by which I am benefited. I shall have, of course, to stay with you as long as it is intended by providence that I should and suffer the consequences of this unnatural alliance with you. But I shall from this time do nothing to please you. I shall permit you to do only what I consider to be necessary for my well being, viz. getting back into my natural position of free conscious existence unhampered by the unnatural domination by longing for material enjoyment. I refuse to be any more a slave of the sensuous inclinations of the mind and body.”

This awakening is the result of unconscious association with liberated souls who are always coming down into this world to help us out of the fetters of worldliness. The awakened soul is now in a position to listen consciously to the voice of the Absolute Truth which is ever knocking at the closed portals of our offending ears for admission. It now believes in the tidings of the spiritual scriptures and also in the necessity of understanding and adopting in life the teachings of the scriptures. As soon as this disposition is sincere, the necessity of seeking the help of a proper spiritual preceptor is really felt. It begins to distinguish between a liberated and bound soul. It also realises clearly that it can be helped only by the former. It is the inevitable characteristic of the bound soul to deceive itself and others. The bound soul can never understand nor is ever willing to recognise its utter incompetence to grasp the real meaning of the spiritual truths recorded in the sastras because they are under the domination of the mind and body which being things of this world are naturally unfit to understand tho nature of spiritual communications. But awakened souls have no other function than helping the bound jiva to regain its spiritual consciousness. The cooperation of the bound jiva is necessary for this recovery of its lost consciousness. As long as the bound jiva retains any liking for things of this world, it is unwilling to believe the words of the sadhu or the real meaning of the spiritual scriptures. The sadhus and the sastras tell us that we have really nothing to do with the things of this world but much to do with the things of another world which is categorically different from this, that it is possible for us to enter upon our proper function even in this life, that the method by which this deliverance from the thraldom of our present false temporary existence can be obtained is recorded in the sastras but in order to be able to really understand the message of the holy scriptures it is necessary to listen to its exposition from the lips of a sadhu who alone possesses a real knowledge of it.

If we are thus convinced of the necessity of consulting a real sadhu we should be able to find him out and he will explain to us the mode of life recommended by the sastras which we should lead in this world, for the benefit of our souls. The sadhu is a transcendental person whose life is wholly regulated by the scriptures. The Absolute Truth is never partial or less than complete. The awakened soul of the sadhu is necessarily and completely free from all touch of untruth or half-truth. The life recommended by the scriptures is the life that is led by the sadhu. It is not possible for worldly people to understand unassisted the nature of spiritual living because it is categorically different from the life led by themselves. This difference between the two is not confined to this or that isolated aspect. It is to be found in every single detail of conduct. The change from worldly to spiritual life is not of the nature of reform but is truly a complete revolution.

If we now return to the question “Is the soul benefited by eating?” we find that the holy scriptures give a definite reply. They forbid us to eat. They tell us that we must do nothing but serve the spiritual. By eating any kind of food which is a material substance only the mind and body are benefited and not the soul. By giving up eating body and mind suffer death which, however, has no jurisdiction over the soul. The body and mind, in as much as they happen to be material, cannot serve the spiritual. They stand in the way and prevent our soul from serving its transcendental Lord. If we allow our body and mind to die of starvation such process also does not benefit the soul because the body and mind is immediately renewed in some other form. The proper use of our body and mind would be their employment in the service of God if that were possible. The sastras say that this is possible if we place our bodies wholly at the disposal of the sadhus or in other words agree to a complete change of our present mode of life. It means a revolutionary change. We must actually give up all connection with this world already formed by the mind and body and dedicate them entirely for the service of the Lord which is to be learnt at the feet of the sadhu who possesses the identical kind of life. If we are sincerely prepared by body, mind and speech to forego all mundane ambitions and to serve nothing but the Absolute Truth for Its own sake, the Lord Himself who is the Absolute Truth is pleased to accept our body and mind offered for such purpose, and by His acceptance makes them fit for spiritual service. The change is understood dimly at first by the person himself. The sadhus are privileged to notice it but the change is not really intelligible to bound jivas. To the view of sinful persons the activities of the mind and body thus spiritualised appear to be as much material as those of the material body and mind without being really so.

The person who is liberated from the bondage of the world continues to perform the ordinary natural functions of the body and mind apparently in the same way as one who is in the bound state. He also appears to eat and drink, sleep and die like ordinary worldly people. The process of eating of such a person is thus described in the sastras. A person whose body and mind have been accepted by the Lord is privileged to approach the Lord and offer Him food and drink. The Lord is pleased to accept the food offered by such a person. By the acceptance of the Lord the food is spiritualised in the same way as the body and mind are spiritualised by their dedication to the Lord. This dedication of all food to the Lord is in the case of such a person truly an act of renunciation of all material food. The food that is accepted by the Lord is spiritualised and changed into mahaprasad or ‘the great blessing’. The sadhu accepts the mahaprasad not for the purpose of appeasing hunger or for the acquisition of bodily or mental health and strength or for any other worldly purpose but with the object of being enabled thereby to avoid the traps laid for him during his sojourn into this world by sensuous temptations of all kinds including that of eating and obtain by thus honouring the mahaprasad the inclination for the spiritual service of the Lord. Honouring the mahaprasad is thus different from eating although to the uninitiated the two may appear to be identical. The external form appears to remain the same although the real nature of the activity is radically changed. The result is that whereas by eating the sensuous inclination is strengthened, by honoring the mahaprasad gluttony and its attendant vices are radically cured.

Mahaprasad literally means ‘the great favour’. The benefit to the soul that results by honouring the mahaprasad is also open to the bound jiva. The Lord does not accept food offered by the bound jiva. But if the bound jiva honours mahaprasad his soul is benefited in the way already described. The food that has been offered by the sadhus to the Lord is categorically different from ordinary food. To take ordinary food is harmful for the soul. By honouring mahaprasad not only is the soul saved from the bad effect of eating but is positively benefited by obtaining the inclination for spiritual service. The sastras, therefore, tell us to give up eating and honour the mahaprasad. “If the palate is conquered every other sense is conquered.” We can never be freed from the attraction of sensuous temptations until we give up eating altogether and learn to honour the mahaprasad. By honouring the mahaprasad our sensuousness is diminished and ultimately disappears altogether and it is only then that we are enabled to understand the real meaning of the sastras.

The sadhu helps the fallen jiva to regain his natural state of freedom from sin and constant service of the Lord by bringing about descent of the transcendental sound in the form of words uttered by his lips and the mahaprasad in the shape of food that is offered by him to the Lord. The sound uttered by the sadhu and the mahaprasad are not things of this world. They are not identical with ordinary sound or ordinary food which are only means for the gratification of our sensuous inclinations and appetites. The Word of God and mahaprasad cannot be enjoyed or in other words cannot be used for the gratification of the senses, because they are spiritual. Those who enjoy the kirtan or any spiritual discourse or eat the mahaprasad for appeasing hunger or gratification of the palate are guilty of sacrilegious acts which serve only to prolong the state of sin and ignorance of the greatest possible calamity that can befall the human soul.