Indian yoga systems hold that Vayu(air) is the eternal store house of the “ force of our life” and earth , water , and heat , these principles have evolved from this air or Vayu(wind humor). So millions and millions of solar system and worlds have evolved, or are evolving out of this very” force of life” in the shape of Vayu. Our body is which is also a miniature world, has evolved from this very Vayu(air) i.e this very vayu upholds this body in five different forms and builds and motivate our body, These five types of Vayu are known as Prana, Apana, Udana , Samana,and Vyana which we have discussed before.
Food
As a Necessity – The air we take in through the pores of our skin or through breathing fails to meet the entire demand of the body, nor our body can fully utilize the total quantity of even this intake from outside. Besides, modern investigation has ascertained that an average person uses only one – third capacity of his lungs. Hence, we must eat to fill up the “five airs “ mentioned above fundamentally and we derive these airs from our food indirectly for the maintenance and growth of the body. The airs in the edibles are rather readily assimilable by our inner body – nature and for this reason–eating is a necessity for the growth , health and upkeep of our physical body. Every moment our body is losing some substances due to its activity, which again, is being replenished by our digested food, is keeping us constantly revitalized.
The finest essence of our food is responsible fir building up “ the mind” of the individual and as such. It is impossible to gain physical, mental or meta-physical improvement without perfect knowledge in this Principal of food.
According to Indian criterion, food is of two broad varieties:
Flesh food and Non-flesh food-Fish , meat and eggs etc. belong to the former category and milk, fruits, vegetables, cereals etc. come under the later.
The western science of food has also classified food into two broad heads:
Animal Food and Vegetable Food. The little difference between the Animal food of the western school and the flesh food of the east lies in item namely milk, which belongs to the Animal food of the western scholars, but it is taken as Non flesh food in India.
According to the Indian yoga system the Prana (a vital energy of vayu) is the food of prana (Broadly meaning Life), and life is inconceivable without Prana(Vaya-Life). All vegetable food is nothing but this Prana-vayu or life. Milk and vegetables get assimilated in the body in the same process , while the digestive process for flesh food is entirely different and much more complicated. This justifies inclusion of milk under Non-Flesh Food in Indian food system.
Only the Trees and Plants have the capacity to transform the elemental water, light and air etc. into vital substances or “vitamin food” .Hence, we derive our food mainly from this vegetable kingdom , which is not limited to the human beings alone but every creatures gets its food from the same source. The so called carnivorous animals derive their food from the flesh of vegetarian animals, which means and indirect way of taking vegetarian food. The vegetables full of “Life energy” are our main edibles , and are the main ingredients for maintaining of our body.
The Modern Researches in the Food also has upheld Vayu(air) as the fundamental component if the human body. According to them , the human body is built of mainly four kinds of air (gasses) and in addition there to-fourteen kinds of mineral salts are essential for that building. Hence these salts are components if human being, body although these salts are all fundamentally nothing but Vayu(air) and the modern science are also capable of transforming these salts into the four types of gasses (vayu).
The Four Gases(vayu) building up the human body are–Oxygen(62%), Carbon(21%), Hydrogen(9%) and Nitrogen(3%). The fourteen salts are-Calcium(2%), Phosphorous(1%), Iron, Iodine, Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium, Copper, Sulphur, Florin, Chlorin, Manganese, Silicon and cobalt.