Diet and Chastity

For the next two months, I will be looking at diet and what is best to eat for success in the NoFap challenge. I find that vegetarian food is most preferable. However, "vegetarian" is quite a vague term, and many diets that dispense with meat are not necessarily healthy. We hear time and time again that fruits, whole grains, milk and (some) vegetables are good for us, and this is beyond all arguments and doubt. Nevertheless the majority of persons nowadays fill themselves with the most unimaginably unhealthy combinations.

I have trialled various restrictions and methods relating to diet. People nowadays are very touchy about their diets, especially if they're not altogether happy with them, so we should be careful to set them a good example. The best way to do this is to take a keen delight in those fresh foods that make us so constitutionally superior, and to learn about nutrition to such an extent that we know better than the self-professed "experts" who spread all kinds of absurd superstitions about food.

There is actually a very good reason to eat only fresh, nutritious food, i.e. that a healthy diet is an essential prerequisite for the observance of chastity. What is chastity? Simply put, chastity is the preservation of sexual fluids and energy within the human organism, even during amorous connection with one's wedded spouse. Chastity makes us happy and very handsome. The foods that disrupt our chastity should be avoided, and the ones that help us preserve it are the ones we should desire to eat often. This is the yard-stick by which we can determine which foods to eat and which ones to avoid. The foods that aggravate our animal desire should be avoided since they lead to fornication, the polar opposite of chastity. Chastity is the chief virtue of initiated Gnostics. Fornication is a direct breach of the Sixth Commandment of the Lord our God. Mary, mother of Jesus, was unsurpassed in chastity.

Mary is the Divine Mother of our church. She is quoted in the Islamic Qu'ran as saying, "Verily, [God] provides sustenance to whom He wills, without limit." (Surah 3: 37)

Each of us can experiment with our diets and work out which food is best for us after some trial and error. No one else can change our tastes or appetites for us. To set forth a general rule, it is most essential to take fruits, cereals and dairy products, and to do away with meat, liquor and hot spices. We notice that people in this present-day society criticise and slander us when we discontinue meat-eating. This is not because they care about our health, but because they want to justify their own habits of eating meat. They get offended and even take incredible lengths to poison and destroy our healthy diets. It's disappointing, but, forgetting all this unpleasantness, we can rejoice that we have access to a form of dietary regimen that will make us healthy, happy, and immune to the bad influences of the hostile and unspiritual cross sector of this society. This is the fruit, milk and cereals diet.

Delicious whole grains like wheat, rye, spelt, oats, barley and maize, and creamy dairy foods like milk, butter, yoghurt, and light cheeses that are not pungent or salty, and also fruits that are colourful, sweet to the taste and rich in nourishment, are the best and finest of all the foods. Mangoes, strawberries, melons, grapes, oranges, apples, bananas, pineapples, peaches, pears, and so on, are highly desirable, and there is absolutely no reason why these should not form the bulk of our diet. Someone once told me that he didn't eat many fruits because they contained too much sugar. Actually, the kind of sugar that fruits contain is called fructose, which does not interfere with energy levels, mood and motivation the way refined sugar does. Let us be reassured and encouraged when we read that the Blessed Virgin ate fruits often and did not allow any impure food to defile her human body. In those days, refined sugar was unheard of, but there was still a distinct difference between pure and impure food, between meat and liquor and pulses and water.

We have been brought up to consume much more refined sugar and starch than previous generations, and in fact we will need to wean ourselves off flour and sugar if we want a perfect diet, in the same way that one must wean himself or herself off hard drugs after having become addicted to them. It might sound unbelievable, but refined carbohydrates are also addictive. Developing a perfect diet, then, is a gradual process. We can start by giving up the most obviously harmful substances like liquor, narcotics and pharmaceuticals. We must understand why we are inclined to take these things, and we must also want to stop taking them to succeed. Then with some effort we can eliminate meat, fish and eggs from our diets, as well as aphrodisiacs like onions, garlic, chillies, and all spices, sauces, and seasonings. If this sounds like a difficult thing to do, please recognise that the healthier way to add flavour to our staple carbohydrates is to add herbs like basil, oregano and coriander, not intense flavours or strong spices.

