YOGIC DIET webpressnet -( 2019) - (www.webpressnet.com)

YOGIC DIET 2019 (www.webpressnet.com)

[caption id="attachment_1084" align="alignnone" width="300"] YOGIC DIET.webpressnet -( 2019) - (www.webpressnet.com)[/caption]

 

PRACTICAL LESSONS
IN
YOGA
By
SRI SWAMI SIVANANDA

YOGIC DIET 2019 (www.webpressnet.com)   A diet that is wholly conducive to the practice of Yoga and spiritual progress is called Yogic
diet. Diet has intimate connection with the mind. Mind is formed out of the subtlest portion of food.
Sage Uddalaka instructs his son Svetaketu “Food, when consumed becomes threefold: the gross
particles become excrement, the middling ones flesh and the fine ones the mind. My child, when
curd is churned, its fine particles which rise upwards, form butter. Thus, my child, when food is
consumed, the fine particles which rise upwards form the mind. Hence verily the mind is food.”
Again you will find in the Chhandogya Upanishad: “By the purity of food one becomes purified in
his inner nature; by the purification of his inner nature he verily gets memory of the Self; and by the
attainment of the memory of the Self, all ties and attachments are severed.”
Diet is of three kinds viz., Sattvic diet, Rajasic diet and Tamasic diet. Milk, barely, wheat,
cereals, butter, cheese, tomatoes, honey, dates, fruits, almonds and sugar-candy are all Sattvic
foodstuffs. They render the mind pure and calm. Fish, eggs, meat, salt, chillies and asafoetida are
Rajasic foodstuffs. They excite passion. Beef, wine, garlic, onions and tobacco are Tamasic
foodstuffs. They fill the mind with anger, darkness and inertia.
Lord Krishna says to Arjuna: “The food which is dear to each is threefold. Hear the
distinctions of these. The foods which increase vitality, energy, vigour, health and joy and which
are delicious, bland, substantial and agreeable are dear to the pure. The passionate desire foods that
are bitter, sour, saline, excessively hot, pungent, dry and burning and which produce pain, grief and
disease. The food which is stale, tasteless, putrid and rotten, leavings and impure is dear to the
Tamasic.” (Bhagavad-Gita. Ch. VII-8, 9, 10).
Food plays an important part in meditation. Different foods produce different effects on
different compartments of the brain. For purposes of meditation, the food should be light, nutritious
and Sattvic. Milk, fruits, almonds, butter, sugar-candy, green gram, Bengal gram soaked in water
19
PRACTICAL LESSONS IN YOGA
7 Soak ten or twelve almond-seeds overnight in cold water. Peel off the skin the next morning and eat them with
sugar-candy.
overnight, bread, etc., are all very helpful in meditation. Thed (a kind of root available in abundance
in the Himalayan regions) is very Sattvic. Tea and sugar should be used in moderation. It is better if
you can give them up entirely. Dried ginger-powder can be mixed with milk and taken frequently.
Indian Yogins like this very much. Another health-giving stuff is myrobalan of the yellow variety
which can be chewed now and then. In the Vagbhata it is represented as even superior to a
nourishing mother. It takes care of the body better than a mother does. A mother gets annoyed with
her child sometimes, but myrobalan always keeps an even temperament and is cheerful and
enthusiastic in attending to the well-being of human beings. It preserves semen and stops all
nocturnal emissions. Potato, boiled without salt or baked on fire, is also an excellent food for
practitioners.
A beginner should be careful in choosing food-stuffs of Sattvic nature. Food exercises
tremendously vast influence over the mind. You can see it obviously in everyday-life. It is very
difficult to control mind after a heavy, sumptuous, indigestible, rich meal. The mind runs, wanders
and jumps like an ape all the time. Alcohol causes great excitement of the mind.
Evolution is better than revolution. You should not make sudden changes in anything,
particularly so in matters pertaining to food and drink. Let the change be slow and gradual. The
system should accommodate it without any trouble. Nature non agit per saltum (nature never
moves by leaps).
Food is only a mass of energy. Water and air also supply energy to the body. You can live
without food for several days; but you cannot live without air even for a few minutes. Oxygen is
even more important. What is wanted to feed the body is energy. If you can supply this energy by
any other means, you can entirely dispense with food. Yogins live without food by drinking nectar.
This nectar flows through a hole in the palate. It dribbles and nourishes the body. A Jnani can draw
energy directly from his pure, irresistible will and support the body without any food whatsoever. If
