Itinerância no Ashram: alimentando corpo e alma na Brahma Kumaris

Abstract

The present study inquires into cognitive and symbolic perceptions of individuals from the town of Fortaleza who adopt a vegetarian diet for religious motivations. They belong to a yoga line, in scope of the new religious movements. This study took place in the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University – BKWSU, in the aforementioned city, between the years 2007 and 2011, and used as methodological tools participant observation and semi-structured interviews with students and professors of this spiritual movement with a neo-hindu face. Initial interest was to understand foodrelated representations and practices, but as the research went on, the existence of a semantic confluence between religious sentiment and food became evident, both converging to the construction of a brahmin life regimen. So, food has its meaning widened and is considered here as a sign/metaphor to think the body and soul relationship, suggested by the behavior code – maryadas – of this spiritual movement. For the participants of this group, forms of thinking, feeling and seeing the world are the expression of a collective belonging, which is, at the same time, subjectified and resignified in terms of the self-improvement process and sacralisation of the world.