Meals in silence

The Master invites us to a spiritual practice in the act of eating. Hrani yoga” or the yoga of nutrition consists in being silent, not bumping into objects, directing our attention to the food, considering it with respect and gratitude as a gift of love from the Creator.

This attitude develops new mental and emotional faculties of concentration, self-control and intuition.

The atmosphere at mealtimes influences our nervous system.
Nowadays, people who are out of balance due to a hectic life are looking for ways to regain their equilibrium by doing yoga, zen, “transcendental” meditation, or they go to learn how to relax. I’m not saying it’s not a good thing, but I found an exercise that’s easier and more effective: to learn how to eat!
When you eat in all sorts of ways, amidst noise, nervousness, haste, discussions, what’s the point of going to meditate or do yoga afterwards?  What a comedy… Why not see that every day, two or three times a day, we all have the opportunity to do an exercise to relax, to concentrate, to harmonize all our cells?
Observe yourself: when you have eaten in a state of agitation, of anger, of revolt, then all day long you manifest yourself with bitterness, nervousness, partiality, and if you have difficult problems to solve, the scales always tip to the negative side. You then try to justify yourself by saying “what do you want, man, I can’t help it, I’m nervous”, and then to calm yourself down you take medication, which doesn’t do much good. To improve your nervous system, learn to eat.
Izvor No. 204, chap. II
Meals, a school of intelligence and thoughtfulness...
Do you want to develop your intelligence?… Well, you get the opportunity every time you want to make use of the items on the table. Try to pick them up and put them down without bumping into them, without jostling anything next to them: it’s a good exercise of attention, of foresight. When I see how people knock their cutlery or drop it, I already realize the deficiencies of their intelligence. Even though they may have graduated from several universities, I still find that they still have major shortcomings.
… supposedly you want to move a glass, but you haven’t considered how far away it is, in front of or behind another object, and bang! you hit it. It’s a very small detail, but it reveals a flaw that’s going to manifest itself in a much bigger way in life. These small clumsinesses during meals are a sign that, in everyday life, some will cause a lot of damage. They are a sign that they lack a certain inner awareness, and we can already observe on a small scale what they will do during the important events in life: how they will talk and act without attention, shoving and bumping into others, and they will take years to repair their screwups and suffer.
Izvor No. 204, chap. II
Communing with food
Communion is an exchange: you give one thing and you receive another. You will say that when you eat you are only taking the food. That’ s a mistake, you also give something to it. If you don’t, it is not a true communion.
True communion is a divine exchange. The host brings its blessings to you and if you take it without giving it the necessary love and respect, it is not a communion but a dishonest act. When you take, you must give. To the host you give your respect, your love, your faith, and in exchange it gives you the divine elements it possesses. It is not the object itself that acts on us, but the trust and love we give it because of what it represents.
This is the same attitude we should have towards food. Already when you prepare your meal, remember to touch the food and imbue it with your love. Speak to them, say: “You who bear the life of God, I love you, I appreciate you, I know the wealth you possess. I have a whole family to feed, billions of residents within me, so be kind, give them this life. »
If you get used to talking to food in this way, it will be transformed within you into energies that are not only physical, but also psychic and spiritual, for you will have known how to be in communion with nature itself, which is the work of God. When you are conscious that God has put his life into food, then when you are about to eat, you are like the priest who blesses the bread and the wine, and each day, at each meal, you receive the divine
Synopsis No. 2, Part VI “In Spirit and in Truth”, 2, III
By avoiding to eat to satiation, we strengthen our etheric body
If you always finish your meals full, satiated, you will feel heavy, become drowsy, and you will no longer have any drive towards perfection. Whereas if you leave the table with a slight appetite, having refused the few small bites you still craved for, the etheric body receives an impulse to seek elements which will fill the remaining emptiness in the superior regions. And a few minutes later, you are not only no longer hungry, but you feel lighter, more capable of working, because these elements that the etheric body has sought in space are precisely of a superior quality. If you eat to satiation and even beyond your needs, for the pleasure of eating as so many people do, you will never be satisfied and you will cause an imbalance within yourself.
Izvor Collection No. 204, chap. VI
A fraternal distribution of food in the world
A reflection on the distribution of wealth must begin with a reflection on the distribution of food. By accumulating more than is necessary, one takes what was intended for others, and if many do so, some having too much and others not enough, the result is an imbalance in the world.
Most conflicts originate from the greed, the avarice, the lack of measure of those who accumulate wealth: food, but also land and objects which others are deprived of. It is time for collective consciousness to awaken in order to understand and foresee the far-reaching consequences, the disruptions that these tendencies can cause.
This need to take, to absorb more than one really needs, pushes human beings to enslave others, and even to eliminate them at the slightest resistance or opposition. However tiny, this is the starting point for great disasters.
It is therefore necessary to master this instinct very early on, beginning with the question of food: not to accumulate, to give away what one has too much of, and to eat with moderation. Otherwise, one becomes like those rich people who have the unhealthy need to monopolize everything. They live in luxury, but their ambitions and desires are so gigantic that they want to engulf the whole world. Yes, you have to learn to eat in moderation, because this is a matter that goes far beyond the field of nutrition alone.
Synopsis No. 2, Part IV, 5