Acharya Mahaprajna
Excessive Eating
Excessive eating makes the intestines very weak. They become incapable of moving the faeces, which leads to constipation, which in turn blunts thinking. For the feeling of happiness it is necessary to avoid the accumulation of faeces. Even not eating for two days leaves food in he intestines to be digested, but a lot of restlessness is felt if the elimination does not take place. Stuffing of the intestines by faeces obstructs the anal passage. It in turn makes the anal gas upwards and puts pressure on the heart, which is very often mistaken for a heart attack. Food, which has a higher or lower temperature than one's body temperature, also proves harmful. It damages both the teeth and the intestines. Food is related to one of our basic needs, but when it gets elated to the palate, propriety is transgressed and perverted.
Regularity
It relates to regularity in daily activities like sitting, standing, sleeping, talking, etc. Just as overeating is harmful, oversitting is also extremely harmful to health. It adversely affects the gastric juices and for this reason careful people get up and walk a few steps after every one and half or two hours of sitting. Oversitting is undoubtedly a very big cause of diseases, but it does not mean that walking or standing throughout the day is good for health. It also weakens our vitality. In fact balance is to be maintained in everything.
Those people work against the principles of good health who do not practise Yogic postures or who do not walk. These activities help bowel movement. Yogmudra is also very useful for this purpose. Whatever be the form of exercise, if it is not undertaken, all kinds of physical ailments result The blood thickens and people are afflicted by serious diseases like arthritis etc.
Sleep is very useful for health, It is the golden formula of a long life. Sir Winston Churchill had a long life and its biggest secret was good sleep. He often dictated messages lying. One might ask if reading while lying is good, No, it is very dangerous for the eyes. Too much lying is not good. The good lies not in the activity but in its right proportion. Somebody told me that a high support to the head (while lying) obstructs blood circulation. Since in our whole body (the head is one part where blood circulation is even normally less, it becomes even more difficult to reach the head if it is rested on a high pillow. I felt there was a lot of truth in it. There are people who advise the non-use of a pillow as part of their therapy.
Question:
Some people keep reading for long time awaiting sleep. It puts pressure on the nerves on the eyes and hastens sleep. Is it a proper procedure?
Answer:
I don't have any such experience. How can then I say whether it is right or wrong? However, I can say that keeping the body and the eyes free from tension - performing Kayotsarga - is a right procedure. To be worried about sleep is to keep sleep away. Practise Kayotsarga and everything will take care of itself.
Sleep is very essential for health. Since all activities produce toxic substances in the body, physicians have extensively investigated this phenomenon. They have even identified many types of toxic substances. Through sleep we expel these toxic substances and also compensate the energy loss suffered during the day. Inadequate sleep causes constipation disturbing the balance of the healthy body.
Now I want to leave these incidental matters discussed above and to once again touch upon the basic theme. There is a very deep relation between the mind and the body. Each influences the other. The centre of the body' s purity is the abdomen. Therefore, if one were to talk of mental peace outside the context of the cleaning of the stomach, the talk would lack proper basis.
