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Minimizing the Rajasic or Tamasic Effect of Food on the Consciousness · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  A popular proverb in recent years is you are what you eat.
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  There is certainly an element of deeper truth in this expression.
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  All material substance holds vibratory patterns.
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  Rocks absorb heat and radiate it back afterwards for hours.
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  Water absorbs thought vibrations as shown by Massaro Emoto in his
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  book The Hidden Messages. In Water, when we experience
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  some strong Trauma or an emotional event, fear, anger,
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  jealousy, the body produces neurotransmitters to carry that
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  emotion and the body holds the vibrations actively for some
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  time and then encapsulated and potentially able to be triggered
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  later. This is the mechanism of
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  cellular memory. Food also holds vibrations and
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  these get imbibed by us as we eat the food.
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  This brings us then to the question of the food we eat,
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  what vibrations it carries with it, and how that may impact our
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  psychology and our bodies. Much research has been done on
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  the interaction between various foods and their psychophysical
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  effects on us. Ayurveda, the science of life,
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  categorizes food according to whether they generate energetics
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  of wata, the element of air, pita, the element of heat, or
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  tufa, the element of dense water or earth.
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  Additionally, Ayurveda describes foods that carry vibrations that
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  act as toxins to the body, AMA, which can cause numerous health
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  disturbances. For detail about the qualities
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  of food from an Ayurvedic perspective and the practical
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  application of this knowledge, there is Doctor Vasant Lod's
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  book Ayurveda Science of Self Healing or Amadeya Morningstar
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  and Ormila Desai's book The Ayurvedic Cookbook.
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  The Bhagavad Gita describes foods as expressing the
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  qualities of the three gunas, Thomas, Rajas and Satva.
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  Sri Aurobindo translates in Bhagavad Gita and Its Message,
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  Chapter 17, verses 8 to 10. Sri Krishna's description of the
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  psychophysical relation of food to the action of the Gunas
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  quote. The Sutwick temperament in the
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  mental and physical body turns naturally to the things that
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  increase the life, increase the inner and outer strength,
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  nourish at once the mental, vital and physical force, and
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  increase the pleasure and satisfaction and happy condition
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  of the mind and life and body, all that is succulent and soft
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  and firm and satisfying. The Rajasic temperament prefers
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  naturally food that is violently sour, pungent, hot, acrid, rough
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  and strong and burning the elements that increase ill
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  health and the distempers of the mind and body.
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  The Temasek temperament takes a perverse pleasure in cold,
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  impure, stale, rotten or tasteless food, or even accepts,
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  like the animals, the remnants half eaten by others.
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  End Quote. The preparation of food also
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  infuses energetic vibrations into the food.
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  Food prepared with a sense of order, cleanliness and a feeling
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  of love, goodwill or serenity has a way of enhancing the
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  feeling of well-being for the individual eating it.
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  A loving mother or grandmother preparing and offering food has
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  long been recognized as a means of transmitting their love and
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  support, providing comfort and healing energy along with the
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  food. Similarly, food prepared by
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  someone who is under the influence of anger, lust, or
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  greed carries those feelings which have their own subtle
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  influence on the person receiving that energy with their
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  meal. Many people eat animal foods.
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  Those animals undergo intense emotions of fear and pain in the
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  moments before they are slaughtered.
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  The hormones and neurotransmitters they generate
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  go into their tissues and are carried forward to the person
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  who eats those foods. Some traditions have recognized
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  this and they as chew, using animals as a source of food.
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  Whatever food one eats, the long tradition says to consecrate
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  that food, to pray before taking the food, to recognize the
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  oneness, the sacrifice of the food to the eater, and to honour
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  that food, while also setting up a vibratory pattern to help
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  remove any of the negative energies that otherwise are
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  carried by that food, the mother writes.
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  Quote Physically we depend upon food to live.
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  Unfortunately for with food we daily and constantly take in a
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  formidable amount of inconscience of Thomas
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  heaviness. Stupidity 1 can't do otherwise
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  unless constantly without a break.
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  We remain completely aware, and as soon as an element is
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  introduced into our body, we immediately work upon it to
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  extract from it only the light and reject all that may darken
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  our consciousness. This is the origin and rational
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  explanation of the religious practice of consecrating one's
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  food to God before taking it when eating.
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  One aspires that this food may not be taken for the little
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  human ego, but as an offering to the divine consciousness within
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  oneself. In all yogas, all religions,
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  this is encouraged. This is the origin of that
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  practice of contacting the consciousness behind precisely
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  to diminish as much as possible the absorption of an
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  inconscience which increases daily, constantly, without one's
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  being aware of it. End Quote Reference Srioro Bindu
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  and the Mother looking from Within, Chapter 5, Attitudes on
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  the Path, page 167.