Food and Mindset: Keys to Happiness

By Madan Prasad Singh

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Human beings are predominantly mental beings. While we possess both physical and mental needs, the two serve different purposes. Physical needs are essential for survival, whereas mental needs are linked to the purpose and value of human life. In human evolution, these two dimensions have become distinct, with the mental dimension assuming greater significance.

This transformation became possible with the manifestation of the I-feeling or self-awareness. Although traces of self-awareness exist in some other species, their lives remain largely governed by instinct. Human beings, however, possess a unique capacity to expand consciousness through different layers of subjectivity. As consciousness widens, new realms of reality become accessible.

Movement into broader levels of awareness gradually weakens personal limitations while strengthening the sense of self, interconnectedness, compassion, and responsibility. It equips human beings with the vision, stamina, and motivation to become responsible custodians of the entire living kingdom, including the natural environment.

Human beings are inherently capable of sensitivity, cooperation, and ethical conduct. Yet these qualities do not develop automatically. Learning, culture, and values shape human behaviour. The responsibility of making human beings truly social rests with society.

Unfortunately, a pseudo-culture dominated by materialistic values often suppresses higher human qualities. Instead of mastering instincts, people become increasingly driven by them. The mind becomes subordinate to bodily desires, reducing human life to instinctive existence. A person may be human in physical form but behave largely like an instinct-driven animal.

To reverse this trend, education and culture must emphasise values, higher pursuits, and the alignment of the gut, brain, and mind. Only such harmony enables focused thinking that generates a goal-directed flow of thought capable of transforming aspirations into reality.

Both our food and our thought patterns deserve equal attention. What we consume nourishes the body, while what we habitually think nourishes—or weakens—the mind. Every action begins as a thought. Thought directs energy toward purposeful action, and better thinking leads to better performance.

The human body is designed to generate surplus energy, and the mind is designed to remain active. We are energetic, thinking beings whose continued evolution increasingly depends on the quality of our thoughts. This mental capacity has enabled humanity to advance far beyond other species in the evolutionary journey.

Yet modern civilisation faces crises on many fronts. Physical illness, mental stress, social conflict, and ecological degradation are all symptoms of indiscriminate living. We often fail to balance what we take in with how we utilise it, resulting in an intake–utilisation mismatch that affects both body and mind.

Alignment of the Gut, Brain, and Mind.

A new ethical framework is therefore urgently needed. Such a Neo-Ethics, envisioned by the visionary P. R. Sarkar, is founded on the principle of balanced Pabula—both carbonic and non-carbonic. Carbonic pabula consists of plant-based physical nourishment that sustains the body, while non-carbonic pabula refers to the mental nourishment provided by healthy, uplifting thought patterns.

According to this perspective, physical food influences the body's chemistry, including the brain and glands, whereas thought shapes the mind and character. True human development therefore requires harmony between these two forms of nourishment.

Carbonic Pabula: Rationale of Choice Among Available Foods

According to the Darwinian evolution of life, the food chain progresses from single-cell to complex multicellular organisms. That is, in the (Pratisaincara of Brahma-chakra) or the movement from crude to subtle, the reflection of consciousness increases as the physical structures of life become multicellular and complex. All living beings are classified based on ever higher development, that is, (increasing reflection of consciousness) as Monera, Protista, Fungi, Plantae and Animalia. Food to humans is available from Fungi, Plantae and Animalia. 

The ethical principle behind the ideal choice, out of the available sets of food, is apparent in the following words of Shrii Shrii Anandamurti:

"As far as possible, articles of food are to be selected from amongst the sets of items where development of consciousness is comparatively little, i.e. If vegetables are available, animals should not be slaughtered. Secondly, before killing any animals having developed or underdeveloped consciousness, consider over and over whether it is possible to live in a healthy body without taking such lives."