Next to go is salt. Why? Salt stirs up our desire for fornication the way no other foods do. All foods contain salt; extra salt is not only worthless but harmful. For a young, healthy person to develop hyponatremia (salt deficiency) is next to impossible. Let no-one put the fear into your mind that you must take lots of extra salt. There is one type of cheese available in Australian supermarkets that does not contain excess salt, and that is mascarpone. All other cheeses are over-salted. Fetta cheese is a notorious culprit that masquerades as a healthy article of diet because of its presence in salads. Actually, the best salad is a fruit salad, not one laden with raw onions and (salty) olives. Salt and refined sugar are the two Satans of the "modern" person's diet, and if we want rid of salt for good, we must get rid of packaged foodstuffs. There is such a thing as food cravings, and to recognise when we get these cravings will tell us a lot about what foods are addictive, so to speak.

Even from a very limited, cursory review of the foods we find ourselves craving, we observe that the two things most of the foods we crave have in common are sugar and salt.

So to narrow down our diet to the very finest essentials, we can take the following measures:

1. Discontinuing to take narcotics, unnecessary pharmaceutical drugs, and all intoxicants and chemicals.
2. Getting rid of liquor.
3. Abandoning meat completely (even if it's "kosher" or "halal"). Ignore those people who pester you to eat meat, and do feel free to refuse the supposedly vegetarian meals they will slyly offer you. Abandoning fish, shellfish and eggs too.
4. Ridding our diet of salt. Refusing to buy foods which contain artificial flavours, colours or preservatives.
5. Giving up onions, garlic, chillies and spices.
6. Dispensing with flour and refined sugar.
7. Giving up vegetables.

At the same time, we should be replacing these things with those things that make us healthy. Drugs can be replaced with a spiritually oriented lifestyle and an interest in the arts and sciences. The habit of alcoholism can be replaced with the habit of keeping a daily journal or diary or maintaining a web page, or some other sensible activity. Meat can be replaced with pulses like lentils, dhal or beans, or better yet, with dairy foods and whole grains. Instead of fish, shellfish and eggs, we can take nuts like almonds and cashews and we can use more natural sources of fats and oils: flaxseed and olive oil are some good examples, although butter and ghee (clarified butter) are even better. Foods with added chemicals can be replaced with fresh colourful vegetables, or even better, with fruits. Instead of flour, we can use rice; instead of refined sugar, honey. Salt as a seasoning can be substituted with white pepper, ginger or lemon juice, depending on the dish.

These are common-sense alternatives that directly benefit us, not only in terms of health but also concerning our chastity, which is the main object of our Gnostic lifestyle. Once again, we can safely ignore the advice of those people who tell us we must eat meat to survive, because we know this is not true. No-one has ever gotten heart disease or bowel cancer from giving up meat.

So we have looked at adjusting the quality of the foods we take and I suggested that it is beneficial to do away with liquor, meat, salt, spices and refined sugar. Additionally, it is helpful to take whole grains instead of white starches if we want to lose weight. To dispense with vegetables is an extreme measure which is helpful in Yogic disciplines, particularly for aspiring celibates. It's not really relevant for a married person who is accustomed to sexual contact without reaching the orgasm. There are vegetables that are most desirable and others that are not so beneficial. The ones that are best are the ones that can be eaten raw in a salad, perhaps with rice on the side. The Gnostic Master Samael recommends a diet of bread, honey, milk, vegetables and fruits and this is exactly the kind of diet I am looking at taking up again. So, as the novices among us will consider moving from a meat-based diet to a vegetable one, we will need to know which vegetables to choose and which ones are harmful to our chastity.

As usual, Swami Sivananda has provided us with helpful instructions on this particular topic, which we can make use of. Impure vegetables (Hindi "Nisiddh sabji") are those that are strong, bitter and burning or strong-smelling when cooked. The vegetables to avoid completely are onions, garlic and hot chillies. Others that are also aphrodisiac, to a certain extent, are mushrooms, leeks, radish, eggplant and cucumbers.

 

I would only dispense with eggs because I find they are aphrodisiac to a degree, i.e. they stir up lust in the body. I've actually had people try to slip me meat and fish when I have let them know that I am remaining vegetarian. People just seem to get offended for some reason, possibly because it calls their dietary habits, or rather their expertise thereon, into question.

Anyway, rather than moralising about whether it's bad to eat any animal products - which would lead us to the absurd conclusion that it's bad to eat vegetables because they are also living creatures - I am looking at this JUST from the viewpoint of what we can eat to totally avoid the dangers of wet dreams and morning erections (and erections in public, if that's a problem for anyone)...

It comes across as obvious to me that the lighter the diet, the easier it is to go without fapping. In saying this I am reiterating a principle of Swami Sivananda's and not proclaiming some new fad or philosophy. He goes into more detail about this in the books Practice of Brahmacharya and Health and Diet.

I believe in eating meat in the context of married life, because meat is one of the five elements of the Prapancasara of Tantric science. But that's a topic for later on.