Chapter Two: Uddalaka's Teaching Concerning the Oneness of the Self - 5.1. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Monday, January 18, 2021. 09:54. AM.
SECTION 5: ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE THREEFOLD NATURE - 1.

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"Annam asitam tredha vidhiyate, tasya yah sthavistho dhatus tat purisam bhavati, yo madhyamas tan mamsam, yo'nisthas tan manah" :

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The food that you eat is converted into three forms. What happens to the food that is eaten? There is a gross form of the food, there is a middling form of the food and a subtle form of the food. The food that we eat is not entirely absorbed into the system. Some part of it is thrown out as excreta, as unwanted material which cannot be absorbed into the system. It is refuse that goes out as undesirable to the system; that is the grossest form. So one part of the food goes out; something else only is absorbed. That something else other than that which is thrown out has again two aspects, the very subtle vibratory aspect and the middling form of it. That which is middling is absorbed in the form of flesh in the system. The flesh in the body is due to the entry of the middling quality of the foodstuff that we take. But the highly subtle form, the vibration that is produced by the essential quality of the food, influences the mind itself. So you know your mind, your capacity of thinking, the way of thinking, will be very much influenced by the food that you take, continuously, of course. If you go on eating the same kind of food for years together, that quality of the food will tell upon your psychological pattern. So, the gross thing is thrown out, the middling form is absorbed into the fleshy part of the body, and the subtlest part goes to the mind. The mind feels happy on account of absorption of some part of the food that we eat. These are the three aspects, the three degrees of the intensity of the food that we see, that become parts of our system in this manner. Likewise, the water that you drink has a gross aspect, a middling aspect and a very subtle aspect. Any liquid that you take also is divided into three parts.

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"Apah pitas tredha vidhiyante, tasam yah, sthavistho dhatus tan mutram bhavati, yo madhyamas tal lohitam, yo'nisthah sa pranah." :

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The gross part of the liquid that we drink, which cannot be absorbed into the system, is thrown out as urine. It cannot be regained by the system. The middling part, more subtle than the gross one that we take in, becomes blood in the body. The liquid part in the body, which is blood, is intensified by the liquid form of the food that we drink. The virility in us, the energy, the vitality, the prana in us, is enhanced by the subtlest form of the liquids that we consume. Just as the mind is influenced by the subtle food, the prana is influenced by the subtle liquid aspect of the diet. There are certain items of diet in which the fire principle predominates, e.g., ghee, oil, etc. What happens to these things when one takes them?

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"Tejo' sitam tredha vidhiyate, tasya yah sthavistho dhatus tad asthi bhavati, yo madhyamah sa majja, yo'nisthah sa vak." :

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The energy also becomes threefold in the system. The grossest form becomes bone. If we take ghee, or butter, or oil, in our food, it has something to do with the strength of the bones. The middling part of it becomes marrow, the substance that is inside the bone. The subtlest form becomes the energy of speaking. Speech gets activated by the fiery element present in the food that we take. So our speech, our prana, our mind, are all constituted essentially of these three items of diet that we are consuming, and the more we take them in, the more is the influence they exert upon these three aspects of our personality. So we know where we stand. These three elements-fire, water and earth-have entered our system. They have become our mind, our prana and our speech, which process is indicative of the other senses, also. Our senses, our pranas and our mind, all these three are tremendously conditioned by the food that we eat.

To be continued ...

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