How to eat healthy
Sadhguru: I just read somewhere that 20% of American meals are consumed in a car. If 20% of the meals are eaten in cars, maybe another 20% are eaten in bars! I do not know how many people actually sit at the table and eat a meal consciously and with a certain sense of involvement with the food and the people around them. Today, I think there is enough knowledge in the world about the content of the food but people are yet to make the necessary changes. The content of food definitely has a big impact but how you consume it is equally important. There is a whole lot of talk about what to consume, but there is hardly any effort to bring awareness to people about how to consume food. Whether you eat an animal, a vegetable, or whatever else – food is essentially a piece of life. Something that was a life by itself is becoming a part of you. Eating is not just digestion, it is one life fusing into another.
When you should eat, in what posture you should sit, and how you should welcome the food into yourself are things that are completely ignored today.
𝙃𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙤 𝙀𝙖𝙩
#𝟭 𝗣𝗮𝘆 𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
Eating should not be a routine. You must observe. Today, the body needs this much food, so you eat that much. Tomorrow, it may not need that much. Every animal is aware of this. If you have a dog at home, even he refuses to eat on certain days. These days, they have made him so stupidly disciplined that he eats every day; otherwise it is natural for him not to eat on certain days. He will eat some grass, puke it out and do his own cleansing for himself. All creatures are aware of this, but human beings are using their intellect to decide what they should do.
Because of the education systems that people go through, we have given too much significance to our thought. Our attention is the greatest thing we have, not our thought. Our thought is a product of the little data that we have gathered. That is not going to get us anywhere. It is the keenness and intensity of our attention which can take us from one dimension of living to another.
#𝟮 𝗘𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗲
One must eat, but we must eat relishing the nourishment of what the food offers and with gratitude of what it means to our life. This is not to take away the pleasure of eating. The true joy of eating is that you are conscious of some other life willing to merge with your own life and become you. This is the greatest pleasure that a human being knows, that in some way something that is not you is willing to become a part of you. This is what you call love. This is what you call devotion. This is the ultimate goal of the spiritual process.
Whether it is lust, passion, devotion or ultimate enlightenment, it is all the same, just on a different scale. If it happens between two people, we call it passion. If it happens with a larger group, we call it love. If it happens much more indiscriminately, we call it compassion. If it happens without even a form around you, it is called devotion. If it happens in its ultimate scale, we call it enlightenment.
Eating food is a demonstration of the oneness of the existence. This beautiful process is happening at your mealtime every day. Something that was a plant, a seed, an animal, a fish or a bird, just merging and becoming a human being is a clear demonstration of the oneness of the existence and of the hand of the Creator in everything that is.
#𝟯 𝗦𝗶𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗖𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀-𝗹𝗲𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝗮𝘁
In the Yogic culture you are always asked to cross your legs and to not stretch your legs in the direction of an energy form. This is essentially because you can receive anything that comes towards you in many different ways. The Yogic intention is always to receive it from the higher aspects of your life. When there is a consecrated space, that means there is a powerful energy which has the possibility of transforming you. That energy must always come to you from the highest possibility that you can receive. We do not want to enhance our survival processes; we want to enhance other dimensions of life. It is very essential that we survive, but surviving better than someone is not a life goal. It is a waste of time because whatever you do, you are not going to survive forever.
All your survival instincts, self-preservation, are in the lower three chakras – manipuraka, swadhishthana and muladhara. The longing to break away from all this and go beyond is in vishuddhi, agna and sahasrar. Anahata is the meeting point.
So when you sit in any space where you think there is power and energy, you always cross your legs and sit because you want to close the lower part of the body. You do not want to sit with your legs open in front of a consecrated space because that will attract a totally different kind of energy towards you which could be detrimental to you. You want the upper part of your body – above Anahata – to be exposed to this.
Keeping your legs crossed whenever you see a powerful form is very important. Food is also a very powerful thing. If you have not eaten for three days, you understand that. It is important that your legs are crossed when food comes in front of you. If you are very hungry and food is exposed to the entire body, this is not good for you. You never open your legs and sit in front of food, consecrated objects and human beings who are of a certain power within themselves because that will bring a wrong kind of energy into your system.
#𝟰 𝗘𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗛𝗮𝗻𝗱𝘀
When you do not touch the food, you do not know what it is. If food is not good enugh to be touched, I do not know how it is good enough to be eaten! Also, the cleanliness of your hands is entirely in your hands, whereas the cleanliness of a spoon or fork is not necessarily in your hands. No one else but you has used these hands, so you can be sure how clean they are right now. With the fork, you do not know who has used it, how they have used it, and for what. All they have to do is wipe it with a tissue and it looks clean.
Above all, when you use a fork, you do not feel the food. When food appears in front of you, hold your hands upon the food for a few moments to feel how the food is. If something appears on my plate and I just feel it, I know what to eat and what not to eat without having to taste it. My hands are the first level of knowing the food.
#𝟱 𝗖𝗵𝗲𝘄 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗙𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗧𝘄𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘆-𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀
In Yoga we say, “If you take a morsel of food, you must chew it twenty-four times.” There is a lot of science behind this, but essentially, your food gets pre-digested in your mouth and will not cause dullness in your system. If you chew twenty-four times, the information of that food gets established in your system and every cell in your body will be able to start judging as to what is right and not right for you – not in terms of the tongue but about what is appropriate for the whole system. If you do this for some time, every cell in the body will have the education as to what it likes and does not like.
#𝟲 𝗡𝗼 𝗧𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝗹𝗲 𝗘𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴!
Only when I came to United States for the first time, I saw that everywhere in public places – particularly in schools and those summer camps where we used to do programs – there were notices instructing what to do if somebody chokes on food. I cannot understand why anyone will choke on food. I can understand if someone drowns in the pool, because we are not made like fish – we have to learn to swim. Someone who does not know how to swim well enough may drown but why would people choke on food? The main reason why they are choking is because they are talking so much when they are eating. We do not realize such a simple thing. All we have to do is just enjoy the food and eat quietly.
When children want to eat and talk at the same time, the first thing we teach them is, "Shh, no talking when you are eating." Because this speech has to come out, food has to go in – how can you do both at the same time? When I have to speak, something has to come out of my mouth. If I have to eat, something has to go in. Obviously I cannot do these two things at the same time. If I do these two things at the same time, things can go wrong.
