on food, sort of

i've been thinking about my consumption (i.e. wrt food) habits lately, ever since tnh, in one of his books, mentioned briefly that anger may result from unrestrained eating. then today, i stumbled upon these verses from the gita (chap 6: 17-21) that speak to this thought.

But for earthly needs
Religion is not his who too much fasts
Or too much feasts; nor his who sleeps away
An idle mind; nor his who wears to waste
His strength in vigils. Nay, Arjuna! call
That the true piety which most removes
Earth-aches and ills, where one is moderate
In eating and in resting, and in sport;
Measured in wish and act; sleeping betimes,
Waking betimes for duty.

When the man,
So living, centres on his soul the thought
Straitly restrained - untouched internally
By stress of sense - then is he Yukta. See!
Steadfast a lamp burns sheltered from the wind;
Such is the likeness of the Yogi's mind

i own two versions of the bhagavad gita, and have been deeply engrossed in the newer version which is written in painstaking detail (good for the likes of me who, for instance, would not know what "Yukta" meant). the old one (by sir edwin arnold, quoted from above), i found today, is also the one that mahatma gandhi refers to in his autobiography. this was indeed a special discovery since i just quoted from his translation not knowing that i owned it. life is just brimming with divine coincidences, is it not? :)