Awakening the Third Eye

We have seen how the capacity to tune in is directly opposed to
mental rigidity. The more fixed the mind is in stereotypes, the
more difficult it is have access to a variegated range of feelings.
Actually there is an interesting connection between the state of
mind in which you eat and your level of mental flexibility:
depending on how you eat, the rigidity builds up or diminishes.
Each time food is swallowed with poor awareness and no perception
of its energetic qualities, the rigidity of the mind is significantly
fostered.
In other words, when you eat from the mind, you feed the mind!
A mental stamp is imprinted onto the food, and your whole
structure becomes more mental. Seen from the eye, it appears that
one of the main tricks the mind uses to maintain its hegemony is
to make you eat without awareness.
On the other hand, by resonating in harmony with the foodstuff
you develop the pliability of your mental substance, and your
general capacity to tune in is greatly enhanced. To the common
statement ‘the body is made of what you eat’, one may add
another: ‘and the mind is made of how you eat it’. Of course, many
other factors apart from nutrition play a role in the economy of
the mental layer. But still, one can have a major action on the
dynamics of the mind by carefully regulating food intake and the
state of consciousness during meals. That is why Gandhi used to
say: “When the sense of taste is under control, all the senses are
under control.”
Another factor that can positively influence the process of inner
alchemy is a fairly strict regularity of meal times. The astral body
is intensely involved in the process of digestion. By following a
fairly strict routine of meal times, you make the astral body work
at regular times, and this imprints a sense of rhythm.
Rhythm is exactly what the astral body lacks. The astral body is
the layer in which emotions take place. Now, take some basic
rhythmical activities of the physical body, such as the heart beat
and the breath. As soon as you experience an emotion, the
frequency of both become irregular! Presently, our astral body is
the enemy of rhythm: any big wave in the astral body tends to
impair the cadences of the physical body. As far as rhythm is
concerned, the entire education of the astral body is yet to be
undertaken.

Chapter 11 – The Art of Tuning In