Grace Sustains Us

Transcript

A few weeks ago I had this dream I was sitting in a hostel in the dining hall of the hostel. I sat down to eat with this French woman.

I didn’t understand at the time but when I sat down the plate was actually empty and I started to say grace and show my gratitude for the food I was about to eat.

When I finished saying grace the plate was full, with salad and tomatoes and things. Ready for me to eat.

I thought about that afterwards.

One thing was “That’s pretty cool”. It’s like when you’re learning a language and you start to speak that language in your dreams.

That’s when you know things are really sinking in and you’re getting that language to the deepest part of yourself.

I thought “That’s cool.” Now like the language of prayer, the language of showing gratitude and bringing that kind of consciousness even into my dreams, my dreaming life.

That’s wonderful!

It also made me wonder what if the lesson of the dream is true? What if its not the fact that the food is on the plate that sustains us, but the gratitude and consciousness we actually put into the food that makes it nutritious.

I wondered about that.

I remember a lot of people saying to me that they like going to Hare Krishna restaurants because there’s something different about that food, something a little extra.

In the Hare Krishna tradition sometimes they call it the higher taste, the spiritual element of food.

When you taste it something it hits your lips and it does uplift you a little bit.

It’s very interesting and I know what it is. A part of it is when you cook in one of those restaurants a lot of the time they’re not doing it for money or a job. They’re actually doing it for service of the temple, service of Krishna and of the fellow human being.

It’s a very different process they can take as much time as they want, spend the time to do it right and also when they finish cooking the food they bless it.

They offer it up to Krishna and say “Yes this is good food, it is ready to eat.”

And that’s when it’s served and we enjoy it and we experience that higher taste.

I remember a few years ago I was in Acapulco in an apartment staying for a few days with my friend Concious Kenny or Kenny Palurintano.

And I saw him in the kitchen and he was peeling off the skin of every clove of garlic individually.

I said “You know its easier if you crush the garlic with the edge of the knife and the skin will come off a lot easier.”

He said “Oh I know but I prefer to do it this way when I have time.”

And I thought that’s very interesting. In the moment I guess I was a bit stunned his priorities were so different from mine.

My priorities were efficiency, how can I do something with the least time and least energy.

His priority was consciousness, doing things slowly and carefully, experiencing every part of it and applying that awareness to the food.

That’s probably why he’s such a good cook.

Likewise whenever I’m chopping vegetables I remember that almost always always think of Concious Kenny when slicing up onions.

This is an interesting thing too because you know sometimes we get into sort of negative thought triggers. When a certain thing happens during the day, maybe I put my keys into the lock and think about the time I forgot my keys in the lock or whatever it is.

But you can also have these things, not things that make you cringe and say “Wow that’s so embarrassing I can’t believe I did that.” But also things that remind you to come into the present moment. To remind you to live fully.

So with this simple trigger seeing the onion before me slicing it up with a knife I remember my friend and I think about what he told me.

And there I am slicing up the onion and with every slice cutting slowly and precisely I think “Thank you onion, gracias cebolla”

Because that onion has given up something of it’s life. Something quite precious.

It’s made this great sacrifice to end up on my plate. It’s given up quite a bit of it’s life root vegetables especially because if you pick a root vegetable that means the end of the line for that vegetable.

You take some basil from a tree or some fruit the life of that tree of course will continue. Not so with root vegetables that’s why it’s so special.

Of course if you eat animals, it’s the same thing. That animal has given up so much to be there, it’s something so precious that it’s offered you.

So with every slice, gracias cebolla. Thank you onion for sustaining me. Thank you for making your way to my chopping board so I could create a delicious meal and live another day, enjoy another miracle.

So what if, with all that consciousness that is provided to that onion with the people who tenderly nourish it when its still growing. The people who pick it, the people who pack it, unpack it and sell it to you. The people in the kitchen at each stage they’re applying some consciousness to it, some form of blessing.

What if that is what sustains you and brings you that higher taste and that’s why a vital part in the process, saying grace, being grateful before the meal is so important because grace sustains us.

Thank you for listening, thank you for bringing that light of consciousness into your daily life when you’re enjoying a meal remember the people who brought it to you and that plant or those animals who have given you something so you can live well.

Thank you, have a great day, I’ll talk to you soon.