Jar of Goodness 8.9.26: Swami Sarvapriyananda and Vedanta

. . . The weekly virtual “gratitude jar.”

This week, I’m expressing thanks for Swami Sarvapriyananda and for the wisdom of Vedanta.

I know, I know . . . “who he?” Around here in Jeff City, this is like having green plaid skin. But I encourage you to check this out. Look on YouTube for the Vedanta Society of New York, where you can hear many of his lectures. I’m providing some links at the end.

First, Swami Sarvapriyananda is the spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of New York, a Hindu religious congregation that dates back to 1894, when it was founded by the incredibly influential Swami Vivekananda, who is credited with being the earliest, most influential Hindu spiritual leader to travel to the Western world. Vivekananda (1863–1902) famously spoke at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago, introducing Hinduism spirituality and philosophy and advocating for universal religious tolerance and acceptance. He also played a crucial role in the rise of Indian nationalism.

Vivekananda was an apostle of his teacher, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1836–1886), who was a proponent of a philosophical branch of Hinduism called Advaita Vedanta, or nondual Vedanta. I’m not going to go into a long discussion about what it’s about. Most Americans don’t know the first thing about Hindu spirituality or philosophy, and it’s not my place to try to explain everything. Let’s just say, one of its key insights is that all religions will “get you there.” It doesn’t speak ill of any religion. How refreshing.

Indeed, one of the beautiful things about the so-called polytheistic religion is that it permits every person to cherish and worship her or his own deity, while everyone understands that there is a higher Reality that supersedes our human conceptions of deities. They are all avatars of the Eternal, the One. If I’m understanding this correctly, this makes a lot of sense to me. Also, this inclusive view of theistic religions tends to lead you toward tolerance and appreciation for the diversity of religions across the world and through the ages.

Anyway, I’ve been appreciating Swami Sarvapriyananda’s talks on YouTube. He’s an excellent interpreter of a lot of complex and simple concepts and wisdom. He has five thousand years of scriptures and philosophy to build on. He’s incredibly learned, but he’s charismatic and has a lovely, humble sense of humor.

I’ll wrap this up soon. I just mainly wanted to share him with you. I’ve had a rough time the past few years, and there have been plenty of nights when I have trouble sleeping. It helps a lot just to listen to him. Midnight, 2 a.m., 4, 6 . . . When it seems everything’s a mess, taking that enormous, universal view helps take the edge off.

One of the big images of Advaita Vedanta is that our various individual selves are all part of the All That Is, the way that every wave is part of the ocean. We can’t be separate from it. It is in and through us. The Infinite Eternal can’t be defined objectively; as soon as you put a label on it, you’ve objectified it, placed a definition and a fence around it. And it’s no longer infinite and eternal.

I hope I’m getting this right, because I’d hate to misrepresent this great tradition to you.

No one likes proselytizers. So now it’s time for some links to YouTube videos.

“Vedanta in Five Parables” is a delightful telling of five “greatest hits” stories that explain key concepts of Vedanta. It’s simply fun. Swami Sarvapriyananda once taught at a children’s school, and it shows in his storytelling.

“What Is Vedanta?” is exactly what it sounds like. After you’ve listened to the parables, this is a more in-depth discussion.

“Vedanta in America” is a fascinating lecture about how Hinduism has influenced American thought since Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. Gives some of the history of Swami Vivekananda’s influential visits to America in the late 1800s and early 1900s./

“Tat Tvam Asi (That Thou Art)” explains this famous phrase of Advaita Vedanta. It helped me to understand the difference between this ancient philosophical tradition and the embarrassing New Age pseudo-Hinduism that misinterpreted this concept as “I am God.”

Julie's Granola

Yes, it’s precious to announce this as my own recipe, since I openly adapt it from Carol Gelles, 1,000 Vegetarian Recipes. I think it’s an unspoken truism that any granola recipe is intended to be altered to fit what you have on hand, and what the saveur du jour happens to be. But I’ve tweaked it enough that it’s pretty much my own. But thank you, Ms. Gelles (or Carol, if I may).

