Om pustimate namaha – Salutations to the One who who increases nourishment and prosperity.
pushti San. f. plenty, completeness, plumpness, increase; prosperity.
pushti-vardhana San. adj. increasing prosperity.
There are many different forms of personal nourishment. We take nourishment to nurture and sustain ourselves in body, mind and spirit. We can nourish our appetite, we can nourish the body-mind complex with fun and laughter, we can nourish our minds with uplifting, elevating reading and viewing. Above all, we have to power to provide sustenance and nourishment to other people with our thoughts, words and actions. We can create an energy field of positive energy and uplift, sustain and nourish the minds spirits of others.
Nourishment usually applies to food. So nourishing food such as fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, seeds, and nuts.
Everything we perceive though the senses is a form of food. Particularly through the eyes. It is taught in vedanga (the limbs of the Veda) that whatever we take in through the eyes affects the internal instruments of action, the jnanendriayas.
So we know that food, uplifting relationships, exercise and fulfilling work are all forms of nourishment. Just as we feed the body three times a day, we may nourish the soul three times a day and pause to connect to the Divine for a moment, and share that moment in prayer, in silence, in love, with the Divine itself.
Rest is also an important form of nourishment for the mind and the body. We were not designed to propel ourselves from event to event at groundbreaking speed; nor were we designed to be in contact with the information superhighway – social media – 24/7. We need a break, we need to take time out, we need to chill – all this, nourishes the mind, the body from information overload. The brain is like a computer, we input information, we download experiences, feelings, knowledge, community information, and information about our acquaintances. But the mind can be overloaded, it can go too fast, we may find ourselves in the high speed lane inside because we have not given ourselves a break – from the information superhighway.
So rest, total rest and disconnection is a form of self-nourishment.
It is not selfish, it is not uncharitable, it is not asocial to take time out for oneself. It is nourishment, all the more needful in order to keep ourselves in balance in a social and social culture that over-leaping itself going faster and faster, all the time breeding fear of missing out.
Nourishment – on all levels – makes us whole and complete as the human person.
Om pustimate namaha – Salutations to the One who who increases nouirishment and prosperity..
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