Food

Osho, does the same apply to food too?

The Quakers hold meetings that are silent. In their meetinghouse they gather at the appointed time and sit quietly. There is no preacher—because a preacher will always come prepared. Friends sit; darkness deepens. Then a happening: if someone feels moved to say something, he says it. Many times months go by and no one says anything. People sit and depart—“today there was nothing to say, so nothing was said.” Then if someone feels there is something to say, he stands up. No introduction, no identity, no formalities. He simply stands and says, “This is what I feel; this I want to say.” There is only one condition: no one should ever come prepared. What the Quakers have collected from three hundred years of such silent meetings is worth seeing—words that seem to come straight from God; from utterly ordinary people, sometimes such words arise. But the more education and the…

Beloved Osho, once a week I cook unfertilized fried eggs for the whole commune's breakfast in order that everybody's brain becomes sharper and more intelligent. However, after cooking one thousand fried eggs, I don't feel like eating any myself. Is it okay for me to drop improving my brain and just enjoy its lack of activity?

Vimal .... A writer had been out too late the night before, and in the wrong places. Nursing a magnificent hangover, he stops at a small restaurant for breakfast. "What will you have?" asked the waiter. "All I want is two fried eggs and some kind words," says the bleary-eyed writer. Presently, the waiter returns with two pale-looking fried eggs. "Here are your eggs, sir," he says. "And now for the kind words: don't eat them."

Our beloved master,

YOU WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT FOOD, AND NOW IN THE WEST FOOD IS A BIG CULT. IT'S ONE OF THE THINGS COMING IN AS A BASIS OF SPIRITUALITY. YOU SAID IF WE'RE NATURAL, WE'LL KNOW WHAT TO EAT AND WHEN TO EAT, BUT NOW WE ARE OUT OF TOUCH WITH OUR CHILDLIKE NATURE. ALSO, MANY RELIGIONS SAY THAT THE FOOD YOU EAT DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO ONE'S SPIRITUAL PATH. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CAN TELL US ABOUT FOOD AS A GUIDE FOR THE WEST? It is the other way round: food cannot make you spiritual, but if you are spiritual your food habits will change. Eating anything will not make much difference. You can be a vegetarian and cruel to the extreme, and violent; you can be a non-vegetarian and kind and loving. Food will not make much difference. In India there are communities who have lived totally with…

Osho, the Gita certainly emphasizes sattvic food for seekers, but nowhere does it explicitly forbid meat. And you have said meat is easy to digest—and that’s what doctors say, too. Then what obstacle does meat-eating create? For spiritual practice you have strongly stressed the usefulness of a vegetarian diet. But books indicate that many saints who attained through Sufi, Zen, and Tantra paths did not remain vegetarian. And in our own country, Paramhansa Ramakrishna always ate non-vegetarian food. What is the reason for this contradiction?

Then my vision is this: Ramakrishna is an exceedingly pure man. Therefore such a small impurity could not obstruct him. You may not be able to conceive this. Exceedingly pure. If you permit me, I would say: purer than Mahavira. Had Mahavira eaten meat or fish, he could not have attained the supreme. But Ramakrishna did. This means only this: the man is so pure that such a small impurity could not hinder him. Despite that impurity he crossed beyond. Understand it like this: you climb a mountain. The rule for mountain-climbing is that the less the load, the better. If you climb with loads of weight on your head, climbing becomes hard. You may abandon the idea or stop at some midway camp. But then a very powerful man, a Hercules, climbs the mountain with a heavy weight—and reaches the top. This man is not the rule. This Hercules…