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.