Health & Meditation

A healthy body is essential to the development of one’s full potential. If the physical machinery is not optimum condition, it will not be a fit instrument for daily work, meditation, and service to others.
Proper exercise, proper breathing, proper relaxation, proper diet, and positive thinking are the requisite attendants of meditation. When there are disturbances of a physical or emotional nature, meditation is not possible. The entire physical system, internal and external, should be kept in tune. This is the [purpose of Yoga exercises, or asanas, which involve systematically stretching muscles rather than contracting.
Yogic breathing is called pranayama, which actually means control of the vital energy. You can live without food, water, sunlight, and sleep for fairly extended periods of time, but the body cannot survive without oxygen beyond several minutes. Prana, the vital force, makes the difference between life and death. Its primary source is the breath.
Proper relaxation is also needed to maintain mental, spiritual, and physical health. Yogic asana and pranayama include special techniques for relaxation. Many think that relaxation involves leaving home for some exotic place where the mind and body are ceaselessly pumped with stimulants and depressants and a full range of other damaging delights.
Perfect Diet:
What is consumed by the human body correlates directly to the efficiency with which the brain functions. Refined sugar can cause emotional instability. A person who meditation regularly must be particularly aware of these substances, for even on a day-by-day basis, diet affects the quality of meditation.
The optimum diet for mediation is a simple one. This is not to say that meals should not be appetizing, but there should be an absence of these foods, which negatively affect the mind. Hot and pungent spices, garlic, onions, salt, coffee, black tea, and meat agitate the mind, and hence control of the thoughts becomes difficult. Marijuana and cigarettes, though not taken as foods, also fit into this category.
Buy fresh fruits and vegetables. Avoid additives, processed foods, and canned goods wherever possible. Buy a few good books on nutrition and vegetarian diet. Several years ago vegetarianism was, in a sense an underground practice.

Health food stores and vegetarian restaurants are prevalent. There is a growing awareness that our health is directly affected by what we eat.
Hardening of the arteries and heart disease are two of the most common maladies in the West, where the greatest amount of meat is consumed. The culprit is cholesterol, which cannot be eliminated from the body. It forms fatty deposits along the walls of the heart and arties, gradually thickening until they are clogged and inflexible. It is also noteworthy that our digestive system is not one of a carnivore. Our teeth are designed for biting and mashing vegetables, not tearing flesh; we must age, tenderise and cook meat. The human liver is proportionally smaller then that of a meat-eating animal and is not built to handle the filtering of animal poisons.

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