Managing Bodily Excesses
The spiritual path begins
right where we are. As long as we seek to fill our emptiness through addictions
of one kind or another, we shall be barred from any real progress on the path.
If the nascent vessel of our soul leaks, we shall never collect enough
energy, enough consciousness to progress. Relaxation of body and heart
plugs some of the leaks. But plenty of us have other major leaks, most
notably bodily excesses such as those concerning food, alcohol, tobacco, or
drugs. Patching these leaks will conserve the energy we need for our practice.
In a deeper sense, stopping these physically harmful habits is an act
of respect for ourselves, for these remarkable bodies we have been given,
and for the limitations of the Earth’s resources. The discipline of working
against harmful habits provides us with a truer picture of ourselves,
while purifying our will.
The path calls us to forgo excess in favor of moderation, to neither seek
nor allow the extremes of asceticism or hedonism, to heal our addictive
behaviors. In moderation, we can enjoy life’s pleasures without overindulging
in them. If we are, indeed, God’s eyes and ears, then appreciating the fruits
of this life on Earth is normal and natural.
Our fertile minds, however,
inevitably look for wiggle room in the definition of excess, the meaning
of which legitimately varies from person to person. The basic criterion
is whether any particular activity diminishes our ability to be present
or to engage in spiritual practice.
Here are a few specific guidelines
to consider:
First, in working toward moderation,
we work on one thing at a time. Let’s say we have two bad habits. If these
habits grip us powerfully, our will is probably insufficient to have any
effect on both at once. So we start with one bad habit and work seriously
on it until we get it right. All the while, we remain watchful not to
allow the energy released from stopping one bad habit to flow into making
another one worse. For example, we avoid the temptation of being grouchy
with people when we give up snacking. Instead we work harder to transform
the energy released from giving up snacking into being more constant in
our spiritual practices.
Overeating destroys certain
energies we need for our spiritual inner work. The body consumes those energies
in digesting the extra, unneeded food. If we feel full when we finish
eating, we have probably eaten too much. If we feel stuffed or bloated,
we have certainly eaten too much. There is a story of the Prophet Mohammed.
A certain king heard glowing reports regarding Mohammed and wanted to
support Mohammed’s mission. So the king sent his personal physician to
live in the Prophet’s community and minister to his followers. After a
year among them, the doctor went to Mohammed and reported that, during
the entire time, none of Mohammed’s people had come down with even a mild
illness. The doctor asked Mohammed why they are all so healthy. Mohammed
replied that their good health derives from the fact that he instructs
his followers to rise from their meals before they are full.
To bring the daily act of eating
into our spiritual path, we can focus our full attention on our food, on its
taste, texture, and aroma, on how full our stomach is, on every aspect of
eating. As a side benefit of conscious eating, fully experiencing our food
enables us to enjoy it more, to be more readily satisfied, less prone to
overeat, and freer in our relationship to food.
Moderation with alcohol means
never getting
even mildly drunk and not drinking more than once or twice a week
. For most people, this amount of social
drinking will have no ill effects on their inner lives.
With tobacco and drugs, moderation
means none. Tobacco, besides being physically destructive, burns up energies we
need for our practice. The same holds even more emphatically about recreational
drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, LSD, etc. While a drug may give a temporary
high, even one mimicking a spiritual state, in the long-term it burns up an
exorbitant amount of energy, weakens our will, and debilitates our spiritual
practice. Drugs and spiritual development do not mix. Sincere spiritual practice
leads to deep satisfaction and unadulterated joy, much more profoundly and
durably than can drugs, alcohol, or tobacco.
For some of us, though, our
addictive behavior arises from using drugs or alcohol to self-medicate our
psychological problems, depression, stress and so forth. In these cases, we’re
infinitely better off if we can bring ourselves to seek professional help and
face our problems forthrightly. Consistent and systematic relaxation practice
also diminishes the need for drugs, alcohol, or tobacco.
Entrenched habits resist our attempts to break them. Fortunately, very few actually need to be broken
altogether for our spiritual lives to flourish: we need to stop all use of tobacco and drugs, and refrain from excessive consumption of food and alcohol. These create major impediments to our spiritual path. Working against such habits can be extremely difficult, but tremendously rewarding. Persistence,
perennially starting over again, eventually pays, clearing obstacles from our way. In the meantime, working on these habits reveals unknown aspects of
ourselves and strengthens our resolve. Eventually we learn to love and respect our body in its service to our higher nature.
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