If you're looking at how to become sensitive to life,
How to become perceptive,
Then what you put into the system becomes very important.
If you watch the body with what sort of food the body is most happy,
You will naturally notice vegetarian or plant-based food.
I do only one meal most of the days,
It'll keep me going the entire 24 hours.
So,
Could you just explain to me why so many people in India are vegetarian and the importance of food and fruit in your general day-to-day life?
Right now,
Approximately thirty-eight percent of India's population are pure vegetarians by,
You know,
Traditionally it's like that.
The.
.
.
About.
.
.
Let's say about fifty years ago,
Nearly sixty percent were vegetarians,
But western educated doctors have been telling people,
If you don't eat meat,
You won't get nourishment,
You have to eat some meat.
So,
Because of that,
Some meat has come in,
But still in India,
Meat eating is not like how it's in the west.
It is only a side dish,
Even for non-vegetarian people it's only a side dish.
But why vegetarianism is.
.
.
You see,
If your survival is under threat,
Your entire life is about survival.
Once survival is taken care of,
Now you wonder what is this all about?
Because when survival is in question,
It looks like when your survival is fulfilled,
Everything is going to be great.
But once survival is taken care of,
You realize that is not the truth.
Your life is longing for something else.
So,
Survival was very simple and easy,
It was rich land,
People survived well.
Because of that,
They started looking inward and it started developing various things.
And one important thing is,
Nearly seventy percent of the country's population was always actively spiritual.
Turning inward was an important part of life.
Because of this,
When they turned inward,
They realized that what they eat matters.
If you just want to be all beefy brawn,
Then you can eat lot of meat and just grow muscles and fight with each other.
But if you're looking at how to become sensitive to life,
How to become perceptive,
How to be able to perceive things beyond what is considered normal perception,
Then what you put into the system becomes very important.
So,
What is it that passes through the system with least amount of resistance,
With least amount of,
You know,
Struggle in the body?
So,
To put this into perspective,
Let me put it this way.
See,
If you eat raw meat,
For example,
In the human system,
Compared to carnivorous animals,
In all the carnivorous animals,
The length of the alimentary canal is only three times the length of his body,
Approximately.
In all the herbivores,
The length of the alimentary canal is five to six times the length of the body.
So,
In a human being,
It could be anywhere between twenty-four to twenty-eight or thirty feet,
Which is nearly five to six times the length of our body.
In this kind of alimentary canal,
If you put meat,
It will travel through this very,
Very slowly,
Approximately,
Raw meat would take seventy to seventy-two hours to pass through the system.
If you put cooked meat,
It will take fifty to fifty-two hours to pass through the system.
If you put cooked vegetable meals,
It will take anywhere between twenty-four to thirty hours to pass through the system.
If you put raw vegetables into the system,
It will take twelve to fifteen hours to pass through the system.
If you put fruit into the system,
It will take one-and-a-half to three hours to pass through the system.
So,
We started recognizing what is that food which happens in the body with least amount of residue,
Least amount of impurities and passes through the system very quickly because in yoga,
This is an important thing,
We all manage this even now.
If we eat anything,
Within two-and-a-half hours,
We must be hungry,
Our stomach must be empty.
But we won't eat,
Stomach is empty,
But we're energetic,
So we don't eat.
So,
Generally,
Here in the yoga center,
Everybody does only two meals,
One ten in the morning,
Seven in the evening,
That's it.
I do only one meal most of the days.
If I'm traveling,
I may do something else a little bit,
But otherwise,
Generally,
If I'm home,
I do only one meal.
So,
This is morning.
.
.
Is that in the morning or the evening,
I'm just curious?
Generally,
For me,
It is four-thirty-five in the evening.
It'll keep me going the entire twenty-four hours.
It's not like a rule,
It is just that,
That is the need.
So,
Suppose there is lot of physical activity on a certain day,
Then you may eat a small breakfast or you meet a fruit or something like that.
Food is not to be made into a philosophy or a kind of a religious process.
Food is the requirement of the body.
If you watch the body,
With what sort of food,
The body is most happy,
Body is most at ease.
You will naturally notice vegetarian or plant-based food,
Body is most comfortable and is at ease.
It is flexible,
It is at ease,
It has less to process on a daily basis.
So,
Naturally,
Those who observed the nature of their own bodies,
Naturally became vegetarian.
When survival was a question,
Hunting and eating whatever you kill was a natural process.
But once society settled down,
They could grow what they want,
As they observed themselves more and more and life became not about survival,
But about enhancing one's life to higher levels of perception and experience,
Then turning vegetarian will naturally become… It's a natural process,
It is bound to happen everywhere.
