If I tell you how much to eat, that is going to be dangerous because that will be just an average. Somebody is very thin and somebody is very fat, and if I tell you how much to eat – “three chapattis” – then for somebody it may be too much and for somebody it may be nothing. So I don’t teach rigid rules, I simply give you a sense of awareness. Listen to your body: you have a different body. And then there are different types of energies, different types of involvement. Somebody is a professor in a university; he does not exert much energy as far as his body is concerned. He will not need much food, and he will need a different kind of food. Somebody is a laborer; he will need much food, and a different kind of food. Now a rigid principle is going to be dangerous. No rule can be given as a universal rule.

George Bernard Shaw has said that there is only one golden rule, that there are no golden rules. Remember it, there is no golden rule – there cannot be, because each individual is so unique that nobody can prescribe. So I simply give you a sense…. And my sense is not of principles, of laws; my approach is of awareness, because today you may need more food and tomorrow you may not need that much food. It is not only a question of you being different from others – every day of your life is different from every other day. The whole day you have rested, you may not need much food. The whole day you have been in the garden digging the hole, you may need much food. One should be just alert and one should be capable of listening to what the body is saying. Go according to the body.

Neither is the body the master, nor is the body the slave; the body is your friend – befriend your body. The one who goes on eating too much and the one who goes on dieting are both in the same trap. They are both deaf; they don’t listen to what the body is saying.

And then you say, “It is said food quickens the sperm and is a sin to eat for the tongue. It should first be offered to the gods etc.”

Have you some antagonism toward the gods? If you offer food…. So many people offering food it will quicken their sperm! Have you some enmity toward the gods? And it will help them to fall into sin! Be kind. Leave the gods alone. In fact, when you eat respectfully, lovingly, meditatively, the food is offered to God because God is within you. All food is offered to the God within. Just be respectful. Eat with feeling, eat with gratitude. The food gives you life, it is going to vitalize you, it will become your blood, your bones. Feel grateful – without it you will not be alive, feel thankful. And if you are eating silently, meditatively and your mind is not rushing here and there, you are totally there, your attention is perfect, this is offering. You have offered the food to God because you are nothing but God’s hand, his instrument. Where are you going to offer the food? God himself is eating through you, so don’t overfeed God otherwise he feels a belly-ache, don’t starve God otherwise he feels hungry.

And these things are nonsense, that “it’s a sin to eat for the tongue.” Then for what will you eat? Then it is a sin to see for the eye, for what will you see? Then it is a sin to hear for the ear, then for what will you hear? Then there is nothing left for you – commit suicide, because the whole of life is of the senses. Whatsoever you do, the senses come in. It is through the senses that you flow and relate with life. When you eat with taste, God inside is fulfilled, satisfied; and when you eat with taste, the God within food is respected.