Chapter 13 Grace & Awareness (walking meditation) 

You exist in this world through your body; it is because of this physical body that you are here. If your body is unhealthy, how can you live healthily? Therefore, before embarking on any inner journey, we must first understand a fundamental law that not only applies to the external world but also profoundly influences our inner state.

There are two laws: one is universal gravitation, and the other is grace. Universal gravitation pulls you down, while grace lifts you up. Science only knows about universal gravitation, but yoga also knows about grace. It seems as if yoga is more scientific than science itself, because every law has its opposite. If the Earth pulls you down, there must be something else pulling you up; otherwise, the Earth could pull you down and also suck you into it, making you disappear.

You may have had this experience unintentionally: one morning, you suddenly feel lightheaded, as if you're about to fly. You walk on the ground, but your feet don't touch the ground, as light as a feather. Then sometimes you feel heavy and burdened, even finding it difficult to walk. What's going on? You need to carefully analyze your entire lifestyle. Some things make you feel light, while others make you feel heavy.

So, what determines whether we feel heavy or light? The key lies in "purity." All that makes you heavy is impure, while that which makes you light is pure. Purity is lightness, impurity is heaviness and burden. Healthy people feel relaxed and at ease, while unhealthy people feel overburdened, as if being pulled too far down by the earth. Healthy people don't walk; they run. And an unhealthy person, even when sitting, isn't truly sitting; they are asleep.

A person who wants to fly into their inner world and touch its core must be very light; otherwise, they cannot complete the journey. Your laziness will prevent you from entering the inner center. Who can walk to that inner center?

This involves a profound concept in yoga philosophy regarding the properties of matter. Yoga has three words: gunas, sattva, rajas, and tamas. Sattva means purification, rajas means energy, and tamas represents heaviness and darkness. What you eat creates your body; in a sense, it creates you.

If your body is burdened by too many toxins, you won't feel as light as wings. Therefore, from now on, you must put in the effort to cleanse and purify your body. Some foods ground you, while others make you feel lighter. Some lifestyles are influenced by gravity, while others are the opposite, belonging to the realm of the mind.

Shauch, purity. It encompasses the purification of food, the body, and the mind—three levels of purification. Then the fourth level—your true nature, your "being"—needs no purification, for it cannot be defiled. Your innermost core is eternally pure white, eternally clean, yet your deepest recesses are obscured day by day by other impurities. You use your body daily, thus accumulating dust. You use your mind daily, thus accumulating thoughts and becoming clouded. Both need a good cleansing. This must become part of your style. Don't treat it as a rule, but rather as a way to make your life better. When you feel pure, other things immediately open up their possibilities for you, because everything is interconnected. If you want to change your life, always start from the beginning.

"Starting from the very beginning," this initial and most fundamental element is the food we ingest. Everyone must be careful about what they eat. What you eat is no small matter. You must be very careful because your body is built upon the food you consume.

Eating too much, too little, or just the right amount can have very different effects. You might develop overeating disorder, eating too much food you don't need, which can make you feel sluggish and heavy. You can also eat just the right amount you need, which will make you feel happier, lighter, and allow your energy to flow freely without blockages.

For ordinary people, this doesn't matter, because they don't want to go anywhere. Once you embark on this inner journey, everything becomes important. Be careful about your diet. Pay attention to how you maintain or care for your body. Even the small things matter.

Besides diet, another simple daily activity that directly impacts our energy purity and lightness is bathing. Even something as seemingly trivial as whether you shower daily becomes important. Usually, it's insignificant; when working in a market or shop, it doesn't matter whether you take a proper shower. In fact, taking a proper shower every day might actually interfere with your work in the marketplace. You might become less cunning because you feel light, or less deceptive because you feel vibrant. Dirt might be helpful in the marketplace, but it's different in a temple. In a temple, you must be as fresh as dew, as clean as a flower, before entering the shrine. In a temple, you leave all worldly burdens and responsibilities where you leave your shoes. Don't bring them inside.

