My time in India has taught me more than I can imagine. Today when someone asked me smile deep inside as they innocently asked if I was performing Reiki on my food made me realise this...
Every meal time I actually sit in front of my food and give thanks. I don't try to 'heal' it or 'purify' it or do whatever the bewildered asker of the question was wondering. I simply Give Thanks. I don't think that I have ever really done this before in my life. As a child at school, a teacher would say a prayer, or even one of the students, but to me the words meant very little. For a start who on earth was I speaking to? I think that even when I was told to believe otherwise I was really a believer in Humanity rather than the Christian God creation.
My relationship with food has hardly been 'healthy' – too little, too much, wasteful or as my father described when I was still a tot “pick pick picking like a bird”. Yet here in India, my relationship with what I put inside my body has completely changed. I think the change began in Kolkata. When after working at Kalighat Home (for the Dying and Destitute), I would go to eat dinner in the evenings and find a block between the forkful of food and my mouth. The 'block' usually came in a vivid image of one of the old women who I would have been trying to coax to eat during the day: One of the old women who did not want to eat; who appeared to me to just be waiting to die.
Then of course there was the food programme: Handing out fifteen precious parcels of simple rice and daal to the same homeless and hungry people every day. Feeling the guilt when I spilt even a drop on the street when I was emptying the daal into the cardboard boxes.
Then there was 'me' as an observer of contrasts. Of watching tourists order massive deserts without even looking at the price, deserts with no nutritional value, which their consumers would complain were making them feel 'sick' or 'too full'; the same people who would the next day walk past a beggar and make excuses for parting with four rupees for a piece of bread.
Just now, while I have been sitting here in this nice Tibetan cafe, an Australian Buddhist monk offered around to the rest of us (well feed tourists) a sandwich which she couldn't finish. We all declined. So I suggested that she take it out with her and give to one of the many leper beggars on the street. She replied that she wasn't going that way...
The fact is that now I simply cannot see food wasted. I can't buy food without thinking of its nutritional value and likewise, I can't buy food knowing that I will only eat half and throw the rest away. The result has been a much 'healthier' attitude, and which leads to why I appear to be performing Reiki on my food. The 'Thanks' which I give is more a reminder to myself of the value of what I am about to put inside my body. This value is not just economic, but the fact that I don't have to 'work' just in order to 'eat' is certainly brought to mind several times a day as the beggars motion to their mouth or stomach before asking for rupees. I also give thanks to the incredulous existence of the food – from its natural creation, from the energy of the sun, the availability of water, the existence of fertile soil – the combination of which is not guaranteed in many parts of India. I then give thanks to the human energy which has gone into providing my meal – from the farmers to the traders to my Tibetan friends in the kitchen down stairs. And think of how this trade has in turn provided a livelihood for many people. I give thanks for my body for being 'healthy' enough to digest the food and to turn it into the energy which I need in order to live my day – free from preoccupation of hunger and free to perform four to six hours of yoga practice and to still have energy to smile and laugh. I give thanks to Nature, my Body and my good fortune. And I remind myself not to abuse this privilege of health and wealth. As I said, India has taught me more than I can imagine.
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