namely: hearing-ears, touch-skin, sight-eyes, taste-tongue, and
smell-nose), karmendriya (five organs of action) and the mind
(mun), as the eleventh ‘sense’, are deprived of ‘food’. If the
‘fast’ is done with the right applied awareness (upayog), the
mind, body and speech will be purified! Aayambil, eating food
made from only one variety of grain, should be done with
discretion and limitation, by the person that practices it. It is
useful for a person to fast, if he suffers from indigestion, until
his indigestion is cured.
As a matter of fact, the Self is such, that it cannot be
found through the practice of penance, chanting or fasting.
There is no penance like unodari (eating less food than
what one has appetite for). Dadashri did not fast even once in
his life. Yes, but for his entire life, he did unodari.
What is the result of fasting if after a hundred thousand
fasts, the kashays (anger, pride, deceit and greed) are not gone?
Tremendous loss is incurred if one fasts and does kashays at the
same time. If food is not available till two o’clock, tell the mind,
‘Today is the day for fasting’ and remain in equanimity. There is
no other fast like it!
[22]
Worldly Religions
If there is even the subtlest desire in religion, then that
religion is not religion; it is a business!
He who earns in the ‘relative’: loses in the ‘real’. There
should be no robbery in religion. The perils are beyond
imagination.
Without first understanding the siddhants (irrefutable
principles that accomplish the ultimate), that are to be
undertaken with devotion and understanding, how can one do
spiritual practice (sadhana; spiritual endeavor; undergoing
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