Secrets for healthy living.

Each living creature in God’s creation has its own body shape to suit its lifestyle. The life span also varies from species to species. If any creature is to lead its life to its full potential, its body has to cooperate with it.

If the body fails to cooperate, the creature’s soul suffers and so leaves the body quickly. The epics tell us that such a soul enters another body. The soul thus shifts from one body to another and finally reaches a human body as an intelligent soul. So before we give up this life, we should realize our goals, we should apply our reason to them, and we should ensure that our body doesn’t hinder our progress. This is our ultimate aim. To reach this target, we should use body as a means.

The desires of the body should never be the end. If we don’t take care of our body, it will be ruined. God, who created the body, has established certain rules for all living creatures. If we stick to those rules, can we lead a healthy life. Most creatures lead peaceful, long lives without violating their dharma. That’s why they don’t need hospitals, medicines or medical science. Man, too, was healthy before civilization. Now, his ill health is directly proportionate to the amount of his negligence of his body. If health is dharma, adharma is ill health. If we go against dharma, the punishment is disease. Consequently, if we wish to rid ourselves of disease entirely, we must realize the importance of dharma and live accordingly. We should set things right where they have gone wrong. Which adharma brought us this illness? We should drive out that adharma.

This is the only truth. It is the harsh reality. When we become sick, we run to the hospital not once but many times. But we are not able to get rid of the disease totally. We are not permanently cured. We are not completely healthy.

Why? What’s wrong with us?

If you look deep into yourself before you answer, you will get to the root cause of the problem. You cannot become perfectly healthy if you refuse to follow the dharma of the body. Doctors and medicines cannot rid you of the wrong path you follow. They can’t promote righteous action. In fact, the side effects of medicines provoke other diseases.

The body is caused new ailments but not cleared of the old ones. Any number of modern methods in medicine and specialty hospitals will only extract your money but not your disease. It will be meaningless unless you give up the bad element in the body, and change your lifestyle. You cannot rid yourself of the ailments you have acquired. If you want to rectify or be free from mistakes,

You must first learn the dharma of the body.

·         Dharma of Water

·         Dharma of Food

·         Dharma of Exercise

·         Dharma of Rest

·         Dharma of Excretion

·         Dharma of Fasting

This five-fold dharma will safeguard the body, which contains the five elements of nature. The violation of these elements will harm the body. It is up to us whether we want to protect it or destroy it.

Dharma of Water

Our body contains five liters of blood and 68% water. It is our duty to know how much water we must drink and when to drink to keep the body pure. Except man, every other creature knows its dharma of water. Any member of an animal species drinks the same amount of water, in the same way, all over the world. The animal is not as intelligent as man, but it drinks the required amount of water and keeps good health not needing any medical aid. That’s why its body does not smell bad even if it does not bathe regularly.

On the contrary, man, the intellectual who can reason, doesn’t know how much water he has to drink. He requires doctors to enlighten him. But though science has advanced much, it has not been able to adequately stress the importance of water to the human body. Man became accustomed to eating foods contrary to God’s plan for him. The same way, he is used to drinking water according to his own desires. This is very harmful. The water he drinks is not sufficient to cleanse his internal body, and so the body stinks. No amount of perfume or body spray can mask the stench. People hesitate to drink more water because they may have to urinate frequently. But how will the blood be purified if a sufficient quantity of water is not provided? The body discomfort due to shortage of water should be corrected. Medicines cannot help it. Simply, water should be provided to the body in the right way and at the right time.

Dharma of Food

Every living organism is destined to eat a particular type of food based on the shape and size of its body. “Dumb” animals lead their lives accordingly. Man, the more intelligent one, on the other hand, has no proper knowledge. He doesn’t know whether he should eat vegetarian or non-vegetarian food, cooked or raw food, or during the daytime or night, or both. Man’s true lifespan is 100 years. Shouldn’t he eat the foods that will properly nourish his cells and allow him to live this long? Our life becomes waste if we cannot sharpen our intellect and attain jnana – wisdom - ultimately. The food we eat should help in the process. We should eat foods that will be digested easily, give us more energy, and create less waste material.

