For health and life, two factors weigh heavier than all others: food and thinking. In a sense, every other aspect of life is based on these two.
I.
"Food is the chief of all material things.
It is the medicine for all kinds of disease.
From food all things are born."
(Taittriya Upanishad)
Most of the cells in your body are continuously regenerated. Simplified, we can say that your body is constantly renewing itself, as long as you live. Regeneration is programmed in your genes, but you control the supply of material, and I think everyone who has tried to build something understands that good material is the basis for a strong building. In this sense, you recreate yourself by a conscious choice of materials. The quality of material for this recreation is, to a large extent, under your own control.
It all depends on the “material” you ingest: the things you eat and drink. Materially, you are what you eat. If you treat your body like a trash can, you will soon degenerate. But if you eat what is best for your health instead of what you think tastes best, you can stop or at least retard degeneration considerably.
Already in old India they understood that food is medicine and should always be preferred to chemical (and toxic) drugs. When people just want drugs (even medical drugs) instead of changing their habits, not at least their diet, then they are on a slippery slope to degeneration and death. Changing to a healthy diet is the single most important thing you can do for yourself and your health! But change it before you degenerate, prevention is always better than cure.
(Note: Cells of different tissues and organs are regenerating with different speed. Some are renewed every few days, while others live longer than a decade. A few cell types might not be renewed at all throughout life, but that is still a matter of scientific dispute and speculation.)
II.
"All that we are is the result of what we have thought;
it is founded on our thoughts,
it is made up of our thoughts."
(Dhammapada)
I just wrote that materially you are what you eat. Spiritually and intellectually you are what you think. You shape your personality by thinking. Since thinking must be involved in the process of acquiring knowledge and making conscious choices about diet, thinking also controls the direct material aspect of you. But it is more complex than that. It used to be said that “spirit is stronger than matter”, and it is. Your thinking affects you in many more ways than you are aware of. In some instances, it is possible even to regain lost health by mental power.
Beliefs, expectations, emotions... all those shape you, also materially. It has been proved that fear of cancer increase the risk of cancer. It is also obvious that love heals. By good thinking, you can design your life so as to maximize the benefit and minimise the harm of most such factors.
III.
“Life isn't about finding yourself.
Life is about creating yourself.”
(George Bernard Shaw)
I use to say that your destiny is not something that happens to you, but you create it. The art of living is a creative art. Apart from the start, which is not in your hands, you create yourself, both materially and spiritually (non-materially), and you can shape much of your life and your future. Everything is not under your control, but more than you think, is. Conscious living and continuous self-improvement make life better: happier, longer, healthier, and more interesting. And don't forget to acquire knowledge. Learning is living, and living is learning. The one who stops learning is essentially dead, even if the heart is still beating.
(This article is based on material previously published in Meriondho Leo.)
Copyright © 2015, 2021 Meleonymica. All Rights Reserved.
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Acquiring Knowledge: Experience and Reading
Self-Knowledge & The Power Within
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