Conversations with Sai - 17

A Visitor: How does one get devotion to God?

SAI: Confidence is necessary. Food is the origin - the body is made from food. Without health, it is very hard to do anything. The stomach is of four parts: one quarter air, one quarter food, and one half water. Too much food is taken nowadays; there is no room for water. In India, rice and wheat are standard. They are all right if taken in moderation. But people eat too much and become dull. Too much food results in dullness of mind. Food in moderation does not result in sickness. Swami travels to various parts of India and does not get sick from food. Swami becomes sick only when taking on the sickness of a devotee. Otherwise, never. Too much milk is bad. It is Rajasic.

Visitor: Sai Baba, this is for me, this is not for anybody, just for myself - my food. Meat is important, meat is my food.

SAI: Food is important for the body. Food is the reason even for being born. Mother and father have been nourished with food and then give birth to a child. The parents have grown up on food. The whole body is a food bundle. The type of food you eat creates the kind of thought that will come to your mind. There will be a Sattwic effect if you have Sattwic food such as fruit and milk everything that is cool and not hot like strong onions. Meat gives the blood an effect, like passion and similar qualities. Dirty thoughts come with fish. Although fish is always in water, it has a bad smell.

A Visitor: How about lamb?

SAI: Meat is all right for those who concentrate on the body and want to have strength, but for spiritual aspirants it is not good.

A Visitor: But the proteins that come from meat?

SAI: Yes, the body will get proteins with meat, but mental proteins will not be there. If you are keen on a spiritual life, eating meat is not worthwhile; but if you are keen on worldly life, it is alright. There is another spiritual reason. When you kill an animal you give it suffering, pain and harm. God is in every creature, so how can you give such pain? Sometimes when someone beats a dog he cries, he feels so much pain. How much more pain then occurs in killing. Animals did not come for the purpose of supplying food to human beings. They came to work out their own life in the world. When a human being is dead, the foxes and other animals may eat the body, but we have not come to provide food for those that eat the human body; we have not come for that purpose. Similarly, man eats the animal, but the animal has not come to provide man with food. But, we have taken to eating meat as a habit.

A Visitor: But we take milk which is animal.

SAI: Anything that comes from the cow, a little milk, butter, cheese, is alright for the spiritual aspirant. There is no harm to the cow, and it is of benefit to take it. In Dwapara Yuga, before Kali Yuga, 5680 years back, milk came into favour. Eleven thousand years is the full length of the Kali Yuga.

(From: "Conversations with Sai" - Pt. 6 - Radio Sai)