Mahatma Gandhi

“ We find it invariably the case in the world that Nature herself has provided for all creatures, whether man or beast, or bird or insect, just enough food for their sustenance. This is an eternal law of Nature. In the kingdom of Nature, none goes to sleep, none forgets to do his duty, and none shows a tendency to laziness. All the work is done to perfection, and punctually to the minute. If we remember to order our lives strictly in accordance with the immutable and eternal laws of Nature, we shall find that there are no more deaths by starvation anywhere over the wide world. ”

“ This incurable disease enfeebles our mind and leads us to an early grave, after making us drag a miserable existence for a short while. Married people should understand the true function of marriage, and should not violate the law of Brahmacharya except with a view to having a child for the continuation of the race.
But this is so difficult under our present conditions of life. Our diet, our ways of life, our common talk, and our environments are all equally calculated to rouse and keep alive our sensual appetite; and sensuality is like a poison, eating into our vitals. ”

“ If we tell lies, or commit theft or adultery, we are looked down upon by society, but, strangely enough, no odium attaches to those who slavishly pander to the palate! It would seem as though this were not a question of morality at all! The fact is that even the best of us are slaves to the palate. No one has yet adequately emphasised the numberless evils that arise from our habit of pandering to the palate. All civilised people would boycott the company of liars, thieves, and adulterers; but they go on eating beyond all limits, and never regard it as a sin at all. ”

“ We find from experience that, when once a bottle of medicine gets itself introduced into a home, it never thinks of going out, but only goes on drawing other bottles in its train. We come across numberless human beings who are afflicted by some disease or other all through their lives in spite of their pathetic devotion to medicines. They are to-day under the treatment of this doctor, to-morrow of that. They spend all their life in a futile search after a doctor who will cure them for good. ”

“ If the observance of Brahmacharya should mean the ruin of the world, why should we regret it? Are we God that we should be so anxious about its future? He who created it will surely see to its preservation. It is none of our business to enquire if other people practise Brahmacharya or not. When we turn merchant or lawyer or doctor, do we ever pause to consider what the fate of the world would be if all men were to do likewise? ”

“ They die with a smile on their lips, and boldly face the day of judgment. They are the true men and women; and of them alone can it be said that they have conserved their health.
We hardly realise the fact that incontinence is the root-cause of all the vanity, anger, fear and jealousy in the world. If our mind is not under our control, if we behave once or more every day more foolishly than even little children, what sins may we not commit consciously or unconsciously? ”

“ But many poisons are employed as medicines; do we ever dream of employing them as food? It is quite possible that, in some diseases, wine may do some good, but even then, no sensible, or thoughtful man should consent to use it even as medicine, under any circumstances. As for opium, it is no less injurious than wine, and is to be equally eschewed. Have we not seen a mighty nation like the Chinese falling under the deadly spell of opium, and rendering itself incapable of maintaining its independence? ”

“ Of course, we should feed those who come to us as guests, but only so as not to violate the laws of health. Do we ever think of inviting our friends to clean their teeth with us, or to take a glass of water? Is not eating as strictly a matter of health as these things? Why, then, should we make so much fuss about it? We have become such gluttons by habit that our tongues are ever craving for abnormal sensations. Hence we think it a sacred duty to cram our guests with rich food, and we cherish the hope that they will do likewise for us, when their turn comes! ”

“ But, after all, why is good health so essential, so anxiously to be sought for? Our ordinary conduct would seem to indicate that we attach little value to health. If health is to be sought for in order that we might indulge in luxury and pleasure, or pride ourselves over our body and regard it as an end in itself, then indeed it would be far better that we should have bodies tainted with bad blood, by fat, and the like. ”

“ They should read such books as fill them with noble thoughts and meditate over the lives of great men, and live in the constant realisation of the fact that sensual enjoyment is the root of all disease. Whenever they feel a prompting for enjoyment, they should bathe in cold water, so that the heat of passion may be cooled down, and be refined into the energy of virtuous activity. ”

“ Some people will doubtless say that it is idle and foolish to speculate on the possibility of men taking to uncooked food, since there is absolutely no hope of their ever doing it. But we are not considering at present what people will or will not do, but only what they ought to do. It is only when we know what the ideal kind of diet is that we shall be able more and more to approximate our actual to the ideal. When we say that a fruit-diet is the best, we do not, of course, expect all men to take to it straightway. ”

