Yogis Are Particularly Fussy About What They Eat!.

Yogis are amongst the strictest people in the world when it comes to eating a yoga diet. Not only are they vegetarian, they also avoid all commercially prepared food, fried and fast food, and food containing garlic, onions, which is stimulating, or mushrooms, meat and eggs, which are dulling. It is not unusual for yogi’s to insist that they cook their own meal or (in the case of many travelling saddhus and saints) to travel with a trained and trusted chef.

If the diet of a yogi is anything, it is extremely modest and simple. It is traditionally non-violent and focuses on foods that are gentle, calming and sattva producing. Sattva is a Sanskrit word that describes the higher qualities of peace, love and awareness; the same qualities that the practices of asana and meditation seek to encourage.

Food is an especially important consideration in the progress of a yogis sadhana or spiritual practice. In his book “Kundalini Yoga”, Sri Swami Sivananda says, “An aspirant should be very careful in the selection of articles of sattvic nature especially in the beginning of his sadhana period. Later on when siddhi (spiritual power) is attained, drastic dietetic restrictions can be removed.”

A truly sattvic or yoga diet, causes no harm to animals, plants, people or the planet and is therefore strictly vegetarian and ideally organic and fair-trade; every stage in the making of the meal from the sewing of the seed to its growth, from the cooking and eventual digestion of it by you, embodies a respect, honour and acknowledgement of the divine process of creation and transformation, of energy produced and energy spent on creating peace and harmony in the world.

A sattvic meal is also physically and mentally calming. Yogi’s realise that food is more than just fuel and flavour; food is a form of energy and life which (through digestion) unites with and affects our own energy. We literally do become what we eat; the energy of everything we digest becomes our state of mind, becomes us.

The traditional yoga diet is called phala mula, a Hindi term that literally translates as fruits and roots. Phala mula was the diet of the yogi’s of old who used to retreat in the wild and who ate what Mother Nature alone could provide. The yogi thereby put entire faith in Nature’s generosity and connected fearlessly with the forces of Divine. Their diet consisted of meagre amounts of, you guessed it, fruits and roots.

Both yogic and ayurvedic wisdom (Ayurveda is the Vedic science of health care) acknowledge that a sparse raw food diet naturally emphasises the development of the air and ether elements in the body-mind, which in turn develops a light and ‘airy’ mindset helpful in achieving states of altered awareness and deep meditation (but not necessarily conducive to Western living).

For this reason most traditional yoga diets are highly ascetic in nature and include fasting, a very light diet of raw foods, various detoxification practices known as the shatkarmas, sensory deprivation (a limited diet of smells, tastes, sights and sounds is included), breath work practices called pranayama, and meditation.

All these factors not only tend to reduce physical consciousness but can aggravate Vata, the Ayurvedic term that describes the airy or non-physical component of our nature about which we talk.

It is important to note that a yoga diet is not an ayurvedic diet and an ayurvedic diet need not be a sattvic diet. Whilst Ayurveda focuses on grounding and nourishing cooked foods and works to improve bodily health, yoga aims for its practitioners to move beyond bodily limitations, drawing the consciousness away from earthy and mundane worries and towards the more ethereal experiences of transcendence and God.

Because many of us are ‘part-time yogis’ and have a family to look after, a job to tend to, and a modern day life to navigate, a grounding but pure sattvic diet is preferable- one that aims for balance and health- a healthy body allows a quiet mind and successful asana (an easy steady posture) which in this modern world is worth so much.

“And he knew that food was Brahman.From food all beings are born, by food they live and into food they return.” TAIITIRIYA UPANISHAD 3.2