Understanding Nature Cure

Understanding Nature Cure

Talk given by Shri S Swaminathan
Joint Director, Indian Institute of Natural Therapeutics, New Delhi



To live in health, many people take to medicines. Nature cure tells us that no medicines are actually necessary to live in health as Nature itself provides us with so many medicines. What are they?

They are the Pancha Tatvas, namely

1. Food,
2. Water,
3. Sunshine
4. Air, and
5. Rest.

For you to live in good health, all that you need to do is you must supply all these basic needs correctly. We shall see the above one by one below.

Chapter 1 - Food

While food is the most fundamental to living, right food is most fundamental to living in good health. To have the right food, you need to know

When to eat and when not to eat
What to eat and what not to eat
How to eat
How much to eat and How many times to eat,

If you know the answers to these five questions, you would live in good health. Now let us discuss these.

1-A Food - When to eat and when not to eat

When to eat and when not to eat

Generally the stomach takes four to five hours to digest any food and get empty for the next input. So let us take care. Let the stomach rest completely before we give the next food. Let us not eat in such a manner that the stomach cannot become empty. Look at the animals. No animal will work on a loaded stomach. When we feed an animal fully, the animal will lie down and will refuse to get up.

Allow the stomach to rest in your own interest. Be kind to your own stomach. Many people do not experience the hunger at all. Why? Because they do not allow the stomach to become empty, as they keep it full all the time. Early morning they start with bed tea, even before washing the teeth. Then they take breakfast as if they had fasted. Then they follow it with a mid-day snack, called a coffee break or tea break. Then they have the lunch. Then comes the afternoon snack and then the dinner, and lastly, a cup of milk at bed time.

Thus, continuously they go on eating, lunching and munching all the time. ‘They never allow the stomach to become empty at any time during the 24 hours of the day and this happens daily on all the 365 days of the year, year after year. If any part of the organism is not given rest, but forced to work all the 24 hours, its tone will be lost.

You will not need even a little drop of medicine throughout your life, provided you follow one principle. Not to eat till the stomach has become empty’. If this is followed, one will not fall ill throughout one’s life. You will not need a drop of medicine.

Eat when you are hungry. Never eat as per watch. Hunger should alone make you eat. Do not say, ‘It is lunch time’ or, ‘It is dinner time’. Know that hunger is an indication of health. If you have got good hunger, you are healthy. If you have lost your hunger, you are unhealthy. Hunger indicates, or should indicate, that your stomach is empty. If the stomach is not empty, you cannot have hunger. When the stomach is empty, you will have lightness in you. Hunger is a physiological need for food. The body needs food and it indicates to you through the sensation of hunger that you should take food.


You can eat, provided four conditions are met.

1. The first, the stomach should have become empty

2. Man is not a body alone. Man is a triple unit of body, mind and spirit. Hence at the time of eating, you must be emotionally calm. You must not be upset emotionally.
Be careful about your mental state at the time of eating. Our mind should be full of cheer and joy. It is very important. In the good old days, before eating the meal, people used to wash their hands and feet and sit for a prayer, calm themselves down and always sit along with their relatives, with children and others, so that there would be a happy atmosphere. Now children have to go to school at 10 am. The elders have to go at 7 am. Well the time is so dislocated that each one sit for meals separately and when you sit for the meals separately our own worries will come and bother us. And if you are bothered, if you are worried, if your mind is upset, your digestion will be nil. That is why in Sanskrit in the vedic scriptures there is a manthra. Kevaladho Bhavathi Kevalashi. Adha means sin. Kevala means along. The person who sits alone and eats alone eats sin. Sit with your family, sit with your children and enjoy with company, sit in cheer sit and eat joyfully. Joy and cheer are to mind what sunshine and dew are to grass and flowers. Please remember it. Many people sit alone worried, worried over something. Still their worries are not removed. But their digestion becomes worse and worse. Eat happily. Say a little prayer. There is nothing in the world which is more soothing to the body than prayer. Prayer is the food for the mind. Prayer is something which is very very essential. Prayer must be done not once a day but every time before the meal. Prayer must be said, prayer is very important. But not a mechanical prayer. It should not be just like the sound coming from the tape recorder. It should be from the soul. It was Gandhiji who said ‘a prayer without words is what is needed, not words without prayer’. So many people have memorized something and while waling they go on repeating mechanically. Their mind is somewhere else. Mechanical prayer is not prayer at all. Some people might be asking, what has prayer to do in a nature cure lecture? Everything that has got a health value, has got some relationship to nature cure. You cannot be healthy unless you have got a calm mind. And it is not possible to have a calm mind, without the right kind of prayer. But prayer, should be really prayer. Prayer from the soul and not pretence. Most of us do prayer only mechanically. We have memorized something and it comes out. And in between if some word is omitted, we become just like the school students suffering. That is not prayer. A memorized prayer is not a prayer is not a prayer at all. Prayer is communion. Words are not needed. So do a little prayer. Calm yourself down. Be cheerful, be joyful and then eat. Simply by being worried you do not remove worry. Everyone has got worries. Who is there in the world who has got no worries? Simply by getting worried are you going to remove the worry? There are ever so many worries, official worries, domestic worries, social worries so many, not one. And by being constantly worried you are only disturbing your sleep, disturbing your digestion and you are worsening yourself. And when you get worsened, your worries get more. Face the problem. After all there is something causing the worry. Face it boldly, understand, study the problem in depth. The solution of a problem lies within the problem, not outside. Study it deeply. So, to those who have got worries [and today I believe almost everybody is worried some more, some less]. I give them a practical suggestion. And I put it before you for your consideration. If you act upon it, your worry will be over in no time. So long as you are worried, even if you take raw vegetables, even if you take fruits, nothing can be digested.

If you are mentally agitated, if you are excited, even though your stomach is empty, you will not be able to digest the food. For, the digestive secretion depends upon the brain condition. If the brain is excited, if there is tension, there would be no digestive secretion. So, please ensure that the stomach has become empty and also, at the same time, you are mentally calm. If you are very much agitated, just calm down and then eat. Do not eat when you are agitated.

Now the stomach is empty and the mind is calm. Can we eat? No. Even if the mind is calm, the body must be free from fatigue. If the body is fatigued, if you are too tired or exhausted, even though the stomach is empty, you should not eat. The reason is, when we get exhausted physically, we need to go to bed and not to the dining table. What we need is rest, and not food, because, at that time your digestive glands would not work. So, do not eat when you are tired and fatigued.

We should not feel any pain or any other discomfort anywhere in the body. In other words, any severe discomfort – may be a headache, may be pain due to an injury – do not eat at that time.

Now suppose there is no pain, or discomfort in the body, the stomach is empty, the mind is calm, the body is not tired, still we should fulfill one more condition. And that is : you must be prepared to take rest after taking food. If we have no time to take rest after a meal, if we have to rush to the station or the office for work, we must not eat. Many people eat and rush to the bus stand, go to do physical and mental work. If we start doing mental or physical work of strenuous type immediately after meal, energy is needed to do the external work. Work and digestion cannot go together. In the good old days, people used to start their activity at 0400 or 0500 hrs [04.00 am or 05.00 am] and by 1000 hrs [10.00 am] or 1100 hrs [11.00 am] they used to compete all their work and then have their meal and rest thereafter and do little work in the evening. But, these days, we have the Indian type of eating for the western mode of working. We start our day somewhere at 0800 or 0900 hrs [08.00 am or 09.00 am] and go right upto 1700 hrs or 2000 hrs [07.00 pm or 08.00 pm]. We have no rest at all. Our place of work is far away from our residence. We have no rest, physical or mental. If we fill our stomach and do outside work, we become inefficient in the outside work and also the inside work.

Now when the stomach is empty, and the mind emotionally calm, with no discomfort in the body, and if we are prepared to take rest after the meal, then only we should eat. Otherwise, do not eat. Most of us have to do work during day time. So take a very light meal. Do not take the conventional meal. Many people say, ‘I have plenty of work to do, so unless I eat, how will I get energy for the work?’ Suppose we start our work at 1000 hrs [10.00 am] and we sit down at home for the morning meal at 0900 hrs [09.00 am] thinking that this is going to give energy for the work to be done at 1000 hrs. Now, the food that has gone into the stomach will not be digested in one hour, and so, is not going to release energy in one hour. It takes at least 5 to 6 hours to get digested. The digested part of the food first goes into the small intestine and assimilation has to take place before giving energy to your system. It takes at least 12 hours, if you are healthy, before energy could be released from it. So, from the food that you take in the morning at 0900 hrs, its value will be made available to you at 2100 hrs and you cannot have it by 1000 hrs. It is a little childish to think that the food taken just now is going to give you energy just now. It is a little time consuming affair, so never eat if you have got work ahead i.e. if you have plenty of work to do. Take a little fruit or little fruit juice or something very light.

We are all eating wrongly at wrong times and so we are not able to digest. Even if you put a first class food, a really good food, in the stomach at the wrong time, it is dirt and nothing more. So do not eat wrongly. If you know this, when and when not to eat, problem is solved.

1-B Food - What to eat and what not to eat

What to eat?

The answer lies in our paying attention to quality. There is no use in eating the wrong good and there is no use eating at the wrong time. That is the most important thing. It is not merely filling up the stomach. It is a question of something really useful to the system. And it is from that point of view that in nature cure we pay the greatest attention to this aspect.

When I ask you to eat less, eat moderately, and eat only two meals a day, I lay full stress on quality. Today, the quality is completely over looked. Whatever is available in the bazaar, is eaten. A person comes and tells me, ‘I frequently go on tour and no good food was available. So whatever was available I ate’. This should not be the case.

The food that is taken should be of the right quality. Otherwise it is of no use. I want to tell you one thing. If you observe the principles of moderate eating and if you eat only twice a day, you will live longer. You will live healthily. So, take to moderate eating. Be frugal in eating; you will never fall ill.

In Nature cure, we divide food into three categories. The first category of food which is called primary or positive foods consists of food items which are very easily digestible. The expenditure is very little, whereas the income is more. They contain plenty of enzymes, mineral salts, vitamins and others.

The second category of food which is called the secondary foods or negative foods are those items requiring more energy to digest, and after digestion, the return is much less than the first category. The first is cumulative preference shares. The second is only ordinary shares, for which the dividend may not be there.

The third category of foods are those requiring a lot of energy to get digested, and from which you get no return at all.

This is the general classification of foods. Now, what are the categories?

Primary or positive food, the first category;
Secondary or negative foods, the second category and
Devitalizing foods, the third category.