The main dharma of food is that it should contain life-energy, which in turn promotes life-energy in us. But we do not eat such staple foods. Instead we are cooking, frying, toasting and adding chemicals in various forms to our food. We are eating at odd hours. Even worse, we eat as much as our desires demand, ignoring the dharma of the body. Can a car run with kerosene in the place of gasoline? That is what we are attempting with our bodies. When we violate so many rules, how can we expect to have good health?

The body suffers because of the food we supply. Only by replacing the wrong food with right food suffering to the body can be avoided. No medicine can cure it permanently. For instance, our car uses unleaded gas. If it is not available at thenearest gas station, aren’t we going to go as far as we must to get it? When we realize this simple truth regarding an inanimate thing like our car, can’t we take greater care of our most precious possession, our one and only body? That we don’t is our greatest tragedy, our sin and curse. Call itwhatever you want. It is not too late to realize our mistake andmove in right direction.

Dharma of Exercise

No creature ever takes food without some amount of exercise. Activity or physical work is useful in helping us digest food, send it to the rest of the body, and eliminate waste material.That is the dharma of exercise. Exercise is as important as the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe.Modern man has invented machines to do his work but canthose machines digest the food for his body?

That’s why ourelders said no work, no food. But we feel we can live off our inheritance and our parents’ wealth, so why strain ourselves? This laziness results in germs settling in our body. They are bacteria, viruses, worms, etc. The output of food should be proportionate to its input, but in a lazy man who does not exercise, 50 or 60 percent of his food stagnates in his body. Consequently he becomes ill. Our forefathers were healthier than we are because of the physical work they did. It’s as simple as that.We, as human beings, have to perform our duties at home and at work, so we not have time for exercise.

To compensate for that, our elders have suggested yogasanas, pranayama or morning exercises. We ignore this advice, so we have to face the consequences. Unless the dharma of exercise is fulfilled, food cannot be digested. Even if it means a strain for us, we must spend some time on exercise. Let’s begin our journey toward good health and change our daily routine.

Dharma of Rest

The dharma of rest doesn’t mean sleeping in an idle way. Every living thing must have a certain amount of work and a certain amount of leisure. Before electricity was invented, people rested at night. Now we work day and night. But our tired body needs some rest. If we work for twelve hours and rest for twelve hours, our body becomes energized. When we take rest, however, only our hands, legs, nerves, joints and bones are refreshed. The parts that work constantly also need rest. Those parts, for example, are the intestines, liver, and pancreas. If we don’t give adequate rest at night, they cannot digest our food effectively. They cannot battle against microorganisms. So we become sick. Can we work properly for one day if we missed sleep the previous night? Does this not also apply to those parts like the liver? Rest doesn’t mean stuffing our stomach until midnight and then sleeping happily. Rest means charging the internal parts, which can then successfully discharge waste material.

This dharma of rest helps us fulfill the dharma of fasting. If these parts require rest, how can medicines provide us that rest? Do you think we can buy this dharma in the market? It is high time we realize medicines cannot rejuvenate us. They may further deteriorate us. So let’s hurry up. If we don’t open our eyes, we will be at the last stage of life at an early age.

Dharma of Excretion or Dharma of Fasting

Animals are free to urinate anywhere any time. For anyone, the output is more important than the intake of food. If we eat before sunset and then rest the body, around midnight, the dharma of fasting begins to do its internal work. It continues until we eat something solid again next morning. If we take fruits, raw vegetables or juice, they don’t hinder excretory action. Around 9 or 10 a.m., we can eat sprouts or some breakfast. Then, after an hour the excretory action comes to an end. As soon as you get up, say around 6 or 7 am, if you drink coffee or tea, it stimulates your body interrupting the excretory process. That’s why you are advised to take light food in the morning. Our health depends upon the amount of time we give to this excretory action. If we wish to have a bright, energetic body, free from any ailment, we must respect this dharma of fasting.

The food we take is converted into energy, but in the process even waste matter is secreted. It is released in the form ofsolid, liquid, or gas. If these three forms of waste material have to be eliminated by our excretory organs, we should at least be considerate of them and provide them rest. If we eat before 7 pm our excretory parts will function effectively. However, if we delay eating until 9 or 10 pm, they will not have sufficient time. Waste materials get stagnated in the body.

