C15 Office...Gandhi on Food
Food Prayer #1
Fasting is as necessary as selection and restriction in diet.
Food Prayer #2
The extinction of the sexual passion is as a rule impossible without fasting.
Food Prayer #3
I shall content myself with merely declaring my firm conviction that , for the seeker who would live in the fear of God and would see him face to face, restraint in diet, both as to quantity and quality, is as essential as restraint in thought and speech.
Food Prayer #4
My experience teaches me that, for those whose minds are working towards self-restraint, dietetic restrictions and fasting are very helpful. In fact, without their help, concupiscence cannot be completely rooted out of the mind.
Food Prayer #5
Eating for pleasure should never be indulged in. We should eat only in order that we may live, and should live only to realize the self.
Food Prayer #6
Those who make light of dietetic restrictions and fasting are as much in error as those who stake their all on them.
Food Prayer #7
At that time I did not understand, or nor did I believe in, the efficacy of fasting.
Food Prayer #8
The observance of celibacy has been found, from experience, to be extremely difficult so long as one is not acquired mastery over taste. Control of the palate has, therefore, been placed as a principle by itself.
Food Prayer #9
Control of the palate is very closely connected with the observance of celibacy. I have found from experience that the observance of celibacy becomes comparatively easy if one acquires mastery over the palate. This does not figure among the observances of time-honored recognition. Could it be because even the great sages found it difficult to achieve
Food Prayer #10
Six years of experiment showed me that the celibate's ideal food is fresh fruit and nuts.
Food Prayer #11
The immunity from passion that I enjoyed when I lived off this food was unknown to me after I changed that diet.
Food Prayer #12
Celibacy needed no effort on my part in South Africa when I lived on fruits and nuts alone. It has been a matter of very great effort ever since I began to take milk.
Food Prayer #13
I have not the least doubt that milk diet makes the celibacy vow difficult to observe. Let no one deduce from this that all celibates must give up milk.
Food Prayer #14
The effect on celibacy of different kinds of foods can be determined only after numerous experiments.
It is common knowledge that the senses are powerless without food, and so fasting undertaken with a view to control the senses is, I have no doubt, very helpful.
Food Prayer #15
Fasting is useful, when mind cooperates with starving body, that is to say, when it cultivates a distaste for the objects that are denied to the body.
Food Prayer #16
I therefore came to attach greater importance to fasting or having only one meal a day on holidays.
Food Prayer #17
Desiring to practice self restraint, for instance, was a regulation requiring the last meal to be finished before sunset.
Food Prayer #18
I had deduced that a celibate benefited from a saltless diet.
Food Prayer #19
Raw groundnuts, bananas, dates, lemons, and olive oil composed our usual diet.
Food Prayer #20
A mind consciously unclean cannot be cleansed by fasting. Modifications in diet have no effect on it.
The concupiscence of the mind cannot be rooted out except by intensive self-examination, surrender to God and, lastly, Grace.
Food Prayer #21
There is an intimate connection between the mind and the body, and the carnal mind always lusts for delicacies and luxuries. To obviate this tendency dietetic restrictions and fasting would appear to be necessary. The carnal mind, instead of controlling the senses, becomes their slave, and therefore the body always needs clean non-stimulating foods and periodical fasting.
Food Prayer #22
Those who make light of dietetic restrictions and fasting are as much in error as those who stake their all on them.
Food Prayer #23
At that time I did not understand, or nor did I believe in, the efficacy of fasting.
Food Prayer #24
But I know that it does not necessarily follow that fasting and similar disciplines would have the same effect for all.
Food Prayer #25
In the time of the Prophet Mohammed, prayer, fasting and keeping awake at night were considered essential for subduing the senses.
To the Prophet, fasting brought happiness, for it was an occasion when he could live constantly in the presence of God.
Jesus did likewise. He lived in solitude, fasted for 40 days and subjected his body to the utmost mortification. Those who followed him taught the same thing. There has been a tradition of fasting and prayer in Europe right to the present day.
And then came Luther in Germany. He said that the others had misinterpreted the text, and their lives were all deception. The Protestants believed that there was nothing but hypocrisy in the Catholic practices, and so they destroyed the practice of fasting, a most potent means of realizing God.
Food Prayer #26
My experiments in dietetics are dear to me. They give me recreation and joy.
Food Prayer #27
My diet consisted, among other things, of ground nuts, ripe and unripe bananas, lemon, olive oil, tomatoes and grapes. I completely eschewed milk, cereal, pulses and other things.
Food Prayer #28
Groundnut butter or olive oil for the sake of fat…
Food Prayer #29
When a man starves his senses, the object of those senses disappear from him, but not the yearning for them. The yearning too departs when he beholds the Supreme.
Food Prayer #30
When we are fasting, our desire should be to see God. Our appetites stand in the way, and so we must weaken their hold on us.
Food Prayer #31
To see Him, one should completely conquer one's appetites.
Food Prayer #32
I wanted to improve and train my body.
Food Prayer #33
I believed then and I believe even now, that, no matter what amount of work one has, one should always find some time for exercise, just as one does for one's meals. It is in my humble opinion that, far from taking away from one's capacity for work, it adds to it.
Food Prayer #34
Today I know that physical training should have as much place in the curriculum as mental training.
Food Prayer #35
I had formed the habit of taking long walks, which still remains with me.
Food Prayer #36
This habit of long walks has kept me practically free of illness and has given me a fairly strong body.
Food Prayer #37
It was my desire to teach these little ones physical exercise and make them hardy.
Food Prayer #38
I must have taken about six dance lessons. But it was beyond me to achieve anything like rhythmic motion…