Very soon I got used to our routine in the esoteric school. More than getting used to it, it was a kind of excitement for what was to come. Every day there was something new, some new teaching, some new color before my eyes.
After a few days I was informed that I was to take over the kitchen duties, to become the assistant of the cook. By then I understood what that meant: the kitchen was the center of that little cosmos. Food was consumed and digested under a state of deep awareness and self-observation. Each ingested component had a purpose beyond simple sustenance of vital factors or enjoyment. Therefore, those who prepared the meals had to do so with total impeccability of Being; to be in optimal mental, emotional, and physical conditions. That meant in no way lost in vain thoughts or silly reflections, but rather, with the attitude that a scientist would have when trying to elaborate the correct formula to cure a serious illness, in this case, that of sleep, the stripping of consciousness, the lack of a center.
I walked towards the kitchen without hesitating about the importance of the task I had been given. The roosters had not yet crowed, but everyone was already on their feet, each one attending to the responsibility that corresponded to him. The chef was already cutting the first vegetables. I immediately got in tune with the situation and began my task. As I did so, I tried to realize the quality of my rambling, diffuse thoughts. Soon I put them in order and while I was carefully cutting, I perceived a creaking pain inside me; a strident and mocking background noise that no doubt had been with me forever. When had it arisen? It was impossible to know. At that moment I saw its face, its dimension, its aspect, the nervous character of the sensation it produced in me. I stared at it and after a few seconds its intensity diminished, as if it were an animal cowering because it feared the power of a larger beast that had just emerged from the bushes. It squirmed in fear and took off, turning from time to time to make sure it was not being followed by the menacing predator.
That morning, after that first experience of observing an emotion in myself, I understood the fact that normally the human being must coexist with an infinity of guests within himself, most of the time without being aware of it and always under his dominion and conditioning.
The splendid breakfast consisted of a vegetable stew accompanied by Roti bread, whose recipe from India we prepared with mastery. The moment of ingestion was usually the most positive. There we would all find ourselves, out of the usual introspection to not only observe ourselves, but also our companions, to develop new communication skills and to feel a state of familiarity or brotherhood, all the product of such a simple fact as sharing the same food.
Sometimes exceptions occurred. If any member of those who worked in the kitchen had not participated in the preparation of the food with a state of internal impeccability, and if on the contrary, had harbored hostile thoughts towards someone in the group, a third party or even towards himself, this was immediately evident in the taste or consistency of the food, it even becoming “inedible” for the others. Sometimes we ran out of food and the person who had cooked had to leave in order to observe him- or herself and work through the undesirable emotional state that had left us with the noises of indigestion.