Yogi Gupta exhorted his disciples to disseminate the ancient teachings that they learned while they sat at his feet in New York City: “Unadulterated truths, passed from God to Guru to disciple, since time immemorial.” The Master frequently stated that his mission in America was to “raise the health of the American people.” Yet we sometimes do need to avail ourselves of the services of medical practitioners trained in the techniques of Western medicine. The following is a letter that patients might use as a template to modify and then give to their Medical Doctors as a means of possibly raising the physicians’ awareness of the benefits of the teachings of the ancient Yogis of India. I myself did give an earlier version of this letter to my Orthopedic Surgeon, who is intelligent and possibly receptive.

This letter contains information that the disciples in Manhattan heard many times from the lips of Yogi Gupta himself. Some of the quotations, statements, and paraphrases are also from Yogi Gupta’s records or tape recordings, published works, or personal correspondence. I have attempted to arrange this information in such a fashion as might appeal to the sensibilities of a Western, allopathic, Medical Doctor. Because all the information is based upon direct quotations from The Master, I made no attempt to cite Westernized “proofs” of His teachings. I rely on Yogi Gupta’s statement in Yoga and Yogic Powers: “Forces of Nature are far stronger than those of Man. When the forces of Man work against the forces of Nature, it is Man who loses the battle” (Yogi Gupta New York Center, Publishers, 1961, chapter 38, page 205).

I feel that there is an ever-increasing need for this kind of information, especially considering the powerful economic, social, and cultural forces arrayed against it. As a case in point, an issue of a popular men’s health magazine in April 2018, argued forcibly that raw milk is unhealthful. Considering that humans have thrived on unpasteurized, un-homogenized milk for many millennia, this attitude probably has economic roots. With the aim of providing a sample of this type of letter, I have provided it to you, the readers of the Yogi Gupta Society Newsletter.

Dear Doctor:

Thank you for all your recent help with my surgeries; I much appreciate your surgical expertise. I think that American surgeons such as yourself are the finest surgeons in the world. I hope you continue operating for a long time to come.

Should you find it useful, I am offering the following information:

1. The appropriate diet for homo sapiens is mostly uncooked edible plants: roots, stems, leaves, seeds, and flowers. In the process of overheating plants, the nutrients are lost.
2. Homo sapiens thrives best on a diet of uncooked plants, not animal flesh.
3. The milk of herbivores such as cows, sheep, and goats, are ideal additions to the human diet.
4. Prehistoric India had a highly advanced health-care and medical system.

Overheating Destroys Nutrients

The appropriate diet for homo sapiens is mostly uncooked edible plants: roots, stems, leaves, seeds, and flowers. In the process of cooking plants, many nutrients are lost. A simple test of this fact is to ask the farmer to plant some popcorn. “He will not do it,” as he knows that there is no life in the dead seed. Analogously, dead material cannot nourish a live body. How many zoos feed cooked food to their animals? Where cooked food is fed to animals, what are the studies on the cancer rates? Even without cooking, we all see how quickly the banana turns black when we cut it because vitamin C has been oxidized and lost by the exposure to air. Caveat: Some plants are improved by heating, for example, potatoes.

Plants Are Better Than Animal Flesh

Homo sapiens thrives best on a diet of uncooked plants, not animal flesh. Some of the simplest ways to deduce this truth are:

1. Intestines: The length of the small intestine of homo sapiens is about twenty-three feet, whereas that of a dog is about four feet. The meat ingested by the dog is digested rapidly, whereas, in the long gut of the hominid, the meat decays before it can be eliminated, resulting in all kinds of diseases.
   

   Elephant getting its protein and calcium from grass.

