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Addressing Food-Desire Effectively Without Over-Emphasizing the Focus on It · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  When an individual takes up the spiritual path, he seeks
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  guidance, perhaps from books or through online blogs, podcasts,
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  videos, webinars, perhaps from people who are treading the
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  path, perhaps from a teacher or guru who has come into his life.
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  Generally, he comes away with some guidelines to follow.
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  In many instances, the guidelines set forth ultimate
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  desired results but do not provide detailed instruction
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  taking into account the individual's starting point,
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  situation and circumstances. This can lead to substantial
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  anxiety in this seeker as he tries to measure his thoughts,
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  feelings, actions, and reactions against a standard that he is
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  not able to meet at that moment. Substantial time, energy and
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  focus is then dedicated to what may be, in the big picture,
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  relatively small things. It is part of the process of
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  maturing along the path for the seeker to begin to refine the
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  time and attention so that these matters can be seen in a more
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  balanced light and thus not allowed to occupy the mind that
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  should be ideally focussed on the spiritual pursuits.
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  While most people are more easily able to spot faults
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  outside in others, the spiritual seeker tends to take a more
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  close up view of his own reactions and thus magnifies the
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  faults he sees when he tries to compare them to the ideal as set
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  forth in the teachings he may be attempting to implement.
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  Triorobindo's approach is to cultivate detachment and
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  equality, thereby reducing or eliminating vital desires that
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  arise over the course of time. This standpoint helps the seeker
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  to find that right balance where the focus remains on the
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  spiritual effort, the aspiration, the consecration and
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  the receptivity to the higher force, and the rejection of
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  unwanted vital reactions plays out through the action of the
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  higher force responding to the call and the openness that the
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  seeker eventually develops. Sri Robindo notes quote neither
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  neglect this turn of the nature food desire nor make too much of
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  it. It has to be dealt with,
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  purified and mastered. But without giving it too much
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  importance, there are two ways of conquering it, one of
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  detachment, learning to regard food as only a physical
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  necessity, and the vital satisfaction of the stomach and
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  the palate as a thing of no importance.
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  The other is to be able to take without insistence or seeking,
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  any food given, and to find in it, whether pronounced good or
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  bad by others, the equal rasa, not of the food for its own
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  sake, but of the universal Ananda.
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  End Quote. Reference Srioro Bindo Bases of
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  Yoga chapter 4 Desire food sex page 67.