Health

In Hinduism, eating is both a science and an art. Our health depends on following this art. Therefore, a lot of research was done in India about the types of food we should eat, the way we should eat it, etc.

Before we can understand the importance of this, we have to look into the way the universe is constructed. On this will depend the construction of our own bodies as well as the types of food we should take in order to maintain health.

Hinduism revolves around the philosophy of the three gunas - sattva, rajas, and tamas. These concepts represent the qualities present in food, nature, actions, as well as our body and mind. These three are not made of matter but are qualitative strings that combine in various ways to build the intricate and beautiful fabric of nature. Rajas is the quality of activity, tamas of inertia, and sattva of harmony.

Everything on earth has all these three gunas, but their proportion varies both in Nature and in our bodies. For example, tamas is required for adequate rest and sleep, rajas necessary for work, and sattva for harmony and peace. A yogic way of life aims to increase the sattva guna to promote the state of pure consciousness via a healthy body and mind.

When rajas is dominant in our lives, there will be over-stimulation, stress, and over-excitement. Too much rajas imbalances the body and mind, leading to anxiety, disturbed sleep, and disease.

Tamas is inertia, darkness, and dullness. When tamas is dominant in our lives, there is heaviness, excessive sleep, leading to lethargy, lack of purpose, and depression.

Sattva is balance and harmony. When sattva dominates, there is peace and serenity in both body and mind. This is our ideal state, one that defines true health.

Foods we eat will impact us on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual level. Diet plays a pivotal role in progress towards the realization of Truth and will depend on the state of our minds – sattvic, rajasic, or tamasic.

The Bhagavad Gita gives an interesting classification of foods according to these three gunas. Sattvic food is bland, nutritious, freshly made, and naturally sweet. Rajasic food is hot, pungent, and spicy. Tamasic food is stale, sometimes putrid, without any vitality. We can judge for ourselves what our type is by the kind of foods that appeal to us naturally!! Of course, it is OK to indulge occasionally and have some foods that are good for the taste and not just for health. However, this should not become a habit!

Let us go a bit more deeply into the types of foods. A rajasic diet mainly consists of foods that contain too many spices, onions, garlic, deep-fried foods, coffee, tea, refined food items, sweets, chocolates, etc. These foods give instant energy for a brief period, but ultimately, we get to experience stress and disease. A dominantly rajasic diet disturbs the mind-body equilibrium. This type of diet is feeding the body at the cost of the mind. A rajasic person prefers rich foods and tends to eat fast.

A tamasic diet chiefly consists of re-heated, chemically processed foods, eggs, meat, alcohol, cigarettes, etc. A tamasic person will be dull, unimaginative, unmotivated, careless, unaware, and lethargic. They will experience illnesses such as diabetes, obesity, and liver diseases.

A sattvic diet is a pure vegetarian diet that is harmonious and balancing. It includes seasonal and local fruits, vegetables, whole grains, pulses, sprouts, nuts, seeds, honey, fresh herbs, milk, and dairy products that are free from animal rennet. These foods raise our sattva or consciousness levels. Sattvic foods are cooked and eaten within three hours of cooking with love, gratitude, and awareness. After that, they start to become tamasic. A sattvic person is calm, peaceful, serene, amicable, full of energy, enthusiasm, health, hope, aspirations, and creativity. An added advantage of a sattvic diet is to keep the weight in check. However, it is well to remember that even sattvic food will become tamasic when overprocessed, refrigerated for a long period, or deep-fried.

Almost all fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts are sattvic. Among oils, coconut oil, sesame oil, mustard, and olive are all good for health. Good cow’s ghee, especially A2 ghee, is extremely beneficial for the body and mind. One teaspoon should be mixed with a little rice or chapati and eaten first. This will lubricate the system and help in digestion. Most dals (legumes) are good and necessary for the vegetarian since they provide protein.

Honey, maple syrup, A2 cow’s milk, fresh sugarcane juice, almond milk, fresh coconut water, etc., are all sattvic in nature.

But one thing we should remember is that fruits and fruit juices should be taken on an empty stomach, never to be had along with other foods. Fruits digest very fast and will turn putrid if mixed with other foods that take a long time to digest.

All the spices that we use in an Indian diet like cumin, haldi (turmeric), coriander seeds and greens, asafoetida, anise, ginger, mint, sesame seeds, mustard seeds, black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, basil, cardamom, methi (fenugreek), etc., are all sattvic and make foods palatable and nutritious.

Whole grains like rice, preferably brown, millets, wheat, ragi, oats, amaranth, barley, cornmeal, etc., are good if they are taken without totally removing the bran.

Rajasic foods are stimulating and contribute to physical and mental stress. Small amounts of rajasic foods are not a problem in an otherwise balanced life, but a diet made up of too many rajasic foods overstimulates the body and mind and will lead to circulatory and nervous system disorders.

Tamasic foods are impure, rotten, or dead and create heaviness and lethargy physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Eating tamasic food leads to dullness, lack of motivation and purpose, and negativity.

Ayurveda, the ancient science of health in Hinduism, is a part of the Vedas and was originally grounded in the idea that we can experience freedom from suffering by coming into harmony with the four pillars of health.

These are ahara or food, vihara or living in alignment with natural rhythms, nidra, or sleep and brahmacharya or management of our vital energy, particularly the sexual energy both in our physical action and in our minds.

We can balance these four areas of life by increasing sattva and eating sattvic foods.

Each one’s body is slightly different and what suits one may not suit another. Ayurveda classifies people into the three body types – vata, pitta, and kapha. These are known as “doshas”. Let us have a quick look at these. The types of food that are suitable for these three types will be different.

Vata is the energy of movement, pitta is the energy

of digestion or metabolism, and kapha the energy of lubrication and structure. As we know, our bodies as well as the universe are made up of five elements – akasha or space, vayu or air, agni or fire, apas or water, and prithvi or earth. Vata is a mixture of akasha and vayu, pitta a mixture of agni and apas, and kapha a mixture of apas and prithvi. Everyone has all these three types in them, but one of them is usually primary, the other secondary, and the third is the least prominent.

Vata is characterized by the mobile nature of the wind, pitta by the transformative nature of fire, and kapha by the binding nature of water and earth. Most of us have a combination of these doshas.

Ayurveda gives elaborate diets to suit each of these “doshas” as they are called. These can be found in any chart on “diets to suit the doshas”. Most Westerners are surprised by the delicate tastes of Indian cooking. This is because we use a lot of spices, which, apart from enhancing the taste of the foods we eat, help to balance the doshas. Spices like mustard, fenugreek, hing, haldi, cumin, coriander, and green chilies go to offset the drawbacks which we may have in our diet. It is only now that the West is understanding the importance of these spices in the Indian diet, which not only increases the taste but also helps our digestion.

The body is a very demanding part of our system. It is very important to keep it healthy. On this will depend our mental health. Unless the body is healthy, we will not even be able to practice any of the sadhanas which are so necessary for progress in our spiritual life.

Hence it's very necessary to have the type of foods that will suit our constitution. A lot of advice on this has been given in the previous blog. Along with the diet, we should also practice yogasanas or yoga postures that will also help in keeping the body healthy and allow us to sit for meditation and prayers without discomfort. Daily practice of yogasanas coupled with a good diet will allow the body to keep fit and healthy for a very long time. Hence, you find that Himalayan yogis live a healthy life for as many as a hundred years. Discipline and daily practice are absolutely necessary for this.

We will take up the methods of sadhana or spiritual practices in another blog.

Hari aum tat sat