Obesity, health and fasting
[2nd President and Spiritual Head: the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa]
[now a Centre of the international Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission]
DAILY READINGS
Day 1000
Get accustomed to the opposite of comfort, so there's no fear. Don't get attached to comfort. Embrace austerity [tapasya]. Take it on yourselves. Fast on Ekadasi days, fast on all the holy days, fast on the birthdays of holy personages – fast. As a matter of fact, most of us are real sinners with food. Gurudev [Swamiji's beloved Guru, Sri Swami Nischalananda Puri] drew our notice to that. He set out to serve the African people in Inanda [KwaZulu Natal] and other areas that were very poor. Just like you'll find in Chatsworth and other areas, the Indian people were very poor. But here they were very poor. And he served them.
Nationwide, he sent out appeals that people should miss just one meal. Hundreds of people missed a meal. And they calculated that one meal was then worth about 50 cents. I don't know if you know that today you people are eating several Rands [the South African currency] worth of food a day. I think now it's about eight Rand. [this was many years ago, so the figure will be significantly more now] So he said, 'miss a meal,' and at that time it was fifty cents and people fasted on that day and gave about one Rand as a donation. Only then do you realise that we eat much more food than is necessary. Here they missed just one meal in months but the poor people regularly didn't have enough food.
The donors had a certain satisfaction that they were giving to poor people. Can you imagine how much we eat? And we get diabetes and we get high blood pressure and we get heart trouble. [Swamiji chuckling] Then we go to the temple and pray to God, 'God, why this sickness? What did I do?' But you did evil – you over-ate. That's the evil. You know what you did. Now you're praying to God, 'God, cure me.' But you already committed the sin. What to do now? God will now put you on diet. And when he puts you on diet you will have to go to the doctor.
When you go to the temple, the priest says, 'fast!' The poor doctor says the same thing but you won't fast. But spiritually-attached, you will fast. This is the folly of man. Instead of carrying three kilos you want to carry fifty kilos extra weight. And God's hand comes to protest you carrying the overload. This may sound funny what I'm telling you, but take it to heart. I'm speaking to myself – not just to you. Take it to heart.
1) Care should be taken by the reader to understand and take Swamiji's words in these postings, in context. Every teaching or instruction that he gave was specific to the people who were with Swamiji at the time.
2) Mouse-over the words highlighted in red in the posting for further explanation or links.
There are currently available, 150 different CDs or DVDs with mp3 files, of Swamiji speaking. Please email timhoare@webmail.co.za to order.
For more about the Holy Trinity, and also the founding Swamis of the Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa, please mouse over their names below:
Sri Ramakrishna Sri Sarada Devi Swami Vivekananda
Swami Nischalananda Swami Shivapadananda
The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna - read online
Reference websites – please mouse over the name and click to connect:
Ramakrishna Math and Mission Ramakrishna Centre of South Africa Ramakrishna Dham