IV: 30

Chapter 4, Verse 30

"Others regulate what they eat
To weaken their sensual attachments
And thus achieve self-mastery."

Paramahansa Yogananda:

"Some Yogis teach their students to consider the stomach as though it were divided into four parts. Rice or other solid food may fill two parts after eating, and one part may receive liquids such as lentil soup or milk. The remaining one-fourth part is to be kept empty for the free passage of digestive juices. In other words, one should always leave the table not fully satisfied, slightly hungry.

The student of Yoga can learn much from the discoveries of modern science. A deficient or incorrect diet causes sickness, brings premature old age, and hastens the advent of death. A balanced vegetarian diet is needed with sufficient proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and limited fats.

Health faddists seem unable to discuss intelligently any subject on Earth except the body and food. Wise people discover a simple diet suited to their constitutions, follow it regularly, and forget about it. Endless preoccupation with diet ties one to intense body consciousness."

Sri Aurobindo:

"All of these methods which Krishna is suggesting tend towards the purification of one's being. All worship is a way towards the attainment of the highest. The one thing needful, the saving principle constant in all these variations, to diminish the grip of unskillful desire and replace it with a supreme energy, to abandon the purely egoistic enjoyment for that divine delight which comes through worship, through self-dedication, through self-mastery, through the offering up of one's impulses to the greatest and highest good."