Dr. Kuppuswamy’s mind-opening dietary advice

Spiritual inspiration Sunday 8

Happy 🌤day, my dear readers, wherever you are!

Dr. Kuppuswamy was one of the most knowledgable doctors who will give us his unique dietary advice – unique, because he doesn’t explain it purely from the health-perspective, but from the perspective of spirituality by focussing on the Yin (Tamas) and Yang (Rajas) aspects.

He probably is one of the rare to talk about both angles, because in his mid-life he became Sivananda Saraswati who left his stamp ( –>) on the world by writing 296 books!

These days it is very fashionable to talk about health-foods – and spirituality is often sold to us through the benefits of wellness, but what made the Dr turn to into a Swami was the fact that he realised that medicine was healing on a superficial level only and spirituality is essential for a more profound transformation. You can read more about him here.

Obviously I do agree with everything he says but want to throw out a word of caution to spiritual followers for imposing their (often just new found) values on others in contempt for anyone who does not live up to their standards.
Have you ever been in a spiritual retreat where people frown upon nearly everything you did enjoy in your life? This usually made me run away and not even following half of it anymore.

The focus on food in my opinion is overrated.

• When studying Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) we learned from the director of the college – a Vietnamese Buddhist monk – about a herbal remedy for a heart condition which does contain 5 eggs. Instantly people in class got upset for it containing cholesterol. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is thousands of years old – Western medicine just a few hundred years – so 20 years later it turned out that there are different sorts of cholesterol of which some are even beneficial for the body. It seemed that TCM knew better, just as they seem to know better in terms of the moderate intake of the other substances which nowadays are shunned for political reasons.
• In TCM a bit of meat can give one strength, a bit of alcohol move the energy, and the Vietnamese monk taught us that 2 cigarettes per day are not only not harmful, but even beneficial for connecting the lungs to the large intestine.
• The aggression with which some vegans push their agenda upon everyone seems a fashion which is counterproductive, because it spreads guilt and pushes fake-meat products on people who still depend on meat. Those products often are unnatural compositions and more energy-consuming than having eaten meat in the first place.
• Vegetarianism is a very emotionally charged issue, but sentimentality should not serve as a base reason for imposing values on others: For Westerners it is shocking when dogs are eaten, yet to Asians cows are just as cute, and the grandmaster of the Rosicrucian order A.M.O.R.C. once said to me that we should eat everything because we don’t know whether plants are the lesser living beings than animals.
• This is why guilt against meat eaters should not be dished out too quickly – I have seen meat-condemning 3HO-Gurus fly half around the world and back within a weekend considering themselves to be important enough to have the right to dismiss that two flights cause as much CO2 emission as one person eating red meat for an entire year! Especially the health-advocates on Youtube should keep that in mind.
• Even the most spiritual people like the Dalai Lama eat meat occasionally because in the Himalayas she-goats can live on grass within steep rocks which no human could.
• And the vegetarian Hitler is proof that changing ones diet alone is no guarantee for a peaceful character.
• We will hear below that vegetarianism is recommended, but a vegan lifestyle not – in fact I never saw any ancient culture which was based entirely on vegan food.
• If one eats vegan in order not to damage any living being then it also is counterproductive to inflict guilt upon non-vegans, because any thought which does contract, like anger, guilt and resentment, does block the free flow of energy and therewith contribute to the rise of all kinds of diseases.
  Hence, someone whose agenda is to further life should never impose own values on others against their own free will.
  
  The first 8 minutes of this video will provide an orthodox dietary advice, and the last third are advanced spiritual remarks most who only want hard and fast rules will overlook, so I will address them again below the video after you have seen it.

A transformation should be slow

One of the rare German Hindus I met once told me that it is not about becoming perfect, but leaving the axes of ones entanglements. You can see how people often keep in their duality by changing from one extreme to the opposite, like smokers who after having given up smoking having a strong aversion against smoke, or ex-alcoholics, who hate drinkers. Both clearly have not finished (dis)solving their axes of entanglements, so I would say that you either can solve your issues rapidly but then take years of personality work to work out the residual resentments , or fade your addictions out slowly – my assumptions is that both ways take an equal amount of time.

What changed my attitude was when I once had an epiphany of our soul-cycles being thousands of years in the making – so obviously – if you were a fierce warrior in the past who did need boosts of compact yang-energy through rough foods, even a change which takes decades still is very fast and longer lasting than one set by a resolution due to some current fashion hype.

I never believed in fear as a motivation.
To quit drinking or smoking was a longterm process for me which took me three whole decades to slowly move out of chain-smoking and heavily drinking to a level where I am now capable to only drink a champagne socially when celebrating, and even to be able to smoke cigarettes when drinking, without falling back into the habit of smoking again the next day. (I admit, I still vape, but without flavours and am literally at the verge of also omitting nicotine also.)

