Chennai, November 1, 2013: Food, shelter and clothing are man’s primary and inevitable needs. Of these three needs man gives more importance to the first one. The Sastras say yogis eat one time a day and they enjoy a large life span. Those who eat twice a day enjoy worldly pleasure and they too live a long life. Those who eat thrice a day will suffer from many diseases and lead a sickly life.

Eating food facing East will bring in long life, facing West will bring fame and glory, facing South will bring in prosperity and facing North will bring good thoughts. Those who give feast and those who attend the feast must adapt themselves to the methods prescribed in the Sastras.Going to someone’s house and having a feast on Sunday will bring in endless miseries and further it creates a bitter strife between the guest and the host. Participating or giving a feast on Monday will bring in cordial relationships. Tuesday feasts will bring in endless troubles. Feasts on Wednesday will bring well-being and prosperity. Thursday feasts will create bitter enmity. Friday feasts will destroy misunderstanding and paves way for smooth and cordial relationships. Feasts on Saturday will bring in great good.

It is good to give and participate in feasts on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Doing so on all these four days will bring in immense prosperity for both the giver as well as the taker. Right from the plantain leaf used for keeping the eatables to the final item in the feast i.e., payasam all carry the incarnation of the Almighty. The ‘aviyal’ is made comprising of five vegetables that symbolically represent that a human being must have control over his five senses. The ‘koottu’ represents that everyday our devotion to the Almighty must increase in leaps and bounds.Pickles are placed at the corner of the leaf; similarly anger should be to the least possible extent. The vadai and fried items represent that in the process of frying there is sound and fury and after that there is silence. Similarly before his union with god man will be filled with anger and hatred and after his union with god he will become an emblem of silence. The ‘laddu’ is made up of so many small ‘bundies’ which in turn represent that we have to spend a long period in this world and also each ‘bundi’ tastes similar. In that way it also represents that all human beings are equal. The ghee adds taste and reduces the bitterness in food similarly good thoughts counteract bad thoughts and make a person good. The sambar tastes better when it is mixed with rice similarly we should lead our life in a peaceful way with good thoughts. The rice represents peace and sambar represents good thoughts. Rasam tastes hot and similarly in order to reach union with god one must undergo severe hardships. Just like the ‘appalam’ which is broken to pieces all our bad thoughts have to be destroyed. The butter milk is sour similarly after attaining union with god our past life will seem sour to us. After eating all these we finally come to payasam which represents that when man is free from rebirth he will be in the state of bliss. As we take food we should remember all these and if bad thoughts creep in we must drive them.

Source: the Hindu