In many ways MasterChef is an apt metaphor for spiritual enlightenment.
We arrive in the hall with others. The hall is well-lit. There’s a table in front of us. There’s a covered dish on this table and a curtain behind it. There are no judges at this time.
An eminent Master Chef comes and uncovers the dish. The dish is beautiful and looks radiant. We stare at it with wonder. The Master Chef explains the taste and flavour. He says the recipe is available on everyone’s table but we are free to improvise.
We ask if we can taste the dish. The Master Chef mentions that there is a twist in this quest. He says that we cannot taste the dish at the start, but we can taste some of it as we progress, if our actions are as per the recipe. He informs us that, in addition to this, those who stick to the recipe, will also get guidance from expert Chefs, should they seek it.
The Master Chef points to the pantry where there's an unlimited supply of ingredients. He even mentions that there's a garden outside where more can be found.
Sounds familiar? In our case the Master Chefs are Seers. The dish, they show us is called "Spiritual Enlightenment". They say that the taste is ‘Bliss’ and the flavour, ‘Compassion’. The overall impression the dish conveys is ‘Belonging’. We look at the glow on their faces and the expression in their eyes and believe them completely.
The pantry at our disposal is full of our emotions and tendencies, sorted in groups based on our senses.
What do we do now in our MasterChef kitchen?
We run to the pantry and choose the ingredients. Most of us do not even bother to see the recipe. We have been told that we can improvise and are just eager to start our cooking. We find many very tempting things in the pantry that are not mentioned in the recipe. Even most of those who have read the recipe decide to sample these, too. They are delicious and alluring – even more so than the items mentioned in the recipe and we decide to add these to our basket.
Then we prep the ingredients. We decide how much of each to use. By this time we are so entranced by the extra ingredients that we overlook the recipe entirely and portion out much more of the unmentioned ingredients. We add ‘lust’ for zest, we include ‘greed’ for its sweet taste, we use ‘anger’ to add some heat, we find ‘attachment’ as a binder. We feel that ‘envy’ lends our dish some tartness and include it in, as we do a dash of ‘self-importance’ for its savoury taste. And so on we proceed adding other ingredients not in the original recipe, which, by and large, we have forgotten by now.
Next, we start the cooking process. We use all the ingredients that we have taken from our pantry and apply them in our daily life. A few, who have had the wisdom to stick to the recipe more closely, get to taste a part of the dish after a while. Even a slight teaspoonful makes them ecstatic. We watch and want it for ourselves. However, two things hold us back. By now we are so far into making our dish out of the ingredients that we have selected, that we are reluctant to throw it in the trash and start anew. Furthermore, we have been tasting the ingredients that we have brought from the pantry and these are delicious. How can we eliminate them? We shrug and keeps preparing the wrong dish.
The count-down starts. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one! We step away from the table.
The Master Chef appears and looks us over with a wry smile. The dishes most of us have prepared look nothing like the dish on the table. Even those who adhered largely to the recipe have not managed to duplicate the given dish, though they have got some of it right.
The Master Chef tells us that, unlike in the MasterChef competition, we have some more days to perfect our dish. However, there is a catch. Our dishes will be kept in cold storage here but we will each be given a video of our effort till now. We have to study our actions and decision, find out where we went wrong and come back the next day. Our own dishes will then be given back to us and we have to use them as the starting point.
This goes on for a few days. Some of us learn from our mistakes and improve them. Those who do so also find wise Chefs to guide them further. Most of us keep muddling through.
Finally the day comes when someone cries out “Aha! I’ve got it!” He then plates his dish, garnishes it with kindness and puts it next to the original dish on the table. The two dishes are identical. This Chef then tastes his dish, which is the same as the original and he is transported into the blissful state the Master Chef had promised us.
We applaud and go out of the Kitchen to return another day. The new Master Chef stays behind, to guide us the next day.
While he is there, savouring his dish, the curtain parts to show the judges. He looks up and sees a mirror.
KA