08 Aug 2015
[On 07-08-2015 the yearly ceremony function of the expired mother of Shri Ajay was performed for which Shri Swami was invited to take meals. Shri Swami phoned Ajay stating that He will come in the night only to take the meals and strongly told him several times that he should not wait for Shri Swami to take the lunch. But, Ajay did not take the lunch and fasted throughout the day waiting for Shri Swami. Shri Swami arrived in the night and Ajay took the dinner after the dinner of Shri Swami. During the dinner Shri Swami gave the following message in the form of conversation].
A house hold lady invited Me for lunch and I told her that she should take meals since I may come late. But, the lady fasted till the evening and took meals only after serving meals to Me. I told her that such tradition is blind, meaningless and wrong and gave the following message: Fasting makes the soul to suffer and God also is deeply pained for His hungry child as said in the Gita (Karshayantah...). Since you believe that I am God, I am also pained as per the Gita. Even though I am not God actually, I become God in this context because the scripture says that one should treat the guest as God (Atithi Devobhava). Hence, I become God to both the believers (in Me) and non believers (in Me) through one of the above two ways mentioned by the scripture. In both the ways, God (or guest) suffers if any human being suffers due to hunger. You must feed every hungry person as far as possible to please God. Now, the logic here is that your suffering with hunger does not contribute to My service in any way. My satisfaction and pleasure lies in your service in serving food to Me. Whether you are fasting or not before I am served the food is immaterial in My service. Whether you are hungry or not makes no difference in your service to Me. I am pleased with the good taste of your cooking the food and affectionate service of the food. I am not at all concerned in My pleasure by your personal state. You may fast, but if the food prepared by you does not have good taste and not properly served, will I be pleased? Even if you have taken the food before My meals, if the food prepared by you has good taste, I am very much pleased. In fact, your service to Me will be more effective if you have already taken the food because: 1) You will serve the items of good taste to Me in more quantity since you have already tasted all the items. Shabari is the best devotee in this point. 2) If you fast, I will take the food in a faster way so that you are not delayed more in taking the food. In such case, I will not do justice to Myself. If you have already taken the food, I will eat slowly and take more food. Perhaps, you want that I should not take more food and hence adopted this trick!
In My house also I tell My wife that after the preparation of the food items, she should taste a little (so that all the food items having good taste is not swallowed by her!) for adjusting the salt, chillies, tamarind etc., so that the taste is checked and rectified. My wife objected to My advice stating that we should not taste the food before serving it to God. I opposed her argument by explaining the story of Shabari, who gave fruits to Lord Rama after tasting those fruits only. Shabari is the best devotee, who cared for the taste of the food to be served to God as the most important criterion neglecting all other foolish and meaningless formalities. You should take some little food (either solid or liquid depending on your constitution) even before doing any ritual including such annual ceremonies. The Veda admits such food before the ritual (Payo Brahmanasya Vratam...). If you fast, you will not have sufficient energy to do the ritual. If you take full quantity of food, you will become drowsy and inactive to do the ritual. Both are extreme steps like drought and flood. The Gita also says the same that Yoga will not be attained by over eating or fasting (Naatyashnatastu...). The Veda also says that if you eat food in limited quantity, it will be eaten by you and the same food eaten in more quantity eats you by killing you through decease (Adyate atti cha...). The middle path is the golden way. People practise the blind traditions, which are against the scripture and logic. A poet (Yogi Vemana) told that the fasting person eats his own excretory matter leftover in the end part of the digestive system. In the absence of food, the digestive system tries to digest the small remains of the excretory matter leftover in the end part of the system because in absence of the external supply of food, as the only leftover alternative way, the internal excretion is digested to supply energy for the work of internal biological systems. Hence, the poet says that a person eats his own excretory matter instead of fresh food from outside on the fasting day. Fasting should not be imposed by you. Fasting is appreciable if it is natural. When you are discussing or singing on God and if you are so much involved in the subject of God so that you forget eating the food, such fasting has credit. In these days, people impose fasting on them by eating fruits and other tiffins in more quantities than the normal food!
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