Spiritual Thoughts
Swami Yatiswarananda
We should practise a certain amount of control and discrimination regarding the food we take, but so long as we are in the body, the body must be properly taken care of and nourished to keep it a fit instrument for the realization of the Divine and for the Divine’s work. Once a king was asked to lead a good life, but when he tried he naturally found it very hard and was asked to practise also a little food-control. But he found that the holy man who was giving him all these instructions was taking very hot food. “How is it possible for you to eat all this hot stuff, and at the same time to maintain your mental balance?” asked the king. The holy man replied, “I always have before me the thought of Death and it is this that exerts a great influence on me.”
There is much more body-consciousness in the person who is ill or weak than in the perfectly healthy and normal person. And we have to see that our body-consciousness is reduced to a minimum if we want to make good progress in spiritual life.
Too much activity is very dangerous, because it usually becomes the aimless activity of the monkey. What for? Nobody knows. This kind of activity is just restlessness and nothing more. But then you find a form of self-surrender, so-called self-surrender, that is nothing more than inertness, indolence, lethargy. And this is just as bad as aimless activity.
Most people are so active, because they are terribly afraid to be left to themselves. They work and work and work and go to cinemas and parties and theatres, read heaps and heaps of books. What for? Just to keep themselves busy, just to divert their minds from themselves. The true aspirant should always try to combine both: activity of the right kind and self-surrender.