TOO MUCH MATERIALISM IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH!
FASTING AS A TOOL FOR SELF-AWARENESS
It is said in Ayurveda that you should take food as medicine, otherwise you are perforce take medicine as food.
In my childhood days, my mother put us on fasting every Monday in Kartik maas (November - as per Indian calendar ) and myself and sisters used to take circles around the kitchen during those hungry hours when sumptuous food is served after evening puja. To endure the pangs of hunger, she used to advise us to immerse in our regular activity rather thinking food every moment. It is a tradition laced with potential health benefits.
Now after three decades, I am back to fasting with rekindled enthusiasm after I was convinced enough of its immense health benefits.
In fact, fasting is a cleansing process which takes out the toxic substances from your body. Spiritual luminary Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev says Once in every 11 to 14 days, you may not feel like eating. On that day, you should not eat. You know, even dogs and cats have this awareness? At least every 14 days, you could go without food. If you are unable to go without food, if your activity levels are such and you don’t have the necessary sadhana to support you, then you could go on a fruit diet. Just observe your own system, and you may notice that on certain days, you do not really need to eat. Forcing food on those days is not a good thing to do.
Fitness guru Rujuta Diwekar in her best seller " Don't lose your mind, Lose your weight' says Fasting is a powerful tool as a spiritual practice, but nowadays it is used mainly as a weight loss tool by 'experts'.
All most all religions have fasting embedded in their cultures. If you remain on fasting, your decision-making faculties would excel and it helps you gain more self-control.
ROAD TO SERENITY
Never talk about the faults of others, no matter how bad they may be. Nothing is ever gained by that. You never help one by talking about his faults; you do him an injury, and injure yourself as well.
- Swami Vivekananda
Most of us indulge in gossip and dwell at length on the faults of others, forgetting our own. But the wisdom masters say that this trait will put you in deep trouble and rob your own inner serenity.
When you talk ill of others, the toxic emotions are bound to destabilize your own emotional balance. That's why you must concentrate your energies more on your own conduct than onlookers.
Some months back I wrote this wonderful quote of Dalai Lama in my journal which I come back and forth to remind myself of the truth:
If someone remains in a peaceful and tranquil state of mind, external surroundings can cause them only a limited disturbance.quo
If you are in a situation which you can't tolerate, better to walk out politely instead of silently enduring the ordeal. Suppose if the situation doesn't permit you to leave, be prepared to endure with full acceptance. You get more inner strength by reading this famous quote of American novelist and short story writer James Lane Allen:
Man is buffeted by circumstances so long as he believes himself to be the creature of outside conditions, but when he realizes that he is a creative power and that he may command the hidden soil and seeds of his being out of which circumstances grow, he then becomes the rightful master of himself.