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Chapter VIII: Nourishment.1801
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.