Sadhguru is a yogi, mystic, visionary, and New York Times bestselling author. Here he describes the effect of food on the mind and mental well-being.
The yogic system does not identify the body and the mind as two different entities. Your brain is part of your body. It’s just that what we generally call the mind is a certain amount of memory and intelligence. Between the brain and the rest of the body, who has more memory, who has more intelligence? If you look at it closely, your body’s memory dates back millions of years. He clearly remembers how your ancestors were. The mind cannot claim this kind of memory. When it comes to intelligence, what’s going on in a single DNA molecule is so complex that your whole brain can’t figure it out.
In the yogic system, we see that there is a physical body and that there is a mental body. There is an intelligence and a memory that runs through the whole body. People generally think that the brain is simply because it handles the thought process. It is because of this separation of body and mind that many people in the West take antidepressants at some point in their lives.
The effect of food on the mind
The type of food we eat has a huge impact on the mind. It is said that the average American consumes over 200 pounds of meat per year. If you reduce it to 50 pounds, you will see that 75% of people will no longer need antidepressants. Meat shouldn’t be a daily food when there are other choices.
There are several ways to look at this. One thing is that animals have the intelligence to know in the last moments that they are going to be killed, no matter how cunning or scientific you do it. Suppose you now know that at the end of this day you are going to get slaughtered. Imagine the struggle you would go through, the explosion of chemical reactions within you. An animal suffers at least part of it. This means that when you kill an animal, negative acids and any other chemicals are in the meat. When you consume meat, it creates unnecessary levels of mental fluctuations.
Another aspect is to examine what kind of food the human system is actually designed for. One can easily experience this and see. Don’t ask your doctor, nutritionist, yoga teacher, or anyone else. When it comes to food, it’s about the body. Ask the body, not your tongue, what type of food it is most comfortable with. The type of food that your body feels most comfortable with is always the ideal food to eat.
If you eat certain foods, the body will become happy. If you eat certain other foods, the body will become dull and sluggish. Just experiment and see, when you eat vegetarian food in its live, uncooked form what a difference it will make. The idea is to eat as much as can be consumed in its vitality. Cooking food destroys the life it contains. Eating food after this destructive process does not give the system the same amount of life energy. When you eat natural foods, it brings you a different level of vitality. If you eat a lot of sprouts, fruits and vegetables that can be eaten alive, if you provide at least thirty to forty percent of living food, it will keep you alive very well.
If you put people who take antidepressants on a conscious vegetarian diet, in about three months most of them will no longer need their medication. We have seen this with many people who have come to the Isha Yoga Center.
Business forces should not decide on food choices
For most of those who have become mentally ill, the disease has been cultivated – there is nothing pathologically wrong with them. Such a large percentage of people cannot be mentally ill unless we cultivate it in our social fabric. We should never let business forces determine the quality of our lives. Trade is there to serve humanity. But right now, we have structured the economic engine across the world so that human beings are there to serve the economic and business process. When I was at the World Economic Forum a few years ago, everyone was talking about India, China and other countries as emerging markets.
I said, “Please don’t refer to people as a market. If you thought of them as human beings, you might have a good idea of what to do with them. If you don’t see people as people, if you don’t see life as life, you won’t care what you put in there. You will want to sell something that makes the most money for you. Right now, for the health of the economy, we are giving up on the health of human beings. Sales forces decide what to eat, what to drink, and how to live. It should never be that way.
I think we need an effective food campaign, like the anti-smoking campaign in the United States. In the 1970s, in any public place in the United States, you had to wade through the smoke. Then they launched an active and successful campaign that cleared the air. At one time, smoking wasn’t just a necessity for many people, it was all the rage. It was the right thing to blow smoke in other people’s faces.
With the right kind of campaign, within a generation this situation has completely changed. Today you see less tobacco smoke in America than in many other countries of the world. An equally successful campaign is needed on what we eat and what we drink.
Above all, we must remember that there is nothing religious, philosophical, spiritual or moral about the food we eat. It is a question of the meaning of life. Each individual must achieve their own nutritional balance, not by taking vows, but by observation and awareness.
Named one of India’s 50 Most Influential People, Sadhguru’s work has touched the lives of millions of people around the world through his transformative programs. His approach does not attribute any belief system, but offers powerful and proven methods for self-transformation. Sadhguru’s flagship program is called Inner Engineering Online.
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