A few ingredients notes: I like to use genuine sweetened carob chips. These days you have to hunt for them, because last time I looked, I couldn’t even get it at our local health foods store. Whaaaaaat—? Yes. But I seriously like carob chips in my granola, muffins, granola snack bars, and so on. I’m not going to try to make “chocolate” frosting, cake, or brownies out of it. But as a flavorful ingredient used like raisins or blueberries, they’re really quite nice. Be sure to used sweetened carob chips.

Cashew pieces: I’ve been buying raw cashew halves and pieces in a bag at the international store. Look for Swad brand, in the India aisle. Since childhood, I disliked cashews, but those were always Planter’s roasted and salted cashews. But when you them raw, you can toast them yourself, and season or not. Much more delicious.

And substitute stuff as you like. Just keep the overall quantities about the same: you need enough liquid-stuff to moisten enough for everything to get a little coated with the oat bran, wheat germ, brown sugar stuff. Also, the original recipe called for raisins. You could swap craisins or other dried fruits, nuts, etc. See notes after the recipe for more tips.

• 3 T butter
• ⅓ cup brown sugar (packed)
• 1½ to 2 T juice (apple, orange)
• 2 c. plain, rolled oats
• ⅓ c. sunflower seeds (or pumpkin seeds)
• ½ cup wheat germ (I use Kretschmar’s toasted wheat germ)
• ½ cup oat bran
• ⅓ cup raw cashew halves and pieces (or other nuts)
• powdered cinnamon (to taste)
• ⅓ cup sweetened carob chips (or chocolate chips)

Preheat oven to 350°F. (If your oven runs hot, set it at 325.)

Spray a 9-x-13-inch baking pan with Pam (Pyrex casserole dish is good). In a microwave, melt the butter, then stir in the brown sugar and juice until dissolved.

In a big mixing bowl, combine all the rest of the ingredients (except for the carob or chocolate chips, or raisins or any other dried fruit you might use). Pour the liquid ingredients over the mixture in the bowl and toss to get everything moistened. (Texture: you don’t want it soggy; if it seems too dry, you can add a little honey.)

Spread the granola mixture into the prepared baking pan and spread evenly. Bake, stirring and checking often, until dryish. The edges will brown first. Don’t let it burn.

Take it out; while it’s still hot, sprinkle cinnamon and the carob (or chocolate) chips over the top. The chips should melt a little bit, which is good. When it cools further, stir in any dried fruits you’re using.

Let it cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Tips:

• I suggest adding raisins or dried fruits after baking to avoid them burning. Burnt raisins are evil. I like chopped dried apricots, chopped dried, sweetened pineapple chunks, dates, craisins, etc.
• Any kind of nuts or seeds are a great addition; the original recipe calls for 3 T. sesame seeds, but I usually don’t keep those on hand, and they go rancid quickly. But I keep sunflower seeds and pumpkins seeds in the freezer; they’re right next to the sweetened carob chips!
• Granola: you know what to do. Sprinkle on yogurt with fresh fruits. Eat some out of hand as a snack. Eat it with milk as a dry cereal, or mix it in with other dry cereals. Sprinkle some on ice cream. This would be a nice garnish of a cold fruit soup or a fruit smoothie. And so on.

Healthy, Frugal, Simple, Kind

Yes, we need to exercise more, but a big component has been the food. Sue and I need to be eating more healthfully and more frugally, thanks to a confluence of stimuli. We’re both overweight. My A1C and cholesterol have been heading in the wrong direction. And “frugal”? That reflects national trends and my current personal situation.

There have been other stimuli that are more “carrot” than “stick.” First, the death—no, the memory—of Columbia, Missouri’s shining light of vegetarianism, Leigh Lockhart, founder, owner, and high priestess of Main Squeeze café, has led me to re-re-re-reconsider my attitude toward organic, sustainable, healthy, whole-grain vegetarian cooking. She was filled with joy about a sustainable, organic, healthy vegetarian lifestyle. Her slogan was “Goodness for all.” And she meant it!

