Healing Home: Spiritual Food

Excerpted from Finding God in Your Family by Mary Kretzmann

Receive Lord, In Thy Light

The food we eat, for it is Thine
Infuse it with Thy Love, Thy Energy, Thy Life Divine!
-Grace sung before meals at Ananda

Hot tip for parents:

According to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at
Columbia University, teens who ate dinner five to seven times a week with
their families were 45% LESS LIKELY to try alcohol, 24% LESS APT to
smoke marijuana and 67% MORE LIKELY to get A’s compared with kids
who never or rarely dined with their families.

Family Meals

Meal times create daily opportunities for loving connection within the family, but once
kids get older, you often have to make it a point. We still managed to eat together most
nights of the week, even when Peter was a senior in high school. He also got up very
early for school, (he left the house at 6:30 AM) so we arranged our schedules so that at
least one of us was with him in the morning. This created some family connection before
he went off to school, which helped his attitude very much. Our youngest is currently in
sixth grade, as of this writing, so we have a few years of respite before facing the high
school schedule again!

We sing the grace before meals, which sometimes comes in spontaneous four-part
harmony, due to the musical element in the family! And at special holy times of the year,
we use the time immediately after dinner as a time for a short spiritual story or reading
suitable for the whole family

Love and healing energy can be infused into food, and this is an important aspect of
preparing most of your meals at home, as opposed to the common American lifestyle of
eating on the run.

Daily Bread

A few years ago, our automatic bread-maker was broken, so I decided to make bread by
hand one Sunday afternoon. I always used to make bread this way, so it wasn’t a big deal,
but I wasn’t ready to make a daily commitment to it, again, either. So with that inner
freedom, I set out to make the bread, using exactly the same ingredients that I normally
used in my bread-maker recipe. As I was kneading the dough, I decided to send
conscious, loving energy through my hands into the bread, with the same feeling as when
I am sending healing energy during healing prayers. I focused deeply this way for 10-12
minutes, feeling God’s love and joy, while kneading the dough. Time didn’t matter; this
was not a chore, but a choice. The dough became very soft and wonderful. Then I let the
dough rise and eventually put it into the loaf pans to rise again.

When the bread was done, I put it out on the table with butter. I had already made a big
Sunday lunch earlier for everyone, so this was supper: bread and butter, and maybe some
fruit. In other words, Mom was taking it easy… Our youngest son, David, then age six,
tasted it and exclaimed, “Oh, this bread is so good! It’s the best bread I ever had! We
should have this for dinner every night! I don’t care if we ever have anything else, just
bread and butter for dinner, every night!”

The funny thing is, he had eaten the same bread, but made in the bread-maker, every day
for the past year! The only thing that was different was that this time it had been made by
loving, conscious human hands…mother’s hands.

Saints in India often used food as a means to share spiritual vibrations with large crowds
of people. The devotees who helped to prepare such food would keep their minds on God,
in joyful, loving silence, or in singing to God while cooking, and the saint would bless it,
which is to say, infused it with divine energy, before it was served. When food is offered
to God and blessed in this way, it is called prasad. Likewise, infusing food with love is a
very important aspect of nurturing one’s family.

So many colloquialisms carry an aspect of truth, which is why they are repeated, such as
“Home is where the heart is” and “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach” and
general, fond references to “Mom’s cooking.” If Mom loves her family, then this special
feeling enters into the food she prepares, whether it’s elaborate or simple.

Sometimes I wonder if it is becoming a lost art in some circles. Many American women
are so busy juggling careers and family that they often rely on fast or frozen foods to feed
their families. Of course, a little bit of this can really save your sanity in a pinch, but it
shouldn’t be a mainstay, because then no one is infusing the family meals with love, care
and attention. Who loves your family? You do. The vibrations in fast or frozen foods are
either mixed or barely present, due to automation: the food is not in contact with an
actual person. Similarly, many yogis prefer to eat out only occasionally due to the
‘homogenous vibrations” of restaurant food in general. In other words, it is not prepared,
normally, by people who are filled with God’s love and joy. The food is infused with the
consciousness of those who prepare it. Of course, sometimes it is nice to go out just to
relax and have fun. I’m talking about balance here.

Banquets of Light

I remember a particular banquet years ago at Ananda’s Expanding Light retreat following
an important spiritual event (such banquets happen several times a year). Normally the
way we prepare such banquets is to have many devotees help with prep work for a day or
two in advance. In this instance, the retreat kitchen had recently been remodeled, and the
head chef wanted every possible food processor, mixer, various ovens, etc., so that large
meals could be prepared in a hurry, as needed. It made sense, on a practical level.
However, even though the meal was delicious, it was lacking a certain “sparkle.”

