How this came about...After seeing first hand the ancient free kitchen in Amritsar, India, we were so inspired that we began one in Boulder, Colorado. The ideal was much much more than feeding the hungry. In India where culture is ancient, there have appeared from time to time great teachers out of the light who set new vibrations to guide and inspire those on earth in their own soul growth, it is inexpressible the bliss of being received in such a society of saints, which is exactly what I met in Amritsar... there the free kitchen which is probably hundreds of years old serves 10,000 people each day. I worked in the kitchen and served the seated throng by walking down long mats with a bucket of curry and a ladle. The pots and ovens were ancient and huge sitting directly on the earth under an open air veranda kitchen hall. So many cooks and servers had trodden the ground there between these gigantic ovens and car sized vats that the packed earth was worn into troughs from the feet, bare of course, coming and going in humble service for ages. But what is even more inspiring is that the free kitchen came to India when the caste system was still operable but the great teacher who instituted the free kitchen had the beautiful idea that people from all walks of live, regardless of caste, sex, sect, etc. sit together to break bread. So it not only fed the hungry, it also broke through socio-economic barriers
to the family of humankind. We took this to Boulder, Colorado and started a free kitchen...Well, that is thrilling to me and we DID serve about two hundred people a day in boulder. Amazingly there was enormous resistance to the serving of food to the indigent by the boulder community who did not want to encourage homeless people to gather in the town. The kitchen was a lot of work and very rewarding. We bought a little pickup truck and the kind restaurateurs saved the vegetables for us that could not be served but were too good to throw out. They gave us hundred pound bags of rice and beans and it was prepared on a daily basis in my house in 10 gallon pots At three AM then loaded onto the back of the truck and served at an appointed location at noon. One man stands out in my mind. he told me after he had come for some time to the hot lunch daily that just knowing he could get a hot meal everyday without any preaching or religious pressure had enabled him to break his alcoholism. Help us continue with this project
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