Excerpts Chapter 10
THE MEDITATION BOOK:
DIET AND LIFESTYLE
A vegetarian diet promotes good meditations
Question: In connection with your meditation, do you follow any dietary rules? For example, is it necessary to be a vegetarian in order to follow the spiritual life?
Sri Chinmoy: The vegetarian diet plays a most important role in the spiritual life. Purity is of paramount importance for an aspirant. This purity we must establish in the physical, the vital and the mental. When we eat meat and fish, the aggressive, animal consciousness enters into us. Our nerves become agitated; they become restless and aggressive, and this can interfere with our meditation. But the mild qualities of fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, help us to establish, in our inner life as well as in our outer life, the qualities of sweetness, softness, simplicity and purity. So, if we are vegetarians, it helps our inner being to strengthen its own existence. Inwardly, we are praying and meditating; outwardly, the food we are taking from Mother Earth is helping us too, giving us not only energy but also aspiration.
There are some parts of the world where it is exceptionally cold and people living there find it impossible to live on vegetables alone. What can they do? They must eat meat. Or there are some sincere seekers whose physical constitutions are very weak. From the beginning of their lives, they have been eating meat, and now they have formed such a habit – such a bad habit, you can say – that without meat they cannot manage even for a day. On the one hand, they have sincere aspiration, but on the other hand, their bodies revolt. In such rare cases, these aspirants should also eat meat.
Many spiritual seekers have come to the conclusion that a vegetarian is in a position to make quick progress in the spiritual life. But along with a vegetarian diet, one must pray and meditate. Millions of people on earth are vegetarians, but there are not millions of God-realised souls on earth by any means. In India, widows are forbidden to eat meat. Now, in spite of my deepest love and respect for Indian widows, I am afraid that they are not all God-realised souls. For God-realisation one needs aspiration, inner cry. If one has aspiration, the vegetarian diet furthers one’s progress, since the body’s purity helps one’s inner aspiration to become more intense and more soulful. But again, if one is not a vegetarian, that does not mean he will not realise God. Far from it. Christ, Vivekananda and many other spiritual Masters ate meat, and they realised God.
How does eating meat disturb a meditation?
Question: How do the animal qualities that we get from meat actually affect us? What is the process?
Sri Chinmoy: Inside us there are always some negative forces. When negative forces from the outer world – restlessness, wrong thoughts and emotional urges – enter into us, immediately the unlit emotion that we already have in the lower vital comes to the fore and responds to the wrong forces that have entered into us. Then the negative forces that are inside and the wrong forces that are coming from the outside join together and we become their victim.
Restlessness, negative forces, vital forces have their root in the navel. When we concentrate on the navel for five minutes, our will becomes powerful and direct like an arrow, and the wrong forces come under our control. They see the power of our concentration; they see that we are going to cut them asunder if they create any problems. If we can keep the wrong forces that are already inside us under control, then the forces that come from eating meat will not be able to cause restlessness.
But I wish all my disciples eventually to stop eating meat. If you do, your aspiration will be better. Otherwise, what happens is that you generally do not get subtle experiences, subtle visions, subtle realisations. Of course, there were some spiritual Masters like Vivekananda and others who did eat meat. But they could do it because they were like roaring lions in the spiritual world. They were not disturbed by the forces within the meat.
I do not want to impose a strict vegetarian diet on my disciples; it is a matter of individual choice. And if a doctor advises someone that it is absolutely necessary for him to eat meat and fish for a short period of time, he has to do it. But, in general, if you want the Absolute, the Highest, Self-realisation, you should stop eating meat and fish. If you can, do it today. If it takes one year or ten years or twenty years, do it gradually. Once you are realised, you can eat meat and fish if you want. But right now I must say that the animal consciousness in meat will not allow the sincere, dedicated aspirant to enter into the highest and deepest consciousness.
Physical fitness
Question: How important is it for a spiritual aspirant to remain physically fit?
Sri Chinmoy: Physical fitness is of great importance in our life. If the body is in good condition, then we can perform all our life-activities well. So it is important to run or do physical exercises every day in order to become strong, healthy and dynamic. If we are physically fit, we will be able to keep ailments and other uninvited guests from entering into us.
In the past, people cared for the fitness of the body because they knew that if they had a healthy body, then they would be able to stay on earth longer. If they were spiritual people, they felt that a healthy body would enable them to continue praying and meditating for many more years. Today also we know that if the body is full of sickness, then we will not be able to pray and meditate well. For weeks and months we may suffer both physically and spiritually.
