From Devouring to Honoring: Bhakti as Culinary Therapy.
Krishna Kshetra Swami’s notes for his lecture at the 9th European Farm Conference in Villa Vrindavan, Italy.
Introduction: Facing the problem of civilizational disease: how to present the bhakti paradigm as effective civilizational therapy. (Essentially: how to make “simple living and high thinking” intellectually attractive and plausible)
“Cowspiracy” – the big environmental protection organizations studiously avoid the issue of meat production.
(Same silence in the EAT Forum (Sweden) “How Food Can Save the World” article.)
One thing is clear – environmentalism is mainstream, and we can take advantage.
Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics, “The Ethics of Eating Animals” conference.
“Reframing” traditional (Indian) thought and practice as therapy
( actually the therapeutic paradigm has an ancient pedigree in India)
presenting Dharma, Yoga, and their culmination in Bhakti
Dharma: “Establishing Moral Community: the Fivefold Sacrifice (pañca-yajña)”
Response to the condition of existential debt … (in five features: deva-ṛṇa, ṛṣī-ṛṇa, pitṛ-ṛṇa, nṛ-ṛṇa, and bhūta-ṛṇa)
… which is easy to perform (easy and straightforward compared to complex contemporary multinational capitalist consumer-based life)
… consisting of five “sacrifices” – five types of giving, which is truly global exchange.
The therapy: (1) quid pro quo exchange consciousness, >> (2) gratitude for goodwill and trust, inspiring goodwill and trustworthiness…
… thus establishing a “moral community of mutual trust and responsibility, mutual obligations, reciprocal acknowledgements of rights and duties and the general demand for inter-personal regard” (K. Stamm)that involves all beings, visible and invisible.
Implied metaphysics: behind all existence is a conscious principle.
Yoga: “Rehabilitation Through Yoga”
Metaphysical basics to understand Yoga’s transformative potential: puruṣa & prakṛti
The human condition as a diseased condition: PYS Ch. 1: vyādhi to samādhi.
aṣṭāṅga-yoga >> yama & niyama >> ahiṁsa … & pratyāhāra (in contrast to atyāhāra.)
… leading to shrinking and ideally erasing all forms of violence
Bhakti: “Curative Devotion”
So far: moral community and rehabituation, based on non-reductionist (all is matter and energy) metaphysics.
But neither of these practices – Dharma or Yoga – are going to be attractive to the vast majority of people.
Hence, the third option, bhakti, by which the trans-temporal self experiences relishable aesthetic relationship with its trans-temporal counterpart, the supreme self or over-soul (paramātmā).
Bhakti springs from the natural inclination of the self to be consequentially reformed to enable transcendent relationship.
patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ… & yat karoṣi yat aśnāsi…
These acts are deeply therapeutic, by bringing everyone quickly in ever deepening loving exchange in divine participation.
One’s own personhood fully unfolds, leading to realization of the common personhood of all beings…
… such that moral community expands out into devotional community in expanding spheres of compassion and care.
Still, who will do this? Therefore yad yad ācārati śreṣṭhas…
Concluding Reflections
How to connect these eastern thought traditions with the West?
Possible connection with a recent development in western ethical thought – the “ethics of care”.
But “Virtually all [traditional communities] are patriarchal” (Virginia Held).
Bhakti as a metaphysics of gender equality.
Bhakti as metaphysical grounding for ethics of care…
… such that people can let go of the eating habits, compulsions, which are destroying human civilization and the world.
viṣayā vinivartante…paraṁ dṛṣtvā nivartate: the change of attitude from devouring to honoring (of non-animal, sanctified food).
hence: saṁkīrtan yajña !! – as expansion of Dharma’s moral community, realization of Yoga, and fulfillment of Bhakti.