you know the process of drawing the energy from the Cosmic Energy, then you can maintain the
body for any length of time and can dispense with food completely.
Food is of four kinds. There are liquids which are drunk; solids which are pulverised by the
teeth and eaten; there are semi-solids which are taken in by licking; and there are soft articles that
are swallowed without mastication. All articles of food should be thoroughly masticated in the
mouth until they are reduced to quite a liquid before being swallowed. Then only they can be readily
digested, absorbed and assimilated in the system.
The diet should be such as can maintain physical efficiency and good health. The well-being
of an individual depends more on perfect nutrition than on anything else. Various sorts of intestinal
diseases, increased susceptibility to infectious diseases, lack of high vitality and power of
resistance, rickets, scurvy, anaemia or poverty of blood, beriberi, etc., are due to faulty nutrition. It
should be remembered that it is not so much the climate as food which plays the vital role in
producing a strong healthy body or a weakling suffering from a host of diseases. An appreciable
knowledge of the science of dietetics is essential for everybody, especially for spiritual aspirants, to
keep up physical efficiency and good health. Aspirants should be able to make out a cheap and
well-balanced diet from only a certain articles of diet. What is needed is a well-balanced diet, not a
rich diet. A rich diet produces diseases of the liver, kidneys and pancreas. A well-balanced diet
20
YOGIC DIET
helps a man to grow, to turn out more work, increases his body-weight, and keeps up the efficiency,
stamina and a high standard of vim and vigour. You are what you eat.
Where can Sannyasins in India, who live on public alms get a well-balanced diet? On some
days they get pungent stuffs only, on some other days sweetmeats only and yet on some other days
sour things only. But they are able to draw the requisite energy through power of meditation. This
unique Yogic method is unknown to the medical profession and to the scientists. Whenever the
mind is concentrated, a divine wave bathes all the tissues with a divine elixir. All the cells are
renovated and vivified.
Gluttons and epicureans cannot dream of getting success in Yoga. He who takes moderate
diet, who has regulated his diet can become a Yogi, not others. That is the reason why Lord Krishna
says: “Verily Yoga is not for him who eateth too much, nor who abstaineth to excess, nor who is too
much addicted to sleep, nor even to wakefulness, O Arjuna! Yoga killeth out all pain for him who is
regulated in eating and amusement, regulated in performing actions, regulated in sleeping and
waking.” (Bhagavad-Gita: Ch. VI-16-17). Therefore take pleasant, wholesome and sweet food
half-stomachful; fill a quarter stomach with water and allow the remaining quarter stomach free for
expansion of gas. Offer up the act to the Lord. This is moderate diet.
All articles that are putrid, stale, decomposed, unclean, twice cooked, kept overnight,
should be abandoned. The diet should be fresh, simple, light, bland, wholesome, easily digestible
and nutritious. He who lives to eat is a sinner, but he who eats to live is verily a saint. In the Siva
Samhita it is said: “Yoga should not be practiced immediately after a meal, nor when one is very
hungry; before beginning the practice, some milk and butter should be taken.”
You will find in the Yoga-Tattva Upanishad: “The proficient in Yoga should abandon the
food detrimental to the practice of Yoga. He should give up salt, mustard, sour things, hot, pungent
or bitter articles, asafoetida, women, emaciation of the body by fasts etc. During the early stages of
practice, food of milk and ghee is ordained; also food consisting of wheat, green pulse and red rice
is said to favour the progress. Then he will be able to retain his breath as long as he likes. By thus
retaining the breath as long as he likes, Kevala-Kumbhaka (cessation of breath without inhalation
and exhalation) is attained. When Kevala-Kumbhaka is attained by one and thus inhalation and
exhalation are dispensed with, there is nothing unattainable in the three worlds to him.”
In the Bhikshuka-Upanishad you will find: “Paramahamsas like Samavartaka, Aruni,
Svetaketu, Jada Bharata, Dattatreya, Suka, Vamadeva, Haritaki and others take eight mouthfuls and
strive after Moksha alone through the path of Yoga.”
Manu, Jesus and Buddha exhorted the people to refrain from using liquors, intoxicants and
drugs as these are deleterious in their effects. No spiritual progress is possible without abandoning
them.
