Yoga Diet and Nutrition
Sometimes it takes us a long time to realise that our gall bladder is sensitive to fats or that too much salt will affect us in other undesirable ways. The student of Hatha-Yoga, practising the preceding exercises regularly will, after some time, find that he is recovering his lost instincts. He will quickly discover what is good and what is bad for him.
A meal is easily digested when it is well chewed and eaten in a peaceful frame of mind, not distracted by worries or over-stimulated by reading. It is well known that the mental attitude can influence the digestion of food to a considerable extent. In India a teacher will not preach and demand moderation and restraint in the matter of food because he knows that in due course the student will choose the right foods by himself.
Ideally, nutrition and elimination happen in an eight-hour cycle. This means that preferably the evening meal has been digested and eliminated before breakfast on the following morning. The breakfast should leave the body during the afternoon and lunch ought to be eliminated before bedtime. A person who masters this ideal rhythm allows half of his digestive apparatus to rest, since when the stomach is active, large tracts of the intestines will be empty and therefore resting, which enables them to contract tightly. The digestive pulp of each meal passes through at one go and leaves no residue. This means that somebody who adopts this rhythm frees himself from waste and toxins.
It is natural that a Raja-Yogi, with his vegetarian food, frequent fasts and only two meals a day, constantly experiences this rhythm and considers it an essential. For a Westerner who cannot and would not live on 100 grams of rice a day, this is only of theoretical interest. What is important for him is the fact that there are many positive-thinking people in India who are able to realise the same rhythm without living on the simplest of diets. These are usually members of the upper classes, The kshatriyas and the intelligentsia, who employ the best cooks in the country and yet, with three to four excellent meals a day, manage to keep the ideal rhythm all their lives. They have timeless faces and youthful bodies, even in old age. One cannot judge whether they are young or old, but unfortunately there are not many people who have a chance of realizing this. Western doctors have no contact with these people as they are never ill, nor are they likely to write books about their way of life, and therefore doctors often refuse to believe these facts.
The secret of a long life and of lifelong youthfulness lies to a great extent in the mastery of elimination. For the Western doctor the voluntary control of the peristaltic movement is often unimaginable, as is the conscious emptying of the gall bladder and the influence on the activity of the kidneys, which all depend upon the autonomic nervous system.
This mastery of the body can only be achieved when, from youth onwards, people have become accustomed to the emptying of stomach and bowels and never ceased practicing Yoga.