Food eaten at 10 pm will not be digested completely before we rise the next morning. Typically, immediately after we get up, we eat again. It means we are eating further before we can even eliminate the waste material of the previous day. In a way, we eat too much. That leads to many diseases. Diseases spoil the temple in which our soul lives. How can we lead proper lives then? If we wish to be disease-free, we must follow the dharma of rest and allow our body to eliminate waste material first. If we don’t adhere to this dharma, no doctor, no specialty hospital, no God, and no amount of money can save us.

We can continue to be human beings only if we live by this dharma. Otherwise we are demons in the form of men. God has gifted us with this body and assigned us to follow this five-fold dharma. If we ignore these dharmas, God cannot save us. In fact, even if we pray endlessly to the very God who created us, He cannot come to our rescue. if you protect dharma, dharma will protect you. If you kill it, it will kill you. Dharma is the absolute truth. If you want to have good health, there is no other way to gain it than to follow these five Dharmas. You may wonder, how long? As long as you live. We are not born on earth to eat, drink and be merry. Such a life only leads to misery in the end.

Daily Routine

We should plan our daily life in such a way that enables us to follow the five-fold dharmas which could work in our body to cleanse it and promote good health. I personally have experimented on my own body. Natural Life Style is useful to all irrespective of their age or health condition. It will work for you too to live a healthy life keeping the diseases at a distance. Dawn - Our elders proclaim that it’s good to wake up before dawn. Time between 3 and 5 am is a very good time If we cultivate the habit of getting up during that period, it keeps us in good shape mentally for the rest of the day.

We feel very peaceful so we can think of pleasant things. Just as we set aside time for work and time for sleep, we should set aside time for our body, which cooperates with and comforts us all day long. So let’s start doing some justice to it, early in the morning, for about two hours. To begin with, get up peacefully from bed between 4 and 5 a.m. and pray to your self “I will do my level best to follow whole-heartedly life’s natural system,” and continue to make it a habit.

Dharma No.1

The body will be involved in excretory action from midnight until dawn. Toward sunrise the cells will transfer some waste material into the body. This has to travel through the blood to the excretory organs and then out of the body. This process requires water. The water you drank last night will not remain in your blood and cells. That goes into the kidneys and then as urine. In the early morning, your body’s water content will be low in the blood. If you can send large quantity of water into the blood,however, the waste material there will transfer into the water and be excreted as urine.Here you should follow the dharma of water. On getting up from bed gargle with water.

Then, without hesitation and at a stretch, drink one liter to a liter and a half of water. This will benefit you in two ways. First, the stomach is filled with water and weighs on the kidney under it. You will feel like urinating. After drinking water, you should concentrate on the lower part of the abdomen and move about in the house for about ten minutes expecting a call of nature.

Then there will be a quick movement in your body. Concentration is essential for that. In few minutes you feel you must run to the restroom. As soon as you rush into the bathroom, first you will have a bowel movement (in large quantity in one shot), and then you will pass urine. That means you had a free bowel movement. Then brush your teeth. The second benefit is that all this water goes into the blood from the stomach, and attracts the waste in the blood, which will be excreted as urine or as sweat as you exercise. That way the large quantity of water that was taken cleanses the blood and helps in free bowel movement.

Dharma No.2

This is the dharma of exercise. You can start to exercise 20-25 minutes after drinking water, wearing suitable clothes.Pranaayama (long breath) is a must. Asanaas are very good for health, although they may not make you sweat. Nothing can reduce your weight like asanaas. If you can’t do them, brisk walking, if you are older than 60, and jogging, if you are below 60, is a better option. You should sweat within an hour from taking water. That is the goal, and you should not neglect it. Remember – no work, no food. You can eat without doing work. But it hurts you!

Dharma No.3

After exercising and sweating you should relax for ten minutes in “Savaasana” (no movement). Then again, without pause,drink another liter to liter and a half of water. If you concentrate on your large intestine, you will have a free bowel movement of large quantity once more, since it was stirred in your bowels during your exercise. The fecal matter from the food you ate yesterday comes out and the large intestine now is totally free as if you have cleansed it. Two motions in the morning make for a happy day and good health. Through exercise, heat is produced in your body. It hastens the movement of the waste material into the blood and the water you drink in turn quickly excretes it. At this point, you have cleansed your inner body. Now clean your outer body. Have a bath. Earlier, if you drank only two liters, now take one more liter of water. This last liter gives the body a final wash. If you have already consumed three liters you can stop there. The excretory act is still occurring. Now, after bath you can pray to the God of your choice. You should pray for a truthful life and the friendship of saintly people.

