Hatha Yoga of the
Body
Chapter 8 Nourishment
The
human body is constantly undergoing change. Atoms
of bone, tissue, flesh, muscle, fat and fluids are
constantly being worn out and removed from the
system, and new atoms are constantly being
manufactured in the wonderful laboratory of the
body, and then sent to take the place of the worn
out and discarded material.
Let
us consider the physical body of man and its
mechanism, as a plant—and, indeed, it is akin to
the life of the plant in its nature. What does the
plant require to bring it up from seed to sprout,
from sprout to plant, with flower, seed and fruit?
The answer is simple—fresh air, sunlight, water,
and nourishing soil—these things, and all of them,
must it have in order to grow to healthy maturity.
And Man's physical body requires just the same
things-all of them—in order to be healthy, strong
and normal. Remember the requisites—fresh air,
sunlight, water and food. We will consider the
matter of air, sunlight and water in other
chapters, and will consider the matter of
nourishing food first.
Just
as the plant grows slowly, but steadily, so does
this great work of discarding worn out material
and the substitution of new material go on
constantly, day and night. We are not conscious of
this mighty work, as it belongs to that great
subconscious part of Man's nature—it is a part of
the work of the Instinctive Mind.
The
whole of the body, and all its parts, depend for
health, strength and vigor upon this constant
renewal of material. If this renewal were stopped,
disintegration and death would ensue. The
replacing of the worn out and discarded material
is an imperative necessity of our organism, and,
therefore, is the first thing to be considered
when we think of the Healthy Man.
The
keynote of this subject of food in the Hatha Yoga
Philosophy is the Sanscrit word, the English
equivalent of which is "NOURISHMENT." We print the
word in capital letters that it may make an
impression upon your minds. We wish our students
to associate the thought of Food with the thought
of Nourishment.
To
the Yogi, food does not mean something to tickle
the abnormal palate, but instead it means, first,
Nourishment; second, NOURISHMENT, and
third, NOURISHMENT. Nourishment first, last and
always.
To
many of the Western people, the ideal Yogi is a
lean, lank, scrawny, half-starved, emaciated
being, who thinks so little of food that he goes
for days without eating—one who considers food to
be too "material" for his "spiritual nature."
Nothing can be further from the truth. The Yogis,
at least those who are well-grounded in Hatha
Yoga, regard Nourishment as his first duty towards
his body, and he is always careful to keep that
body properly nourished, and to see that the
supply of new, fresh material is always at least
equal to the wornout and discarded matter.
It
is quite true that the Yogi is not a gross eater,
nor is he inclined to rich and fancy dishes. On
the contrary, he smiles at the folly of such
things, and goes to his plain and nourishing meal,
knowing that he will obtain there full nourishment
without the waste and harmful matter contained in
the more elaborate dishes of his brother who is
ignorant of the real meaning of food.
A
maxim of Hatha Yoga is: "It is not what a man
eats, but the amount that he assimilates,
that nourishes him." There is a world of wisdom in
this old maxim, and it contains that which writers
upon health subjects have taken volumes to
express.
We
will show you, later on, the Yogi method of
extracting the maximum amount of nourishment from
the minimum amount of food. The Yogi method lies
in the middle of the road, the two opposite sides
of which road are traveled, respectively, by the
two differing Western schools, namely the
"food-stuffers" and "starvationists," each of whom
loudly proclaim the merits of their own cult and
decry the claims of the opposing sect. The simple
Yogi may be pardoned for smiling good naturedly at
the disputes raging between those who, preaching
the necessity of sufficient nutrition, teach that
"stuffing" is necessary to obtain it, on the one
hand; and at those of the opposing school, who,
recognizing the folly of "stuffing" and
overeating, have no remedy to offer but a
semi-starvation, accompanied with long continued
fasts, which, of course, has brought many of its
followers down to weakened bodies, impaired
vitality, and even death.
To
the Yogi, the evils of mal-nutrition, on the one
hand, and over-eating on the other, do not
exist—these questions have been settled for him
centuries ago by the old Yogi fathers, whose very
names have been almost forgotten by their
followers of to-day.
Remember,
now, please, once and for all, that Hatha Yoga
does not advocate the plan of starving oneself,
but, on the contrary, knows and teaches that no
human body can be strong and healthy unless it is
properly nourished by sufficient food eaten and
assimilated. Many delicate, weak and nervous
people owe their impaired vitality and diseased
condition to the fact that they do not obtain
sufficient nourishment.
Remember,
also, that Hatha Yoga rejects as ridiculous the
theory that Nourishment is obtained from
"stuffing," gorging, or over-eating, and views
with wonder and pity these attributes of the
glutton, and sees nothing in these practices but
the manifestation of the attributes of the unclean
swine, utterly unworthy of the developed man.
To
the Yogi understanding Man should eat to live-not
live to eat.
The
Yogi is an epicure, rather than a gourmand, for
while eating the plainest food he has cultivated
and encouraged his natural and normal taste so
that his hunger imparts to these simple viands a
relish sought after, but not obtained, by those
who hunt after rich and expensive triumphs of the
chef. While eating for Nourishment as his
main object, he manages to make his food yield him
a pleasure unknown to his brother who scorns the
simple fare.
In
our next chapter we will take up the subject of
Hunger and Appetite—two entirely different
attributes of the physical body, although to
most persons the two appear to mean almost the
same thing.
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