Do not trouble your mind about food. Take it in the right quantity (neither too much nor too little), without greed or repulsion, as the means given you by the Mother for the maintenance of the body, in the right spirit, offering it to the Divine in you; then it need not create tamas. ⁂ What is necessary is to take enough food and think no more about it, taking it as a means for the maintenance of the physical instrument only. But just as one should not overeat, so one should not diminish unduly − it produces a reaction which defeats the object − for the object is not to allow either the greed for food or the heavy tamas of the physical which is the result of excessive eating to interfere with the concentration on the spiritual experience and progress. If the body is left insufficiently nourished, it will think of food more than otherwise. page 1466 , Letters on Yoga , volume 24 , SABCL |
Too much eating makes the body material and heavy, eating too little makes it weak and nervous − one has to find the true harmony and balance between the body's need and the food taken. page 1467 , Letters on Yoga , volume 24 , SABCL |
It is not necessary to have desire or greed of food in order to eat. The yogi eats not out of desire, but to maintain the body. page 1468 , Letters on Yoga , volume 24 , SABCL |
The first thing I tell people when they want not to eat or sleep is that no yoga can be done without sufficient food and sleep (see the Gita on this point). Fasting or sleeplessness make the nerves morbid and excited and weaken the brain and lead to delusions and fantasies. The Gita says, yoga is not for one who eats too much or sleeps too much, neither is it for one who does not eat or does not sleep, but if one eats and sleeps suitably − yuktāhārī yuktanidrah—then one can do it best. It is the same with everything else. How often have I said that excessive retirement was suspect to me and that to do nothing but meditate was a lop-sided and therefore unsound sadhana? page 1470 , Letters on Yoga , volume 24 , SABCL |
Not to eat as the method of getting rid of the greed of food is the ascetic way. Ours is equanimity and non-attachment. page 1471 , Letters on Yoga , volume 24 , SABCL |
Taste is no more a guilty thing than sight or hearing. It is the desire that it awakens that has to be thrown away. It is possible to get rid of taste like Chaitanya, for it is
something that depends on the consciousness and so inhibition is possible. In
hypnotic experiments it is found that suggestion can make sugar taste bitter or
bitter things sweet. Berkeley and physiology
are both right. There is a certain usually fixed relation between the
consciousness in the palate and the guņa
of the food, but the consciousness can alter the relation if it wants or
inhibit it altogether. There are yogis who make themselves insensitive to pain
also and that too can be done by hypnosis. page 1475 , Letters on Yoga , volume 24 , SABCL |