The vast majority of persons dig their graves through their teeth. No rest is given to the
stomach. After all, man wants very little on this bountiful earth—a few loaves of bread, a little
butter and some cold water. This will amply suffice to keep the life going. People, on the contrary,
stuff their stomachs with all sorts of things, eatable and uneatable, on account of the force of habit
21
PRACTICAL LESSONS IN YOGA
even when there is no appetite. This is very bad. All diseases take their origin in overloading the
stomach. Hunger is the best sauce. If there is hunger, food can be digested well. If you have no
appetite, do not take anything. Let the stomach enjoy a full holiday.
A variety of dishes overworks the stomach, induces capricious appetite and renders the
tongue fastidious. Then it becomes difficult to please the tongue. Therefore control the tongue first;
then all the other senses can be easily controlled.
Man has invented so many kinds of dishes just to satisfy his palate and has made life
complex and miserable. He calls himself a civilised man, when he is really ignorant and deluded by
the senses. His mind gets upset when he cannot get his usual dishes in a new place. Is this real
strength? He has become an absolute slave of his tongue. This is very deplorable. Be natural and
simple in eating and drinking. Moderation is Yoga. Eat to live and not live to eat. Follow this golden
rule and be happy. You can then devote more time to Yoga practices.
A Yogic student who spends his time wholly in pure meditation wants very little food. One
or one and a half seers of milk and some fruits per day will quite suffice. But a Yogi who ascends the
platform for vigorous active work wants abundant nutritious food.
Vegetarian diet has been acclaimed to be most conducive to spiritual and psychic
advancement. It has been found that meat augments animal passion and decreases intellectual
capacity. While it is true that meat-eating countries are physically active and strong, the same
cannot be said of their spiritual attainments. Meat is not at all necessary for the keeping up of perfect
health, rigour and vitality. On the contrary, it is highly deleterious to health. It brings in its train a
host of ailments such as tape-worm, albuminuria and other diseases of the kidneys. Killing of
animals for food is a great sin. Instead of killing the egoism and the idea of “mine-ness,” ignorant
people kill innocent animals under pretext of sacrifice to goddess, but in reality it is meant to please
their own tongue or palate. What inhuman horrible crimes are being committed in the name of God
and Religion! Ahimsa (non-injuring) is the first virtue that a spiritual aspirant should try to possess.
You should have reverence for life. Lord Jesus says: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain
mercy.” Mahavira shouted in a trumpet-like voice: “Regard every living being as thyself and harm
no one.” The Law of Karma is inexorable, unrelenting, immutable. The pain you inflict upon
another will surely rebound upon you and the happiness you radiate will come back to you adding to
your happiness. He who knows this Law will not hurt anybody.
Meat-eating and alcoholism are closely allied. The craving for liquor dies a natural death,
when the meat is withdrawn. The question of birth-control becomes very difficult in the case of
those who take meat. To them mind-control is next to impossible. Mark how the meat-eating tiger
and the cow or elephant living on green grass are poles asunder! The one is wild and ferocious, the
other is mild and peaceful. Meat has direct influence on the different compartments of the brain.
The first and foremost step in the spiritual advancement of an aspirant is the giving up of
meat. The Divine Light will not descend, if the stomach is loaded with meat. In large meat-eating
countries cancer mortality is very high. Vegetarians keep up sound health till old age. Even in the
West doctors in hospitals put patients on a regimen of vegetable diet. They convalesce quickly. It is
welcome sign to see that at least in some of the countries of Europe vegetarian hotels are springing
22
YOGIC DIET
up in amazing numbers, and it is not too much to expect that in the course of a decade or two the
Westerners will become quite a different race of people altogether in their food, dress, manners,
habits and social customs.
Pythagoras seems to bewail when he says: “Beware, O mortals, of defiling your bodies with
sinful food. There are cereals, there are fruits bending their branches down by their weight, and
luxurious grapes on the vines. There are sweet vegetables and herbs which the fire can render
