Centro Studi Bhaktivedanta - Academy of Traditional Indian Sciences - Psychology Courses, Philosophy Courses, Archaeology Courses and more. - <font size=4><i>Mind and Nutrition</i></font>

On Sunday morning attention was drawn to some paragraphs of Indovedic Scriptures, a short passage discussing food. According to the Chandogya-Upanishad, food consists of three parts: a material substance that can be eliminated by the body, a middle substance necessary to feed the texture of the body and a soft substance that “feeds” manas the mind. Food provides nutrition not only to the material body, but also to the mind. It conveys the impressions and feelings that motivate the act of cooking, the offering of the cooked food and the action of eating. In Indovedic psychology and anthropology, nutrition is essential. By reading the Taittiriya – Upanishad we learn that food, hospitality, reward & compensation are tightly linked to one another: hospitality is shown with the offering of food, with the grace of giving and the willingness to give even if the guest may not arrive.
Good products and good quality nutrition are vital for a longer and healthier life. A very important aspect is also the consumers’ conscience in choosing, cooking and eating the food. In this regard, Marco Ferrini mentioned some very important people, among them well known artists like Leonardo da Vinci, ancient philosophers like Plato, Pythagoras but also modern ones like Schopenhauer, Kant and many others who, to this today, have written about the importance of the vegetarian choice. A special reward was given to great spiritual traditions and thinkers of all times who encouraged not to eat animals killed with violence, but to choose a vegetarian diet instead; this is regarded as a very important condition for the human being in order to develop sensibility and higher levels of conscience.
Marco Ferrini made a very accurate report on the social, environmental and psychological costs of meat consumption. In poor countries, many people die of hunger because a large quantity of cereal crops is used in slaughter – houses to feed animals, in order to produce fatter and better meat for the rich Countries; as a consequence of a bad nutrition, consumers die of stroke, cancer and heart related problems. Further more there are additional costs regarding the environment: large areas of forests are destroyed and used to graze cows, cultivated lands are turned into infertile deserts, and we are running out of water resources. Worst of all, most personality disorders are related to food behaviour, such as anorexia, bulimia and obesity.
Clinic reports describe very often the genesis of food disorders, which start as a consequence of traumatic experiences like: depression, the loss of affectionate people, ill treatment and sexual abuse at an early age. At the very origin, conflicts with the parents or between them are often reported too.
By choosing not to eat, there is a risk to die (anorexia), likewise eating food in serial quantities, vomiting several times a day, using laxatives and diuretics (bulimia), or eating with no limits at the risk of increasing weight two or three times (obesity), all these behaviors generate pathological dependency. Such dangerous pathologies hide an unspoken need for help. It is not a question of healing appetite, rather healing the persons and their stories. Food is not to be treated as a weapon to compete and prevail on others with our personality. Food disorders are to be treated and taken care of by helping people to show affection for others. Lack of attention is in fact a major cause of food disorders; first of all we need to take our own responsibilities and with a keen attitude to favor the healing of our own disturbances as, in every pathology, the cure starts from within the person: it is the only way to receive the full benefit of receiving help from others and the environment around us.
“There are four constituents which can reform our personality, if discovered and adequately realized: the discover of freedom beyond attachments, the recognition of our individuality, the ability to relate socially in harmony and be open to solutions, the realization of our ontological spiritual issues. In so doing – continued Marco Ferrini – we will be able to give an opportunity to ourselves and the others to start a healthy healing treatment, equilibrium oriented, so that food products may well satisfy our physical, emotional, social, relating structure and last but not least, our spiritual health”.
“Showing compassion and authentic friendship with a deep knowledge of the human being – said the speaker – is a very fundamental attitude to integrate one’s personality; it leads to developing the positive qualities of the human being, as well as gradually freeing the mind from the obsession of being thin, and from afflictions harming emotions and relationships”.
On Sunday afternoon the participants wrote and spoke about their thoughts, which were then analyzed by Marco Ferrini.
Their descriptions were of a very personal and intimate nature, it was an opportunity to compare each personal point of view in the light of Indovedic wisdom, a good topic for discussion, not only limited to nutrition, but also ranging the whole physical, psychological and spiritual integrity of the human being.