Do you know that many Yoga Retreats are conducted together with raw food cuisine? Even though they do not specify clearly upfront on the food provided, these retreats are known for offering clean organic living foods throughout the duration of the retreat.

Many Yoga practitioners and Instructors (especially those from India) advocate and support a wholesome of living foods cuisine. Books written on the combination of Yoga and Raw Foods are also found more easily in India.

What then is this link between this 2 items which render it such an important combination? When we delve deeper than the surface, there are actually a number of similarities between these 2 practices, making it a synergistic combo.

First of all, most people practice Yoga for health and wellness reasons. Many agree they feel refreshed, energized, lighter, or simply great after doing Yoga. Some even reported miraculous healing experiences. Likewise, anybody who eats mainly a wholesome and living diet may experience the same benefits of well-being and even positive health reversals. The exclusion of harmful foods relieves the digestive burden, and the inclusion of natural wholesome foods nourishes the body. Both Yoga and Raw Foods strengthen the body.

Secondly, Yoga is an exercise/practice which can be done anywhere, anytime without any other additional equipment. Traditional Yoga is done on the ground; it is only us modern city dwellers who do it on mats. In a way, Yoga is a “Raw” activity - it uses nothing else but your mind and body, which we are all born with. When you eat raw and living foods, you make use of only fresh uncooked fruits, vegetables, greens, nuts & seeds - which are purely from Mother Nature. No condiments, additives, preservatives, or other harmful substances are added. These living foods are produced in abundance by Mother Earth; we are born to be able to eat and digest them, and these are our natural foods.

Let’s go slightly deeper now. The core of Yoga teachings center on non-violence in thoughts and action. Yogis practice this on top of everything else because this tenet, if followed well, will cause the other yogic principles to fall in place. Similarly, many raw vegans discovered that a living foods diet is centered around harmony with Nature. By eating natural foods, they practice working in tandem with Nature by treating both their bodies and the environment lovingly.

Perhaps the most interesting observation lies within the Ego. Yoga teaches to transcend and break out of the thinking Egoistic mind. When put on raw foods, healing occurs because we let the true power of our body take charge by eliminating what’s toxic and harmful. The body grows stronger and the mind clearer. When we finally stop working against our body’s natural intelligence, miracles happen.

One of the yogic principles taught is about letting go of attachment to material items, and even our body. A person who is too concerned with how his/her body looks is attached to it; and happiness pivots on how fat/slim/masuclar/skinny/pretty/ugly he/she looks. Yoga aims at feeling good within our own body just by Being, and it does this by training the mind and body to work together. When a person eats raw foods, there is no room for processed, heavily flavored and other harmful substances. We don’t need anything else other than what Mother Nature presents to us, and these do not need additives to taste good. Like Yoga which is a flow of different postures using the body and mind, raw foods mix and match the different natural foods to produce delicious meals to nourish both body and spirit.

Click here to see Part II of the article.

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