Inner Engineering by Sadhguru

Inner Engineering by Sadhguru

Author:Sadhguru
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9789386057587
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2016-11-25T00:00:00+00:00


Gastronomic Sense

If you observe the natural cycle of the body, you will find that there is something called a mandala. A mandala is a cycle of forty to forty-eight days that the human system goes through. In every cycle, there will be three days on which your body does not need food.

If you are conscious of how your body functions, you will become aware that on a particular day the body does not require food. Without effort, you can go without food on that day. Even dogs and cats have this awareness; on a particular day they often choose not to eat.

The day the system says “no food” is a cleanup day. Since most people are not aware of which day their body should go without food, the day of Ekadashi was fixed in the Indian calendar. Ekadashi is the eleventh day of the lunar segment and recurs every fourteen days. It is traditionally regarded as the day to fast. If some people are unable to go without food because their activity levels demand it, or if they do not have the appropriate spiritual practice to support it, they can opt to go on a fruit diet.

If you force yourself to fast without preparing your body and mind sufficiently, you will only cause damage to your health. But if your body, mind, and energy are properly prepared with the necessary practices, then fasting can be of much benefit to you.

People who are constantly on nicotine and caffeine will find that fasting can become very difficult. So before fasting, prepare the body by consuming the right kind of nourishment, particularly high-water-content foods like fruits and vegetables. It may not be a good thing for everybody to fast, but it has many benefits if it is done with proper understanding.

The entire aim and endeavor of yoga is to open up the cocoon of the physical body to the larger sensory body where you experience everything as a part of you. Fasting is an extension of this logic: it is a way of nourishing yourself without any active ingestion. It may be done as a detoxification process nowadays, but this is the internal rationale. This is why every spiritual tradition in the world has fixed a certain period of fasting for its adherents. In the yogic tradition, the fasting period was fixed according to the lunar cycle. This is because your ability to assimilate energy from water, air, and sunlight is greater on certain days of the lunar cycle. In some religions, the fasting period was fixed in peak summer when the consumption of water and sun by the human system would naturally be high.

My great-grandmother, a wonderful old woman, often considered eccentric by those who didn’t know any better, would frequently give away her food to ants and sparrows. Tears of bliss would be streaming down her face as she did this. People around her kept saying, “Why don’t you eat, old woman?” She’d simply reply, “I am full.” But all those advisers died a long time before she did.



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