After the meal, Swamiji enquired about it and told the chef that even though the food was
delicious, and excellently prepared, it had “no vibrations”. (”No” is probably a relative
term here; I think it would mean ‘no vibrations” compared to what he knew was possible
from previous banquets.) Swamiji stressed the importance of sharing spiritual vibrations
through the food, as this was a way to bless our guests and community members alike.
The end result was that most of the food processors were eliminated, so that much of the
food could still be prepared by hand, but the other improvements were retained, of
course. Now, as one enters the Expanding Light kitchen, you can hear sacred chanting
softly emanating from the cooks, or from a beautiful recording. These things help to keep
the cook’s heart happy, loving and joyful, as the food is prepared. The vibration in the
kitchen is very good, and retreat guests often comment on how wonderful the meals are at
the Expanding Light.

I also recall, years ago, a much smaller banquet at Swamiji’s home, given in celebration
and gratitude for those who had remodeled his home. All of the builders and their spouses
were invited. My husband is a cabinetmaker, so we were both there. The food was
absolutely delightful, and even had a transcendent quality. At a certain point I felt myself
lifted into a state of spiritual joy. At that moment, Swamiji commented, “There is a lot of
bliss in this food!”

That moment marks for me the highest potential of what is possible with infusing food
with Light. Even if our meals don’t put people into spiritual bliss, you can bless your
family with your love and joy day to day, and at special events such as holidays and
birthdays, etc. On those “special occasions” let your attention be on the joy, as much as
possible, and not on the tensions that can build up when you want every detail to be “just
right.” Do your best to plan and prepare, and then just flow with it. Smile.

Exercise to practice infusing food with love and blessings:

1. If you like, put on some joyful, yet calming music that will help your heart stay
happy as you cook.
2. Take a moment to feel your heart center. Take a few deep breaths to let go of any
tensions. Smile. Then feel into your heart center again. Focus on feeling warmth
or Light there. Let it radiate through your heart and chest. Smile again, this time
with more warmth and depth. Breathe…
3. Feel this warmth and Light is flowing into your arms, and through your lungs
with each breath. The heart center, or heart chakra, feeds spiritual energy to the
physical heart, the lungs, and also the arms and hands. Feel that with each breath
you are filling your lungs with sparkling Light, and this fills you and flows
through your arms and hands. As this Light gets stronger, it will bless your
kitchen and everything in it, radiating through your aura.
4. In this energy, begin to assemble the ingredients and tools you will need to cook.
Let everything be contained in this calm flowing grace. Let the Light and love
 flow through your heart, arms and hands and bless the cooking area, and the
ingredients.
5. If something interrupts you, that’s okay, just try to get back into this feeling…
that’s what the spiritual life is all about: remembrance. And why do we have to
remember? Because we always forget. It’s normal. Just try to remember more and
more often!
6. In this focused exercise, try not to take phone calls, or other interruptions, so that
you can feel your potential for what can flow through you as you prepare the
food. (In normal day-to-day life, I will answer the phone, but I’ll monitor the
vibration of the call, and if it gets too heavy, I’ll ask if I can call the person back
when I am done cooking. This is essential for me because I occasionally receive
prayer ministry phone calls at home. Of course, if it is a real emergency, I stop
cooking to address the matter right then and there. But either way, I am still
protecting the vibrations of the food as I cook.)
7. Serve the meal with simple style and grace in whatever ways have meaning for
you. We eat by candlelight every night. It just adds little bit more magic, warmth
and ritual. I also transfer most foods to attractive serving dishes, unless the
cookware seems table worthy. Why? Because family is precious, a divine gift in
my life. Treat your family as special gifts from God.
8. Smile! Enjoy!

In closing, I’ll share a little story of a marriage that was healed in great part through the
practices outlined, above. In my vocation as healing prayer minister at Ananda, I met a
woman who had been recently separated from her husband, but she hoped they could
reconcile. In listening to her, I sensed it was a healthy relationship at the core, but it had
gone sour through neglect and “taking it for granted.” I asked her what their mealtimes
had been like, and like many professional couples, they had eaten at restaurants several
nights a week. It was unusual for her to cook anything special. I suggested, once I knew
she was open, that she invite him to dinner, and take all the time in the world to create a
beautiful meal, and a lovely atmosphere. That was the priority. She was to open her heart
to God’s Infinite Love, and the love she had for her husband, and to feel that Love
flowing through her as she cooked. I told her that if he responded to this loving care, then
she should repeat the event frequently, with sincerity.

I lost touch with her for about five years, but one day she called my office regarding
another matter, and I quickly recognized her once she began reminding me of this story.
She said it had really turned their marriage around, and they were both very happy.

Excerpted from Finding God in Your Family by Mary Kretzmann