Avoidance of Onion and Garlic

This presentation is prepared not to quarrel or argue with people who say that garlic has medicinal effects or may be good for the body, but to help them understand that we should never accept foodstuffs that are harmful for the mind.

Everyone of us know how tempting a foodstuff prepared using onion or garlic could be to the tongue but if one is aiming at mind control, then we should try to avoid eating foodstuff containing onion and garlic.

A humble offering To

His Divine GraceA.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami

PrabhupadaFounder Acharya of ISKCON

By ISKCON Mysore

Krishna Balaram Temple

Garlic - An onion like plant having a bulb that breaks up into separable cloves with a strong distinctive odor and flavor.

Onion - The rounded edible bulb of this plant composed of fleshy, tight, concentric leaf bases having a pungent odor and taste.

Scientific FactsHistorical FactsFamous PersonalitiesVedic FactsSrila PrabhupadaLord Sri KrishnaExcerpts from Puranas

Lets try to understand why Onion and Garlic are harmful for the mind through…..

Dr. Robert C. Beck, DSc, highly respected research physicist in his lecture given at the Whole Life Expo, Seattle, WA, USA, in March 1996 on his last research project that focused on the brain and altered states of consciousness.

Scientific Facts

The reason why garlic is so toxic is that it contains sulphone hydroxyl ion that penetrates the blood-brain barrier including the corpus callosum in the brain, and is a specific poison for higher life-forms and brain cells.

At Alpha-Metrics Corporation he built biofeedback equipment and found out that garlic usually desynchronizes brain waves.

Onions contain complex sulphur compounds. When you cut into an onion, two chemical reactions take place. First, when a knife cuts through the cells of an onion, its enzymes release a strong odor. Second, the onion releases allicin, a volatile sulfur gas that irritates the eyes and sends one rushing for a tissue. One cannot deny the power of the onion on the olfactory senses.

Historical Facts

Because of its stimulating qualities, garlic was never part of Buddhist tradition in China or Japan, whose practitioners felt it would upset one’s spiritual balance. Garlic was never adopted into traditional Japanese cuisine and was shunned by Zen masters.

The Greek citizenry, especially the aristocracy, firmly rejected garlic and found its smell repugnant. Anyone smelling of garlic was considered vulgar and was prevented from entering the temples.

Garlic Like the Greeks, the early Roman nobility did not embrace garlic in their own diets but considered the herb worthy only of being fed to the laborers and slaves, to give them strength and vigor. Any man smelling of garlic was considered of low breeding.

The seventeenth century British view of garlic was solidly negative, with expressions like, “not fit for Ladies’ palates, nor those who court them,” or that eating garlic “was part of the Punishment for such as had committed the horrids’t Crimes.”

In Pompeii those “lowly vendors” who sold onions were rejected from the guild of fruit and vegetable vendors, and had to form their own guild.

Even till today Hindus and Brahmins eschew garlic and onions, as they are too stimulating and interfere with the ability to reach a high spiritual plain in meditation and self-realization.

The pungent odor and awesome strength of the onion was a mystery to ancient man. An old Turkish legend explains it rather profoundly. It tells that when Satan was thrown out of heaven, garlic sprouted where he first placed his left foot, and onions grew where he placed his right foot.

In the ancient world in Egypt the onions were highly revered by the poor and eaten extensively along with bread and beer. From ancient history up to the 19th century, onions were relegated as the food for the poor. The rich found the odor of Onion downright disgusting.

Dr. Robert highly respected physicist says most people have heard most of their lives that garlic is good for you, and we put those people in the same class of ignorance as the mothers who at the turn of the century would buy morphine sulphate in the drugstore and give it to their babies to put them to sleep.

Horace, famous Roman lyric poet and satirist, said of garlic in his Epodes, it is “more poisonous than hemlock.”

Famous Personalities

Hippocrates, history's most famous physician did warn that garlic “caused flatulence, a feeling of warmth on the chest and a heavy sensation in the head; it excites anxiety and increases any pain which may be present.

Percy Bysshe Shelley one of the greatest lyric poets in the history of English literature, when he visited Italy with his friend Lord Byron, he was shocked and appalled to see his friend eating the garlic that was served at a social gathering.

Vedic Facts

O sages, one who eats garlic, onions, sigrum (a kind of plant), turnips and meat, that person should observe a candrayana fast. - Padma Purana, Brahma Khanda 19.10, spoken by Suta Gosvami

Onion, shit-thriving pigs, Selu, garlic, Goplyusa (milk of a cow before the lapse of ten days from calving), Tanduliya (a grain growing in faecal rubbish) and mushrooms - all these are to be avoided.

- Skanda Purana 40.9

The expiation for having eaten the prohibited food is fasting. One should do the stiuka expiation tisucandrayana for having eaten bhustma (a kind of fragrant grass) and garlic.

- Agni Purana 173.37

Garlic, leeks and onions, mushrooms and (all plants), springing from impure (substances), are unfit to be eaten by twice-born men.A twice-born man who knowingly eats mushrooms, a village-pig, garlic, a village-cock, onions, or leeks, will become an outcast.

