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Yoga Diet Help To Achieve Material And Spiritual Balance

Do I Have To Follow A Special Diet If I Do Yoga

Yes, it is better to follow a special diet if you practise Yoga, because only then will you realize the full potential and the real benefits of Yoga. Since Yoga is a holistic science and art of living, its real benefits are to be derived only if you practise all the prescribed disciplines that include, for a start:

• Yamas (Restraints): These are Ahimsa (non-violence), Satya (truth), Asteya (non-stealing), Brahmacharya (sensual continence) and Aparigriha (non-covetousnes)

• Niyamas (Observances): These are Saucha (cleanliness or purity) Santosha (contentment) Tapah (austerities) Swadhyaya (introspection, reflection and reading holy texts) and Ishwara Pranidhana (surrender to the will of God or to a Higher Reality)

• Asanas: These are physical Yogic exercises and a set of postures.

• Pranayamas: These are a set of breathing techniques aimed at better, fuller and more wholesome breathing.

• Yoga diet

This is one of the most vital aspects of Yoga, without the practise of which, unfortunately, you will just not benefit fully, but will even subdue the benefits due to you. This is because Yoga believes and postulates that ‘You are what you eat’. This being so, if you eat simple, light, easily digestible vegetarian meals, the results will be felt in the body, mind and heart.

Yoga believes, like Ayurveda and most Indian philosophies do, that there are 3 attributes in nature. They are called:

• Sattva (light and pure)
• Rajas (over-energizing)
• Tamas (causing dullness and lethargy)

This being so, Yoga aims at taking its practitioners to the level of Sattva, from where you can fly and coast off to higher planes of existence. We start with the gross and that means diet. If your diet is not Sattvic it means it is either Rajasik or Tamasik, both of which are in conducive to the practise of Yoga. True, you will still feel and derive some benefits, but those too, mind you, will constitute only the tip of the iceberg.

Enlightenment, in Yoga has two meanings:
1)  To see the light
2)  To become light

Yoga aims at achieving both. So, unless you become light, how else will you be able to rise up and see the light. This may sound rather idealistic to one who is practising Yoga only for health reasons. Even so, a light, pure, predominantly vegetarian diet is far superior, health-wise, to most non-veg fare. Apart from this, yogically speaking, we all live by Prana (bio-energy), which is higher in vegetables and fruit than in animal proteins. The benefits should be obvious.

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