 "Man's structure, external and internal, compared with that of other animals, shows that fruit and succulent vegetables constitute his natural food."- (Von Linne)                                                                                         

Vegetarian food is the natural and most healthy diet for human beings. Therefore, it stands to reason that humans should get the food they were built to consume — a natural diet of fruits, grains, nuts, legumes, vegetables and dairy products. Countless studies have proven that vegetarians worldwide are far healthier than those who eat meat. 

FAQ's about Meat Eating: 

A. Why do meat eaters get more diseases and relatively die sooner?

1. When animals are killed for their meat, self-destruct enzymes are released, causing rapid decay - unlike slow-decaying plants, which have a rigid cell wall and simple circulatory system.

2. Just before and during the agony of being slaughtered, the animal's toxic byproducts are forced throughout the body, thus pain-poisoning the entire carcass/body.

3. Meat takes about 5.0 days to pass out of the body, with the decayed meat wearing out the intestinal tract prematurely. Vegetarian food, instead, takes 1.5 days. 

4. Meat, deficient in fibre, moves four times slower in 'elimination' than grain and vegetable foods.

B. Will I get enough nutrition without eating meat?

In the 1950s, scientists classified meat proteins as first-class and vegetables as second-class. We have been conditioned to believe it, but this idea has been thoroughly disproved. The British medical journal The Lancet stated that we should not differentiate between animal and vegetable proteins from a nutritional perspective. 

Millions of people in affluent societies consume meat, providing 2 or 3 times the protein they need. The excess is converted into carbohydrates and stored as fat. The US Obesity Rate now tops 40%. Globally, obesity is now killing more people than hunger. Many studies have shown that a vegetarian diet provides much more nutritional energy than a meat diet.

C. Why do we fall victim to diseases?

In its natural state, our body is slightly alkaline, with a pH of 7.4. In this condition, the body's chemical processes can function most efficiently, and all the waste products are rapidly eliminated. However, if too much acidic food is consumed and the body and blood become acidic instead of alkaline, the spleen, liver, heart, and kidneys, the blood-purifying organs, become overworked and ultimately weakened, susceptible to disease. Thus, the root cause of all illness is not the external agents such as bacteria and viruses that are always around us, but the impurities in our bodies caused by improper digestion and elimination.

Healthy Food: 

“Your foods shall be your remedies, and your remedies shall be your foods.”, said Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine. Shrii Shrii Anandamurti writes, “Never let the fruits, roots and vegetable soups (alkaline foods), you eat be less than the quantity of acidic and starchy foods — the less acidic food, the better.”

Non-Carbonic Pabula: Thought Patterns

Who is the subject or the enjoyer? It is the mind. The mind experiences both physical and intellectual pleasure. The experiences of spiritual happiness are psycho-spiritual. There, also, it is partly mental.

If all experience of pleasure is through the mind, it follows that pleasure is born within the vibrational scope of the mind. Progress, then, cannot go beyond the vibrational principle. All existence in this universe is vibrational. Physical and intellectual happiness, both of which are enjoyed by the mind, are therefore both vibrational. In the vibrational field, equipoise and equilibrium are only maintained by the balance of the two opposites, i.e. the positive and the negative. In other words, unhappiness and happiness increase proportionately. 

The experience of pleasure through the mind can be divided into five varieties:

Anukulavedaniiyam

Pratikulavedaniiyam

Avedaniiyam

Nirapekśavedaniiyam

Aplutavedaniiyam

These are the five forms taken by feelings. All progress is through the experience of these feelings. Wherever there is progress, one or more or all of the expressions of these feelings are present. In the realm of physical progress, we mainly find only two of these expressions, and they are primarily physicopsychic. There is no experience of pleasure in the physical body as such. The experience of pleasure in the physical body involves nerve relaxation. The relaxed nerves emit a peculiar mental vibration called Anukulavedaniiyam. Where there is tension or the striking of the nerves, another kind of vibration is generated, which is expressed through Pratikulavedaniiyam. The other three expressions of feelings are not present in the physical stratum. What we call progress in the physical stratum is only the awareness of Anukulavedaniiyam in the physical world. We either fail to see or purposely ignore the corresponding Pratikulavedaniiyam.

