Yogic diet - Exploring food options for a Meditative Life.

Choice of food:

                Nowadays the choice of food has become a controversial subject, which raged in social media a few months ago, with some controversial laws passed by Government banning certain food items. I strongly recommend freedom of choice of food of an individual. But when it comes to spiritual life, the choice of food is completely narrowed down. Again, it completely depends on the attitude of the spiritual aspirant. The food which a Bhakta intakes will be completely at variance with that of a Jnani. Again it will be completely different with that of a Yogi. So it all depends on the attitude and the mode of spiritual practice of an aspirant. In this post, the food option for a Yogi is discussed.

Yogi’s view of life:

Yoga begins with the perception of pain in objects (परिणाम ताप संस्कार दुःखैः गुणवृत्तिविरोधाच्च दुःखमेव सर्वं विवेकिनः 2.15 Yoga Sutras).  In this aphorism, four kinds of pain are discussed.

1.       Parinama Dukha:

                Purusha is pure consciousness. Man because of his defective configuration looks for objects outside in Prakriti. The problem is that man searches for pure consciousness in Prakriti. He looks for permanence outside. He looks for infinite outside. The search for pure consciousness in Prakriti is the reason why we are infatuated by seeing a beautiful woman and why we are infatuated by iPhones and other objects. What happens then?

                There will be a mismatch or the Purusha which is inherent in man will fail to sync with the seemingly pure consciousness of the Prakriti outside. Prakriti has a limitation. It is limited in energy and subjected to space and time. For example, when I search for pure consciousness in Prakriti, my eyes fell on a chocolate. I wanted to fill my Purusha with the seemingly Purusha nature of the chocolate. I relish a couple of chocolates. But Purusha is infinite, and so I demand an infinite number of chocolates. So I demand more chocolates and my system can take a maximum of five. There is a limitation of time, space, and energy in Prakriti. And when I take more than five, there will be a trouble in my stomach. There comes a parinama or the maturity of pleasure into pain while pursuing Purusha or pure consciousness in Prakriti. This is called Parinama Dukha.

2.       Tapa Dukha:

The second kind of misery is the need for more. We again keep searching for infinite in Prakriti and the inability to fill the pure consciousness of Purusha with the seemingly pure consciousness of Prakriti is the Tapa Dukha. We become restless for objects. We know we don’t want them but still we go after them and suffer. Inherent thirst for objects and the inability to fill the pure consciousness with objects is called Tapa Dukha.

3.       Samskara Dukha:

                Samskara dukkha is the suffering arising out of our past habits. Past habits also refer to the habits acquired in the past births and continue to exploit us in this present life. The past habits can be replaced by the present ones. And this kind of misery can be resolved in our present life.

4.       Guna Vritti Virodha:

                As I said in the earlier post, the gunas keep changing and the result is the pain. Only the state of Sattva is free from pain. When gunas change man gets confused. Prakriti acts through these three gunas and the only way out is to maintain a sattvic state which reflects the pure consciousness.

Therefore, the goal of a yogi is to avoid any future pain (हेयं दुःखमनागतम् 2.16 Yoga Sutras). So, the yogi perceives pain everywhere. He perceives all being to be suffering from the same fate. Therefore, the Yogi is careful about certain objects (food) which are attractive. Because attraction invariably brings about misery.

The body is considered as a sacred thing and, therefore, ought to be used for the sake of attaining liberation or freedom from pain. When the body gets hurt or injured it becomes a bar to the liberation process. Hurting a body or inflicting pain on others bars the progress of the victim towards liberation. Keeping with this view in mind, the Yogi doesn’t harm or kill. Therefore, the food choices for a Yogi would be obviously free from the flesh.

What about plants? Are you killing them? They too suffer and get hurt, when you cut them, the science experiment shows that. I would say there is a huge difference. The sensory systems are not completely evolved in plants and it doesn’t have a brain or the central nervous system to be able to react to the pain inflicted. The pain generated is, therefore, negligible. Whereas animals have all the systems mentioned above and, therefore, they suffer pain.

Food by nature:

            According to Gita, food by its nature can be classified into three. They are Sattvic food, Rajasic food, and Tamasic food. When we take those foods, the corresponding nature will prevail in us. Sattvic refers to a calm and meditative state, and the sattvic food helps in maintaining that state. Rajasic foods are those which sets in motion and exerts the body towards sensory activity. Rajasic food is for sense bound activity. Whereas, Tamasic food leads to tamasic qualities like sleep, injuring others or killing, anger etc. It leads to the typical characteristic of the criminals.

            Sattvic food refers to the pure and healthy food, pleasing to the system and light. Foods which are extremely acidic, salty, spicy, pungent and bitter etc. are Rajasic foods. They induce sense bound activity and leads to misery as a result. Foods which are half cooked, insipid, stale, tasteless, polluting and contaminated or leftovers from someone constitute Tamasic food. They induce criminal like qualities.

Sorting down:

            We will now sort out the final list of food which is conducive to Yoga and the list of food which is not. We have seen the philosophy behind Yoga and we have explained the three kinds of food by nature. Here is the final list.

Don’t take these items if you aspire for Yoga:

1. Beef, Mutton, Chicken and all kinds of flesh.

All flesh

2. All alcoholic items and cigarettes.

Tasmac.

Smoking kills others.

3. All spice items.

Lavanga

Spice leaves and bark

Cardamon

4. Onion Garlic etc.

Onion Garlic

5. Sweets that are colorful and attractive:

Attractive Sweets

Take these items:

Fruits, Idly, Dal, Rice etc. Curd, Milk and milk products.

Idly

Fruits

Vegetables.

Milk and Milk Products.

 Again, I would like to reiterate the statement the freedom of choice of food of an individual, and again it depends on the attitude of the spiritual practitioner. But above is the definite guide for food which are conducive to the practice of Yoga,

Thank You.

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