“Food sustains the life of living beings. All living beings in the Universe require food. Complexion, clarity, good voice, longevity, creativity, happiness, contentment, nourishment, strength, and intellect all depend on food. Actions performed for worldly achievement, attainment of heavenly life, and enlightenment are all dependent on food.”
Charaka Samhita, Sutrasthan, 27.349-350
Here we see one of the most profound and cosmic presentations on the role of our diet available in our time. Food and its value go far beyond the health of our body and mind - but are also directly related to the aspirations of a high caliber state of health and to those on the spiritual path.
You’ll find much more detailed information on diet in a practical context, here you’ll find a broader and cosmic perspective.
The Truth around diet is that diet is ultimately anything that comes into the field of your experience. Whatever we take in contributes to the growth, refinement, betterment or detriment of any number of aspects of our mind-body system.
As we have seen, the human mechanism is a multi-layered one with a range of manifestations from your Soul to your body. The condition of any one of these layers determines much in terms of our overall experience of life.
For example: let’s say we have a relationship with a very loving friend who has a wonderful and positive attitude on life. The effect of spending time with such a person would undoubtedly have a positive effect on us - but in exactly what way? We might say that an improvement in our mood could be measured in the neurochemistry of the brain - but what to say about the good feelings in our heart? We could say that our cardiovascular system, our nervous system, hormonal system, stress response and so on are benefiting, but what else might be taking place?
From the perspective of Ayurveda, positive thoughts, emotions and states of being ultimately take place on a subtler dimension of our being. We could simply say that there exists an “emotional heart” - in Ayurveda one term for this value is Sadhaka Pitta - an aspect of Pitta Dosha that we will cover in another article. So let’s say someone’s Sadhaka Pitta has an abundance of positivity - well if we spend time with that person, our Sadhaka Pitta might be positively affected.
This is all to give an example of how a relationship dynamic can be understood as a part of our “Diet” - in the sense that this emotional body - which has its own anatomical structures and realities - can be nourished and built upon by this positivity.
The value in choosing our multidimensional diet is in improving the structures of our multidimensional being. Ayurveda offers a nice theoretical framework for understanding what kind of diets are useful in maintaining balance. Generally, this understanding hinges on a principle in Ayurveda called - Samanya & Vishesh.
Samanya - similarity
Vishesh - dissimilarity
We can call this principle: The Principle of Opposites. Essentially, the qualities inherent in our “Diet” become increased in us. Hot peppers increase heat in us, cold ice cream increases coldness in us. Happy people increase happiness in us, violent movies increase a kind of disturbed quality in us. Some examples are straight forward, some are more nuanced - but the principle remains: the qualities inherent in the object of our experience influence us, generally, in this manner.
The depth of wisdom surrounding our food that Ayurveda offers is profound, and insights into this can be found in our Digestive Health section - but here we are observing the principle from a philosophical perspective - that our diet is indeed any experience that comes into our perception and the influence is generally adhering to this principle of opposites.
This gives us another inspirational impulse to pursue good things: things which resonate with that which we are working to create for ourselves. To the best of our ability we work to favor goodness in our company, workplace, environment and food.