Since her memorial gathering on June 27, I’ve been poring over Main Squeeze brochures I’ve kept in my recipe scrapbooks. Juices, smoothies, sandwiches, wraps, bowls, breakfasts, soups, hot dishes . . . the only real reason I stopped going to her café was because it was always incredibly busy at lunchtime. We’re talking lines out the door. And I didn’t work anywhere near downtown. Then, we moved out of town and were never even in Columbia for breakfast or lunch.

Also, I’ve been making my way through a new (to me) book, Johnathan Kauffman, Hippie Food: How Back-to-the-Landers, Longhairs, and Revolutionaries Changed the Way We Eat. It describes the historical and cultural ingredients, and movements, that created the cuisine we’d call “health food” in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. This was the culture and the foods I encountered in Columbia at the food coop and with lots of college friends who made dishes such as “tofu and sprouts.” This was long before Whole Foods commodified health foods, added lots of fancy-schmantzy techniques and top-dollar ingredients, and quadrupled or sextupled the price. (Which is why suddenly it’s become a questionably unquestioned “truism” that “only the rich can afford to eat healthy food.” Hmm.)

Did you know that in college and grad school, I often ate a macrobiotic diet? Brown rice and beans with steamed vegetables. I always kept sea vegetables—hijiki and wakame—on hand! I was quite vegetarian. This was before I got really interested in cooking. And yet I was never strict about anything; I could always turn around, visit a restaurant, and enjoy kung pao pork, chicken mole, or yes, the occasional Quarter Pounder® with Cheese. But at home, I was quite frugal. Brown rice, beans, and veggies matched my checking account, for one thing, and it never, um, disagreed with me.

And I liked avoiding “factory food.” I grew up in a house where margarine was favored because, first, it was low in cholesterol, thus healthier, and second, it was a lot less expensive than real butter. But things changed, and by about 2000, I was switching to butter or olive oil for cooking, and relegating “I Can’t Believe” to a role as a basic bread or pancake spread. I quickly grew skeptical of Hamburger Helper and so on. A close friend in college turned me on to simple steaming and stir-frying vegetables, with only a small bit of lean meat.

So that was the diet I ate for several years.

Eating vegetarian food is also a positive for me because it has always made me feel MUCH less guilty whenever I had to see one of those awful livestock semis on the highway. Don’t tell me it doesn’t bother you, too, when you glimpse the eyes, faces, legs, and tails, or see a snout protruding from the holes, amid the excrement seeping around the bottom of the trailer. Don’t tell me it doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable to think about those living, breathing, intensely worried animals, trying to keep standing, breathing nasty diesel fumes at seventy miles per hour as they endure their one-way route to extermination. I’ve seen too many movies about the holocaust, when humans were treated that way, and I’ve never lost my innate empathy toward animals. I didn’t grow up on a farm and have that kindness and sensitivity crushed entirely out of me. Where does our innate empathy toward animals come from, do you suppose? I think we have more in common than we have differences.

The recent national and statewide cyclosporiasis outbreaks also give me pause. I suppose most stupid Americans will take that as an excuse to eat fewer “green things” and more beef and bacon. Look at how the spate of E. coli cases linked to fast-food restaurants’ handling of alfalfa sprouts led to alfalfa sprouts almost completely disappearing from all restaurants and grocery stores. The answer wasn’t to ensure that employees would simply wash their hands after wiping themselves in the bathroom. It was to remove the ingredient that couldn’t be cooked above 160°F.

It seems one of the best ways to avoid cyclosporiasis is to eat produce that comes from our local farmers markets. It’s not that I ever fully trusted that prerinsed, pretrimmed, prebagged, “where-did-this-some-from” greenery from the big groceries. I’m guessing those giant-ass nationwide produce companies rely on hardworking migrants who are given few potty breaks and nowhere to go when they are. And yes, I have trusted, even admired the produce department of my local Schnuck’s grocery. . . . But beyond that, our local farmers markets are happy places for me. For sheer shopping fun, I’d rather go there than, say, to any mall. Yeah, give me a little more of a push to go to the farmers market!

