It beggars belief that someone could go on living for half a century without eating. Or drinking. But Yogananda Paramhamsa claimed that he saw such a person. And her name was Giri Bala-a yogini in her own right. It is believed that after a throng of soul-sinking rebukes she got from her mother and her in-laws for her compulsiveness to binge, she thought she'd do away from food altogether.
But she bettered her aspirations. She practiced breatharianism- a way to derive energy out of sunlight, wind, and other forces of the universe without the consumption of food or water. Or so it is believed. I don't quite know what to make of such claims. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence but a case as curious as that of Giri Bala has none. So does one look at such a claim with piety for and subservience towards yogic practices? I don't know.
On the other hand, there are people such as Linda Hazzard who have killed patients as she resorted to fasting as a way of curing diseases of the people who sought professional help with her for their ailments. [If you could do away with the body itself, the ailment goes with it too. Pretty neat!!] She acquired a rather peculiar moniker of being a "Starvation Doctor" and was believed to have been running a "starvation ward".
I completely second the thoughts of Sadhguru when he says that people, especially in the cities (and the most advanced ones, I might add) have been eating much more than they should. After all, round bellies are the new norm. Even when I was at school, people who'd put on quite a bit of weight would be quietly encouraged to add more with euphemisms such as "(S)he isn't fat. (S)he's healthy".
There's no shame to the word "fat". Words derive meanings from the contexts they are used in. And I am afraid if we are to say people who've eaten too much, put on extra pounds by eating too much are healthy, we're implying that people who have maintained a standard body mass index with proper diets and exercise routines are somehow unhealthy. This is messing with my beloved English language- something that I won't put up with.
In a world where people are looking for "instant" results in order to get slim, we hear more and more people having eating disorders after trying to fast too much (in stark contrast to another of eating disorder of "binging"), and in unhealthy ways. Fad diets are on the rise and people are found taking extreme liberties with their bodies by subjugating it to water-fasts it in order to shed some pounds as soon as possible. This can be quite dangerous.
What the dangers are have been explained beautifully by Supriya Bhattarai (a clinical nutritionist) here, and Pokhrel Diwas, who, I still can't believe became a practitioner of the art of breatharianism for 3 days!!
Follow us on Social Media :
Facebook : / wisedumbnepaliforu
TikTok : / wisedumb2019
Instagram : / wisedumb_nepali
Contact Us : knoway.studios@gmail.com
About Us :
The two men who are at the forefront of WiseDumb podcasts are Karan Bhatta and Rupesh Sah who are researchers, educators and media personalities. You can reach out to them for a collaboration:
/ karan-bhatta-061484263
/ rupesh-kumar-sah-10227...