Right Eating Habits Are Part of
the Study in Esoteric Philosophy
Carlos Cardoso Aveline
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
The timeless axiom, ascribed to Hippocrates, is a central tenet in theosophy for several reasons.
It indicates in the first place the right relation between the individual and the act of eating. One’s food must be a source of health, and it is a serious distortion to look at it as simply a source of pleasure. The idea belongs to Raja Yoga. Obtaining self-knowledge is the opposite of seeking for immediate pleasure.
The Hippocratic axiom points to the importance of health, physical and emotional, in the search for wisdom.
Esoteric philosophy works with Nature and follows her methods. The right kind of food gives us healing substances which come to our organism even before any sickness is visible.
That allows us to live healthier lives on the physical level and also to have purer thoughts and emotions. The psychic influence of food is of decisive importance in human life and has been demonstrated since antiquity. One must eat with due calm, and a master of the wisdom wrote:
“Knowledge for the mind, like food for the body, is intended to feed and help to growth, but it requires to be well digested and the more thoroughly and slowly the process is carried out the better both for body and mind.” [1]
Humans have strong reasons to abstain from cruelty against animals, and theosophy is in favour of the choice for vegetarian food. In her “Collected Writings”, Helena Blavatsky says that [advanced] disciples of Eastern Wisdom follow a diet based on fruit. [2]
In “The Mahatma Letters”, a Master recommends the free use of fruit to a lay disciple.[3] The theosophical essay entitled “The Elixir of Life” says one’s food should be “innocent and simple” and adds: “Fruit and milk will usually be the best”.[4]
Extensive researches done by Alfons Balbach and other authors have gathered safe evidence of the healing powers present in dozens of fruits.
NOTES:
[1] “The Mahatma Letters”, see letter XLIII, p. 262. The book is available in PDF in our associated websites. The page is the same in the TUP edition.
[2] “Collected Writings”, H. P. Blavatsky, TPH, Volume XIV, p. 164, footnote.
[3] The book “The Mahatma Letters” is available in PDF in our associated websites. See p. 455. The page is the same in the TUP edition.
[4] “The Elixir of Life”, by G.M., in “Fire Years of Theosophy”, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, 575 pp., see p. 24.
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An initial version of the above article was published at “The Aquarian Theosophist”, March 2017, pp. 3-4. It had no indication as to the name of the author.
Read in our associated websites the booklet “Health and Therapy”, of various authors, and the articles “Food as Sacrifice”, “Mahatma Gandhi’s View of Food”, “Edward Bach, Herbalist” and “Paracelsus and the Book of Nature”.
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On 14 September 2016, after examining the state of the esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to found the Independent Lodge of Theosophists. Two of the priorities adopted by the ILT are learning from the past and building a better future.
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