THE HALF-STOMACH EXPERIENCE

Pic.: Sheela Krishnamony

“Detachment does not mean that you don’t own anything;

It means that nothing owns you.”

-       Anonymous

  

A week ago, one night, I had just returned home after a wedding reception. The food was kingly - varieties galore… starters, mock-tails and cocktails, main course of different regions, deserts of different kinds… even a dozen different mouth-fresheners… Liquor flew down like a waterfall… and, when we left the venue, a lovely memento was placed in our hands, too!

Yes, like other guests over there, I, too, came back, making the most of what was laid before me…

But, by the time I walked into my house, I was hungry again!

Now, it was really strange! I had helped myself with so much of variety, that I should have not touched food for another week! But, here was my condition: I was feeling hungry even before I was home!

Yesterday was Maha Shiv Ratri. So many people had observed fast. Some of my friends and neighbors had sent me thandai and different varieties of ‘Prasad’... which was quite tempting. I had just finished my lunch. So, I was asking, again: “Should I have this, too?”

Well, I didn't.

“Prasad is not to fill your stomach,” a voice was telling me inside, “It is just to teach you humility, acceptance and gratitude.”

“So be it,” I said, and received it with in my heart. I could feel the fullness, instantly!

The experience seems so familiar!

So often, the best of the best clothes still don’t give us a feeling of self-confidence… The same goes for our accessories, cars, holidays and travels… The big houses and their big interiors, big screens and fine dines… all these, often, still leave us with hunger, an half-stomach-experience…

How strange… a hunger – an half-stomach experience – even after a kingly meal!

I remember, my first Yoga teacher telling us to eat consciously, slowly, what is ‘needed’ and never to a full stomach… “Always, leave your stomach a little hungry at the end of your meal,” he would remind us.

Honestly, I did not understand, then, the power hidden in that conscious choice we were asked to make – ‘Leave your stomach a little hungry at the end of your meal!”

Ironically, whenever I have made this conscious choice, I haven’t experienced the ‘halfness’ or ‘deprivation’ in my heart. But, whenever I have indulged just because ‘it was there before me’… yes, I have experienced it acutely.

Life ‘lays’ everything before me with only two options: Indulge, yet starve. Or, leave a little hungry, yet feel full!

As the old saying goes, food, money, clothes, houses, cars, and everything else in life… serve us best as our servants, but rule badly as our masters!

GERALD D’CUNHA