As I understand it, the aim is to offer the best and to encourage members to live a healthy, ethical and, yes, measured life. Being only human, people will fall down on this - but the ideal is still there.
Food offered at Mandeville Place (for everyone) includes quiche, a rice bake, steamed potatoes with skins, nuts, seeds, avocado, humous, bread, cheese, salads and fruit. My group loves it - plates are always full and polished off.
Having fresh food and freshly baked bread is very appealing. I once supervised the kitchen on a residential week - it was the students first time at Stanhill. We had cooked food from menus devised by myself - a juggling exercise that kept me going morning, noon and night. What I entirely misjudged was how long it took for 80 stone-cold potatoes to bake in ovens. Much longer than half-a-dozen spuds. Lunch was very late that day.
So there's a practical benefit to uncooked, fresh food apart from those mentioned. Much less time in preparation and washing-up.
St James medical checks
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Re: Food folly
bonsai wrote:Free wrote:Most senior SES students ate omnivorously whenever out of SES sight ? such hypocrisy!
This is one thing that I have never understood about the SES. It has never been clear to anyone about whether the practices and so called measure put in place during residentials is something that people are expected to follow as a lifestyle or something to follow only on whilst on the retreat.
Never been clear? I'm surprised as it was often re-iterated to my group.
Certainly things like the instruction to "get up when you wake up" and "to meditate twice a day preferably at sunrise and sunset" were instructions that were intended to be followed at all times whether you were on a school activity or not.
well I was certainly not under any misaprehension about these - though they were rather tricky - especially when I regularly didn't get home until nearly midnight after group nights. I'm sure that I wasn't the only one to fall asleep in the office ... Being caught snoring made it all the more embarassing.
The diet is something that remains unclear as to whether it was something to follow at all times but I imagine that it was given that the same diet was imposed at all times in the Day schools at lunch time. That said however I know very few people who could really stomach it and would choose to follow that diet outside school or SES. Here in lies the hypocrasy.
Is the SES prescribing a lifestyle to follow or not?
It was always pretty obvious to me that it was. Most people in my group were vegetarians .. though family meals at Christmas, Easter etc meant 'having' to eat turkey rather than causing yet another row with my parents over my involvement in the school. Business meals could be tricky too, but certainly from the mid 1980s onwards its been possible to order vegetarian options.
One thing for sure, my experience of residentials is that there was no way sufficient rest or sleep and the diet was entirely inadequate. Judging also by what people smuggled in and escaped offsite to eat together with the difficulties most people had rising in the morning I would suggest that this would be a fairly broad concensus.
Maybe some of the current members could enlighten us as to whether any of this has changed?
In the early days I used to have a supply of chocolate bars, but after attending a few residentials I found that this was no longer necessary. However I never did quite get to grip with the sleeping patterns and meditation on residential weeks was an uncomfortable and unsatisfactory experience generally.
One other thing that changed the nature of residentials was the arrival of 'mobile phones'. During one particular week I remember a certain woman conducting her business (interior decorating) by making calls during the working periods and in between activities. Since every man and his dog has a phone these days I expect that the regulations have had to change.
Last edited by ses-surviver on Wed Apr 12, 2006 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Food folly
ses-surviver wrote:Never been clear? I'm surprised as it was often re-iterated to my group.
So ses-surviver, which is it? Is it meant to be a lifestyle or something that you only follow whilst on school activities? You've said it is clear but you haven't indicated which it is.
One thing is for sure, for those of us introduced to SES philosophy as a children it was never a choice. It came across as a lifestyle. We were subjected to "the limited diet" everyday at lunch and the message of the philosophy were repeated so much, that this wasn't something we were allowed to object to. It was presented as the truth and we were expected to believe it.
Bonsai
Stanton wrote:As I understand it, the aim is to offer the best and to encourage members to live a healthy, ethical and, yes, measured life. Being only human, people will fall down on this - but the ideal is still there.
And as far as I am aware there is no requirement to believe the premises of Advaita to lead a healthy, ethical or measured life.
I do not need to believe in God or any other supreme creator or absolute to behave with dignity and respect.
I do not believe that many of the practices and routines of residentials and other group activities have anything to do with spiritual enlightenment. And I can not believe that a specific diet does either.
Without doubt judging by my own experience and many of the stories here in this forum and in other accounts of the SES like the Secret Cult, many of the practices and routines are positively harmful to some people and inhibit spiritual growth.
Bonsai
Cranky SES diet & digestive disorders - Coincidence?
Cranky SES diet & digestive disorders - Is it coincidence?
Same here.
I?ve seen reference to this quite a few times on this BB now. It makes me wonder how many others this applies to that have either been brought up on, or have lived on an SES diet over a sustained period of time?
CeliaR wrote:I take medication for a digestive problem: I would suppose stress played a major part in this.
Same here.
I?ve seen reference to this quite a few times on this BB now. It makes me wonder how many others this applies to that have either been brought up on, or have lived on an SES diet over a sustained period of time?
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Re: Food folly
bonsai wrote:ses-surviver wrote:Never been clear? I'm surprised as it was often re-iterated to my group.
So ses-surviver, which is it? Is it meant to be a lifestyle or something that you only follow whilst on school activities? You've said it is clear but you haven't indicated which it is.
Lifestyle. 'measure' wasn't supposed to be a 1-off, it was an introduction to the SES lifestyle - which is certainly how I interpreted it and I beleive the others in my group treated in the same manner.
I'm not saying that others didn't follow it as strictly as some like myself, but I certainly continued with it for several years after leaving the school.
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