Food and it's Concept in Hinduism: Reflections on Thanksgiving Day
Rajiv Narula
Issue date: 11/23/09 Section: Features
Sharing food is the most universal cultural experience. Central to all cultures and religions, food is a sacred gift that is the supreme and universal bond of all friendship. Expressing thanks for food was humankind's first act of worship, for food is the gift of life from Divinity. In every culture there are sacred beliefs or divine commandments that require honoring the giver of life--God or the divine principle--through acknowledging the sacred gift of food. By admitting us to His table, God became bound to us in a unique relationship. By admitting God to our table, we experience the love and beauty of that relationship.Whether that expression of thanks for the gift of spiritual and physical food is voiced in a tribal ritualized saying or uttered silently or sung eloquently, a person's intrinsic spiritual nature imposes a recognition that the very food before him or her is sacred, is blessed, is divine. It is in fact an unmerited gift.
The Hindu scriptures proclaim that the first interhuman act of the newborn child is to experience satisfaction through food. In the first hour of life our senses may transmit ephemeral sight, sound, or touch quanta, but it is the initial ingestion of the "gift" of milk from the mother in response to its sucking instinct and food need that constitutes the first interhuman act: nourishment. The immediate response to this nourishment is a systemic and psychic satisfaction, and the hunger-gratification cycle begins at that instant and continues throughout life. This gratis experience is irrevocably imprinted on the newborn's uninscribed mind and is the primordial unconscious analogue to voiced prayer. The gross physical body is thus called the food body, because it is nourished by food and grows by absorbing the energies from the food. From earth herbs, from herbs food, from food seed, from seed man; man thus consists of the essence of food.
In the Hindu belief, food cannot be eaten unless it is first offered and shared. It then becomes sanctified or observed as holy, something to be eaten that was blessed by God. Hinduism puts great emphasis on the loving reliance upon God and also on sharing the bounties of God with not only fellow human beings but with Nature.
The Hindu scriptures proclaim that the first interhuman act of the newborn child is to experience satisfaction through food. In the first hour of life our senses may transmit ephemeral sight, sound, or touch quanta, but it is the initial ingestion of the "gift" of milk from the mother in response to its sucking instinct and food need that constitutes the first interhuman act: nourishment. The immediate response to this nourishment is a systemic and psychic satisfaction, and the hunger-gratification cycle begins at that instant and continues throughout life. This gratis experience is irrevocably imprinted on the newborn's uninscribed mind and is the primordial unconscious analogue to voiced prayer. The gross physical body is thus called the food body, because it is nourished by food and grows by absorbing the energies from the food. From earth herbs, from herbs food, from food seed, from seed man; man thus consists of the essence of food.
In the Hindu belief, food cannot be eaten unless it is first offered and shared. It then becomes sanctified or observed as holy, something to be eaten that was blessed by God. Hinduism puts great emphasis on the loving reliance upon God and also on sharing the bounties of God with not only fellow human beings but with Nature.
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