I have a different approach that is supported by Sri Yukteswar in this comment;
What is natural living? To understand what natural living is it’ll be necessary to distinguish it from what is unnatural. Living depends upon the selections of food, dwelling and company. To live naturally, the lower animals can select these for themselves by the help of their instinct and the natural sentinels placed at the sensory entrances, the organs of site, hearing, touch, smell and taste. With men in general, however, these organs are so much perverted by unnatural living, from very infancy that little reliance can be placed on their judgments. To understand, therefore, what are natural needs are, we ought to depend upon observation, experiment and reason. ~ Sri Yukteswar
Very good strategy to quote Sri Yukteswar, since the Jnanavatar is the Jnanavatar, his wisdom is unsurpassable.
Sri Yukteswar cited empirical arguments why meat is not the ideal food for man. His logic is simple and indisputable.
The same Sri Yukteswar though would love us to use our God-given logic and discrimination to elaborate further and find what's best for us, stick to it, and forget about it. His own words. Forget about diet, there are more essential things, like meditation, Dharma, Karma, Yama, you name it.
I like the details and subtleties of modern science and try to apply them to prevent premature death. It is not easy since nutritional science today is chaos. My reasoning is guided by discrimination and the basic guidelines of Raja Yoga, as expounded by Sri Yukteswar and Yogananda. We have been very lucky in coming across these spiritual giants!
Yes Sri Yukteswar takes discrimination to a higher level, using observation, experiment and reason to determine what is the best course to take and we are not always able to follow the dictates of our bodies desires and arrive at a helpful outcome. I have the challenges of my body wanting one thing and my spirit wanting another. So I have determined that I would not have been a good candidate for the monastic life this lifetime with that type of inner turmoil manifesting. Perhaps that is why I’m a bit more forgiving of some of the moral issues I’ve found you have brought to our attention with monastics you and I have witnessed in their struggles. Sri Yukteswar does instruct us to join the right company as part of the equation to rise above our bodies desires and separate needs from desires and food is only one of many areas where that is an issue.
I often find I’m able to do quite a lot of exercise with the right type of stimulation, although using those types of stimulation may at times have mixed results in health and spiritual elevation. We are all faced with dilemmas in our life and recognizing how to balance them with a productive outcome for our current evolution.
