The significance of yogic dietary recommendations
So, if you want to follow the path of Kundalini Yoga and work to awaken the power that lies dormant within each of us, it all starts with illuminating what you eat. What you consume largely determines how successful your efforts to awaken the mysterious power called Kundalini will be. Think of it like this: If you want to plant a tree, then put the seed in fertile soil, preferably in a sunny place, protected from external influences that could endanger the growth of the young tree. You will also want to water the young plant at regular intervals and recognize and eliminate any problems early on. The situation is similar with the endeavor to awaken the kundalini power. You may succeed somehow without the right nutrition, but it will be unnecessarily difficult, dangerous and probably not very sustainable. To be honest, if you are not at all interested in the yogic dietary recommendations, I would like to make it quite clear to you that your chances of having a good experience on this path are considerably poor.
The science of yoga is estimated to be around 3000 - 5000 years old. I say science because the yogis who researched and recorded the knowledge of kundalini awakening attached great importance to documenting and instructing the whole process in a way that could be repeated and experienced by others. Just as in modern science there is always an effort to be able to prove a law in an experiment in a repeatable way, in yoga science there is very precise, guiding information to help you immerse yourself in the yoga experience, the experience of oneness. Or, to put it another way, to wake up to it. You may have heard people say “This person is an awakened one” or something similar.
So, what should you eat and, above all, what should you not eat? Let's start by categorizing food according to three terms from Samkhya philosophy, one of the six classical Indian schools of philosophy:
Sattva stands for purity, harmony and clarity
Rajas stands for restlessness, activity and passion
Tamas stands for inertia, darkness and ignorance
As the meaning of these terms suggests, we should primarily eat a sattvic diet! Foods that are rajasic or tamasic, on the other hand, should be avoided.
You may now be afraid that the lists of rajasic and tamasic foods are endlessly long and that in the end you won't even know what you are allowed to eat. Fortunately, this is not the case and, by and large, this picture has proven to be true:
Tamasic foods (sluggish, heavy, energy-sapping):
Meat, fish & eggs - Increase sluggishness and aggression, make meditation difficult.
Onions & garlic - Although healthy, they are considered irritating to the mind and promote restlessness. In addition, these plants should be regarded as medicine rather than everyday food.
Mushrooms - Grow in darkness and are considered energetically “heavy”.
Alcohol & drugs - Disrupt consciousness and self-control.
Ready meals & highly processed foods - Often contain artificial additives and have little life energy (prana).
Rajasic foods (irritating, agitating):
Hot spices (chili, pepper, mustard) - Can overstimulate the nervous system. Pippali pepper, however, is not a problem.
Coffee, black tea & other stimulants - Promote nervousness and restlessness.
Sugar & sweets - Lead to energy peaks and drops, make concentration difficult. Sugar shock
Vinegar & highly salted foods - Disturb inner balance.
Recommended alternative: Sattvic diet
Instead, a plant-based, natural diet is preferred:
Fresh fruit & vegetables
Whole grains (rice, quinoa, spelt)
Pulses (lentils, chickpeas)
Nuts & seeds (in moderation)
Ghee & fresh dairy products (in moderation, if tolerated)
Care should also be taken to ensure that all foods are organic to the best of your ability in order to avoid unnecessary contamination of the body from the outset.
In traditional yoga, you were first put to the test by your guru to ensure that you possessed the necessary qualities to be initiated further. On the one hand, this served to protect you from the potential dangers of practicing advanced exercises with the wrong preparation, and on the other hand, this test also served to create a solid foundation for the success of the practice.
If the whole thing already seems too dogmatic or complicated for you, it may not be for you. That's ok Don't worry, there are many paths and the path of traditional yoga has never been for the masses. Rather, this path is aimed at those who have a god-like trust in their guru because they don't know of any other better way out of the miserable duality. This may sound radical to your ears, but it is definitely meant to be. A fundamental goal of traditional yoga is to let go of your conditioning so that you can experience your own and the surrounding and, as you will see, pervasive reality with new, fresh senses. In order to achieve this goal, traditional yoga uses all kinds of techniques that can make the uninitiated shudder, but more on this in the chapter on Shat Karmas, the yogic cleansing techniques.
The first thing to do now is to get your diet in order. There is plenty of good literature on the subject of “How do I eat like a yogi?” and the whole thing is actually not that difficult. First of all, give up the tamasic and rajasic foods and then just see what's left over and get creative. We don't know the exact number, but there are said to be around 30,000 edible plants. Just a few of these are on the list of tamasic and rajasic foods. Of course, the yogis haven't tried everything either, and it may well be that after eating a food you decide that it feels more like something rajasic or tamasic to you and would rather avoid it in future. Well done! You are on the right track! Because reconnecting with your body's own intelligence is right at the top of the list of 'achievements' in traditional yoga. Keep at it and you will soon become a guru yourself, or at least - and this is the most important thing - your own.
If you actually succeed in changing your diet, you will hardly want to eat any other way. The sense of well-being that comes from this form of nutrition alone is worth every effort. If you are already following a yogic diet anyway, I would like to congratulate you! You have successfully laid the foundations for a fruitful yoga practice. From here on, it's much, much easier, because you've shed a rucksack weighing around 50 kg. Good thing, because you are literally standing at the foot of a steep mountain. It would have been unnecessarily heavy anyway with all that unnecessary weight.
But don't worry, don't be intimidated by my words, the brave, patient and confident ones will win the “main prize” sooner than expected and they will become happy hikers who are no longer so concerned with “arriving” at a summit, because they will jump up and down even the steepest hills with ease and enjoy the view.
True to the motto “The journey is the reward!”
