Tara Sullivan

You are what you eat!

My Italian gynecologist hated when I extolled the importance of food. “You are what your genetics make you!” she would scold.

My teacher, Sharon Gannon, says that the body is made of past karmas.

Joni Mitchell says, “We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion year-old carbon.”

In fact, these are all true.

The Taittiriya Upanishad says that the body is made from food, which of course it is. Within the food body is the vital body, which is made of the breath. Easy enough to grasp: no more breath, no more life. Within the vital body exists the mental body, which is made of our thoughts, and within the mental body exists wisdom. Each of these bodies has a head, arms, a heart. The heart of the wisdom body is meditation, the quiet ability to listen, and at the ultimate center of all of these sheaths exists bliss.

Since bliss is already at the center of who we are, the pathway is not in more exercises, more chaturanga, more backbends. We have to find out where our own distortions are keeping us from the direct experience of what already exists.

Too much chaturanga (yeah picking on chaturanga) can make me coarse and obscure the subtlety of being guided by feeling and connection. Looking deeply at reactive habits is the most profound practice: how I think, how I move, my relationships, breathing, everything about how I move through life. Meditation, sitting quietly, and taking this inner quiet into action is where discovery lies.

I want to experience for myself what I am, what life is, rather than just rely on what I’m told. I don’t want to miss out on knowing the taste and feeling of food, watching my genetics unfold, creating and reaping my karma, being stardust, and especially knowing bliss.