I would like to know if during your trips across the Middle East and Arabian countries you find that people can become better practitioners of yoga than westerners?
I have found Muslim people much better than Hindus, because there is a great tradition with them. There is the tradition of guru and discipleship which is absent in the West, the total devotion to the master, whether it is orthodox Islam or the Sufi philosophy. Some people are purely religious or orthodox. Some people are philosophical by mind. In every religion there has to be the philosophical and ritualistic path. People can think very well, there is mental clarity.
During my trips I have met many people, heads of many of the states, Muslim people and religious leaders. I don’t have any difficulty in communicating with them, nor have they. There is just one barrier of language, but if they speak English it is perfectly all right, because our philosophical basis is the same.
Even the sadhana, the practicals of the Sufi cult, is very close to yoga. Sufis talk about kundalini, about the raising of consciousness, the practices of concentration on one point. Concentration on the ingoing and outgoing breath in Sufism is the same as in yoga. If we bring the Sufi saints and yoga together, there is great compatibility. However, it is important that there is greater communication between these two systems from time to time.
In order to experience spiritual life, does one have to change one’s lifestyle and meat-eating habits? Is meat detrimental in spiritual life?
Frankly speaking, in order to experience spiritual life, you need not make any change in your life because it is a direct relationship between yourself and the higher self which is only a matter of awareness. This is the truth but in relation to your spiritual quest you are following there are other problems. For instance, the body and mind are impediments. So, to help certain disciples, yamas and niyamas, disciplines and self- controls have to be adhered to. It is for this purpose that a diet has to be regulated and purified.
I have made certain studies on these subjects. I have come to the conclusion that animal protein is not conducive to human health and to the human mind. Whenever you take animal diet, it creates excitement in the body hormones which are very important as far as our well being is concerned. It may not harm you now in this generation, but a molecular transfer of elements from one body to another, or DNA, to your child, will take place. That animal diet will, in the course of a few generations, be detrimental to the whole of humanity. I am not carnivorous or herbivorous, that is not my sect but I am telling you as a scientist as I made a lot of studies on this.
Whether you believe in God or do not believe in God, whether you want to lead a spiritual life or you do not want to lead a spiritual life, whether you are a sadhu, sannyasin or a married householder, I think the first important point is that animal diet is not made for us. Then there are other general rules which should be followed, not necessarily for spiritual life but for your practical life.
April 1982, Casablanca, Morocco