Diet
Our diet is one of the easiest ways to make changes that will bring us closer to harmony with ourselves. There have been preferred types of diets, with certain foods that were considered to be more or less “yogic” but in actuality the key is to eat with your conscience.
Mohandas Gandhi did many experiments with his diet. Some days he would eat a certain food, and he would pray and meditate on how it made him feel. He would adapt based on what was available, and above all else he would consider the effect his diet had on other living beings. This is a great way to approach out diet if we want to live in harmony with our spirit.
If you imagine that within each being there is a purusha, a spirit. No matter how big or small or significant or insignificant the being is, all living things, perhaps even plants, may have this thing. If that is the case, then we have a big problem; there is no way for us to live without killing others. This is a big deal, and for some of us it can create guilt. So when we eat we should see that the life form we are taking into our bodies has sacrificed its earthly life so that we could continue. If you believe in reincarnation you can know that you likely were on the other end of that equation at some point, perhaps.
When we eat with awareness of the scarcity of earthly energy, that matter cannot be created or destroyed, only exchanged, then we can also experience the separateness that is innate in our spirit. Our spirit will not ever become food; that is impossible. Recognizing that all parts of our bodies, and all parts of all living things, will die, exposes our perception to the truth of impermanence, and the beauty and fragility of all living things. The death of living beings is not something that can be stopped. So, when we eat, we are acknowledging that by consuming the lives of other life forms, and we acknowledge the opportunity we have to continue on the path due to the gift of food.
Consuming Meat
It is very difficult to justify the consumption of meat to some people, and within the yoga community there are a lot of vegetarianisms, so you will likely not make a lot of friends if you show up to the yoga potluck with a pot roast. Then again, times are once again changing and the carnivore diet is now coming back in style, so who knows, maybe soon all yoga practitioners will only eat butter.
The key thing with your diet is to be forgiving and kind to yourself and what is around you. You will ultimately have to eat what is available to you if you want to survive. You can practice yoga, and keep your body fit and efficient, and you will then not need quite as much food to survive, but ultimately you will have to eat.
Spending too much energy on decisions regarding diet can create more damage than having a haphazard or unhealthy diet. To be clear, it is not out of your control to eat meat or not, or to eat organic or not, but it is in a lot of ways not an aspect of your life where you are really going to be able to make life better for others, even if it appears so. In fact, it is that these things are so obviously in your control that they can become fascinations that direct our attention away from samadhi and yoga, and towards something that is completely earth bound and not spiritual. Consumerism teaches us to solve our problems through changing our external circumstances, and use our free will to manipulate our surroundings. There is no greater display of this than at the grocery store.
If you want to practice yoga, you see things that are earthly as being of one kind (prakriti) and things of spirit (purusha) to be of another. It is important for you to make strong and fast decisions about your diet on a day to day basis, but it is not worth it to dwell on it too much. As a result, the diet of a yogi is a simple one (and try to make it a happy one if you can).