2. GRASS MAKES MUSCLE: The human meat-eater makes an odd assumption, namely, that animal flesh must be consumed in order to produce bodily muscle tissue. On the contrary, the largest animal walking on the planet, the elephant, eats mostly grass, uncooked, of course. From the grass, furthermore, this huge elephant produces a valuable form of calcium, ivory. The largest animal in the jungle, our cousin, the gorilla, thrives on plants, also uncooked, of course. If gorillas cannot find enough plants, 3% of their diet may include insects and caterpillars; however, they would prefer mangos to mosquitos. Many humans consume the flesh of the cow and sheep, which ate mostly grass. Some humans consume the flesh of the chicken, which ate mostly seeds. How do the humans think that the muscle flesh that they consume was produced?
3. Dentition: When I open my mouth and look in the mirror, I don’t see the fangs for cutting, slicing, and tearing muscle tissue that the dogs, lions and other carnivores have. My dental tool kit is best suited for grinding and chewing the five parts of plants—roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and seeds, which are in the fruit.

Milk is an Ideal Addition to the Human Diet

The milk of herbivores such as the cow, sheep, and goat are ideal additions to the human plant diet. These animals convert uncooked plants, mostly grass and leaves, into milk. Cows produce so much milk that their usual one calf only takes less than one-fourth of it; three-fourths are for human consumption. Furthermore, human mothers whose diet is mostly uncooked green leafy vegetables also produce copious amounts of milk. In other words, milk is a form of processed raw plants. Some Yogis in India live for long periods of time just on milk, as have countless saints and sages for thousands of years; they maintain that milk is a perfect food. Again, humans consume milk in order to increase their protein and calcium intake. How do they think the cow produces all that milk from grass? Caveat: Of course, the best “milk” to consume is fresh from the cow that is well cared for — unpasteurized and un-homogenized, organic, free-range, without chemicals in the feed or the cow.

Prehistoric India Had an Advanced Medical System

Prehistoric India had a highly advanced health-care and medical system, including complex surgery on the teeth and eyes. Attempts to date Indian medical and scientific literature frustrate many Westerners; the direction often leads to “revealed scripture.” Of course, we recoil at such suggestions.

In Conclusion: Keep Harmony with Nature

Most of us with advanced Western educations at first recoil when we hear these facts that I describe in this letter. “Crazy!” “Ridiculous!” “Impossible!” “Our mothers, our teachers, our doctors lied?” These facts are so obvious and so simple that we are stunned into disbelief. I confess that when a man who appeared to be a typical American first told me that “you’ll be fine if you stop eating dead food,” I rejected his input immediately. As an adult, this man had studied the facts and changed his eating behavior. I had been quite ill for some time, but although he freely handed me the keys to good health, I rejected his advice as “absurd.” I was a typical American inured to believing my educational and cultural superiority.

To accept these truths is to acknowledge that our culture has been inducing disease in us; our parents and their parents back for centuries have been feeding us dead material; our teachers have been forcing us to learn harmful lifestyles; our doctors have been trained to make us sick. This conversion of one’s frame of mind requires a huge effort, an effort in which we risk ostracism, condemnation, and ridicule. The first economic, social, and cultural forces arrayed against these truths are formidable. For many of us, the only way we can “jump ship” is when we become so ill that we might otherwise die.

Having been at death’s door so often, I finally listened to common sense. I did not start this food lifestyle “conversion” until I was 40 years old; hence the arthritis that plagues me now was well established in my body, due to four decades of consuming a diet high in protein, processed, and cooked food.

In summary, this letter is my gift to you as a means to describe paths to avoid the ailments that are often the by-products of the stressful lifestyles of many Western Medical Doctors. These paths follow in harmony with Nature, without bad effects or side effects, only good effects. These paths seem arduous and time-consuming, but they are sure. The keys to a disease-free, long life are a combination of the “nine chief forms of Yoga,” especially Raja Yoga and Hatha Yoga, Yoga Food Concepts, Atharva Veda, and Ayurveda. When humans attempt “to work against the forces of Nature,” the humans will lose the battle against these far stronger forces.

Blessings, Your Grateful Patient