DEIVATHIN KURAL # 137 (Vol #3) Dated 10 Oct 2009.

DEIVATHIN KURAL # 137 (Vol #3) Dated 10 Oct 2009.
(These e-mails are translations of talks given by Periyaval of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam, over a period of some 60 years while he was the pontiff in the earlier part of the last century. These have been published by Vanadi Padippagam, Chennai, in seven volumes of a thousand pages each as Deivathin Kural. To day we are proceeding from the page 609 of Vol 3 of the Tamil original. The readers are reminded that herein 'man/he' includes 'woman/she' too, mostly. These e-mails are all available at http://advaitham. blogspot. com constantly updated.)

114. Tobacco in Tamil is called ‘pugai ilai’, meaning ‘smoke leaf’. This weed is rolled in to a cigarette, cigar or beedi and smoked. It is also mixed with betel leafs, areca nuts and munched. This is forbidden as per the Saastraa-s. The smoke hurts the eyes, chest and lungs. The tobacco causes some kick which makes the user addicted to the habit. The habit is unhealthy and harmful not only to the user but also to the innocent bystander. One could claim to do as he pleases, standing on individual civic rights. But he has no civic liberties or rights to cause hurt to the non-smokers. I do not know as to why this is not being totally banned. Making a big issue of prohibition, they are turning a blind eye towards this social evil of the first order! I am told that, some who do much propaganda against drinking, have the habit of smoking. While there is a stigma attached to the habit of drinking, there is no such thing with this habit. This is rather considered as a sign of high fashion!

115. Tobacco, beedi, cigar and cigarette et al; are not approved by the Saastraa-s. Having opted for Sattva Aahaaram, it is not in the rightness of things to continue with smoking. With Sattva food, the drinking and smoking habits have to be got rid of for ever! (Luckily in recent years, there is international awakening against the harmful effects of smoking. So, the movement has gathered momentum in India too, leading to banning of smoking in public places, planes, trains and buses. But he flip side of the coin is that, ‘Prohibition’ is being paid only lip service and drinking is becoming a status symbol!)

116. Normally these ‘to be avoided’ items have the power to grab the mind and keep it under its control. The user gets the feeling that, “he cannot do without it”! It will make the user feel like a lost case, half insane, suffering head ache, loose motions, constipation, indigestion and so on. The user becomes the used. He becomes a slave to the habit. In other words he becomes an ‘Addict’! More over these habits have a capacity of attracting each other. If you have one habit, it means that you are mentally weak. So you are a potential victim for other habits. Drinks, cigarette/cigar/beedi, Ganja, aphin, charas, grass, horse, LSD and so on and so on! The list endless. Some how with these habits, prostitution, gay/homo sex and sexually transmitted diseases are close at call.

117. Though Coffee and Tea do not affect the user’s mind so badly like ganja or aphin, they also do have the power to cause addiction. They may not be intoxicants, but they are very much stimulants and so do affect the nervous system of the consumer. It has been recognized that it is the ‘caffeine’ in the coffee, which is the culprit. Tea is also to be avoided. It is also made from a process of heating the tea leaves, through the much acclaimed process of ‘curl-twist-curl’, which is another name for dry frying carbonization!

118. Tea is also not approved by Saastraa-s. In comparison with coffee, if you have to have something as a ‘pick-me-up’, you may have tea. Do not misconstrue my statement to mean that I am recommending consumption of tea! If you cannot help it you may drink tea with the idea of eventually leaving it too! Milk does not have to be spoiled by any of these additives. Morning time you may have milk as it is. Later in the day, you may have either plain butter-milk or with a porridge known as ‘kanji’.

119. Not stopping at telling you all this, I am asking you to give me a promise with Lord Chandra Mouleeswara as a witness that you will give up drinking coffee, visiting cinema and use of silk clothes made by killing thousands of silk worms! Why? However poor the family may be, they incur more expenses for these three unnecessary things which are assuming huge proportions of becoming social evils! The expenditure on coffee is over taking expenditure on food. Not only do they drink coffee at home, anywhere and every where on seeing a hotel or outlet, the urge to drink a cup is so overwhelming! They may not even brush their teeth on getting up in the morning, but prefer a bed-coffee! Coffee is bad, bed coffee is worse! Is it not pathetic that we have slowly made it an unavoidable necessity?

120. This dependency has reached such levels that modern day Sannyasi-s may not be carrying ‘Dhandam and Kamandalam’ but have to carry a stove! They are not supposed to cook. They should go any where near a fire! Even if they have to get up in the ‘Brhma Muhoortam’ of 4 A.M. to sit down for meditation, the first thing they do before that is to get coffee decoction ready! This is the ‘swayam bhagam’, that is, self cooking, that goes on these days! I feel compelled under the circumstances to record my strong protest against ‘coffee drinking’!

121. Packed in tins, there are many beverages that are popular these days. I do not know what all are the ingredients in them! Just because they are nicely packed they cannot get universal acceptance. Similarly what is the certainty that cakes, biscuits, bread and buns do not contain, one particular item? (Periyaval is referring to eggs as that one particular item!) People are turning a blind eye to this ‘Anaachaaram’ on the pretext that, even if it contained that item, it is not yet fully alive to be considered as a living one!

122. Whether alive or not, whether before being born or after death, it is not to be considered as edible at all. Neelakanta Deekshidar was a great soul. He worked as a minister under Thirumalai Naicker. At the time of his retirement, he requested the king that he may be allotted some land in any part of the country, where there was no sound of ‘kukkudam’ the Cock! He got Palamadai Agraharam constructed on the banks of Tamira Bharani river. That is the kind of ‘Ahimsa’ that we are beholden to. We should not bismirch such reputation of our noble past. Unseen by our eyes, if some thing is packed in some factory, it cannot be considered as clean and approved by our ‘Aachaaraa-s’! A rice or wheat porridge made at home is million times preferable to such processed foods from anywhere in the world. If someone is too sick and has to take such food on doctor’s advice, if inescapable and unavoidable, let that patient do so. After he or she recovers from the illness, let them expiate for their transgression in the prescribed manner by taking ‘pancha kavyam’.

123. There are some extreme view points on what is ‘Sattva Aahaaram’. As milk is like the blood an expression of the animal body, some people abjure partaking milk, curd, butter, ghee and all milk products. But, our authority is Saastraa’s dictates. It is considered as a Sattva Aahaaram only. For an item to be abjured, two conditions have to be met. It should not involve cruelty to animals. Then it should not be mind boggling or corrupting. By milking the cow, we are not being cruel to it. In the nature of its creation, it produces more milk than needed for it’s offsprings. If all the milk is drunk by its calf, it will die of over feeding. If you do not milk the cow fully, it will have some different type of problem of painful accumulation in the glands and udders!

124. God has so created that animal as the provider of milk for the sustenance of humanity too. While man is ready to exploit this fact through all the dairies of the world, he may be vary of accepting this statement of mine. Milking the cow is not ‘cruelty to it or the calf’ and not to milk the cow could prove to be harmful to the mother cow and calf. Finally by drinking milk no one is going to go mad! If it was to be abjured, Sri Krishna could not have been so fond of milk and butter that he was ready to steal! If milk was an item to be abjured, Saastraa-s could not have approved use of milk to do ‘Abhishekam’ for Gods in temples. If it was to be avoided, ‘Vishnu’ could not have been said to abide in the Ocean of Milk - The Ksheera Saagaraa! (Tobe continued.) Sambhomahadeva.