Question: This may be a trivial question, but. . . Is vegetarian food essential for the spiritual path?

Swamiji: First of all, no question is trivial. If it is a question that is bothering you, it is an important question to you. It is therefore important for the teacher, since his job is to help you discover and solve your own misunderstandings. If he brushes aside any sincere question as trivial, he is not doing his work as a teacher.

This is not a license for the student to sit down and manufacture questions. You should first think about your doubt and crystallize it is your own mind. In this way, many times you find the answer within yourself. If it does not surface, you should not feel shy about asking the question.
Now, to return to your question about diet. It is not essential that you eat only vegetarian food for your spiritual evolution; however, the experience of many seekers of Truth indicates that vegetarian food helps in keeping the mind balanced for contemplation.

Q: So it can be an aid in attaining peace of mind?

S: Yes. Food has certain effects. Not only is our physical body built and maintained according to the food we eat, but out inner nature is also conditioned by it. The gross part of the food produces the energy for the physical apparatus, while the subtle part contributes to our thought energy.
When you have a nightmare, the first question the doctor will ask is “What did you eat last night?” Rich, spicy, hard to digest foods produce mental roaming and confusion, which manifest in wild dream thoughts. Also, it is a long established practice in all the religions to fast for a period to enhance meditation power. No food; no thought. It is a technique to get a sample of the meditative state.

If on a particular day you are having a difficult time controlling the mind, eat fruit on that day. Test for yourself what the result is.

Q: It does say in the Bhagavad Gita that to have a sattvic [pure] mind, one should eat sattvic foods that increase strength, health and life force. So it would seem that we should make the effort.

S: Yes, the diet can be used as a means of self-control and discipline. As you progress in spiritual contemplation, you will become more sensitive to life—all life in all forms. One day as you are looking at a piece of chicken floating in a bowl of soup, you may suddenly think: “Hey, this is the same chicken that I was feeding in the backyard yesterday. How innocently it looked up to me as its provider and friend, never realizing the ulterior motive behind my generosity.” You may begin to feel that the chicken is accusing you as a traitor—you who have seized it and buried it in your stomach.

Once this type of sensitivity arises in you own mind, you need no explanation of how or why for maintaining a vegetarian diet; you simply stop eating non-vegetarian food. So it is not a question of right or wrong; it is question of your own sensitivity.

Q: [a Hindu Gentleman]: Actually, even Rama ate meat.

S: Yes, so this is your chance to be better than Rama! Several of our ancient rishis did eat meat. They were living in the cold climates of the North, so that was the food available to them in the winter. That animal energy was necessary to combat the cold climate. Now there are trucks carrying food to the mountains and better heating is available, so meat is not necessary.
I must warn you against any fanaticism in regard to food. Religion is not a matter of the kitchen. More important than external purification is inner purification. Sri Ramakrishna put it very succinctly, “If a man loves God, though living upon the flesh of a pig, he is blessed; but wretched is the man who lives on milk and rice, but whose mind is absorbed in lust and gold.”