There is sometimes a conscious effort to forget this opposite side; therefore, we add the positive marks for Anukulavedaniiyam, place zeros on the debit side, and proclaim that we are making progress. In fact, if we could see both sides, we would find that the balance is nil and, as a result, we would realize that there is no progress in the physical stratum. It is like a government accepting a commission's recommendations to increase the pay scale for employees and to offset the increased expenditure through higher taxation. Will this be called economic progress? Certainly not, for it fails to increase purchasing power. The acceptance of progress in the physical field is only a matter of wrong mathematics.

Let us now examine the psychic sphere. In this sphere there are four expressions of feelings: Anukulavedaniiyam, Pratikulavedaniiyam, Avedaniiyam and Nirapekśavedaniiyam. One more distinction from the physical sphere is to be noted. In the psychic sphere, the relaxation or strain of the nerves is not the primary cause of feelings. In the psychic sphere, the main feature is an increase in the sense of mental pabulum. The food of the mind increases but not its dimensions. So Anukulavedaniiyam, in the psychic sphere, would mean the state of mind that provides more food for it. It would naturally result in a corresponding increase of Pratikulavedaniiyam, also, so that the balance of the pendulum may be maintained in the vibrational sphere. By way of illustration, it may be noted that in ancient times, when human beings were intellectually less advanced, they also experienced fewer emotional disturbances. One who is intellectually deficient is also less receptive to emotional disturbance. Highly intellectual people are extra sensitive in the emotional sphere. They create unnecessary problems out of nothing and waste sleepless nights over them. Thus, as far as Anukulavedaniiyam and Pratikulavedaniiyam are concerned, they balance each other in the intellectual sphere, also.

Relatively speaking, absence of pain or pleasure – which is called Nirapekśavedaniiyam – is in effect psychic suppression or repression. This is an unnatural state of mind, and whether it lasts five minutes or ten minutes, five days or ten days or even a period of years, when the control is removed it again bursts forth in the form of Anukulavedaniiyam or Pratikulavedaniiyam. Psychic suppression or repression, therefore, does not lead to progress.

What is Avedaniiyam? In ordinary circumstances, Avedaniiyam is most unnatural. Under this condition, either the function of nerve cells stops or is forcibly stopped. In other circumstances in the mental sphere, it may amount to refusal to admit the existence of the mundane world. It is a denial of crude physicality. It is an attitude which holds that whatever exists is only illusory. This is a form of self-deception. It is a state comparable with death. Such an attitude promotes nihilism. It is not the property of life to promote nihilism. Therefore, the ultimate effect of Avedaniiyam is also visible in the form of Anukulavedaniiyam or Pratikulavedaniiyam. The expression of this effect will emerge when there is either an internal or external blow on the mind.

Thus we notice that so far as the mental sphere is concerned, there is no progress in it. For instance, it may be true to say that people in India were intellectually backwards a thousand years ago as compared with today. The same mental pleasures were not available to them as are enjoyed by the present Indian population. But it is also true that the mental agonies to which the present-day population is subjected were not so acute in the past. Thus, after taking into account all the pluses and minuses, we will notice that there cannot be any progress in the realm of intellectuality.

Now, let us examine the spiritual field. There is no Anukulavedaniiyam, Pratikulavedaniiyam, Avedaniiyam or Nirapekśavedaniiyaḿ in the spiritual field. The reason is that as the goal is not finite, the states described in Anukulavedaniiyam, Pratikulavedaniiyam, Avedaniiyam, and Nirapekśavedaniiyam do not exist. Only one form of feeling is expressed in the spiritual realm: Aplutavedaniiyam. This expression is either non-lateral or multilateral. Being non-lateral, it does not allow the formation of reactive momenta, and being multi-lateral, it is immune from the effect of reactive momenta. The multilateral expression, which is in the nature of Cosmological vibration, can be called Samismrta Vedana in Saḿskrta. The non-lateral expression, i.e. the non-subjective vibration, may be called Bahuprajiṋána Vedana, or Bhásottara Vedana. Áplutavedaniiyam functions through pointed psychic existence, which is a non-subjective vibration. The speciality of Bhásottara Vedana is that, to maintain the equilibrium of the pendulum in this phase, negative speed is not required. In the absence of negative speed, every movement is progress. Thus, there is no question of minuses; there are only pluses. This is a movement from negativity to positivity, and therefore this is the real form of progress.