I’m sensing a new direction. I’ve learned a lot more about cooking since the first time I plunged into healthy eating. I know how to deploy a wide range of spices and how to make masalas, how to cook without scorching stuff, how to make crêpes and sauces and omelets, how to adjust baking times and temperatures to my old, idiosyncratic oven. I know how to make my own sprouts, which will of course be completely free of cyclospora and E. coli. The only thing that can’t really be shortened is prep time, but it appears I might have some extra time on my hands. Healthy, high-fiber food is filling. So be it. Time to lose some weight, anyway.

Hurricane Eyes

Hello, there. It’s hard to figure out how to jump back into this blogging thing, after so much time away. I mean . . . I’m still here, but I’m been busy with other things. It’s the same story as the last several “where have I been?” posts. Skip this post, and hope I post a new, better one soon, unless you’re really curious.

It’s been like moving from one hurricane eye to another: Just give up on the idea of more than a few weeks of relative normalcy. Chaos is the new normal.

But first, the requisite pretty picture, because the Internet loves pictures. It's a dickcissel that was dickcisseling at us at Friendly Prairie on May 31.

Okay. So. Basically, Mom and Dad have required a lot more attention and help than I had expected. They’re basically helpless. It’s been exhausting, physically, mentally, emotionally. It turns out that being in charge of two people’s lives and affairs (in addition to your own), and being in charge of a second house (in addition to your own), and having it all fall on your shoulders abruptly, is basically overwhelming. This doesn’t even count the parade of maladies that require medical attention, a litany of follow-ups. Teeth breaking off; outpatient Moh’s surgeries; and then Mom fell and broke her hip in early March. And it wouldn’t be so bad if both of my parents followed the doctors’ and physical therapists’ instructions (and not just Dad).

With all the time they require, and me feeling wiped out all the time, it’s been hard to find the blocks of hours I need to focus on my job, which is editing. Turns out you need to use your mind in order to edit things . . . or, for that matter, to write blog posts. Obviously, my job, and income, has to be Priority One. . . . Our yard has kind of gone to hell this spring; Sue has stepped up to do some of the yard things I used to do, in the Before Times.

Meanwhile . . . I have found time to write things in my actual physical journal. With it, I take a lot of notes, and I do a lot of “processing,” at odd times here and there. As always, I carry it and a pen with me everywhere. So if I stop at a restaurant for a bite, or get dinner to-go for Sue and me, I’ll sit there while I wait, and set down the frustration or vexation du jour. My theory is that if I write it down, it removes it from my immediate mentality. It sets it in the past, and it lightens the load.

I also write about the funny stuff, and the sweet stuff, to balance it out. I write about the “here is where I am right now,” for the historical record. One day, I may look back on this and think, Wow, wasn’t that a time.

One of the bright things about the journaling this year has been thanks to some lovely new inks Sue gave me for Christmas. There’s an outfit in Pittsburgh, the Birmingham Pen Company, that makes handmade ink colors. They’re really nice, and Sue got me a five-pack: Heron (blue), Tiger’s Eye (yellow-brown), Burlywood (a different yellow-brown), Pitted Nickel (gray-green), and Byzantium (gray). I had previously tried out the company’s Waterfront Dusk (maroon), and decided I loved it.

Over the years, my inveterate journaling has included various writing implements, but I usually circle back to traditional fountain pens. I’ve used the same one since about 1995, I think. Before I got it, with its refillable cartridge, I used ones that had prefilled disposable plastic cartridges, and I was always trying to squeeze a drop or two of black into the bright blue, bright green, or bright red cartridges. “Tube” colors never did much for me.

Which is why I like the Birmingham Pen Company’s inks; they’re complicated, natural, intriguing colors. If you like using a fountain pen, do check them out.

On the subject of journaling . . . a few years ago, I prepared a series of blog posts about journaling. They’re literally all done; I even had the photos cropped, sized, and ready to go. I just never pulled the trigger on posting them all.

I don’t see what I’m waiting for, except that every time I sit in front of a computer, I feel like I need to be working, and not farting around with my blog.

Maybe I should try to fit in a little blogging, though. Maybe it’d make me feel like I’m doing something kind of fun.