“ And in the same way, we are not ashamed to be ignorant of the structure of our body, of the way in which the bones and muscles, grow, how the blood circulates and is rendered impure, how we are affected by evil thoughts and passions, how our mind travels over illimitable spaces and times while the body is at rest, and so on. There is nothing so closely connected with us as our body, but there is also nothing perhaps of which our ignorance is so profound, or our indifference so complete. ”

“ What do we mean by Brahmacharya? We mean by it that men and women should refrain from enjoying each other. That is to say, they should not touch each other with a carnal thought, they should not think of it even in their dreams. Their mutual glances should be free from all suggestion of carnality. The hidden strength that God has given us should be conserved by rigid self-discipline, and transmitted into energy and power,—not merely of body, but also of mind and soul. ”

“ We all know that the premature fruit of a too young plant weakens the parent, and so we try all means of delaying the appearance of fruit. But we sing hymns of praise and thanks-giving to God when a child is born of a boy-father and a girl-mother! Could anything be more dreadful? Do we think that the world is going to be saved by the countless swarms of such impotent children endlessly multiplying in India or elsewhere in the world? Verily we are, in this respect, far worse than even the lower animals ”

“ Then, we try to remedy the mischief by taking all sorts of ‘nervine tonics’ and put ourselves under the doctor’s mercy for repairing the waste, and for recovering the capacity for enjoyment. So the days pass and the years, until at length old age comes upon us, and finds us utterly emasculated in body and in mind.
But the law of Nature is just the reverse of this. The older we grow, the keener should grow our intellect also; the longer we live, the greater should be our capacity to transmit the fruits of our accumulated experience to our fellowmen. ”

“ The law of Nature is that Brahmacharya may be broken only when the husband and wife feel a strong desire for a child. Those who, remembering this law, violate Brahmacharya once in four or five years cannot be said to be slaves to lust, nor can they appreciably lose their stock of vitality. But, alas, how rare are those men and women who yield to the sexual craving merely for the sake of an offspring! The vast majority, who may be numbered in thousands, turn to sexual enjoyment merely to satisfy their carnal passion, with the result that children are born to them quite against their will. ”

“ Although, however, it is impossible to say conclusively what sort of food we should eat, it is the clear duty of every individual to bestow serious thought on the matter. Needless to say, the body cannot subsist without food. We undergo all sorts of sufferings and privations for the sake of food. But, at the same time, it is indisputable that 99.9% of men and women in the world eat merely to please the palate. They never pause to think of the after-effects at the time of eating. Many people take purgatives and digestive pills or powders in order to be able to eat thoroughly well. ”

“ We should all be as much against the breathing of impure air as we are against the drinking of dirty water and the eating of dirty food; but the air we breathe is, as a rule, far more impure than the water we drink or the food we eat. We are all worshippers of concrete objects; those things that can be seen and felt are regarded by us as of far greater importance than those which are invisible and intangible. Since air belongs to this latter class of objects, we fail to realise the evil wrought by the impure air that we breathe. ”

“ As has been said by a famous doctor, more people die for fear of diseases like small-pox, cholera and plague than out of those diseases themselves.
Ignorance is one of the root-causes of disease. Very often we get bewildered at the most ordinary diseases out of sheer ignorance, and in our anxiety to get better, we simply make matters worse. Our ignorance of the most elementary laws of health leads us to adopt wrong remedies or drives us into the hands of the veriest quacks. ”

“ Our work should be neither exclusively physical nor exclusively mental, nor such as ministers merely to the pleasure of the moment. The ideal kind of exercise is that which gives vigour to the body as well as to the mind; only such exercise can keep a man truly healthy, and such a man is the farmer.
But what shall he do who is no farmer? The exercise which games like the cricket give is too inadequate, and something else has to be devised. The best thing for ordinary men would be to keep a small garden near the house, and work in it for a few hours every day. ”

“ Man alone can worship God with knowledge and understanding. Where devotion to God is void of understanding, there can be no true salvation, and without salvation there can be no true happiness. The body can be of real service only when we realise it to be a temple of God and make use of it for God’s worship; otherwise it is no better than a filthy vessel of bones, flesh and blood, and the air and water issuing from it are worse than poison. ”