VIII. Nourishment
The
human body is constantly undergoing change. Atoms of
bone, tissue, flesh, muscle, fat and fluids are constantly
being wornout 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 wornout 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 wornout 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 wornout
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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