The Holy Connection An Alternative Exploration of Existence
“Jaisa Ann Waisa Mann “
As quoted by Jean Anthelme Brillat-“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are”.
Tripped Out Fact: If you are dealing with a mood disorder, one of the biggest and potentially most beneficial changes you can make to your lifestyle is your diet. A 2014 study of more than 4,000 students in New Zealand found that a high-quality diet was associated with better mental health and vice versa.
Hunger pangs, tummy grumbles, watering mouths, bloating up…….what are these? Well, just our bodies giving out a communal reaction to our sole biological drive. Running it, energizing it, nurturing it, protecting it; a dark knight to our physical realm. But then, what about the mental realm? Doesn’t it need the same?
The question is answered by Nalini, the founder of ‘Mon Desir’, a cafe for the mind, body and soul. Or cofe, as she instantly corrects. Seeing the billboard below with the pranayama courses and spiritual well-being, you may dismiss it as another Baba private limited, trying to seek the spotlight in the dharma business (which India breeds so well) but catching the eye is the very next poster, listing out what seems like a menu for day starting out with Churnas and herbs (mind you, with pancakes, sandwiches and other stuff as well) is what may make an onlooker stop at this place for a little too long.
Do not think of this as any other outlet of eat-drink-chat-pay and leave; ‘here you stay, stay and learn,’ Nalini replies with a smile. Her essentials are a healthy balanced diet, spiritual practice, her children (although they are adults now and live on their own), and her plants. Her life motto is to bring the awareness – Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (Sanskrit phrase which means “the world is one family”).
“Food, as we know it, satisfies these 206 bones, these billion cells, this nose, this throat, these fingers but what about this one?”, she asks pointing her hand to her heart; “are we at peace here?”
Through her cafe, Nalini aims to reach out to the many of us intrigued with our deeper self, especially the youth through a concise 21-day course with teachings directly imparted to the individuals by her master. An attempt to connect us with the cosmos around us, enveloping us all, our collective and our source and to become one with our very orientation.
Even when asked to elaborate on what the healing is all about, she shakes her head and questions, “What is love? What is God?”But then, how does food play a role in all of this, one might ask. With a smirk, she roots her reply back to how it isn’t about the food, as all that it is, is a medium. A medium to keep in sync with our physical needs in the process of satiating our mental drive. By this, meaning that foods are simply the consistent drivers, a soul enrichment in this endeavor of spiritual healing.
Unlike others, Nalini’s menu isn’t one supported by a price list but one which is supported by priorities, with the Sanjeevani Churna at the highest rung followed by the Sattvik food and like just passed candidates, coffee and sandwiches find their place somewhere in the ending.
What do we need in the world? Love? Positivity? Humanity? Acceptance?
Okay, then if I present you with say, positivity in one box and food in another, what would you choose?
You got your answer.
With this need as a trigger for her cafe, Nalini aims to feed all those hungry souls deprived of this underlying ocean of knowledge and leaving them capable of accessing it later or might I say, ‘quantifying them’, and enabling them to make their own food. But when described as such, she just looks down, referring to it as simply ‘playing her part in the cycle of karma.’
In this world of passing remembrances and delving influences, is what we live all that we get? So do look down upon thyself someday and ask, how satiated am I?
As much as we think, we can’t argue with Benjamin Franklin when he says
“This house……this is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the body as well as the mind.”