Dharma No.4

You can start it 20 minutes after you drink water. The buffalo that pulls a heavy cart moves faster when it is given a blow. In the same way, vegetable juice hurries the excretory action and purifies the blood. You can make juice out of these: tomato, carrot, beetroot, and leaf vegetables. You can mix any two or three vegetables and prepare a glass of juice. If you like, addhoney to make it tasty and more powerful. Sip it slowly for 10 minutes. Roll it in your mouth and then swallow; it is good. If for whatever reason you can’t drink vegetable juice, you can drink fresh fruit juice instead. Treat it as your morning coffee or tea and bid goodbye to them.

Dharma No.5

This can be started from half an hour to an hour after drinking the juice. If you are not in a hurry, you can wait as long as two hours. Your vegetable juice stimulates your hunger, but the excretory action is still occurring. You must take food that doesn’t hinder excretion, but helps you in sending out last night’s residue and keeps you energetic for three to four hours. If the waste material doesn’t come out completely today, a residue will be left for tomorrow and will cause a nuisance. The breakfast that you eat should be free of salt and oil.

The food with life energy helps digestion process. Healthy food for breakfast is sprouted seeds like groundnut, Soya, wheat. Soak them in water in the night. In the morning you can eat them along with dates. Eat as many as you can. You can eat even coconut pieces, but they must be chewed well. These seeds have sumptuous life energy or nutritious value, which help in excretory action and physical exercise. Forty-five minutes after you eat these seeds, excretory action slows down and finally stops. Such breakfast helps you in many ways. You don’t feel thirsty, drowsy, tired, or hungry, and you don’t feel like drinking coffee or soda. On the contrary, it is digested quickly and makes you work energetically.

Dharma No.6

Drink one liter of water half an hour before a meal to get your stomach ready for food. The stomach becomes empty and you feel very hungry. Water consumed at this time of the day protects the skin and the body from the sun’s heat. It is best to eat between 12 and 1 pm., because when the sun is at his glory, the digestive fluids in the stomach and intestines also will be in their full swing, so food will be digested easily. Whatever good food is required for the body’s care, such food has to be eaten at lunchtime. You should provide the calories required for the body to keep it energetic until night. The staple food should be unpolished rice or wheat.

The curries should be cooked without oil, salt and seasoning. Nearly one-kilogram curry can be consumed. You can eat as much curd, as you want. And a fruit like banana or a peach. What happens if you drink water while eating? It is a grave mistake to drink water while eating. It lays a foundation for gastric problems. Now that you have changed your diet by giving up salt, oil and spice, you won’t feel thirsty and so don’t need water. Earlier, you consumed all these and so to digest them you drank more water in the course of eating and after, affecting your stomach.

Why you should not drink water while eating? Hydrochloric acid produced in your intestines digests food that you eat but it becomes diluted if you drink water while eating and after. So it cannot digest food easily and the process takes twice the time, but still not digested properly. As a result food will be in the stomach for a longer time. For example, if you apply soap to a soiled cloth and wash it immediately, the dirt is not completely gone. Instead, you soak it in soap for a while and see how bright the cloth becomes. The same theory applies here.

In fact, no other creature ever drinks water while eating or immediately afterward. They are showing you the natural practice of the dharma of water. They drink only when their stomach is empty. Our elders tell us one mistake leads to another. You commit one crime by eating spicy, greasy food. You add fuel to the fire by drinking water with it. You may wonder how you can avoid drinking water while eating. But you won’t feel thirsty if you eat raw vegetables or fruits. It is a natural food because it is a food of dharma, and it automatically leads to the dharma of water.

That’s the difference between good and evil. There is yet another loss which results from drinking water while eating. Water taken on an empty stomach comes outwithin fifteen minutes, but water consumed while eating remains in your stomach along with the food. That’s why all human beings, even those who do hard work grow a belly. Water drunk during meals causes even more heaviness. Food becomes heavier with water and pressures the lungs and the heart. So we should not drink water for two hours after eating. After that, a glass or two will suffice. The water will then join the food that is grinded and together they will become liquid and join blood in the intestines. At that time you will feel thirsty and you need to take water.

