Offering prayer
with gratefulness to God for providing food - this
very act
makes you peaceful. The moment you offer prayer makes you peaceful and calm.
It somehow triggers your parasympathetic system.
It helps with digestion, makes you healthier. The idea is to become healthier.
So they connected it with religion.
So when people partake food
in an angry state of mind,
a fearful state of mind,
there is no complete secretion of digestive juices.
You may be able to digest perhaps but it has a different impact on your system altogether.
So when we partake food with a prayerful mind, prayerful heart and
with that state of absorption you eat it, you enjoy this food.
It is not that you become totally silent and you don’t speak, no.
You can speak gently, you can talk gently, you can laugh.
But when you remain meditative while consuming food, that itself has a different impact on your cellular system.
My Master proudly used to say,
“It can remove so many spiritual diseases when you partake food in this way.”
And that is why in many religious traditions,
they advocate offering prayers before partaking food.
Offering prayer with
gratefulness to God for providing food. This
very act
makes you peaceful. The moment you offer prayer it makes you peaceful and calm.
It somehow triggers your parasympathetic system.
It helps with digestion, makes you healthier.
The idea is to become healthier. So they connected it with religion.
Many traditions, many rituals that are done worldwide,
I don’t think God will be pleased with
all these things.
“Oh, thank you God for food, and
thank you God for this, thank you God for that”, but all these things
are for our benefit, not for God’s sake.
When you become grateful, God is not happy that you are grateful of course.
But when you are grateful you will become happy, you will become mentally sound, your health will improve.
So, this gratefulness, savouring food with the remembrance,
being grateful at that moment, I think it is very important that you can spend time like that.
Also, the sleep;
when
just before bedtime you offer prayer, just as you offer prayer before taking a meal,
offering prayer before bedtime triggers the parasympathetic system.
And the parasympathetic system is all about ‘rest and digest’.
That is why for digestion,
activate the parasympathetic system through prayer.
Similarly,
activate the parasympathetic system before going to bed for better rest.
And when you can also meditate, you can lie down, close your eyes,
and undergo this Heartfulness way of relaxation while preparing yourself to sleep,
you will arrive at sleep faster,
and your sleep will also become deep.
Your immunity also will improve as a result.
People who can’t sleep,
their immunity will be compromised.
Those who can sleep better,
their immunity will also be better.