In plain words
Rise from the Meal While You Feel You Could Eat a Little More
For children today, health is most essential. In this matter of health, we must keep food as the chief concern. You must not eat just anywhere at all. They speak of sāttvic food. Milk, curds and fruit, they say, are sāttvic. Taken beyond measure, even they turn tāmasic. Children, above all you: if you want sāttvic feelings to come, first of all you must bathe between 5 and 6 o'clock. A bath between five and six is called the bath of the gods. Then, from 6 to 7, they called it the bath of men. A bath between 8 and 9 they called the bath of demons. In the sacred time called Brahma-muhūrta, the purer the heart we grow, the purer the life will be. We must not eat food that has gone cold. We must not eat yesterday's food today. This food must have a little oil in it, more or less. We must not eat food without oil. But today doctors say that if there is too much oil, cholesterol comes. It comes to the doctor; cholesterol does not come to us. Cholesterol must be there in the body to some extent. Every one of them, each in its own measure: all such forces must be there. So we must not eat oil beyond measure. But there must be oil. Besides this, what counts as our eating in a sāttvic way? When the cooking is good, it fills us up to the throat. There is no room left even to burp. Many people eat heartily at weddings. When they want to eat a little more, they say, ‘Vātāpi jīrṇaṃ’, ‘Vātāpi jīrṇaṃ’. Before these words are out, air comes up. With that, room is found. That is not sāttvic food. As light as we are when we sit down to a meal, so light must we be when we rise. Thinking that is sāttvic, we come running and sit down. But when it is time to rise, we cannot rise. This is not sāttvic; it is tāmasic. We must rise just when we feel we could eat a little more.
Food Is Badly Spoiling the Mind of Man
There are some vegetables. Leafy greens are very good. Besides this, in modern times many kinds of vegetables have come in.