Through purity of food comes purity of mind, through purity
of mind comes a steady memory of Truth, and when one gets this memory one
becomes free from all knots of the heart. (Chandogya Upanishad)
In the above passage the word ‘food’ means everything that
comes in contact with the senses. We must have pure food for the eye, the ear,
the organs of touch, smell, etc. Taking pure physical food for the stomach
without purifying all other foods taken in by the senses is of no use.
Let us now try to understand the meaning of the word Ahara,
food. The word Ahara means what we take in. Does it mean only food? Pure
Sattvic food? Pure vegetarian food? How far does this help? It helps a little;
but unless you know how to purify the mind, nothing much happens. There are
plenty of wicked people who are vegetarians. What type of vegetarians are they?
Lord bless them! If you feed a poisonous snake with pure milk, it will only
manufacture poison.
So it is not enough to fill our bellies with pure food; our
poisonous nature is to be discarded. Therefore Samkara observes while
commenting on the above passage:
Ahara is that which is taken in, viz., the experience of
sound, etc., which are taken in for the experience of the agent; and when this
cognition of objects is purified, i.e., when the cognition of objects becomes
free from all taint of aversion, attachment or delusion—then of one having such
cognition, the inner nature becomes pure.