The Sacred Hunger

That Devi who abides in all beings, for a lifetime, in every form of

hunger: salutations to Her, again and again.

This Devi Shakti is present in every class of creature in the world in the form of hunger. To Her, salutations, salutations, every time salutations.

Just as sleep is essential in our life, hunger too is essential within us.

Hunger is not something we produce. Hunger is self-born; it happens on its own.

We can soothe hunger, but hunger itself is the Adi Shakti appearing in form.

Just as there are many kinds of sleep, hunger too takes many shapes.

Hunger does not arise simply from the condition of the body. Food may be right in front of us and still we feel no hunger. Hunger too is a play of the Adi Shakti.

This is what we call the Mother power, the Mother. In that state she appears as the power of hunger. It happens by itself. (It is happening.)

There are many kinds of hunger: mental hunger, emotional hunger, spiritual hunger and many more.

But does everyone have the hunger for knowledge, or will it come to everyone? We do not know.

Yet the flow of knowledge keeps running (the supply). Many people keep the stream of knowledge flowing. But anyone in whom the hunger for knowledge truly arises is different from others. That person has received the grace of the Adi Shakti, received as prasada in the flow of what She gives.

If someone has a spiritual hunger for meditation, no one else can produce it in them or plant it. Others can teach certain meditations and methods.

In the spiritual world, knowledge cannot be stuffed in through the mouth like food. If it is served by cramming and forcing it in, then once the mouth is full people cry out, resist and rebel.

They cannot swallow it. There is no hunger there, because the Adi Shakti’s play and grace have not yet begun in them.

Some hold satsangs, spread the word, meditate and practise, and after filling themselves with all this, their bodies are turned upside down. Some turn knowledge and meditation upside down too, and so the whole spiritual world has been filled with such confusion.

According to this sutra, this is the domain of the Adi Shakti. Surrender to that power.

Where is the domain of the Adi Shakti? In the digestive fire, jatharagni.

When we speak of hunger, we see the digestive fire within our body. Jathara is the fire, the flame, that arises in the stomach.

This fire melts and digests our food, and having digested it, produces the essence that flows through the body.

In the same way, when the hunger for knowledge comes, an inner fire arises and digests knowledge, meditation and practice. It produces essence (rasasiddhi) in our body and life and holds the ripeness of knowledge (purity and purification).

Then we do not turn meditation upside down or give sermons. We live in the way of meditation and knowledge.

Food placed in the stomach does not stay as it is. It is digested and disappears. It becomes active, and we understand what action is. We notice the digestion; we notice the body filling with energy and coming alive. In the same way, we notice the Devi’s living power becoming manifest.

So when the hunger for knowledge and meditation comes, that too is digested and becomes essence.

Once this essence has formed, what we come to know is peace, cheerfulness, love, contentment, equanimity and abiding in oneself.

But after all this is attained, one does not preach that knowledge has come or analyse it intellectually.

What one receives there is love, peace, an inward cheerfulness, a rhythmic life, a glimpse, a steadiness in oneself.

From this we understand: there was hunger, and now it is at peace. So keep waiting for the hunger for knowledge. Respect it and stay calm.

When hunger is to come, do not manufacture it or display it; that would be a betrayal. It must come through grace. If it is meant to come, it will surely come; if it is not written, no amount of effort will bring it.

No one can do anything about it. This is the grace of that power, because this is the play of the Adi Shakti.