The Yoga of Eating - Transcending Diets and Dogma to Nourish the Natural Self

But you have food—and it is your greatest teacher. If you are willing to engage with yourself rather than run from yourself, and if you are willing to be steadfast and not get seduced by the newest greatest diet, you already have what people go to India to get. Right there on your plate, right smack in the middle of your day-today life, you have yo

Before we can make deep changes in our lives, we have to look into our diet, our way of consuming. We have to live in such a way that we stop consuming the things that poison us and intoxicate us. Then we will have the strength to allow the best in us to arise, and we will no longer be victims of anger, of frustration.

If you are eating with others, steer mealtime conversations toward the food: acknowledge the local farmer who grew your lettuce and tomatoes, thank the person who prepared the salad; or talk about other topics that help nourish your gratitude and connection to your food and each other. Refrain from hashing over work or the latest atrocities in the

And on the heels of that recognition comes the willingness to engage with and unwind the suffering rather than be its prisoner. The exquisite paradox of this engagement is that when the suffering is fully allowed, it dissolves. Weight loss occurs easily, naturally. And without the self-inflicted pain and the stories about what is wrong, what’s left