Sharanagati

(continues from the previous issue)

“The other ten siddhis are: absence of hunger, thirst, old age, etc. in this very body.” In classic yoga scriptures it is described how you can make your life longer by cutting your tongue and putting it down in your throat and blocking the passage of the air, breathing prana and doing some meditation – in this way you can live two hundred years and more. But for what reason? Just to practice this blocking the air? For two hundred years?! Come on! But definitely it is written in “Isopanishad” also that if you follow the dharma practice, suggested by God, you can live one hundred or two hundred years. So if we live according to that principle that we can take whatever is designed for us, but we don’t crave for other things, then we can lead a very satisfied and peaceful life and then we shall enjoy the divine arrangement and the divine care that is provided for us.

Absence of hunger and thirst; when you try a little bit of fasting you can see how much unnecessary energy we put into the body. Because usually people feel that when they go on fasting, they are not hungry. Sometimes you are a little slowed down but otherwise different types of energy are manifested. So practically we use the body in a very improper way. Just like when there is a fire burning and you put too much firewood, the fire is almost extinct. In the same way there is this fire of digestion and if you put always too much in this fire, it functions very slowly and it needs more energy to digest that what is achieved by digestion. So sometimes it is good to have a break for the body. And fasting, or abstaining from eating and drinking is also very good for achieving a different state of consciousness. Because usually we are too much controlled by the senses and too much controlled by hunger or by satisfying the thirst or hunger. So if you try to control, try to decrease a little bit these instincts of the body, then you will see, that you become more open, more sensitive for spiritual things. You will become more receptive for spiritual impressions. And I have seen one friend practicing this type of purification, drinking only water for considerable time and even his character changed. Previously he was always cutting jokes and giving remarks on others, so his company was not very easy, but while he was doing this he was very soft, very mild, very nice person, little slowed down, peaceful. So even the character is influenced by the practice that you follow and of course by the food that you eat. If you eat passionate food, you most probably become passionate. If you eat sattvic food then, well, hopefully you will become sattvic. But if you eat too much turshiya (Bulgarian pickles), then you become sour.

(to be continued)