- Manu Samhita

(But) he should avoid stalks of lotuses, safflower, gold or silver, onion, garlic, sour gruel, a thick fluid substance; so also chatraka (a kind of mushroom), vidvaraha, greasy milk of a cow during the first seven days of calving, vilaya (a particular product of milk) and mushrooms.

- Padma Purana Vol. 42, 4.56.19b -24

By eating garlic and onion one becomes sinful and as atonement one should perform Candrayana.

- Garuda Purana 1.96.72

Srila Prabhupada

So far foodstuffs offered do the needful. Whatever is available and also very nice, that is offerable, as long as no meat, fish, eggs, garlic, onions, or other very objectionable foodstuffs are there. - 19th February 1972. Letter to Upendra dasa Calcutta.

Regarding the cook-book, that is a nice proposal to divide into two parts. There is no harm if devotees have invented recipes, so long they are strictly vegetarian, no garlic, no onions, like that. - 27th October 1972. Vrindavan - Letter to Kirtanananda.

No. No meat, no onion, no garlic, no intoxication, no liquor, we don’t smoke even, we don’t take tea, coffee. We simply take what is absolutely necessary for keeping the body fit to execute Krishna consciousness. We don’t indulge in luxury or for the satisfaction of the tongue.

- 12th March 1968. Radio Interview on KGO. San Francisco

Lord Sri Krishna

Foods that are too bitter, too sour, salty, hot, pungent, dry and burning are dear to those in the mode of passion. Such foods cause distress, misery and disease.

- Bhagavad Gita Ch.17:9

The devotees of the Lord are released from all kinds of sins because they eat food which is offered first for sacrifice. Others, who prepare food for personal sense enjoyment, verily eat only sin.”

- Bhagavad Gita Ch.3:13

If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it. - Bhagavad Gita Ch.9:26

Excerpts from Puranas

Once, in Satya Yuga the rishis were performing gomedha and asvamedha sacrefices for the welfare of the whole universe. A cow or a horse would be cut into pieces and placed in the fire. Afterwards the rishis would utter mantras and the same animal would come alive in a beautiful young body. One time the rishi who was about to perform a gomedha sacrifice, his wife was pregnant. She had a very strong desire to eat and she had heard that if, during pregnancy one has a desire to eat and does not fulfill this, then the baby that will be born will always have saliva coming from its mouth. Very strangely, she desired strongly to eat meat, thus she decided to keep one piece of meat of the cow’s body that was offered in sacrifice. She hid it and was making a plan to eat it very soon. At that time the rishi was finishing the sacrifice and uttered all the mantras for the new young cow to come to life. However when he saw the new cow, he noticed that there was a little part missing from her left side. He went into meditation and realized that his wife had taken away a piece of meat during the sacrifice. Now his wife also understood what happened and quickly threw the meat far away in a field. Due to the effect of the mantras uttered by the rishi there was now life in this piece of meat. Then the bones in that piece of meat became garlic and the meat became onions in that field. Thus these foods are never taken by any Vaishnava devotee because it is not vegetarian. Plus it is in the mode of ignorance.”

Here is another story, from Puranic Encyclopaedia by Vettam Mani (under CANDRA VI.): Solar eclipse according to the Puranas. The Devas and the asuras jointly churned Kshirabdhi wherefrom emerged Dhanvantari with the Amrtakumbha (pot of nectar). But an asura mayavi (magician) called Saimhikeya absconded to Patala with the Amrtakumbha which nobody noticed as everybody was busy with dividing other divine objects. Only after the mayavi's disappearance was it noticed that the Amrtakumbha was missing. At once Mahavisnu assumed the figure of a beautiful woman, got back the Kumbha and gave it to the devas. The devas began drinking the amrta when, at the instance of some other devas, Saimhikeya, the mayavi, assuming the form of an old Brahmin reached svarga, got a share of the amrta and began to drink it. Surya and Candra (Sun and Moon) who were on guard at the gates divined the secret of the 'old Brahmin' and informed Mahavisnu about it. He cut the throat of the pseudo-Brahmin with his Sudarsana Cakra. But, half of the nectar he had drunk stayed above the throat and the other half below it. Therefore, though the head and the trunk were severed they remained alive. These two parts, in course of time, evolved as Rahu and Ketu. When the throat was cut some blood dropped on the ground, and became the red onion and the white onion (garlic) respectively. So both onion and garlic originated from the throat and blood of the demons or asuras, thus their consumption brings us closer to tamo guna (mode of ignorance) which characterizes the nature of the demons and thus is detrimental to bhakti. (Kamba Ramayana, Yuddha Kanda and Bhagavata, Astama Skandha. Kamba Ramayana is a Tamil text by poet Kambar.)

Hope the presentation was helpful.

If you are serious about avoiding food stuffs that cannot be offered to the Lord and that may ruin our spiritual progress then we have a practical solution for you.

Just chant….

Hare Krishna Hare KrishnaKrishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare RamaRama Rama Hare Hare

……attentively