This is another book that my old housemate left in the house and I thought looked interesting. I used to be a Buddhist/yogi so I have read a lot of other texts about that stuff (it’s what got me into philosophy) but have fallen off of that more recently even though I still practice yoga for exercise. The argument behind this book though is that doing yoga has to be accompanied by mental exercises as well. And this mental exercise has to do with what he calls recognizing that there’s “nothing to worry about.”
Ross has six reasons why there’s nothing to worry about. They are: you can’t get happy, you can only be happy; you can have true love; you’re not fat; you’re not your daily grind; you can change your world; you will never die; and you can be yogic, and to the yogi, everything is bliss. That’s the book in a nutshell, plus every chapter comes with meditation prompts and exercises, yoga poses, supplements, and songs to listen to that are related.
Now there’s a lot that I like about this book. It’s very accessible, Ross does a great job of making jokes throughout which diffuses the serious tone that often comes with talking about enlightenment and the nature of reality blah blah. And the meditation exercises plus yoga poses make it possible for anyone who reads the book to do yoga.
Probably the best aspect of it is that the book tackles head on a common critique of mindfulness. Which is that it is used for complacency in order to make people accept their situation instead of trying to change it. According to Ross being able to accept your surroundings isn’t that at all. He uses the example of someone cutting the line in front of you, acceptance isn’t letting them cut. It could be acceptance of saying to them “hey the line’s back there” and continuing on without getting emotionally involved. I like this stance a lot, you are able to work towards change and making the world better (which is what being a yogi is about) while still maintaining a state of acceptance and bliss.
Now the main issue that I have with the book all has to do with the chapter called “You’re Not Fat.” And keep in mind that the book was written in 2003, in recent years the fat community has been reclaiming the term “fat,” but I will let that one slide here since that would have happened after this book was written. A lot of the chapter is about accepting your body as it is, since you are not your body, and that’s all well and good. But then Ross gets into how besides a few rare genetic disorders people who are “fat” look like that because of the way they eat. Which really isn’t true and honestly is a bit of a gendered issue. Plenty of women gain weight because of diseases like PCOS or because of medications like birth control or antidepressants (that last one is probably regardless of sex). And while I think that nutrition does a lot of good to address issues at their sources, you simply cannot say that the majority of people should eat better because for a lot of people their weight is out of their control and not due to diet. Those “rare genetic disorders” are not so rare at all. Not to mention that this all unfairly puts the blame on the individual rather than the situation that they’re in.
Then Ross gets into his tips about diet. And they can really be boiled down to recommending that everyone eat an all raw vegetarian diet. I have so very many issues with this section. First of all, he rarely cites his sources here. And I know that this is a book written for popular consumption, but if you are going to make health recommendations universally, you better start citing something beyond your own experiences here. Especially if you are an able-bodied white guy. Which leads into my next point which is that there is no evidence that an all raw diet does anything incredibly beneficial for you. Turns out that cooking your food is not a bad thing! So do not believe the hype, this just happens to be a diet that works for some people who are extremely loud. And finally there is the section on meat. His main point is that humans do not have the biology to be carnivores, our digestive system is too long and meat rots by the time it gets digested which makes meat-eaters smell bad. This has to be the most ridiculous thing I have heard, humans have been eating meat for hundreds of years! We have literally evolved to be omnivores! Saying that our digestive system is too long and we should have one the length of a dog’s is really just pointing out that humans are bigger than dogs! Plus the thing about meat-eaters smelling bad, I have never heard this before. On a personal note with regards to this, he keeps talking about how people these days eat too much protein. I have an iron deficiency, I have tried to go vegetarian and it simply has not worked for me, I feel low on energy and irritable. I know a person who has autism and is able to function better with more protein so they pound the protein powder to help their brain out. The bottom line is that none of this advice actually applies to everyone, it is all based on one man’s preferences and experiences. Do me a favor and start citing your sources, I am begging you.
Diatribe about the eating recommendations aside, I think I
would recommend this book with a huge grain of salt. The rest of it is decent,
and even the points about the yogi logic behind food is pretty sound. But also
the food chapter is probably the longest one, so unless you just cut out those
pages, you’d probably be better off finding a more recent yogi text that does
not have questionable diet advice.
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