All the food products available in the market today come under one of these categories. The polished rice, the maida, the hydrogenated oil, all pulses and grams without the outer covering, all manufactured, refined, processed, bottled and tinned foods all come in the category of devitalizing foods.

The refined, processed, manufactured, tinned and bottled foods, in fact any kind of food coming to you through the industry, any kind of food in which there is some interference by the industry is processing, every one of them, is a devitalizing food. If you want to be healthy, do not clamour for more hospitals, do not demand more medical aid, but reform your diet. Take to unrefined natural foods. Do not take bottled, tinned, and processed foods.

Then, what should you eat? Eat natural foods as they are in nature. Fortunately, all vegetables are not tinned and processed. We have not yet reached that stage of artificiality in the country. We can still get so many good things here.

Natural foods are of two categories – the primary and the secondary. What are they? All vegetable and fruits are primary.

All cereals, pulses, grams and milk are secondary. That is all. You can take both. Primary means that of primary importance and secondary means that of secondary importance only. It is the primary, not the secondary, that is more needed. You should take less rice, chappathis, dal, grams and pulses. Take more vegetables. Vegetables and fruits are primary food, and you take these in greater quantity, and correspondingly reduce your intake of rice and chappathi. Would such a meal be very costly? No. Not at all. Because, you would not be eating four or five times a day. There is no need for coffee, tea, etc. It is the weak man who requires coffee. When you eat rightly two times, there is no need for coffee. There will be no tension at all. You will be supplying all that the body needs. In fact, money will be saved. So from the economic point of view this is a wonderful proposition.

How to use the vegetables and fruits is the next question. There are three types of vegetables, the leafy vegetables, the green vegetable and the root vegetable.

Leafy vegetable tops the list, because the leaf is the laboratory of the plant. It is the leaf that takes the sun’s energy and converts it into food. The greenness of the green leaves – what is known as chlorophyll – is very important. Our forefathers knew this great secret. The edible green non-poisonous leafy vegetable is known as ‘oushadhi’. Oushadhi is not rare herbs found in Kanyakumari or Kashmir. Every leafy vegetable is an oushadhi. Oushadhi means medicine. Whatever leafy vegetable you get in season, you pay attention to that first.

Then come the non-leafy green vegetables. There are even so many of these according to season, and you can take all of them. The word green does not actually mean green. The tomato, though not green, is actually a green vegetable. By and large, most of the green vegetables are green in colour and hence they are called green vegetables.

Among the root vegetables, there are two sub-categories: Starchy and non-starchy root vegetables. Among the root vegetables, the non-starchy root vegetables are equal to the green vegetables. Carrot and radish are root vegetables but they do not contain much starch. But the starch root vegetables like potato, sweet potato and yams are grains in vegetables form. They are not really vegetables. So use all vegetables. Only those vegetables which contain starch a little too much useful as other vegetables.

How to use these vegetables?

Many of these vegetables can be taken without cooking. There are many which can be taken as they are – the carrot, the cucumber, the tomato; whatever can be taken without cooking, please take them as they are. Because the process of cooking, is destructive of nutritive elements. The moment you put something on fire you lose something. How much you lose depends on how wrongly you cook. But in any kind of cooking some loss is there. Prepare a salad out of the raw vegetable, which can be taken in the raw form, and eat the salad every midday and every evening. Do not add salt. Do not season it. Take them as they are. You need salt, but not the common salt that you get from the shop. You need mineral salts, phosphorus, calcium, iodine and iron. The common salt you take is not utilized by the body. It is thrown out through the sweat and through the urine. It is not kept within. Because it is of no use to the body it is thrown out. The more salt you take the more you expel it. So, in the raw vegetable salad do not add any salt. Cut, slice, or grate two or three vegetables of the season. Please understand a few principles. First wash the vegetables and then cut. In many places, they cut the vegetables and then wash. When you first cut the vegetables and then wash it, the water comes in contact with the inner surface of the vegetables and the vitamins and mineral salts get washed away. So wash the whole vegetables and then cut them. Wash it in plain water. Use no chemicals [like lime, permanganate]. Wash very quickly, After cutting, slicing or grating, do not keep it exposed to the air. The longer you keep it exposed to the air, the greater is the loss of vitamins. They would be oxidized. So preparation of the salad should be done only when you are about to eat.

In many houses, vegetables to be cooked the next morning are cut the previous night. They have no time. Time is available for everything else. So, wash the whole vegetable and cut and use the whole vegetable with the skin except when the skin is unedible. May be in some of the vegetables the skin is thorny, hard or due to some reason, unedible. If so; remove the skin as little as possible [otherwise, the skin is very important. The skin is to the vegetable what the frontier is to the country. It is the frontier that is well – protected with armed forces. It is the skin, the portion just below the skin; that contains all the protective elements of the vegetable, namely, the vitamins and the mineral salts. The inner pitch does not contain much of these. So, use the vegetable with the skin. Use them whole. Prepare them the moment you are going to sit for your meal. When you have prepared the salad, make it a little tasty. Put a little tomato in it. Make it a little colourful. Put a little coriander leaves [Kothamalli leaves]. They contain a large amount of iron and vitamins A&C; and it adds flavour to the salad. Add some fresh coconut. Grade the coconut finely and add it to the salad. The raw salad will be colourful with the white coconut, the red tomato, the green coriander leaves and the colours of the other vegetables. So nice and so colourful. Do not add salt. Chew the salad very thoroughly. Eat it, Serve it to your children. The cellulose or the roughage in the raw vegetable will see that you are free from constipation.

Today, people are constipated. They eat only fried vegetables. They boil them and throw away the boiled water. They do not take raw vegetables at all. There is no roughage in he food we eat. That is why the bowels are constipated. If you want yourself to be free from constipation, take raw vegetables. Does raw vegetable produce wind? No. If you eat it only when you are hungry and if you chew it thoroughly and if you eat moderately, it will be digested. What is digested will not produce wind. It is the undigested food that produces wind. So, take raw vegetable. Whatever seasonal vegetables you get, take all. Do not use, much the potato, the sweet potato and the unripe banana. If, by any chance, there are no teeth to chew, put the vegetable in a mixer and drink the juice along with the roughage. Only the raw vegetables, or the uncooked food contain the enzymes. Anything cooked loses all the enzymes. As somebody put it a little harshly, ‘God created the food and the devil created the cook’. But that is the truth.

We have been living wrongly for years. If, suddenly we start living rightly today, can we get all right tomorrow? A little time is needed.

There are some vegetables the juices of which are extremely good and about which people generally do not know. One such vegetable is the ASH GOURD, what is called KOOSMANDAM in Sanskrit, KUMBALANGA in Malayalam. The juice of this vegetable is something beyond my word, I cannot explain it. I have seen this in practice. Take a small quantity of this vegetable, grate it finely and squeeze out the juice [not with the cloth, because cloth these days are washed with all sorts of powders] use your own hand or a filter. Drink the raw juice of this ash gourd. Two ounces for the child and 4 ounces for the adult is enough. Drink it early morning. Your acidity will be off. Your peptic ulcer will say good-bye to you. This will purify your blood stream. This is a great tonic. Any body can take it. Kindly do not add sugar or salt to it. Use the extract as it is. You may dilute it a little if you like. If the water is chlorinated, better dilute it with your own saliva which is unchlorinated. Do not drink it. Sip it slowly. It is a wonderful vegetable. Any inflammation anywhere in the body, the sour mouth, the acidic stomach, the peptic ulcer, will easily give way when you take the white ash gourd juice. Take a little in the morning and a little in the evening, in addition to your raw vegetables.

Next is the CARROT LEAFE JUICE, if you can get it. The carrot juice everybody is taking. You may take the whole carrot also. If carrot leave is available fresh you may take its juice also. It is very very good. Then there is another vegetable – the snake gourd [PADAVALANGA], which is available in a particular season. The tender variety of this vegetable can be cut into small pieces and added to the raw salad. This is very rich in vitamin A and C. You can extract the raw juice and drink it. Give it to your children. Another vegetable is the banana pith [VASHA PINDI]. Do not throw it away. Slice it and ‘add spice’ to your raw salad. Take it as it is or extract the juice and drink it. The banana pith can remove stones from the kidney or the bladder. I am not making extraordinary claim, I have not prepared them. God is giving it to us. I am only pointing out to you what they are for. The plantain pith is very good.

There are some leaves which are not commonly used as vegetables. For example, the BILWA LEAF or the BILWA PATRA [KOOVALAM] which is used for Shiva Puja. This leaf is extremely good. Take 3 or 4 the tender leaves, put them in your mouth and chew them. They are multivitamin tablets. It is good if you take it early in the morning. You can take a few leaves to the office and eat it there also. The TULSI LEAF is equally good.

Nature cure does not mean fruit diet. Those who can afford to buy, let them have fruits. Nature cure is not meant only for the rich. Nature cure is for all. Anybody can practice it. It is so simple. IF YOU TAKE THE SEASONAL VEGETABLES, THE BILWA LEAF, THE TULSI LEAF, OCCASIONALLY AND A LITTLE RAW SALAD IN THE DAY AND IN THE NIGHT, ALL YOUR TROUBLES WILL GO AWAY. It is so simple. Eat only when hungry. Eat rightly. Eat only twice a day. Eat moderately.

I have told you all about raw vegetables. Well, all vegetables cannot be taken raw. Some need cooking. Cooked vegetables and other cooked foods should be taken in small quantities only. The major part of the food should be raw. In fact even pulses and grams can be sprouted and taken raw and in that form, they are easy to take. They are tasty and they give you much more nutrition than the original pulses and grams. So, reform the food that way. Have a reformed diet.

I told you that there are three kinds of food, three categories of food; primary, secondary and devitalizing. Let us take more vegetables uncooked. Please remember, the uncooked food is sun-cooked food. We can in addition take a little raw vegetable juices early morning or late in the evening as food supplement to overcome the effects of past wrong living. This is especially needed in the case of pregnant ladies who have to look after the nutrition of the baby within.

We have got to know what to do with the vegetable which cannot be taken raw. There are certain vegetables which cannot be consumed raw. By all means cook them but do not cook them wrongly. Cooking necessarily means waste of nutrition, nutrients. So when it comes to the question of loss of the nutrients, why not lose the minimum? Why loss the maximum? So I mean cook sensibly. The frying which is normally done in the name of cooking is the most wasteful of all kinds of cooking. You lose the frying medium as well as the fired stuff. Everything is gone completely. The charred food which becomes a little coloured or dark brown is not very good. To tell you frankly charred food is carcinogenic, capable of producing cancer. Even non-smokers are getting cancer. Often people put the question if non-smokers are getting cancer how do you say hat the smoke produces cancer. There are so many, ever so many carcinogenic factors in the world; not one. Smoking is accepted as one of the dangers for human health. Later I will tell you how to give up smoking, how to give up alcohol and how to give up addiction. You can overcome these without any difficulty. But if you do not smoke so far so good. If you are taking masala dosa daily you know the fringes of the dosa, are all charred dark brown. When you take the bread and toast the slices they become charred in places. If you take such charred food it may be harmful to you. It may produce serious troubles.

There is a story that a kind in good old days took pity upon an old wood cutter a very old man and presented him a small grove of sandalwood trees thinking that he will lead a comfortable life. The story goes that the wood cutter began cutting the sandal wood trees and turned them into charcoal. Finally there was only one sandalwood tree left, by the time, the king met him again. We are buying first class vegetables containing enzymes, vitamins, mineral salts and all that sandal wood stands for. Sandalwood we are buying but we are turning them into charcoal – and rightly it is called curry in Tamil. The fried vegetable is called curry. The curry is also charcoal. Well we are buying first class vegetables and turning them into useless stuff and eating and naturally we do not get anything out of it. So whatever can be taken raw, take it raw. Whatever cannot be taken raw, do not fry it. Frying and then adding salt and condiments, spices may make it tasty in the mouth. Mind you, taste is a matter of habit. What is tasty to one, may not be tasty to another. Well it may be tasty to the person of perverted taste but it would not give anything inside. We must have certain control over the sense of taste. Otherwise taste can be perverted and taste is perverted in many cases. So we should enjoy the taste of the vegetables as nature has given it to them. The nature-given, nature-ordained taste must be enjoyed. Do not try to add plenty of condiments and spices. Condiments and spices are actually irritants. Every one of the condiments and every one of the spices is an irritant. It irritates the mucus membrane. No condiments and spices are an exception to this. Some irritates more and some irritates less. If you go on irritating the mucus membrane throughout the day, you know what will happen. Gastritis, inflammation of the intestines gastro enteritis and so many things occur. Constant irritations caused by fried food caused by heavily condimented, heavily spiced food is what actually leads to peptic ulcer and so many kinds of troubles. Kindly do not irritate. Constant irritation over any part of the body leads to inflammation. Constant inflammation will harden the skin and make it useless. So use condiments and spices as little as possible. Mind you, salt is also a condiment.

In the good old days, when the air conditioning was unknown the refrigerator was unknown, people used to prepare pickles, people used to preserve vegetables and other fruits with the help of condiments and spices. There might have been some use then. Today with so many modern contrivances for the preservation of the foods, we need not have any condiments and spices at all. Not that I am recommending the preservation of the food but then these [preserved with condiments and spices] actually have no food value, but they only irritate. Some people come and say, ‘In the nutritional chart, it is written there that the pepper, molaku [chillies] contain calcium. For the sake of calcium should you take this irritating stuff? Could you not have the calcium from some other non-irritating foods? Could you not have an employment with a better employer? You can have all the nutrition without condiments and spices. The condiments and spices have more irritating value than nutrition value. So cut down on condiments and spices as much as possible. Change your taste. The word satvic means non-irritating. If the food is non-irritating it will be digested much better because what irritates will disturb the secretion of the gastric juice [the digestive juices]. If the digestive juices do not come up further, you are not going to digest the food. If you go on constantly irritating the mucus membranes, your digestion will be poor. So kindly cut down your condiments and spices. Remember the person who eats too much of condiments gets the same kind of liver trouble which an alcoholic gets. The persons who take alcohol regularly gets some kind of liver trouble called Cirhosis. The same kind of trouble comes to the person who uses heavily condimented foods.

By all means make your food tasty. But let not the taste become the prominent criterion. Taste is only one of the aspects. You must taste the food, you must like the food, you must eat but you should digest it also. If you enjoy the food then alone you can digest it.

So cook your food rightly. Do not fry. You have got first class steam cookers now available; steam the vegetable, steam your rice; whatever you do you steam only. Steaming is the best. Steam it in a cooker. But if the cooker is made of aluminium, better do not put the rice straight in there. Put it in a stainless vessel. Put it in some other vessel. Do not put it straight in the aluminium vessel. Aluminium vessel not intended for cooking. When you cook rice, when you boil milk, in the aluminium vessel a little aluminium get mixed up in the food or milk and it creates gas. Aluminium is all right for flying; use it there. So use the cooker rightly.

By any chance if you cannot steam, boil it. Boil it with the least water that is needed. That means after the vegetable is cooked, after the food is cooked, let there be no water in it. Just put only enough water and when it is boiling please see that the boiling stuff does not get settled down in the vessel below and char the whole thing. Whether it is rice or vegetable, it may get settled in the vessel.

Cooked food should be taken immediately after cooking and not hours after cooking. The moment your food is cooked, let it be vegetable, let it be anything it is no more alive. Because you have heated it, from that moment decomposition starts. The longer you put it outside more is the decomposition. If you put it inside immediately digestion starts. But if you keep it out longer it cannot be digested. Suppose you put the cooked vegetable out side for 2 – 3 hours decomposition starts. The longer you keep it outside the greater the decomposition. If you take food 5 hours after cooking it is decomoposed food. Some people prepare rice, vegetable early morning at seven O’clock and take it along with them for tiffin and they take it at 1 O’clock. That is, 6 hours later. Even then, at the time of taking, it is decomposed. Now when it is decomposed at the time of eating, how will it give anything to you. So cooked food must be taken within half to one hour of cooking. The sooner the better. Many people cook the rice in the day and keep it over for the night. And sometimes the night food they give to the children next morning. These are all not very hygienic habits. Let us be very clear about it. Cooked food decomposes. In Tamil they say, ‘Usi pochu’. There is no use of taking that. If it is raw food, [if you get carrot in the morning and eat it in the evening so long as it is not cooked] it is all right. But when you take cooked food you must take it immediately. Many people return home at 8.30 pm. Kindly ask the family not to cook the food before 8 pm. It is not advisable that the food is prepared at 5pm and you should take the food at 9 pm. Cooked food must be taken immediately after cooking. It is very necessary.

While preparing chapatti please see that no ghee should be put on the iron plate. Do not make it into another kind of dosa when you put oil or ghee over the plate and place the chapati it actually tantamount to frying. What is called puri is still worse. So the puri, the parotta and all that may be tasty but they do not contain any nutrition. Fried starches cannot be digested in the mouth nor in the stomach. It will create only indigestion and heaviness. So prepare the simple chapati dry. To prepare chapti you need wheat flour. In the wheat flour there is the bran. Do not sieve and throw away the coarse surface. The coarse outer surface of atta, what is called the bran of atta contains many nutrients. The wheat bran contains vitamin E, a fertility vitamin, the absence of which may create disturbance in the reproductive system, menstrual disorders nd many other troubles may come up in women and in men. Vitamin E is a heart vitamin. It is the fertility vitamin. It is there in the bran of atta. So do not sieve it and throw away. Use fresh atta, preferably hand ground atta, because what is sold in the bazaar is the atta without the bran. It is of no use at ll. Get good wheat. Have it ground yourself. It is not difficult now-a-days as there are ball bearing chukys available. We can grind without difficulty. Use the whole wheat atta. Add some water. In rice you have got to add 2 times of water. But in atta you have got to add only a little water and prepare the dough. But do not put salt in it.

You can prepare special kind of chapatis. If you get good carrot in season, grind the carrot very finely and add the carrot to the atta. Add a little water and prepare the dough. Do not add salt. Prepare carrot roti. It is very very tasty. Similarly you can prepare coconut rotty, the cellulose roti. Grind the coconut very finely; add it to the atta, and very little water prepare the dough and prepare the coconut chappathy. It is very tasty. Similarly you can prepare plantain chapatis [glucose roti]. Well, throw away the skin. The inner part of the banana fruit is mixed with the atta. This contains enough moisture. You do not even need to add water. Mix up, and prepare glucose chapati. It is also very tasty. Now if such chapati are taken they are not only tasty but for people in poor health they will be more useful than ordinary chappathy. I will tell you how. Well, you have added something useful to the chapati. The individual who is eating chappathy unknowingly, is also taking some vegetable along with it. So he will stand to benefit more. These are known as composite chapati. You can prepare various kinds of chappathys; you can prepare the food yourself nutritiously, deliciously. But kindly do not spoil the nutrition. Now so much about cooking.

A few words about fruits. Fruits are of two types, sweet fruits and sour fruits, as there are men of two types; people of sour temperament and people of sweet temperament. The sour fruits and sweet fruits are there. Both are good. They are not penicillin, they are not streptomycin, they are not drugs. Local fruits are far better than imported fruits. Do not sit in Kerala and ask for Kashmiri apples. It is meaningless. The local fruits are far better. The seasonal fruits are good. It does not matter if they are sour. But in case you are having bad digestion, in case you are having some chronic disease, better do not take sour fruits till you recover. If your digestion is bad and if you are getting sour reactions, sour winds and if along with it you take anything sour or any sour fruits, it will only increase the complaint. So in case of people having bad digestion, in case of people having some chronic disease, [because very chronic disease has gas and indigestion in the background], better do not take sour fruits. Take the other fruits. Take only one kind of fruit at a time. Well you can take all fruits by rotation. Do not make the fruits as salad. With vegetables you can prepare salad. As far as fruits are concerned, take only one kind of fruit at a time. Take the fruits whole along with the skin as I pointed out to you yesterday. It is the portion below the skin that contains everything. If in any particular fruit if the skin is completely unedible, by all means remove it. But whatever it is edible do not throw it away. Then do not cut the fruit and keep it exposed to the air for a long time. Because, the longer the exposure, the greater the oxidation. So you will lose vitamin, you will lose the mineral salts. Well take them as quickly as possible after cutting. One very important thing is to take fruits only in an empty stomach. Do not take the fruit immediately after the meal and do not take fruits along with the meal. The reason being fruits are in a sense predigested foods whereas chappathys and other things are to be digested. If you mix up the two, one requiring easy digestion and the other requiring difficult digestion, the process of digestion will be upset. So take fruit in an empty stomach and allow some time for the fruit to be digested and then take the next meal. The habit of taking fruit immediately after the meal is not a very good habit. Well whether the fruits are sour or whether they are sweet they should not be combined with the meals. Now so much for the fruit eating.

1-C Food - How to eat

How to eat

You chew your food little by little, morsel by morsel. Chew thoroughly, whatever food you take whether it is rice or chappathy. Chew it thoroughly. The more you chew, the greater the salivary flow and better the digestion. Many people have got gas complaint and other troubles just because they do not chew the food thoroughly. Chew the food thoroughly. Eat slowly. Do no commit the mistake of hurried eating. Remember that the saliva should come in the mouth. It cannot flow in the stomach. Some people take rice, add a lot of sambar, rasam or buttermilk, make it all into a form of liquid and drink it in no time. If you do not chew the food thoroughly, if your starch is not dry and if it is messy and pasty no saliva will come. Consequently the starch cannot be digested and if the starch is undigested, the undigested starch will absorb the pepsin and so the protein also will not be digested. So, see that your food is chewed thoroughly. Some people take one morsel of rice, and then drink one cup of water to wash it down and another morsel of rice and another cup of water. They never chew it. They just wash it down. From the physiological point of view it is really objectionable. So chew the food thoroughly. Do not eat very hot foods. If you eat food which is very hot, the saliva will beome ineffective. Some people drink very hot coffee, milk or tea. It is so hot that it cannot be put in the mouth. So they make the mouth into a funnel and pour into the funnel and like that they drink very hot coffee, very hot tea, or very hot milk. Regularly drinking very hot liquid produces peptic ulcer. So do not eat very hot foods. The food that you eat should be at the body temperature. Because if the food is very hot the ptylin, the digestive enzyme in the saliva is destroyed, it is ineffective. Similarly just because you have got a fridge do not take very cold foods. Foods which are very very cold, will also make the ptyalin effective. So please remember not to take very cold foods, not to take stale foods and all that..

We spend so much for food but we are eating it wrongly. So we are ill. Our children are ill and we are suffering and if you eat wrongly all the time, by the time you reach middle age you become useless to the society. We develop various diseases. Remember the one great sentence of a great American authority on health that the diseases of 40’s and 50’s are mostly due to mistakes of 20’s and 30’s. When we are young we go on committing mistakes day after day. We do not bother. When we reach the age of 50 or 55 then we suffer due to the cumulative effect of the wrongs done by us. Let us be careful and practicable.

1-D Food - How much to eat

How much to eat - at each time?

There is a theory in science called calorie theory of food. Well, they say that the food that you take is burned inside and calories are produced out of it. It is this heat energy that actually drives your body, they say. This is a great myth [falsehood] and 100% untrue. You do not require 3,000 to 3,500 calories per day in order to live healthily. What is needed for health is more self-restraint and self-disciplineIt is the quality of food that matters and not the quantity. The calorie theory is all completely wrong.

By and large, people today lack religious approach. When you do not have the total approach, when you look upon the human body as only a machine with no spirit in it to drive it and when you misunderstand and misinterpret human organism as a simple steam engine, you are likely to come upon a very grievous error. Whether you like it or not, the human being is a body backed by mind and spirit. It is this spirit that gives us the energy. There are people who eat plenty of food every day and they are all the time ill. So dismiss the calorie theory.

If food is the source of energy, why should you need to sleep every day, and still feel tired?
When you take the requisite energy through food, where is the need for relaxation?
If every day you supply energy through food, why is there death in world?
If food is what gives life, there are people who take three meals a day, why should they die?

The very theory that food is the source of energy is wrong. Then what for must we eat food? I will tell you about that a little later. But I will tell you not to eat more than what you need. The idea is not to fill the stomach but to eat the right type of food which will give you the enzymes, vitamins, mineral salts, amino acids, and so on. It is quality that matters, not quantity. If a person takes maida, polished rice, white sugar, hydrogenated oil and fried vegetables, the individual may fill his stomach but will not get anything out of them. What are known as the deficiency diseases which are rampant today in society are there in people who eat for calories. So do not go by the calories theory. Eat moderately. Remember that the space inside the body is not unlimited. The space inside the stomach and the intestines is not unlimited. When you fill the stomach completely, you hamper the work.

So how much should you eat? Never more than half the stomach. Why? You fill half the stomach with food; one fourth is for the digestive juices and one fourth you leave empty so that the stomach can contract and expand, so that the mechanical part of digestion can start. If you fill up the stomach with food, if you do not leave any room for contraction how will digestion begin? So, never eat more than half the stomach.

Modern people, somehow or other, are very much after medicine. When allopathy fails they turn their eyes to ayurveda. When that too fails, they turn to another system of medicine. There is a verse in ayurveda. The verse is this:

Disease retraces its steps even without medicine if only one reforms his food. If a person says ‘I am not going to reform my food’, give him hundreds of medicines – there will be no use.

Therefore, eat only half the stomach. Here, a question arises. If we eat only half the stomach each time, and if we eat only twice a day, will not we be starving ourselves? Will not we lose our weight? Will not other people around complain? Will not it lead to further danger? This is the fear in many people. There is fear results in overeating.

The stomach complaints to the over eater: ‘Oh! Please do not over eat. What is half a minute’s work to the mouth is half an hour’s work for me and you go on eating like this and I have tolerated all these nonsense for so many years. Now it has come to a stage that I cannot tolerate it any more. Please stop. .

All the digestive disorders starting from hyperacidity and sour mouth to peptic ulcer and stomach cancer are the results of wrong eating. So let us not intentionally invite disease. So let us all be moderate eaters. The whole nature cure can be simplified in just one sentence. Eat moderately twice a day, that is enough, you will never fall ill and do not be miscarried by the calorie theory.


When to stop eating

As the stomach is getting filled and when the stomach is half full, part of the air which was originally there escapes. This is the first wind. Most of us would have experienced a wind which comes from the stomach when the stomach is half full. We do not bother about it. We go on eating further because there is space in the stomach, there is something left in the plate, and, perhaps, the person who serves food urges you to eat more. Whatever the reason, you go on eating further in spite of the fact that a wind has come up. What does this wind indicate? When the stomach is completely filled, when we begin to over eat, when the stomach cannot expand anymore, the remaining part of the air that was there also escapes. That is the second wind. The first wind comes when the stomach is half empty and half full. The second one comes when the stomach is completely full. When the stomach is completely full, we feel very uneasy. We like to like down. When the stomach is completely filled, we will not feel like reading and writing or moving a bit, because all energy is diverted to the stomach. But when the stomach is completely filled digestion cannot start. Why? Digestion is partly mechanical and partly chemical. The mechanical part of the digestion starts slowly with the churning movement of the stomach. When the stomach is completely filled and cannot contract at all, how can the churning movement take place? It does not. When the mechanical part of the digestion cannot start, chemical part of the digestion also cannot start. The result is indigestion.

The stomach is not a Refrigerator that you store your food there. It has got moisture and heat in it. So if the food that is put into it cannot remain as it is. So it starts decomposing, fermenting, petrifying. So the food, instead of getting digested, starts fermenting. We do not get anything good out of the petrified and decomposed food. As the food cannot remain in the stomach, the petrified food is passed out to the small intestine which is very bad for health. Intestine is the place wherefrom all nutrients are extracted from the food. And when only petrified food is there in the intestine, there are no nutrients to extract from. All that the petrified food offers is unhealthy elements.

1-E Food - How many times to eat per day

How many times to eat per day?

How long a meal would take to get digested? There are only 24 hours. No one has more and we cannot engage the digestive system all the twenty four hours. We must give it some rest also. Otherwise it will not work properly. So we must give to it the right type of work, and also rest. We must ensure both. We cannot work all the 24 hours inside.

Then, how many meals can be taken in a day? One meal. Meal means some rice or chappathi, pulses, vegetable, ghee, whatever goes into the ordinary meal. I am referring to the ordinary meal.

A meal takes 18 hours. When you take a meal, it goes into the digestive canal and reaches the stomach. The food that we take into the stomach, takes 5 to 6 hours, provided your digestion is good, and 8 to 10 hours, if the digestion is not good. It requires 6 to 7 hours to do the work in the small intestine. In all it takes about 12 hours. Then the digested part of the food is passed on to the blood stream and from there goes to various tissues. Then undigested part of the food is passed on to the large intestine. The digestion is not complete till this is thrown out. Otherwise we will feel heavy. Thus it requires 12 hours for the digestion and six hours for the elimination. It takes 18 hours to deal with the food. There are only 24 hours. You cannot help it.

Suppose you take three meals a day – a fairly good breakfast, a sumptuous lunch and a heavy dinner. The breakfast at 0800 hrs, the lunch by 1300 hrs and the dinner at 20.00 hrs and in between there are always snacks to oblige us. Now, what happens to you by 2200 hrs? The stomach contains dinner just taken, the small intestine will contain the lunch and the large intestine will contain the breakfast. No part will be empty. From the stomach down to the end, the whole thing will be full. No part is empty and no part can contract. When you get up early morning, you will feel restless within because you never gave rest to the system, and this restlessness manifests as digestive disorders, what are known as flatulence, acidity, peptic ulcer, gastro-enteritis, jaundice etc. All these are caused because we do not give rest to any part of digestive canal at any time in the 24 hours. Suppose you take only two meals a day, out of the three parts, one will take rest in turn and there is scope for some rest for all the three parts, and the individual can lead a fairly, comfortable life. Suppose there is an individual who takes only one meal a day, then one out of the three will be working and the others will be resting. Thus there is a greater scope for rest. There is a proverb, ‘A man who takes on meal a day is a yogi, one who takes 2 meals a day is a bhogi and one who takes three meals a ‘rogi’. This is also 100% correct scientifically. Those who over eat, must know that they over eat at the cost of rest to their internal organs.

Take only two meals a day. One in the day and the other in the night. When you get up in the morning, it is meant for work and not for eating. You will feel rested. If you have to work, you should allow hunger to mature and take your meal somewhere between 1100 hrs and 1300 hrs. Do not take breakfast – The No Breakfast plan must be adopted by everyone. If you miss your breakfast, 90% of the disease will immediately vanish. No healthy person will feel hungry early in the morning. If a false sensation of hunger is felt, it is mere pathological symptom. It is more a desire and not hunger. Breakfast is not the first thing that is needed. In the good old days, people never used to eat in the early morning. If you do that we shall digest whatever we eat. In other words, there will be no indigestion.

Lesser eating means greater energy and fasting will not produce any weakness unless you are mentally broke. If on the fasting day your mind is crying for food, you cannot be healthy. There are some people who are fasting for other’s sake. “Well, tomorrow is ekadashi, I do not take food”. The man is a pandit. He is doing it for outward show. But inwardly he is cautioning his wife. “Tomorrow is ekadshi. By 5 am everything should be ready; ghee should be there; payasam should be there, this should be there, that should be there etc”. Because the mind is always on food. That is not fasting. Not for exhibition sake, but real fasting where you understand that you are fasting or a holiday for you internally. It gives rest within. If you do it that way, you will never suffer.
Energy is given to you by the Lord, by communion and by prayer. The more philosophical you are, he more religious you are really religious, not ritualistic, the more you rely on God, the less food you need. It is ungodly people who require 3500 calories a day. So if you are godly, if you are leading a godly life [you need not take sanyas – be godly – have faith in God], God sustains you. Fasting will never weaken anyone. Sensible fasting will not weaken. But there is a limit to fasting. Each one has got a capacity upto which one can fast. Little by little improvethe capacity of fasting and Iask you intentionally to increase the capacity of fasting.

A very high official of the Government of India had high blood pressure about 20 years ago. He was an additional secretary. He tried all possible sources to become normal. Everybody diagnosed his disease as high blood pressure, and drugs were prescribed. But he was not becoming normal. Having plenty of resources, he was eating all the time. At last, he sent for me. I am a little blunt. I told him, ‘Sir, you are not having high blood pressure but you are having food pressure. High food pressure is the cause and the high blood pressure is the consequence. So unless you reduce eating, you cannot become normal. You must give up drugs and you must eat less. Eat less does not mean starve but only eat to the extent needed. There is no need in eating more than what you really require. It is not a bank where the more you deposit, the greater will be the savings’.

The officer got annoyed and said, ‘I must eat to keep my health’. I said, ‘Sir, are you having gas trouble’? ‘Yes’. ‘Are you digesting your food?’ ‘No.’ ‘Are you having constipation?’ ‘Yes’. ‘Then what is the use of eating more when you are not digesting it?’. It is just like giving more work to a very inefficient person.

Most people eat more than what they really require under the delusion that they are supplying energy to the body. A small quantity of food in the day and a small quantity of food in the evening is enough to sustain the body. You would not need more. When you are eating more, you are unnecessarily agitating you body and thereby you get into trouble.

What I eat is so small that I am no burden to my host. Like the other guests, I do not require 4 courses a day. “Prepare this and prepare that”. If you are a light eater you will be welcomed by all wherever you go. If you are a very heavy eater, well, your host will be put to difficulties.

Do everything moderately and you will be happy and holy. Moderation is the true parent of health and longevity. Eat moderately and if you do not over work your system, the metabolic rate will not rise up. There will be no tension within you and you will be happy throughout the life and you will not become old biologically, if you eat a little. Eat only twice a day. If you are hungerless, do not eat even once.

Chapter 2 - Water

Chapter 2
Water


Two thirds of the body weight is water. Even the portion which look so solid, like the teeth and bones, contain water. There is not a portion of the body which does not contain water. Water is an essential constituent of the human organism.

Water content in the organism is lowered down by perspiration, by elimination. When we breath out, we breath out some water vapour. Through urine and sweat also we eliminate. Naturally, when the water content is lowered, we have got to supply water.

The need for water is indicated by the sensation of thirst. So whenever we get thirsty we must drink water. But many people are getting artificial thirst and many people have got into the habit of drinking too much of water. And some people, when they get thirst, drink anything other than water. It is some other liquid.

Drinking too much of water may upset the body’s health considerably. And today, in the name of yoga a lot of people advocate drinking too much of water. Much more than you require. They advocate drinking of water early in the morning. They say ‘get up early in the morning and drink 3 – 4 glasses of water.

The water available in cities in these days is not clean water. Tough it is called processed water. It is not natural water. Water should be clean, free from chemicals. But then what is available to as in cities is chlorinated water. You cannot make water clean just by adding chlorine to it. But where water is not good and where only chlorinated water is available what should you do? I know there is no other go, except to take what is supplied to you through taps. Then what I would recommend to you is this.

After all you can supply water directly or indirectly. When you take raw vegetables, when you take fruits, you get water. If your food is rightly prepared, if in each of your meal there is plenty of raw salad and if your vegetables are not fried, then you will not require much water directly. But if I have to go out anywhere I would not take water at all. I take tender coconut water where it is available. If you take raw vegetables and such things, and if you do not take salts, condiments and spices, your requirement of water directly is almost nil.

Agreed! If it is too hot and water is needed, do drink. But do not drink too much water, because drinking too much of water would overwork the kidnesys or sweat glands, or perhaps, both. Too much of water will also upset digestion. Take water you actually need. Do not be carried away by what appears in newspapers occasionally.

Do not believe every body needs 6 to seven glasses of water. The manual worker requires a little more water whereas the intellectual who sits on the chair requires less. Those who sit in air-conditioned rooms require less but those who work in the open air require more. Well, there are so many differences. It is meaningless to standardize the whole thing. All that we could say is that if you are a person who drink too much of water try to reduce it as much as practicable, little by little.

Do not drink water, sip it. Remember the thirst glands are in the mouth, not inside stomach. So if you begin to sip water and keep water in the mouth a little before taking it in [sip it little by little] and each time keep the water over the tongue for a little while and then take it, then you would not be able to drink much and you would not require much. On the other hand if you pour water straight away into the throat without the water coming in contact with the thirst glands you will require 4 to 5 times more. It is true not only regarding water. It is true as a rule regarding all liquids whether it is milk or curd or even butter milk or vegetable juice or fruit or any kind of liquid food. I am not recommending the soft drinks or hard drinks.

As a rule eat the liquids and drink the solids.

Eat the Liquid.

When you take liquid, when you take milk, butter milk, or fruit juice do not rush through. Sip little by little as if you are eating a solid. Take a little in the mouth, mix it with saliva and take it in. If you eat the liquid in this manner, it will be digested much better; it will be assimilated much better. Also, you will not drink much.

Even water you should drink slowly and the habit of taking water in small dose is called Achamana something which was known to us from the time immemorial. Ahhamana has got a great therapeutic value. It will bring down fever. Sit by the side of the person who has got fever and give cold water [not ice cold water], but ordinary water. Take a small spoon and give achamana doses 5, 6 times once every half an hour and the fever will come down. Achamana water taken in small doses will reduce the inflammation in the throat. In the case of tonsillitis where the glands are inflamed and in all cases where there is inflammation in the throat or in sore throat it will reduce the inflammation. If you drink water quickly it has no effect at all. So sip water in small quantities.

Suppose you are caught up in an undesirable situation, it is very hot day in summer. You are traveling by train on a long journey and there is no ventilation. Somehow or other; the glass panes are down and they do not even allow ventilation to take place. You are perspiring. What do you do? Then do not eat, drink water. But then if you drink too much of water and eat too, what you have eaten will not be digested. That point I will come to later. So drink water as little as possible in achamana doses. In good old days people used to drink very little water.

Drink the Solid:

What does it mean? When you take chappathi, when you take rice, when you take a solid food, chew it very very thoroughly mix it with saliva, make it into a kind of liquid and drink it. Remember that food mixed with saliva will be digested well and food which is first swallowed without the necessary saliva will not be digested. Salivary digestion, which is the first phase of digestion, If this is not going to be done correctly the second and third phase of digestion cannot follow correctly. So what is not well begun is not even half done. So people who swallow food and who do not chew may be filling up the stomach but they would not digest anything. If you eat slowly you would not be able to eat much as your jaws will get tired and the saliva will get mixed up to from the bull. If you swallow very quickly you will require more quantity and that will also act as a burden.

If you drink water along with the meal you will not be chewing thoroughly, but you will be washing down the meal. Secondly, when you are taking the meal and when the food is going down into the stomach, the continuous secretion of gastric juice, the chemical secretion, is coming up and if at that time you drink the water or drink water immediately after the meal you will be diluting the gastric juice and so the effectiveness or the efficiency of the gastric juice will go down considerably. Your digestion will be upset. Many people have got gas trouble. Its technical name is called flatulence. Many people get wind complaint because they drink water immediately after or along with the meal. If in your meal there is no fried food and plenty of salad, if you chew your food thoroughly, and if there is very little salt or condiments and spices, you would not practically need any water.

If at all you require water, supply the water an hour before the meal. You know approximately when you are going to eat. Take water an hour before the meal and that also as little as possible. Then within an hour the water will go down to the various digestive glands. Water would have been supplied to every part, so that there will be no thirst at the time of eating. If you eat very hot foods, if you eat very quickly, you will require water.

The food should be of the body temperature, even if it is cooked food. Insofar as raw food is concerned there is no question of temperature at all. Suppose it is very hot and you have taken water an hour before the meal but within 3 hours you feel thirsty again, I am not asking you to die of thirst. But then sip a little water. Sip so little that will be absorbed by the mouth itself. Let it not go down much. Sip as little as possible. If you follow this principle of drinking water slowly in small quantities and sipping it well your digestion will be ideal and it will never go bad.

Bath

We daily use water for bath. Bath helps to improve the blood circulation of the body. It activates the nervous system. Actually the cold bath invigorates the nervous system. While the hot bath works opposite, i.e. enervates the nervous system. If the water is very very cold, heat it by all means. Heat it to the body temperature, not more. If there is a person taking hot water bath, I would tell him to slowly and steadily make it less and less hot making it lukewarm and then slowly come to cold water.

Do not use soap. Some people apply oil over the head and go on using soap. If you apply soap over the hair it becomes brittle and it will lose its luster. It will lose everything.

Do not miss your bath. It is very much essential for health. Even in very cold climate if you happen to go to Simla or Siberia or any place do not miss your bath. If there is not going to be cleanliness you cannot be healthy. Your skin will be irritated. So take bath daily and if for any reason whatever, say fever or some other chronic complaint, the individual is not able to take bath, give at lest a sponge bath. Take a Turkish towel or a khaddar towel which will give friction, dip it in cold water, rub it against the skin, remove all the dirt. This is called sponge bath. Give it once or twice every day or even thrice. Skin cleanliness is very important.

So do not consider all this to be a botheration. To live in tune with nature’s laws should be a joy and when you take up this programme you should do it joyfully. You must consider this to be the normal living. This is not the abnormal or subnormal living. Many people, when I suggest diet for them, the first question they shoot at me is ‘How long should, I take this? When can I go back to my masala dosa?” That is the diet which is not the normal diet; that is the living which is not the normal living. The world may consider it to be normal, but that is not the normal living at all. When you take to nature cure, do not put the question how long you should do it. Do not bargain with nature. This is the right living, this is the normal living you must be prepared to live this life long.

Now there is another water cure application, what is called the cooling head bath. The Hindustani saying goes, as translated, “Keep your head cool”. If for any reason, you feel headache, do not take any sedatives. Self-medication is bad even according to the medical man. If you are having headache or any kind of inflammation, or uncomfortable feeling take a cooling head bath. Take a little cold water and just apply over the head and neck only. Let it not be too much and let it not drench the whole body. Keep the rest of the body warm and just cool the head. Just a little and you need not even pour. Take a little in your hand and just apply over the face and back of head; just enough to make it wet, moist. Allow it to dry by itself by the body heat. Again apply a third time and a fourth time. Your headache will go off. Your headache will go away in no time. You will fee much better. You will feel much fresh. You would not feel you are tired. So this is called the cooling head bath. There is no danger, there is no side effects; there is no danger here, this will keep you fresh.

Many people, when they get up early in the morning after their sleep, feel pain all over the body. They do not feel fresh. Let them have this cooling head bath first. Immediately on getting up they would not require anything and they will feel fresh.

Then there is the hot and cold bath. If the head is to be kept cool the feet out to be kept warm. Normally, not by applying heat over the feet. But then there are many abnormal and subnormal people coming to nature cure. We have to give them some relief; otherwise they will run to the allopaths, and poison themselves. So, in nature cure we have all this. Ideally speaking, I will ask you only to take the dietetic reform and improve your health that way. I will not suggest any other thing. But you will not get any immediate relief and if you did not get any immediate relief you will run to the allopaths. Hence all these water cure methods and other things, are suggested to you so that you get immediate relief, and also ultimate relief. Allopathic drugs give you immediate relief. But ultimately they spoil you just like the money lender, who helps you little by little in the beginning, appears to help you, but ultimately lands you in the court, and puts you behind the bars. It is the same with the poison therapy. But nature cure methods are completely harmless. So if a person has got sluggish blood circulation, let him take hot water foot bath. Take a big vessel, a vessel big enough to bold both your legs upto the knees. A big vessel made of any metal. Prepare hot water as hot as you can bear. Sit comfortably in the chair or somewhere dips both the legs up to the knees in the hot water. 10 minutes is enough. Now you have supplied heat and immediately after that do not keep it cold. Take the feet out, take a turkey towel or khaddar towel, wrap it around the legs and lie down. Rest if necessary; put a bed sheet over you to keep the warmth. If the feet are warm, you sleep better. You feel relaxed. So, on the day you have done a lot of physical work [some days you have got to undertake a lot of physical work and the legs will pain a lot] take a hot water foot bath. Anybody can take it; hot water foot bath is very good for headaches. For people with poor sleep hot water foot bath before going to bed will improve the quality of sleep. There are three conditions on which hot water foot bath cannot be taken. Please note: The instructions are not given in any book other than Sharma’s.

People with high blood pressure and heart complaints should not take hot water toot bath. By taking hot water foot bath, you manipulate blood circulation and force the heart to pump more blood. If the heart is weak, if there is background of heart attack or coronary thrombosis or angina or hypertension, or any such thing, hot water foot bath should not be taken, number one.

Number two, if there are stones in the kidneys or nephritis, or the kidneys are weak in any way then do not take the hot water foot bath. In that state, the blood condition will not be normal, the heat condition cannot be normal and if you force the heart to pump more blood it may collapse.

Number three, if there is a serious condition in the liver, such as cirrhosis, where water gets accumulated in it, better not take the hot water foot bath.

Well, in these 3 conditions you can take a hot water bottle of rubber, till it up with hot water wrap a turkey towel over it and keep it near the legs of the patient and keep the bed warm. It is non-violent.

Now, let us know about abdominal wet pack. The abdomen, [I call it the Madhya Pradsh.] Most people have got very poor digestion and this is the place, where they feel heaviness in their body. There is constipation, there is gas and all that. And if, the abdomen is so congested, the mind cannot be clear. It is necessary we keep the stomach light. Start dietetic reform; along with that to quicken the process, take a khaddar dhothi [because no other cloth can hold as much water as khaddar]. Another cloth that comes near is the handloom cloth. Khadar cloth is the best. Now, take a khaddar dhoti, fold in 4 times, just to fit the breadth of the abdomen. In the case of adults, it will be bigger and in the case of children it will be smaller. Well, fold in 4 times, dip it in cold water [not ice cold water]. Do not use ice at all. Use ordinary water. Squeeze out the water completely. Wrap it lightly around the abdomen, put two or three safety pins over it. Then put on your regular dress, and continue your work. You need not take rest. If you are bed ridden, if you are very much ill, you take rest, otherwise you can do your work. Half an hour or 45 minutes later this will become dry and then you remove it. This can be done any time in the day. You can do it at any time after the mid-day meal, after the night meal-once twice or thrice. This will reduce all the irritation, all sexual aberrations in the elderly people too. Sexual aberration is due to pelvic congestion, congestion in the pelvic region. People are sitting all the time, not getting any physical activity. The portion below the abdomen, what is called the pelvic region, is the most congested region in the modern individual [man or woman]. Just because of this pelvic congestion, combined with constipation, indigestion, gas trouble and all that, there is excessive menstruation, there are night discharges, night pollutions and so many other troubles. For all these, put on the wet pack. The pelvic congestion will clear up and all the trouble will vanish. You can put on this pack in winter or summer, any time.

You can have a pack on your forehead, if you have got headache. Suppose you cannot do the head bath on some reason or other, put on the head pack and a wet pack and lie down. Your headache will vanish.

You can deal with any congestion. But modern man has fear. He is not afraid of poisons sever poisons. He is not afraid of the poison therapy, but he is afraid of water. He is afraid of vegetable juices.

Chapter 3 - Sun Light

Chapter 3
Sun Light


Even as you can benefit by water, as already explained you can benefit by exposing the body to the sun to the extent possible. What is known as sun bath is very very essential for body health. Sun bath, can be taken for a little while, say, fifteen minutes. If you cannot take it daily, take it at least once a week. Allow the sun’s rays to fall on the body. It is needed for all. Sun bath is not to be taken in the hottest part of the day. Have it when the sunlight is mild. We want the light and not the heat. Early morning or late in the evening are ideal times. Lie down where you can have privacy, with as little cloth on the body as possible. Lie own on plain surface with the head in the shade. The head is exposed to the sun all the time. So the head does not require it. Lie down facing the sun. Let the sun’s rays fall on the body, on the skin. When you take sun bath the skin manufactures vitamin D. Vitamin D is needed for all persons not only for the rickety and tubercular patients. In the absence of vitamin D you will not be able to assimilate calcium. The sun bath not only supplies you vitamin D, but also improves blood circulation. It tones up, improves, the metabolic activity. It stirs up elimination. So many things are being done during the sun bath. It does not cost you anything. Have a little exposure to the sun.

Most of our children are very poor in health. Synthetic vitamin D will not replace natural vitamin D. Give them sun bath regularly. Well, lie down with the front part exposed to the sun for 10, 15, 20 minutes. It is not necessary to lie down or a long time. The idea is no to tan the skin. After a little while, lie on the stomach so that the back also will be exposed to the sun for the same period. Expose the entire skin to the sun. Well the skin will be toned up. Immediately after the sun bath, have a cold bath. Do not apply the soap. Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin. The vitamin D manufactured while you are taking the sun bath, is kept on the skin surface. It takes some time for the body to absorb it. Immediately after you take the sun bath, if you apply soap the vitamin D will be removed. Vitamin D is an osteogenetic vitamin. It is a bone-building vitamin. It is needed for everyone. In certain cases where the person is very very weak, lying in the sun causes a burning sensation as uncomfortable sensation. In such cases, we put a plantain leaf over him. We allow the sun’s rays to penetrate the plantain leaf and fall on the body. The greener side of the plantain leaf should touch the body. The paler part above. Over that put a thin white wet cloth so that the plantain leaf does not fly away. Sun’s rays will penetrate the plantain leaf and fall on the skin. And have the diet reform with fasting. Little by little the patient improves and he will be able to take the direct sun bath. After the sun bath take the full bath. It is very necessary.

Chapter 4 - Air

Chapter 4
Air

Take sun bath then air bath. Even as the bath in water is very important for keeping the skin clean what is known as air bath is equally important. Air bath is taken in the privacy of your home somewhere in the backyard of your home or somewhere with the minimum dress on your body with maximum of the skin exposed to air. The cool air early morning or late in the evening, especially when there is a breeze blowing, allow air to fall upon the skin. One third of the nerve endings of the body are on the skin and when cool air falls on the body you feel relaxed. The air bath is very effective. So having the least dress on the body [let it be khaddar or white cloth so that it allows some air even through the pores of the cloth] allow cool air to fall upon the skin. If there is a breeze on, you need not move. If there is no breeze you may move a little. You embrace the air. Let the air fall upon all the pores of the skin. The skin will stand to gain a lot. The air bath tones up the blood circulation, reduces blood pressure. It induces relaxation as it improves blood circulation. It improves all the functions of the body. In the Upanishads, which represent the wisdom of this nation, there is a mantra which means “Namasthe Vayo! – I bow down to you, you are the direct manifestation of God. God is all pervading, I cannot see Him but, by the fact that you are all-pervading, I can understand that you are the direct manifestation of God. Embrace that god, the Air God! Well, your health is assured. This is a worship.

In the 10th chapter of the Gita there is the description of the manifestations of God. You can see His manifestations, particularly very clearly. He says, “Of the mountains I am the Himalayas”. “Of the cleansing agents” says the Lord, “I am air”. If you want to keep the body clean internally, the only way is to breath better and supply air as fully as you can and this is the only way to keep the body clean. Have air bath.

So, with air bath, sun bath, sensible food according to your hunger, but mostly vegetables and fruits, avoiding all the processed food and other things, with occasional fasting, and as you begin to improve the health, your skin automatically gets cleared. That is the beauty about it in nature cure. We can radically cure any disease because the treatment is simple. We do not treat disease. We correct mistakes in living. We improve the health of the patient. That is the approach. So much on how to treat skin diseases.

Chapter 5 - Rest

Chapter 5
Rest


If we keep the organism over working all the time and if we give it no rest, ultimately we shall suffer. So, there is need for Rest. . If you want to remain healthy, you should know how to take rest. So let us know how to give rest to every organ within and by giving rest how to get back health.

The word rest is the most misunderstood term in the modern world. People do not go to office, they do not go to their work, they lie down and they say they are resting. In spite of all this rest they do not improve. Why? Because they are not really resting.

We sleep every day. If the sleep is really good that itself is enough as rest. But most people cannot even sleep correctly.

So, simply lying down or even taking a sleep is not rest. There are our kinds of rest,
physical rest,
sensory rest,
emotional rest, and
physiological rest.
Unless and until these four kinds of rest are given to man, it is not possible for him to get full rest.

Physical rest is rest for the skeletal muscles, that is, the muscles attached to the skeleton. These are the muscles with which you move about, you bend backward, forward etc. Well, physical rest gives rest to the skeletal muscles, after having done a good amount of work and after getting tired. This is physical rest. But most people take physical rest without having worked the muscles earlier. That is why they are not able to take the physical rest. If you have not taken enough work from the muscles, they would not work properly. Rest prepares for work ahead and work prepares for rest ahead. Work and rest are other basic needs of living. So physical rest is good enough provided you have worked. When you feel tired, by all means lie down. Automatically you will have rest and if it is time for sleep you will slip into sleep. Physical rest is good enough. But that is the lowest form of rest.

Far more important than physical rest is sensory rest. Rest for the sensory organs. We waste a lot of energy through our sense organs. We are supposed to use the senses sensibly. We have got to talk. But if we talk very agitatedly we lose a lot of energy. So there are so many ways in which we waste a lot of energy through the sense organs. Well you must have some control over the sense organs. Do not agitate them. Do not excite them. That is all you must do. Whether it the tongue or the eye or the nostril or the skin, or the ears, no sense organ must be excited. Nothing should be unnecessarily excited, the greater the excitement, the greater he weakness. Most people waste energy by not knowing the essence of control with the result that when they go to bed they are not able to sleep. So sensory rest is important. Let us use the sense organ intelligently. All the great scriptures of the world, all the great religions of the world pay enough importance of self-control. Self-control is self-regulation and sensible living. And not giving the sensory rest needed, he will always feel tired, even though he may be apparently sleeping eight hours a day. Unless the sense organs are rested, you cannot really feel healthy. This was what was called bramacharya in the good old days. Brahmacharya does not mean the sex. There is the brahmacharya of the tongue. There is the brahmacharya of the eyes. There is the brahmacharya of the ears. There is the brahmacharya for every sense organ. So some amount of self-restraint, some amount of self-control is needed, not for the purpose of any moksha, or liberation, after death but for the sake of living healthy. Without self restraint, health is impossible. If anybody chooses to live in self-indulgence, he can never live a healthy life, absolutely not. Nature cure is based upon self-restraint. It requires character.

No organ in the body need any rest at any time if only there is a little sensible control over it. When the sense organs are excited, we are not able to control them. That is the difficulty. We have tasted “halva”, or some other things for quite a long time and now the tongue has become addicted to it. Whatever it is, you not able to exert control, whether it is good or bad. Even if it is bad, you run after it. Why? Because control has been lost. Sensible control is more important than sensory rest. You would not require 8 hours or 7 hours of sleep. You will be able to manage with 4 or 5. Because more important control is made available to the body.

The Third is Emotional rest and it is more important than sensory rest. The senses are not controlled because the mind is not controlled. The mind is behind the sense organs. We are all born original. But we die as duplicates, and quadruplicates. We do not live original. Emotional rest is the one where you bring out these powers, namely, powers of rationalization, analysis, judgment, discrimination and utilize them in the day to day problems of life, to deal with these problems and sensibly act without getting agitated. You must know what to do and what not to do. What is good and what is bad. If you could develop these faculties of the mind, our mind will be calm and composed all the time. There will be no tension, and there will be no botheration. There will be no excitement. We should be able to keep ourselves calm and cool even in the most disturbed conditions. Modern man knows very little about it. Because, in education in the college or the school, nothing about the mind is taught. Nothing about mind control is taught.
“Serenity, Sincerity, simplicity, Equanimity, humility, Integrity, nobility, magnanimity,
generosity and purity are not taught in the University.

And these give you the Emotional or mental rest. Mental rest is needed. The mind is restless today. That is what is creating so much disease. Many Doctors say many diseases are caused by mental unrest, mental restlessness. Mental rest is something which every individual has got to know.

First is physical rest when your muscles are tired. Then the more important is sensory rest, not to excite your senses. Now still more important is emotional and mental rest.

There is a deep relationship between the body and the mind. If you do not know how to rest the mind, you cannot rest the body.

Now let us move on to Physiological rest.
Physiology refers to the whole body and physiological rest refers to rest to all the organs that lie within our body.

You know our organs are kept very busy doing work all through 24 hours of the day. It all starts from stomach. When you take a heavy meal there is a lot of work involved in the system immediately after it. After the stomach, the intestines have to work more, the liver, the kidney and every thing in the digestive system has to work more. Not only for the digestive system. The heart too has got to work more immediately after a heavy meal. That is why a heavy meal is called a hearty meal and not a stomachy meal. Well, the heart has got to work more, the muscular system has got to work more. Unless you reduce the work of these organs, you cannot give them rest. How can you reduce the work within? Only by fasting. There is no other method.

Just as a light meal helps the stomach to work less, when you fast completely, you reduce all the work to the organs intentionally, voluntarily and at will. Thus at will you reduce the work within by not eating occasionally. No one is going to die by a single day’s fast. In the polar regions of the world, in the north pole there are animals which go without food in the winter season. It is all dark. They go to hibernation. They do not die. In the living being there is always a food reserve within. This food reserve is used while you are fasting.

In the initial stages fast only for half a day. Well, Wednesday, for instance, take the mid-day meal and omit the night meal. Fast little by little, practice one-day fasting, You can even enhance fasting to two days. No harm can occur. When you fast, all the work of the digestive system is stopped. The heart is rested to the extent possible because you are not giving it any extra work. The muscular system, the nervous system, the glandular system, every system is given rest. The energy that is ordinarily spent in digesting and doing other connected work, is saved. And that saved energy is canalized for the purpose of eliminating the foul matter within.

Similarly as already stated, by eating half stomach, you voluntarily, cheerfully, reduce the meal daily. Do not eat much. That is also a kind of rest. But that is not complete rest. But occasionally, once in 15 days or 1 month, when you fast completely, you give physiological rest and this physiological rest tones up the nerves, and tones up the glands. That makes possible the mind control – “the mental rest”. The mind at rest is not agitated by the physical background. Well it is also possible to control the senses a little more, combining with this the methods given practically in all religions to control the mind and senses. You will be very successful. The two should go together. So fast occasionally very happily.

By fast I mean complete fast. There are many people who observe fast rather wrongly. They do not take the usual rice. They take some thing in the name of Upavas and Upvas ka Bhojan. And that food is heavier than usual food. That is the unfortunate part of it. That is not fast. Fast means complete fast. So if we begin to take physiological rest then all the other rests will automatically follow.

Fasting is not starving. Fast happily, it is very important. Some people fast but grumblingly murmuring all the time. “I have got to fast today”. They are unhappy about fasting. Suppose you have got a fight with your family and you fast. Then you will feel very weak in the next morning. If you are to coerce the other party you will not succeed. Do not take to coercive fasting. If there is coercion in the mind, if there is fear in the mind, fasting will not succeed. If you do not fast cheerfully, if you fast at the physical level and if your mind clamours for food at the mental level that is not fasting. and you would feel miserable. Fasting is extremely good when you fast happily. Starvation is definitely bad but starvation begins where you long for food while fasting. If you fast happily, there is absolutely no starvation. Fasting is extremely positive. Starvation is negative. We are not for starvation.

Fasting is extremely good. I have fasted for 15 days and continued all my activities. I was prepared to fast much longer. But my mother came and said, “It is enough”. So fasting would not weaken you. It is fear that weakens the people. During fasting, of course, you have to reduce your activities. You should not undertake any strenuous physical activity. Otherwise you can continue your normal mental activities without straining yourself. So fasting is extremely useful.

Now, let us see how to fast. In health, you could fast a day in one month, or twice in a month, happily, cheerfully. Some people fast. On the day prior to fasting they say, “Tomorrow I have got to fast, so today I will eat more” and the day after the fasting, “Yesterday I have fasted, I will eat more today”. If you are going to eat more today because tomorrow you are going to fast then it is not fast. If you do this you will not have the common cold, the ordinary fever or even acute disease. On the day prior to fasting, eat a little less than your usual grub. On the day after fasting also, eat a little less than the usual grub. Well if you do that there is no botheration. Occasionally you can fast like this, once or twice a month, and this little fast will give the needed physiological rest and the system will be clean. If you combine this with religion and prayer it will do good. If you do not want to do it but want to fast only do it. This is fasting while in Health.

But no man today is absolutely healthy. In modern civilization people are having only some kind of subnormal health. Ideal health or normal health is absent. An ideally healthy man can fast any number of days without any difficulty.

But the more unhealthy a man is the more difficult it is to fast. Because the moment an unhealthy man starts fasting the system starts cleaning itself. That is the opportunity for the system to remove the poisons because the usual work is not there. And when the system cleansing itself all the energy is diverted for cleansing and so energy is not available to the outer skeletal muscle and the man becomes weak or rather appears weak. A lot of foul matter is thrown out and when the foul matter is thrown out the weight of the foul matter within is reduced. He loses some weight, his energy is diverted internally and so it looks as though he is seriously weak and the people around him say, “What has gone wrong with you? You have lost so much weight” and the man feels weaker still. Many people offer condolence even before the man dies and so mentally the man gets upset. It is very difficult for the unhealthy man to fast but it is the unhealthy man who requires the fast much more than he healthy man.

How then should he do it? He should do progressive fasting. Do not take to complete fasting. Do it stage by stage. Fast for a day at a time, not more, taking care that on the previous day and on the succeeding day you eat less and that too the right kind of food. Be cheerful on the fasting day. Know that you are doing it for your own good and go ahead. This is non-violence in fasting in health.

What about people who are ill like fever, cold, loose motions, smallpox, measles, whatever? During illness, there will be no hunger. Energy is not available for the digestive system for digesting the food. So there will be no hunger. The tongue is coated and even water does not taste good. These are natural messages to you that you should not eat at this time. Well, therefore this is a good time to fast. Fast completely in such period. Fasting is the medicine, not drugs. In Sanskrit fasting is called ‘langhanam’. ‘Langhanam parama oushadham’ is a great statement. Langhanam also means jumping. Jumping from ill health to healh. You do not walk. You do not run. Look at the English word fast. It is not slow. So people who are having some illness, should fast completely. How long? As long as the illness lasts. If you do not take any drugs and if you fast completely, such illness will not last for more than 2 – 3 days.

But then you know, fever to some people last for more than 3 weeks in Typhoid, paratyphoid, etc. Well people ask, “How are we to fast for 6 weeks?” Now, I want to give you some advice. Before you develop a fever or any such illness, you have fevershness in the body. The throat is likely to be affected. All the muscles are having pain and you are not feeling normal. There is feverishness. On that day you try with a thermometer. No fever will be indicated. You do not feel fever. But you have feverishness. You know there is a disease called polio and there is another disease known as diphtheria. All these are accompanied by fever. Before there is fever there is always feverishness. If, during the feverish period of one or two days, you fast completely and do not take any kind of pain-killing drugs, the feverishness goes. The fever goes. There is no question of diphtheria, or polio or any such thing. If you do not act properly during the feverishness period, if you eat and if you take drugs, then you get into particular kind of fever, malaria, influenza, pneumonia etc. So we tell people, whenever you feel slightly uneasy or feverish go on a complete fast. You would never develop any kind of disease. Give up drugs, completely. Nature gives you enough warning for every disease, and whenever you get the warning do not allow the clinical symptoms to develop. Whenever you get the warning, just fast. So whenever you have feverishness fast completely. Whenever you are having cold, fast completely, for a day or two. You will be all right the third day.

Suppose you did not do it and the fever has developed say, in to paratyphoid. What will you do? Then of course you have got to go through the long process. I cannot help it. Now you may not be able to fast completely. All that you have to do is to live only on raw juices. It is as good as fasting. Live only on raw juice, raw ashgourd juice, or snakegourd juice, and raw plantain pith juice. You take some raw juice four times a day in small quantities. Apply the abdominal wet pack. Be careful to keep away from drugs. Instead of 6 weeks it will go away in 2 weeks or one week.

So if you take to nature cure from the beginning of life, there will be no problem at all. Suppose a person has come to nature cure after getting a chronic disease, after getting asthma, or diabetes, he has become a chronic patient already. He has got a background of terrible drugging. How to adopt fasting in his case? It has got a longer past. It will not go within 2 – 3 days. There is such a lot of background. The minimum time needed is one week’s nature cure treatment or one year’s disease. Suppose a man having asthma for 20 years has come to you it will take 20 weeks to cure. The medical men would say, “you must know how to live with blood pressure, how to live with diabetes, how to live with asthma”. They can not cure it. They cannot radically cure it. Whereas we say it is radically curable. But then you have to devote some time for it.

How to do fast in this case? Because here the vitality is low. In the acute case the vitality is there. That is why elimination is vigorous. Here the vitality is low. The acid-alkaline balance inside is disturbed. So things are not normal. There is vitamin shortage, enzyme and mineral shortage inside. So what to do? Prepare yourself. Live predominantly on a positive diet. Live only on vegetables and fruits. Do not take the filling foods-the rice, wheat, pusles, grams, and worse still, the non-vegetarian food. Do not dump yourself with unwanted things. Prepare the vegetables and fruits in the right way. Do not fry. Take it rightly. Take some raw juices, fresh raw vegetable juices and fruit juices. Mostly live on vegetables and fruits. A resident of our country would not be satisfied without taking rice or wheat everyday. Otherwise he will mentally collapse. So just to overcome that little weakness we say “All right, live mostly on vegetables and fruits. Take a little rice or chappathy for your mental satisfaction”. This is called partial fasting. The individual lives mostly on raw vegetables and juices of raw vegetables and fruits with a little chapathy or rice and no pulses, no milk, no milk products, no ghee, no grams, nothing whatever, what does this partial fasting mean? The food eaten will be digested in 12 hours. There will be 12 hours of work and 12 hours of rest. Half holiday everyday, and whatever eaten will be digested quicker. The system will stand to benefit by it. With that benefit it will be able to cleanse the body during the fasting period. It is called partial fasting.

So an asthmatic, a rheumatic patient, a migraine patient, a high blood pressure patient, a low blood pressure patient, or in short, a person having a chronic disease, should start living on this programme of partial fasting. There is no need for complete fasting at all. Along with this, a little deep breathing and living in a well ventilated place, all this will, improve the level of health.

Gandhiji used to say, ‘Ram Nam is panacea of nature cure’. Spiritual life is very important. Without that you cannot be healthy. Your health improves day by day. You have given up drugs once for all. You have nothing to do with poison any more. You have given up wrong habits. You build up your health little. In due course of time, the system starts cleaning itself vigorously. The diseases which you have suppressed earlier come out vigorously. The system starts cleansing itself.

In the cleaning process, you may develop fever, cold, loose motions, boils, etc. These are called healing crisis. During such period of healing crisis, fast completely for a day or two. After the healing crisis, your health will improve. Again take a partial fasting. Again you will get healing crisis. Go ahead, for months slowly, steadily, confidently, non-volentarily with complete understanding and faith, not with fear.

All the chronic diseases could be cured. What is medically incurable is curable here. Why? You give the body the needed physiological rest. You give occasion to the body to cleanse itself. Automatically the cleansing takes place. This is how fasting is to be done in chronic diseases.

And after you have become very well after all the healing crisis are over, slowly and steadily switch back to the normal diet. Normal diet means you can include a little pulse, little milk, little ghee and all that, but sensibly. Do not overload yourself again. Having cured, stay cured. Many people follow nature cure till they get a little relief. Then they switch back to their old masala dosa business and then they get into trouble again. After having cured stay cured. Do not do anything wrong. This is the method so far as chronic diseases are concerned.

Suppose a person takes to nature cure after becoming a cancer patient, a patient of heart disease, heart attack, coronary thrombosis, or after developing epilepsy. This is the third stage. The best thing is not to allow disease to develop to reach that stage of insolvency. But suppose a person has already reached it, even then nature cure can help, provided the individual is understanding and is willing to follow the right method of living. What should he do?

There is a man who bed ridden. All the time he is bed ridden. His assimilation is very poor. At times he even becomes unconscious. There is no question of digesting anything. To give him intravenous glucose at that time is foolish. Now what do we do? The first thing to be done to this man is to give mental solace to the extent practicable. You must know how to advise. You must be the father figure, the mother figure and the guru figure. On seeing you he must have complete confidence. You must assure him from the bottom of your heart that he would recover. Well, if this comes from the bottom of your heart and if he could see the father figure in you, well half the battle is won. Most of such people know very clearly what their disease is and that their disease is incurable. They are only counting their days and they get annoyed with everyone, because they are very weak. They have no will to live. They have developed a will to die. They have no hope because every doctor says that it is hopeless. The first thing is to replace the will to die by the will to live. By sensible, constructive, physichological approach, [call it spiritual approach, I do not mind] half the battle is won. Now start the fasting programme. Because he has not done this, the moment you tell him to give up the food and put him on juices the man will say, “you are trying to kill me earlier”. He is already suspicious of everybody around. If you stop all the drugs, if you stop all the medicines, and if you suddenly try to put him on juices he may say, probably you want to save money and you want to kill me. Now do not give him the negative attitude. The first thing is to explain to him. That explanation is not to be done by his son or daughter, but someone with high spiritual stature. A real healer will be a man of spiritual stature, a man of spiritual stature, character and conduct. His every word should be soothing. So first replace the will to die by the will to live. If that could be done, then put the person on an approach to fast. What does the term approach to fast mean? It means putting the person on juices along. If you give roughage, if you give raw vegetable, if you give whole fruit he will not be able to digest. There will be greater wind complaint. The person will not be able to get up. So give him the essence of the vegetable, the essence of the fruits. Tender coconut water which is far better than every vegetable and every fruit. Give it thrice or 4 times a day. Small quantity every time. Educate the patient. Do not medicate. Give hope. Give cheer. Now do you know what will happen? Slowly and steadily rest is given to the system, by druglessness on the one side and by low dieting – a quality oriented, quantity-reduced diet on the other side. Slowly the body chemistry is improved. All the drug poisons will be slowly and steadily thrown off and he will now go back to healthy. He will get the healing crisis. Manage during this healing crisis with confidence and faith. After some time his hunger will reappear. Then put him on a partial fast, continue with that same kind of education, and give him hope and cheer and when he gets the healing crisis, have complete fast. It is possible to get back complete health.


Do not worry. Noting wrong will happen by going the right way. Pushing food into a system which does not assimilate may appear satisfying to oneself and to the people around. But you will be only hastening the patient to doom by feeding him. Feed the patient, and send him to the grave quicker. When you feed the patient you are not feeding the patient but you are feeding the disease. So let us be very clear. We must take in only what we really need and know what we do not need. The man who is in the grip of a serious disease does not need much of starch, does not need much of indigestible proteins, not to speak of the animal protein and does not need fat, but he needs the enzymes, the vitamins, the minerals salts, in the most natural form possible. Go to a hospital and see. They only give bread made of maida and pasteurized milk, saying that they are feeding the patient. They are absolutely no vitamins, no mineral salts in them. I would like you to completely understand this. So fast sensibly. You can overcome all disease permanently. There is no treatment equal to fasting. Fasting does not mean complete fasting in every case. If you adopt total fasting in a cancer or tuberculosis patient, he will collapse. So fasting has got to be done according to the mental understanding of the individual. For that you have go to educate. Find out the stage of the disease, find out the physical and mental capacities of the patient and fast non-violently. All persons cannot fast completely. They find it extremely difficult to adjust to it. So do not adopt complete fasting. Modern man has got very little spiritual strength and the man who has no spiritual strength cannot sustain himself without some kind of food or the other. But a man of spirituality can remain without food for days together. A man of real health can remain days together without food but a man who is ill mentally and physically has to go slow.

Well, fortunately you have not developed any chronic disease. You are fairly well. Observe all the principles of nature care not nature cure. Live fairly, rightly and whenever you get any illness, do not drug. Very often your own relatives, your own friends happen to be your enemies not knowing what is happening inside you. They become your enemies and they do not allow you to go in the right way. So you should be a man of iron will even if you be a minority of one, you must stick to the right path. Otherwise, in this world with so many people around you of little understanding, you will not be able to progress well. There are more negative people than positive people today. They look only at your height, weighty and dimensions. Well, unfortunately, health is understood by height, weight and dimension. It is not so. People are taken by illusory appearances. Nature cure looks at the root cause. So fasting is essential. But fast sensibly, understandingly and do not be upset by the people around who are trying to dissuade you and are trying to take you away to hospitals.