The Taste, or Rasa, of Food Can Be Enjoyed by the Yogic Practitioner If Desire is Removed From the Experience

0:00 There is a factor of enjoyment of taste of various foods which is called rasa in Sanskrit. We experience this when we eat something that excites our taste buds and send signals of pleasure to the brain. For many people, the sweet taste, and more particularly the taste of rich chocolate seems to occupy such a position. Others, however, may find enjoyment in any of the other primary tastes identified by ayurved salty, sour, sharp or spicy, astringent or bitter. Some of these tastes are considered to impact the doshas, or predominant elements active in the being, wata, Pitta, cuppa. To the extent that they both satisfy the taste buds and positively impact the doshas, they lead to a positive response and acceptance in the being.

0:59 Many times spiritual seekers who take up the practice of yoga in their attempt to bring the vital nature under control will attempt to suppress enjoyment of any kind as being somehow unspiritual. They adopt A serious, oftentimes rigid demeanour and refrain from anything that can bring enjoyment. This, however, whether related to the enjoyment of taste or other forms of enjoyment, is an extreme reaction that suppresses the natural state of enjoyment native to every human being. Those who have come into contact with the 14th Dalai Lama often remark on his almost childlike enjoyment that spills out naturally when he experiences or sees something that sparks that type of reaction.

1:51 We also see young children experiencing enjoyment from not only tasty foods, but from their games of play and their experience of animals, their experience of the scent of flowers, and through many other reactions that express the real Ananda that underlies all life and which expresses itself, albeit imperfectly and incompletely, in the mental, vital, physical realm, as enjoyment. The Titiria Upanishad emphasizes the role of Ananda. Quote Lo, this that is well and beautifully made.

2:32 Verily, it is no other than the delight behind existence. When he hath gotten him this delight, then it is that this creature becometh a thing of bliss. For who could labor to draw in the breath, or who could have strength to breathe it out, if there were not that bliss in the heaven of his heart, the ether within his being? End Quote. Translated by Sri Aurobindo, the Upanishads, Brahmawanda Valley, Chapter 7. The Upanishad goes on to define the level and intensity of bliss, starting with that of a blessed and successful human individual, and then magnified many times over as the comparison is made to higher manifestations of being.

3:22 It concludes, however, that quote, this is the bliss of the Veda wise, whose soul the blight of desire not toucheth. End Quote. This leads us to conclude then that it is not the enjoyment of taste or other forms that Ananda may take in the human being, but the attachment and the grasping that comes with desire and the vital nature that needs to be eliminated. Shrioro Vindo writes quote. It is no part of this yoga to suppress taste rasa altogether. What is to be got rid of is vital desire and attachment, the greed of food, being overjoyed at getting the food you'd like, sorry and discontented when you do not have it, giving an undue importance to it. Equality is here the test, as in so many other matters. End Quote reference.

4:23 Shrioro Bindo. Faces of Yoga, Chapter 4. Desire Food Sex page 66.