The Parable of the Pizza

By Dr. Tilak Verma 

We were at a retreat with Swami C, as we affectionately call him, an American monk of the Ramakrishna Order.

The topic that morning was living in the present moment. After a brief meditation, Swami C shared a story from his early days as a monk, a story that unexpectedly featured a slice of pizza.

Freshly ordained and overflowing with the joy of monastic life, he stepped out of the monastery in San Francisco for a walk. His mind was calm. He felt complete in himself, needing nothing.

Then it happened:

The aroma of freshly baked pizza drifted from a nearby restaurant.

Instantly, his imagination sprang into action. He pictured a wood-fired oven, a perfectly browned crust, bubbling cheese melting over rich tomato sauce. Within moments, the peaceful contentment he had been enjoying began to fade.

Gone was the joy of the present moment. In its place stood a dancing, disturbing, screaming thought: Pizza.

What began as a passing scent became a desire. The desire became a story. The story became all-consuming.

He turned toward the restaurant only to realize he had no money. Then he remembered that a senior swami had given him twenty dollars as a holiday gift. So he headed back to his room to retrieve it.

By then, the moment was gone. Every thought and action revolved around obtaining pizza.

Reflecting on the experience, Swami C said the real issue was not the pizza itself. It was how he had allowed the mind to construct an elaborate narrative around it.

I couldn't resist asking, “Is wanting a slice of pizza really so bad? I often feel the same urge when I walk past a bakery and smell fresh coffee and almond croissants.”

The group laughed.

“Nothing is wrong with that,” Swami C replied. “But only at the right time and in the right context.”

The problem, he explained, was that he had allowed the pizza to seize control of the moment.

“So what should you have done, Maharaj?”

Without hesitation, he answered:

“I should have told the mind to drop the thought.”

Then, after a pause, he added:

“Not now.”

His lesson reminded me of Krishna's insight in the Bhagavad Gita: “When a person dwells on sense objects, attachment to them arises. From attachment springs desire...” (2.62).

The pizza was innocent. The problem began when a passing aroma became a mental movie, the movie became attachment, and attachment became desire.

Perhaps that is the real parable of the pizza. The loss of peace does not begin with the object. It begins when we surrender the present moment to the story the mind creates around it.

Sometimes the highest spiritual teaching comes in just two words:

Not now.