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N O U R I S H M E N T   A N D   T R A N S F O R M A T I O N
P A R T   1

PART 1   |   PART 2

Daily, most women have to prepare the food for themselves and for their beloved. For most of them, this work has become a habit, the fact that they cook once or even several times a day has saturated them.

There is another category of women to which cooking has a "domestic" resonance, generating the feeling that the less time they will allocate to this action, the better this will be.

However, there are women who find the act of cooking as joyful and satisfactory - the joy of nurturing and giving. Another hypostasis is the "modern" woman, always pressed by time, preferring to eat in the restaurant or prepare some "fast-food".

The fact that there are so many ways of relating to the issue of food and preparing the food makes it impossible for us to ignore this "sequence" of life.

The fact that the oriental woman is highly attentive to the preparation of food and to the choice of aliments is well known.

The oriental spiritual tradition mentions that a woman endowed and prepared for the tantric path should be quite familiar with the 64 arts. One of these arts is the knowledge and the appropriate use of the aliments.

Ayurveda lies a special stress on the quality, nature, and quantity of the food used both for diet and for maintaining an optimal state of health and vigor. The diversity of the information contained in the Ayurvedic system and the depth of the approach is unparalleled.

In China and Japan, the preparation of the food has gained also a specific refinement surpassing the domain of quotidian duty and entering the spiritual, as is the case of the tea ceremony.

We cannot deny the fact that in the Orient there are also a great variety of culinary "peculiarities". However, besides the deviated and poisonous culinary habits, the spiritual aspect has remained untainted in certain areas.

The knowledge of some basic principles in alimentation will make it easier to approach this aspect as an art.

By understanding the simple principles exposed in the following and applying the methods described here, you may transform the time you take for preparing the food into time for self-transformation.


WHAT IS THE FOOD AND WHICH IS ITS ROLE?
This simple question is enough to make us reconsider the view we have on food, if given proper attention.

For a wise person, the food is the gift given by God so that we may keep the integrity of our physical, mental, and spiritual powers. It represents "our daily bread" and its role is to help us maintain our balance.

The act of eating is not about an exaggerated satisfaction of the senses, and neither about an unimportant thing. The question we might ask ourselves is "what is food and which is its essential source?" in order to find the answer to this question, let us take the example of an apple.

Which is its essence? We may easily notice that this fruit is the bearing of a vegetal being, of several processes of chemical transformation and synthesis, of harmonious growth.

This occurs in several phases - from the expansion of the flower to the contraction of the seed, followed by another expansion - the formation of the fruit.

How is it possible that from the nurturing substances drawn from the roots of the tree, from light and water comes out the beauty and freshness, the delicious taste of the apple?

Behind this wonderful "creative" effort of Nature, the wise knew how to perceive the play of the subtle energies that contribute to the creation of the fruit, energies that ultimately come from the Source of all energies and manifestations: GOD.

We come across the same idea that we issued in the beginning of this article that of the close interdependence between all life forms.