What happens if you eat continuously?

It leads to indigestion. It becomes poison. Food eaten when you are hungry is nectar. Unnecessary food is poison. Thereason behind this is, when a person is hungry, the digestive juices will be waiting for food. In the contrary, when he is not hungry, the food goes in unwanted. Wanted food is like a pleasant sunshine in winter, but unwanted food is like prickly heat in summer. If you eat on an hourly basis your stomach and soul will suffer. So beware.

You have to live for 100 years. Let’s look at it this way. Suppose you had lunch at 2 pm, and then, because you had company, you had some coffee and cake at 3.30 p.m. What happens then? The food you eat at 2 pm was digested 50% and is in the third stage of digestion. At that time, the cake and coffee join it. What should the intestines do now? Should they continue with their first duty, or put it asideand honor the second guest? By the time the second guest gets digested to 50%, the first meal stagnates, giving off a sour smell. That’s why we get belching, indigestion, acid reflux, etc.For example, a woman normally cooks four glasses of rice for her family.

One day suddenly two guests arrive. She requires two more glasses of rice for them, but by that time their regular quantity of rice is half-cooked. She doesn’t add the extra rice into the pot. Why? Because she knows the first half will become paste and the second half will be half-cooked. The doctors advise us to eat something every couple of hours to avoid acidity, but by that we develop acidity and gastric troubles. You can’t suppress indigestion problems that way.

Don’t eat unnecessarily. Eat only when you are absolutely hungry. That is the secret of good health and immunity to disease.

Dharma No.7

Around 3.30 pm, you should drink one or two glasses of water. Drinking at this time water helps your skin to face the weather outside. Between 3.30 and 4.30 p.m., you can eat any seasonal fruit as much as you can. Eat the pulp as well. This way, the body receives protein-rich, nutritious food and immunity too. If necessary, you can add honey and dates to the fruit.

Dharma No.8

Around 6 – 6.30 pm, drink another liter to liter and a half water at a stretch. This time concentrate on the intestines for a third free bowel movement. You can eat your evening meal only if you achieve this third free motion. It means your morning breakfast is digested completely, and you feel hungry again. After a shower, you should have your dinner before sunset. If you don’t do much physical work, you should eat bread, pulkas with raw or cooked vegetables. Raw vegetables are useful for those who have chronic diseases or are obese.

If you had worked physically during the day, you can eat rice. But people above 50, those who do not work very hard, and those who wish to get well more quickly will eat only fruits, coconut and dates. You can have buttermilk or just rice with curd if you like.If you eat 60% raw food (vegetable juice, sprouted seeds, fruits, coconut and dates) and 40% cooked food (lunch and dinner), it means you have fulfilled your dharma of food properly. After dinner, you eat no more for the rest of the night.

Dharma No.9

After dinner, it is advisable to spend time reading good books that are helpful to gain wisdom. Around 9 – 9.30p.m, if you drink a glass of water, the digested food will move into the blood. Around 10 follow the dharma of rest. By that time food will be digested and so the stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas, etc., will also relax with you. This is possible only if you had dinner before sunset. If you are very hungry, drink water with honey, but don’t eat anything.

At midnight, the excretory work begins. Now your day’s is complete. Such a daily routine makes the five dharmas work for the body. Actually, man’s lifespan can be 150 – 170 years or even more. Since we are violating these dharmas, it has been reduced to 60-80 years. This routine is not suggested to make you live for 100 years for certain, but to live a healthy life.

This Natural Life Style is a part of Naturopath. If any patient strictly adheres to these dharma’s for four months, he will be totally cured of his ailment. Your blood will be purified. You will not think of going back to your earlier lifestyle. You will be in control of your nerves and senses. Your body is in good condition and is ready for the dharma of fast. Until you have been following this routine four months, you need not fast. After that, if you fast, you will not have any problem. The natural lifestyle suits anyone and everyone – man or woman, young or old, chronic patient or ordinary person. It requires only a strong desire and inspiration to have a sound body. That’s more than enough.