This pursuit of purity and lightness naturally leads to a simpler, more conscious way of life. Simplicity is not poverty; poverty is forced deprivation, while simplicity is an active, conscious aesthetic choice. It means you are no longer burdened by external things, no longer filling your life with complex desires and heavy possessions. You eat simple, pure food not because you can't afford delicacies, but because you know what makes your body feel light. You keep your body clean not because of social norms, but because you can feel the inner joy that freshness brings. You live a regular life not because it's rigid, but because regularity creates a stable and predictable energy environment for the body and mind, making it easier for the power of "elegance" to arise.

This simplicity is a state of mental purity. When your life is cluttered with too much clutter, thoughts, impure food, and chaotic habits, your mind is like a dusty mirror, unable to clearly reflect the truth. A simple lifestyle is like continuously polishing this mirror, allowing the inner light (your true nature) to shine forth without obstruction. It is itself a profound purification.

A person burdened by impure food, numbed by mundane affairs, and filled with chaotic thoughts is dull. He cannot feel the poetry in the breeze, hear the celestial music in the silence, perceive the subtle flow of energy within his body, or touch the sacred tranquility deep within his heart. He is "isolated" from life.

A pure, light, and simple life is like removing the heavy cover from your inner instrument and tuning its strings. You become exceptionally sensitive. You can perceive the subtle differences in the energy different foods bring; you can feel the refreshed lightness of body and mind after a focused bath; you can experience the stability and security that a regular life brings. This subtle awareness of yourself and your environment is the starting point of all religious or spiritual experiences. Without sensitivity, you cannot "hear" your inner voice, cannot "feel" the increase in energy, and cannot "perceive" the presence of divinity. You are like a radio, with all channels playing, but because your internal circuitry is chaotic, you cannot receive any clear signal.

Therefore, living "under the influence of elegance" means starting from the most material and everyday levels—what you eat, how you clean yourself, how you arrange your life—to systematically elevate the vibrational frequency of your entire being, freeing you from the dominance of "gravity" (heaviness, darkness, inertia) and increasingly being drawn by the power of "elegance" (lightness, light, ascension). When your sensitivity is enhanced by purity, you open a door for yourself, allowing you to perceive and ultimately merge into that realm of pure existence that transcends all opposition. This is the beginning of transforming life itself into art.

All experiences are chemical reactions, without exception. Whether you're using psychedelics or fasting, both methods produce chemical changes. Whether you're smoking marijuana or practicing specific yoga breathing techniques, your body produces chemical reactions. What happens during fasting? Your body loses certain chemicals because those chemicals require a daily supply of food. If you don't supply them, your body loses those chemicals. So those chemicals become unbalanced, and the imbalance caused by fasting makes you start to experience things. If you fast long enough, you'll begin to have some special experiences and changes in perception. If you fast for 21 days or longer, you can't tell whether what you see is real or not because it requires specific chemicals that your body has lost.

When you breathe deeply, your body produces a lot of oxygen, while the amount of nitrogen decreases. More oxygen alters your internal chemistry. You begin to experience things you've never felt before. If you spin rapidly like a madman (a mystical Islamic sect), your body's chemistry changes due to the spinning. When you feel dizzy, a new world unfolds. When you're hungry, the world looks different. When you're overeaten, the world appears different again. The poor have their own world, the rich have different worldviews, and their chemistry is different. The wise and the foolish have different worlds; women and men have different worlds because their chemistry is different.

True religious experience is not experience at all. It is reaching the observer: everything that is known and unknown, knowable and unknowable, vanishes. Only the observer itself remains, uncontaminated by any experience. Only your consciousness is real. Everything else must be transcended. If you can remember; you must traverse all experience, and you cannot avoid it.

Krishnamurti was right. It's hard to understand, but he was right. What he said wasn't news. It was the experience of all Buddhas. But remember, it's only experience when you reach it yourself. No one can give it to you, nor can you borrow it; it's best to experience it through yoga practice. Ultimately, you will still have to let go of it.

If you crave these experiences like everyone else—it's part of growth—you should choose yoga over drugs. Yoga is more delicate and refined. If you had to choose between yogic breathing and psychedelics, choose breathing. You'll be less dependent and more capable of transcending because you won't lose awareness. Psychedelics will make you completely lose awareness. Choose something on a higher level. If you have a choice, and you want to choose, choose something on a higher level. When you no longer enjoy choosing, there will be a moment… non-choice.