Baba's Storytime - Pray Before You Eat

Have your food only after praying and offering it to God. Only then the food will become sanctified and illumine your intellect. 

Once there lived a sannyasi in a hermitage near Sivananda’s ashram. He was a pious soul. One day an aged businessman donated money to prepare food for the ashramites on the eleventh day after the demise of his young wife. The businessman, being rich, somehow had enticed the girl’s father with money and married his young daughter. She spent her time languishing over her fate in the businessman’s house. Disgusted by leading such a life, one day she jumped into the Ganges and ended her life. The businessman was doing the obituary rites on the eleventh day.  

There was a convention in the ashram that cooked food was not accepted. So, the businessman gave the required amount for preparing the food. The pure-hearted sannyasi partook of the food along with other inmates of the ashram. He could not get proper sleep that night. He saw a young girl in his dream. He thought to himself, “I never had any such thought nor do I have a craving for sensual pleasures. Then, why do I get such bad dreams?” He got the same vision even in his meditation. 

So, he went to his Guru by name Satchidanandam and explained his predicament: “Swami, why am I getting such unsacred visions?” The Guru told him not to worry. He sent word for the businessman, spoke to him and found out the reason behind the untimely death of his wife. He understood that she was appearing in the dream of the sannyasi as he had partaken of the food prepared as part of her obituary rites. From that day, the sannyasi stopped eating food and lived merely on fruits and milk. 

Bhikshannam deharakshanartham (food is essential to sustain the body). A car needs petrol to run. In the same way, the body requires food to sustain it. So, one has to eat something or the other to sustain the body. Sometimes, you get bad dreams and bad visions during meditation. This is the result of unsacred food. You have to enquire before cooking whether the provisions were got through sacred means. Only then the food becomes fit for consumption. Before partaking of food, you should pray, 

Brahmarpanam Brahma havir 

Brahmagnou Brahmanahutam 

Brahmaiva thena ganthavyam 

Brahma karma samadhina. 

If you pray with sacred feelings, the food gets sanctified.

(From the Divine Discourses of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba)