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.