Sri Ramana Maharshi’s recommendations on satytv diet

Sattic food in moderate caities

In general, Maharshi refused to give instructions regarding the discipline of the physical practice of his disciples.
When asked about what posture should be in meditation, he replied simply:
“The best meditation posture is to fix the mind at one point.”

When asked about celibacy, he said that married people can also achieve Ultimate Achievement.

But when asked about the diet, he vehemently claimed Vegetarianism: “A diet must be restricted to its sattvtic component (pure and vegetarian), and the food should be consumed in moderate quantities, here are the best rules to develop the satvistic qualities of the mind, which in turn can better help the practice of introspection.”

Bhagavan also considered milk to have a satvoniccomponent, but it does not allow the consumption of eggs, which are of a rajasicnature.

Bhagavan was categorical about diet, emphasizing that a pure, vegetarian diet is beneficial for those who are on a spiritual path, especially in the conditions of the modern world in which we live today.

Moderate, pure and nutritious

A helper in introspection that Sri Ramana mentions in chapter 9 of his famous work “Who am I?”, is the bribe sattvika ahara-niyama. This term ahara-nyama means in Sasncritic the retention from food, but from an etymological point of view, ahara means sourcing or the way we feed ourselves, and can be used not only in the strict sense of the physical food we introduce into the mouth, but also as sensory feeding that we assimilate into our mind through the five senses. So, in order to keep our mind in a state that is most favorable for the cultivation of skills in the art of being as conscious as possible, we should make every effort to ensure that both types of food, both the one we physically ingest and the sensory food we consume mentally, are in sufficient quantity and of adequate quality.

The quality and quantity of the food we eat is described by Sri Ramana as bribes and sattvika. The word mitta refers to the amount of food we eat and means measured, limited, frugal or moderate. The word sattvika refers to the quality of the food we eat and generally means pure and beneficent, or more precisely its endowment with the quality known as sattva, which literally means: purity, clarity, wisdom and virtue.

The restriction or niyama of eating only sattvictype food , means refraining from any kind of non-sattvic foods that include all types of meat, fish and eggs, drugs such as alcohol and tobacco or other toxic substances, which have a destructive potential for health.

after an article by Arthur Osborne, http://bhagavan-ramana.org.