Diet for Consciousness

This article touches upon yogic diet.

The Cosmic Force is the resultant of 3 forces (sentient, mutative, static forces).

The Cosmic Force creating this universe is not always the same. When the mutative force is active (dominating the 2 other forces), we witness changes and growth in all the structural levels (Atomic, Molecular, Cellular, Individual entities, and Society). When the sentient force dominates, beauty, peace and harmony are expressed by the fully grown, mature structure. And when the static force is dominant, we witness decay and death of the same structures.

In this way,the play of these 3 forces gives expression to a grand variety of thoughts, objects and other animated or unanimated structures each of them dominated by one of the 3 forces.

The sentient force will create subtle feelings of love, compassion, harmony, and peace and desire for the Great, joy and enthusiasm.  Mutative force will create feelings of doer-ship, restlessness, and desire for movement and action, egoism, ambition, desire for retribution. Static force will create feelings of lethargy, dullness, laziness, helplessness, fear, anger, depression, suicidal thinking.

Food is also of 3 kinds.  As are all objects in the universe, each food is dominated by one of these 3 forces.  Sentient foods will help generate subtle feelings and thoughts.  Mutative foods will help generate mutative feelings and thoughts.  Static foods will help generate mental staticity.
Yogic practioners for centuries have classified food in this way derived by experimenting with various foods and noticing the effects on their minds.
We should eat mostly sentient food, take as little mutative food as possible, and completely avoid static food.

Sentient Food: Food which produces sentient cells and is thus conducive to physical and mental well-being is sentient. Examples of sentient food are rice, wheat, barley, all kinds of pulses, fruit, milk and milk products.

Mutative Food: Food which is good for the body and may or may not be good for the mind, but certainly not harmful, is mutative.

Static Food: Food which is harmful for the mind and may or may not be good for the body is static. Onion, garlic, wine, stale and rotten food, meat of large animals such as cows and buffaloes, fish, eggs, etc., are static. Many static foods are rotten or decomposed

Very often people eat food without knowing its intrinsic value.

Fasting is a panacea for physical and mental well being.  Fasting will rest all bodily functions (digestive, glandular, senses, nervous, etc) and is indispensable for physical well being and mental balance.  One day at a time (from sunrise to sunrise) allows the good effects to take place, without weakening too much the body.  A total fast (dry) gives the bests results, so it should be done if the health condition allows it.  Two fasting days by month is the proper amount needed.  The best dates are the Ekadashi (about 4 days before new moon and full moon) to counterbalance water's upward pull by the moon which disturbs the brain by concentrating the water from the cells of the body into the head and brain cells. A dry fast will force the cells to pull back the surplus water from the head, needed for their proper functioning.

Starting and breaking a fast has to be done in a scientific and progressive way. Before starting fasting at the sunrise, sufficient amount of liquid have to be taken to provide the body with sufficient fluids during the fast.  For example, one litre of water would give a comfortable start to the fast.  When the time to break the fast comes, after the second sunrise, a sufficient amount of lemon water with salt can be taken.  This is soon to be followed by a ripe banana, then take your breakfast which should have more fruits than usual.

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