Rudolf Steiner – a very advanced spirits of the West said that nicotine can be beneficial for people who lack Yang (Rajas) energy. This would explain studies why it can be beneficial for Alzheimers patients.

Also my own observation is that it serves as a protection against attacks from society – especially from narrow-minded people.
Ironically it often are the most narrow minded ones who do attack smokers most aggressively.
My mother for example never realised that by nagging at my father for smoking she did trigger the law of attraction which states that whatever is mentioned does come into ones life, and additionally compel him each time to smoke the stress away she just gave him.

The above mentioned Vietnamese monk also said that smoking two cigarettes are not only not harmful but even beneficial to connect the lungs to the large intestines. I even would have the audacity to propose that fewer people die from smoking a little daily than the ones who did quit at an instant. Another very subtle and abstract aspect is

The immeasurable social damage caused by dogmatic coercion

The smoking ban lead to a nearly impalpable shift in societies behaviour because by forcing the population into the obedience of giving up century-old coping mechanisms, the masses have been turned into prison-inmates which now are fighting amongst themselves.
But people aren’t fighting against each other physically, because coincidentally at the same time the smoking was banned, social networks arose, which now enable people to lock away from real-life-contacts in misanthropy, so that the digital fake-anonymity allows for aggressive political attacks and trolling.
– In the past people came together to drink and smoke;
– then TVs did kill conversations
– and if an extraterrestrial would visit earth, they only would see few people communicating – usually the ones smoking, and the rest is staring at their smartphones in a creepy way.
This is a shift of symptoms away from physical towards mental and social problems.

Unfortunately most are not woke enough to challenge systemic failures
and therefore compensate for their stolen free will by kicking unorthodox or untamed spirits into marginalisation.

And by doing so they ironically end up supporting the system which just took their liberty – but then again, it’s them who are the system in the first place.

The most constructive way to solve the social as well as addiction issues in one go would not to revolve against the horizontal walls of dogmas and restrictions but to evolve into the unlimited vertical realm of the higher self. I can testify that the more I meditate, the clearer I see which contacts as well as foods are suitable for me personally without having to impose my own life-changes onto others.

Finally, the aspect, he mentioned, which puts everything above in perspective:

Air, as well as as sunlight can provide cosmic energy (Prana),
so it is possible to live literally without having to eat (or maybe even drink).

This puts the above fights for a CO2-friendly reduction of certain foods into a new light: In essence if one evolves enough, one could nearly nullify their ecological imprint.

Unless you live on pure prana from air or sunlight, regardless whether you eat animals or plants, you have to kill living beings in order to survive. So let’s be honest and say:
“I admit it, I am not evolved enough to live without food (yet)“.

Whilst I obviously admit that I also don’t believe in forced breatharianism, because I have witnessed many excited intermediate spiritual people who want to proof to themselves and the world how advanced they are by not eating.
So far everyone I saw did it only once or twice and gave up under the pretence that they would not have to eat, but food would be so enjoyable.

Yet I do strongly believe that spiritual masters can live without having to consume any food at all anymore. But I am honest enough to admit that I am by no means a spiritual master yet and just as with siddhis (supernatural powers), I don’t run after them but evolve and maybe such an ability will come one day or maybe not.

However, I am working on my sensual attachment to food, by increasing intermittent fasting times (and omitting 1-2 meals daily) but only until I am not weakened. And when I eat, I am slowly gearing towards moderation, by taking breaks in between and listening to my body if I still need more food or not.

I pass on what worked for me:

• When telling others about a longterm strategy to fade out unhealthy foods slowly, only expect a few compassionate people who believe in your authenticity to believe you – most others will dismiss this as an excuse for not using discipline (hence I only could post this after I did succeed and not before).
• Start to cut out the most extreme foods which have the strongest impact on you. Example: I don’t have coffee at home anymore, but still drink green tea.
• Make yourself a list of walls you can cross. When I still was struggling with alcohol I said: “Worst is alcohol, but if you must have something allow yourself to compensate with sweets” for example.
• Only use il/legal drugs very aware in spiritual rituals like native American Indians used their peace pipe, but don’t use them “recreationally” because they cause much heat and mental turmoil.
• Instead of hating certain foods as “evil” (and then hating yourself when you failed to adhere to your own rigid rules) , be more compassionate to yourself and simply say:
  “If in doubt -cut them out”.
  (This is how I did it: I chose to consume a little bit less than before, so my entire consumptions went down to zero and even though non-smoking makes you gain weight I lost over 40 pounds (20 Kilos) without self-hate too.)
• And on really tough days when you see yourself failing at everything: Enjoy it properly rather than half-heartedly, because afterwards you can at least say: This was a great movie-night or party with enjoyable food and drinks – I did need this!
• You can apply those principles to any aspect of your life, btw.

Be good to yourself and therewith to others.