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  • Wisdom for practice
  • Wisdom is applied knowledge
  • Wisdom spreads itself

Wisdom for practice

Wisdom is for practice, not for continuous speaking. If we keep on speaking about the Masters, the Rays, and the Hierarchies, we are only missing our duties for the present.

Wisdom is applied knowledge

Knowledge, when applied becomes wisdom. We gain a lot of knowledge, but it has to be applied in daily life, then it transforms itself into wisdom. Through wisdom we will experience the existence.

Wisdom spreads itself

We need not be anxious to spread the wisdom without working it with ourselves. It is a wrong understanding if one thinks that he can spread wisdom. Wisdom knows how to spread itself. It only needs channels.

Food and Drink

Redressing the Balance

Food and Drink When we deal with the question of nutrition, we meet a turmoil of arguments and counter-arguments. In the name of “nutritional necessity” people are arguing for and against a meat diet, enriching food with vitamins, or raw and cooked food. There exists no fixed nutrition, which would be the same for people of different temperaments, phases of life and of development. While for example in South India chillies are eaten freshly, they look like an army of scorpions for Westerners. We have to find out ourselves what is right and necessary for us. A wrong diet as well as over- or under-nutrition put our health at risk. The regulation of diet is one of the first steps on the spiritual path. Krishna said: “If you are able to regulate your tongue, 70% of your spiritual practice is complete.”

The food intake is meant for gaining the energy for living. The human being however takes in as if to contact disease instead of energy and health. For pleasure people swallow cigarette smoke and are spoiling their respiratory systems, for pleasure they drink alcohol, often excessively, and are spoiling much within their bodies. Moreover modern man unfortunately is polluting water, plants and animals with chemicals all the time. Our food is not healthy and lastly our thoughts are not healthy. The whole planet is sick indeed; the greed for money and power has run him down. It is remarkable how much powers of resistance the human body has, with all the harmful influences, also through drugs and environmental pollution. In order to redress a balance in us and in our surrounding the right use of food is an important act of practical good will.

Fresh Food

The Wisdom Teachings recommend to take pure, fresh water and fresh, vital food, also honey, nuts and grains. The so-called civilised people drink stored or carbonated water, they take preserved or deep-frozen vegetables or also fast food. Especially fermented food causes certain body cells to become denser and makes ill. If we eat cooked food, we should ensure that we eat it within three hours after cooking. Preserving cooked food, warming it up, and eating it for days means to take in only dead food. Stored water, vegetables and fruits also lose their vitality. We have to recognise the subtle value of food: Fresh food is good for the clear radiation of the inner life and supports the spiritual practice. It is fortunate in these days if one can still drink fresh milk, eat fresh vegetables and bathe in fresh water. On the spiritual path we should use much water, externally and internally: Water purifies foods also from impurities on the etheric plane which penetrate the supermarkets through commercial thinking. When we take a shower, also our etheric body gets purified from the thought forms which hover around in commercial places and weaken us. Therefore it is better to eat at home than to eat commercially prepared dishes. We should drink more water than the medical science recommends. The best is to drink water at its normal temperature, just as available in the place. Cooked water should be drunk in a hot state, as hot as the mouth can bear. Don’t drink boiled water after it is cooled, because it attracts all undesirable things from the atmosphere. Drinks with ice-cubes lead more to the dense physical; therefore you should drink them without ice. Also Cola and the like, coffee and other stimulating substances are not recommendable. We should replace them by water, milk or fruit juices and see that we do this everywhere.

If we ignore the fundamental things about food and lifestyle, spiritual practises are not possible, however much we want. Usually we listen with great interest, but we don’t follow and do the contrary. The thinking of the soul tells us, that we shouldn’t eat this kind of food, but then the personality begs, Oh come, please. And thus the hand stretches out and we take it. To change the patterns of the personality in order to come into contact with the soul is a fight against inner and outer resistances. The changes should be slowly and naturally. “Make haste slowly”, says Master Morya.

Fuel of Light and Life Force

In all substances of Nature there is energy, respectively life force, it exists in solid, watery, airy and also in fiery substance. Life force can be taken in with and without food. If you orient yourself towards the intake of life force, you don’t have to eat so much. Spiritual man looks more for spiritual food. He turns from heavy food to lighter food, then to water and air. There are people who over decades eat no-thing but air and sun light. By right breathing we take in a great amount of life force through the prana as spiritual food. If we make regular deep breaths, we don’t have to eat so much. If however we only reduce food, this causes weakness. Sunlight is the greatest source of life, the invocation of sunlight through sound is another. Air is the third source; the fourth is water, the fifth fruit juices, the sixth salads, the seventh raw vegetables. The eighth is cooked vegetables; cooking with water is preferred to cooking with oil. The ninth are vegetables grown under the earth, like potatoes, onions. They are not so much exposed to the sun rays as vegetables growing above the surface. Therefore their matter tends to greater heaviness. Carrots are an exception. Then the tenth is meat. The pulses also belong to the category of vegetables; they are a good substitution to meat. This is the order in which life force is received. In the first category there is no matter at all. In the tenth category there is more mass and less life. Heavy foods and deep meditation don’t go well together, rich foods cause a downward pull and bind to the gross physical. Animal food is the heaviest that man eats: “Refinement of the heart predicates the eschewal of a meat diet”. (Heart, § 331)

In the present Aquarian age, which is related to the element of air, everything becomes lighter. The bodies need refined fuel. When you pour the fuel for a lorry into an airplane, it remains on the ground. Sublime thoughts cannot impress a brain which is only little developed. The soul can convey higher know-ledge only through a subtle body. Milk and milk products have a significant role to play in purifying the layers of the body, they are very useful for a disciple of the spiritual path. Especially ghee (purified butter) helps to build the antahkarana-body, the subtle body. Ghee is described as “the fuel of light” stimulating the vitality of the brain tissue, so that it can better receive from higher planes.

When we eat we should do it in quietude, with a pleasant attitude and a sense of offering. We offer the food to the guests and the family. We offer the food to the body, we eat for it and it serves us by its work. The heat in our body arranges the assimilation of the food and its distribution to the body as energy. Thus the purpose of eating is a ritual in which you offer the food to the fire: The mouth is a place of sacred fire, and through the medium of the transforming fire the food gets distributed to the intelligences (Devas) of the body. Even if we engage in talk with those around, we can maintain the sense of offering and make the following proposition:

“I am thankful to the Lord for the food made available. I offer this food to the Lord of Fire, for his distribution to the Devas within the body. May the Lord be pleased. May the Devas be pleased with this act of mine.”

Sources used: K.P. Kumar: On Healing / seminar notes. The World Teacher Trust / Dhanishta, Visakhapatnam, India. - A. A. Bailey: White Magic. Lucis-Trust, London. (www.netnews.org / www.lucistrust.org). “Heart”. Agni-Yoga Society, New. York.