palatable and mellow. Nor are you denied milk, nor honey, fragrance of the aroma of the thyme
flower. The bountiful earth offers you an abundance of pure food and provides for meals obtainable
without slaughter and bloodshed.”
Fasting is interdicted for practitioners of Yoga as it produces weakness. But occasional mild
fasts are highly beneficial. They will overhaul the system thoroughly, give rest to the stomach and
the intestines and eliminate uric acid. Yogic students may take one full meal at 11 o’clock, a cup of
warm milk in the morning and half a seer of milk and some plantains (or oranges or apples) at night
with much advantage. The night meal should be very light. If the stomach is overloaded, sleep will
supervene and as too much sleep is injurious to Yogic practices, one cannot make any real headway
in the path of Yoga. Therefore a diet consisting of milk and fruits alone is a splendid menu for all
practitioners.
Aspirants should avoid all narcotics, coffee, tea, alcohol and smoke that stimulate the
senses. Our senses are compared to restive horses, and they become uncontrollable by taking
narcotics. You should control them by refraining from taking narcotics. We are all slaves of our
senses more or less and the senses in turn are the slaves of narcotics. If you really crave for
perfection, control of mind and success in Yoga, avoid these narcotics by all possible means.
Boil half a seer of milk along with some boiled rice, ghee and sugar. This is called Charu.
This is an excellent food for Yogic practitioners. This is for dinner. Half a seer of milk and some
fruits will do for the night. Try this prescription and tell me the benefits you have derived in your
Sadhana.
Milk should not be boiled too much. It should be removed from fire the moment the boiling
point is reached. Excessive boiling destroys all nutritious principles and vitamins and renders milk
unfit for consumption. Milk is an ideal food for aspirants. It is a perfect food by itself.
Fruit-diet exercises a marvellous influence upon the constitution. This is a natural diet.
Fruits are tremendous energy-producers. Fruits and milk help concentration and meditation.
Barley, wheat, milk, ghee and honey promote longevity of life and increase power and stamina.
Fruit-juice and the water wherein sugar-candy is dissolved are very good drinks. Butter mixed with
sugar-candy and almonds soaked in water overnight will cool the system.
Above all do not make much fuss about your diet. You need not advertise to everyone that
you are able to live on a particular form of diet. The observance of such Niyama (rules) is for your
own advancement in the spiritual path and you will not be spiritually benefited by giving publicity
to your practices. There are many nowadays who make it their profession to make money and their
livelihood by performing some Yoga-Asanas, Pranayama or by having some diet regulation as
23
PRACTICAL LESSONS IN YOGA
eating only raw articles or leaves or roots. These people cannot have any real spiritual growth. The
goal of life is Self-realisation, and aspirants should always keep this in view and do intense Sadhana
with zeal and patience.
Live a natural simple life. Take simple food that is wholly agreeable to your system. You
should have your own menu to suit your constitution. You are yourself the best judge to select a
Sattvic diet. In the matter of food and drink you will do well to eat and drink as a master. You should
not have the least craving for any particular diet. You should not become a slave to this food or that
food. Simple, natural, non-stimulating, tissue-building, energy-producing, non-alcoholic food and
drink will keep the mind calm and pure and will help the student of Yoga in his practices and in the
attainment of the goal of life.
TABLE SHOWING SATTVIC, RAJASIC AND TAMASIC ARTICLES OF DIET
SATTVIC RAJASIC TAMASIC
SATTVIC RAJAS TAMASIC
Cow’s milk.
Cream.
Cheese
Butter.
Curd.
Ghee.
Sweet fruits.
Apples.
Bananas.
Grapes.
Papaya.
Pomegranates.
Mangoes.
Oranges.
Pears.
Pineapples.
Guavas.
Figs.
Vegetables.
Coconut.
Brinjals.
Potatoes.
Cabbages.
Spinach.
Fish.
Eggs.
Meat.
Salt.
Chillies.
Chutney.
Asafoetida.
Pickles.
Tamarind.
Mustard.
Sour things.
Hot things.
Tea.
Coffee.
Cocoa.
Ovaltine.
White sugar.
Carrots.
Turnips.
Spices.
Beef.
Pork.
Wine.
Onions.
Garlic.
Tobacco.
Rotten things.
Stale things.
Unclean things.
Twice cooked things.
All intoxicants.
All liquors.
All drugs.
Tomatoes. Cucumber. Pumpkin. Cauliflower. Lady’s finger. Peaches. Almonds. Pistachios.
Raisins. Wheat. Red rice. Unpolished rice. Barley. Oat-meal. Dried peas. Dates. Sugar-candy.
Green gram. Bengal gram. Green pulse. Groundnut. Cereals. Dried ginger. Myrobalan. Lemon.

 

https://www.webpressnet.com