Where is it prescribed, what one should eat, and why? All food and drink is pure. Why? Food has always been available and each person eats it without considering the source. Thus we are informed that however it may have been obtained it should be regarded as pure and eaten. There are however, two kinds of people whose food should be proscribed. The first is the person who lives heedless of the Guru. Never take food from him. The second is he who, having provided food, claims that ‘so-and-so ate here with me’. [Food from] any other person is pure, whether he be Hindu, Muslim, or anything else. Wherever you find an absence of pretension or enmity, there everything may be legitimately eaten and drunk. The worst food of all is form the person who eats without regard for the Guru. 1.

If having left [the place of] your own community (panth) to visit another, you should encounter people from other places engaged in worldly occupations, follow the commensal rule [stated above]. What should you do if you are not invited to eat? If that should happen, say [to your host]: ‘Will your cook provide me with food from the common pot or should I make my own arrangements?’ He may reply: ‘You must eat from what I have in my house. Share my food with me.’ [Rest assured that such] food is pure and there can be no objection [to eating it], though as long as possible, you should avoid that place. 2.

Here is one other exception. Do not eat food that someone has offered to his particular god or goddess. Such food fouls one’s understanding. As poison works on the body, so does food offered to favoured divinities corrupt the mind and destroy all sense of truth. It is as if a woman married to one man should eat the leavings of some strange man. She would be guilty of gross misdemeanour. Food offered to any save only the one true Sri Guru Akaal Purakh is prohibited and must not be eaten. 3.

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