We have the body and we have the soul. A spiritual person has to give equal importance to both the body and the soul. If he pays attention only to the body, if he becomes physically strong but spiritually very weak, then for him there will be no peace of mind or inner happiness. Again, if he pays attention only to prayer and meditation and neglects the body, then his body will not be a fit instrument to reveal and manifest God. In the morning he will try to pray to God, but he will have to stop because he has a headache, upset stomach and so forth.
If someone does not get any exercise at all, then the physical will remain unlit, lethargic and a real hindrance to the aspirant. If the physical consciousness does not aspire, it will remain separated from the soul. Then rest assured, you will never be able to achieve perfection. The physical has to aspire in its own way to increase its capacity so that it can hold light. Then the physical will contribute to the spiritual and you will be able to aspire and manifest much more. So physical fitness and spirituality must go together. It is like having two legs. With one leg I cannot walk; I need two legs to reach my destination.
Combining hatha yoga and meditation
Question: Is hatha yoga necessary in concentration, meditation and contemplation? Is it indispensable for realising God?
Sri Chinmoy: If your body is not strong enough, then today you will suffer from a stomach-ache, tomorrow you will have a headache and the next day you will have some other disorder. Naturally, you will not be able to concentrate and meditate. For that reason it is important to keep the body fit. And hatha yoga asanas are far better for the body than the vigorous exercises that are done in the West. Asanas will soothe your body as long as you do not do them too much. If asanas are done too dynamically, they may arouse aggressive feelings. But when you do them correctly, you get a kind, mild, soft vibration.
Hatha yoga may help us a little bit spiritually, but we have to know where we stand in our spiritual journey. If we are very restless, we can do hatha yoga in the beginning to learn to sit calmly and quietly. But if we are not constant victims of restlessness, even if we are absolute beginners, hatha yoga is not needed, for when we enter into meditation we automatically enter into a calm, quiet state. By doing hatha yoga exercises, we feel that we are regulating and disciplining our life. But when we meditate properly and life-energy enters into us from our meditation, automatically our life is disciplined. The divine Peace and Light which we need, we can never, never get from hatha yoga.
Just as yoga exercises will bring calm and quiet, breathing exercises will bring poise. This is not real inner peace, though. It is only a temporary poise. Concentration, meditation and contemplation are the only things that bring real peace.
If your aim is just to keep the body relaxed and fit, then hatha yoga will certainly help you. But if you want to complete your course in the inner life, you have to enter into the school of concentration, meditation and contemplation. Hatha yoga is like kindergarten, whereas your aim is to get a Master’s degree. There are many excellent students who have not gone to kindergarten. They have skipped it and gone directly to primary school, and from there they have gone on to high school and university studies.
In India there are hundreds and thousands of real aspirants who have never done any exercises. I happened to be in an ashram where I did physical exercises for the sake of the body, but even in that ashram the spiritual Master never recommended that the aspirants practise asanas in order to make spiritual progress. In many spiritual communities in India asanas are never done. The seekers start directly with aspiration and meditation.
If one feels that by becoming an expert in hatha yoga he can realise God, or make fast progress on the road to realisation, then I wish to say that he is mistaken. There are many people on earth who do physical exercise and keep their bodies extremely fit. There are wrestlers and acrobats and athletes who are very strong and healthy, but God-realisation is not meant for them in this incarnation. They are strong physically, but they do not care for spiritual strength. Fortunately or unfortunately, there is no direct relationship between physical strength and spiritual strength or capacity. Any Indian village has hundreds of little boys who will give a far better performance of hatha yoga than the swamis here can do. Nature has taught them; Mother India has taught them. But God-realisation for those village boys will long remain a far cry.
We have to know what we actually want. Hatha yoga has something to offer which is very limited, and meditation has something to offer which is absolutely unlimited. If you say, “Let me achieve the limited thing first and then grow into the unlimited,” that is all right. Again, if you have the capacity and willingness to enter directly into the vast ocean, God will not ask you to swim in a swimming pool. But if you do not have the capacity to jump directly into the ocean, then God says, “Go to the swimming pool and enjoy yourself for a while.”
My Yoga will not say anything against hatha yoga but, at the same time, my Yoga feels that inner strength will also supply the outer strength. That is to say, if I really love God, my eternal Father will take care of the needs of my body. He will give me a sufficiently strong body to enable me to carry on my inner work. If I am ready to sacrifice myself or offer something to my Beloved, my Father, then He will naturally think of my body’s needs; for He knows that if I do not have the physical capacity, I will not be able to fulfil Him as a divine instrument and work for Him on earth.
So if you want to do asanas for five or ten minutes daily to keep your body fit, you can do so. But if you want to do hatha yoga for two hours before you meditate, it will be a sheer waste of time.