Samismrta Vedana is psycho-spiritual: the event happens in the psychic sphere but comes in contact with the spiritual sphere. There can be no progress in the physical sphere as the pluses and minuses there cancel each other out. The condition is similar in the intellectual sphere. But in the intellectuo-spiritual sphere progress is possible. It can also be measured to some extent, but progress in the purely spiritual sphere cannot be measured as we have no measuring scale for that realm.

The so-called physical progress is termed Káma in Saḿskrta. The so-called intellectual progress is termed Artha. “Artha” has a dual meaning: it is used in the sense of purport, as well as in the sense of wealth which solves a pending problem. The progress in the psycho-spiritual field is termed Dharma. And pure spiritual progress, which is progress in the real sense, is called Mokśa. The only difference between the intellectuo-spiritual progress and spiritual progress is that the former can be measured whereas the latter cannot. The combined name of Káma, Artha, Dharma and Mokśa is Caturvarga. People should aim at Dharma and Mokśa and not Káma and Artha, as only through the medium of Dharma and Mokśa is real progress possible.

It has been stated above that there is no progress in the physical and intellectual spheres. So should all efforts in these fields be stopped altogether? Should there be no effort to develop physical sciences? No, we shall also continue to make efforts in these fields. We need only be cautious about the effects of such efforts on human society, the human mind, and even the human physique. What happens with the so-called progress in the physical sphere is that the pace of life accelerates quickly, which affects the nerves. The effect on the nerves increases cranial function and weakens the heart. As a natural consequence, to the extent the physical sciences will advance for physical progress, the diseases of the heart and mind will increase in the same proportion. It will be noted that many so-called civilized people cannot sleep as their nerves are under strain. The diseases which were considered fatal two hundred years ago are no longer so nowadays. They have become common diseases today. The fatal diseases in modern times are mostly connected with the heart and nerves. This is the result of so-called progress in the realm of physicality. In the future, the physical structure of human beings will be affected by these factors. The nerves will stiffen, and the cranium will become larger. The bones, on the other hand, will become thinner. This will result in a change in the stature of human beings. They will have lean, thin limbs and a disproportionately large head. This change will come soon and fast.

The so-called intellectual progress deeply affects the mind. The nervous system and mind are not the same. The nerve cells are physical, and any disease connected with them is, therefore, physical. What we term as madness is either due to nervous disorder or mental disorder or both. Progress in the intellectual sphere will result in a greater clash of emotions and, consequently, increased insanity. There will be noticeable growth in the number of mad people in society. This will make it even clearer that intellectual progress is no progress. The real progress is only spiritual. In the spiritual field, due to the absence of the reactive momenta, there is no retardation; there is only movement forward. This is the nature of true progress.

Spiritual progress can only be attained on a firm physical [[and]] mental base. Therefore, this physical and intellectual base has to be progressively adjusted to the changing conditions of time and space.

Modern civilisation has largely adopted a matter-centric view of life, treating material achievement as the ultimate goal rather than as a means to higher human fulfilment. This "means mistaken for the end" approach has created deep imbalances within individuals and society.

The time has come to rethink our priorities. We must certainly care for the body, but we must not neglect the mind--- the principal force behind evolution. Only by balancing physical intake with wise mental use can humanity fully realise its immense potential and build a healthier, more compassionate, and more sustainable world.

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