XXVII. MORE
EXPERIMENTS IN DIETETICS
I was anxious to observe brahmacharya in
thought, word and deed, and equally anxious to devote the
maximum of time to the Satyagraha struggle and fit myself
for it by cultivating purity. I was therefore led to make
further changes and to impose greater restraints upon
myself in the matter of food. The motive for the previous
changes had been largely hygienic, but the new
experiments were made from a religious standpoint.
Fasting and restriction in diet now played a more
important part in my life. Passion in man is generally
co-existent with a hankering after the pleasures of the
palate. And so it was with me. I have encountered many
difficulties in trying to control passion as well as
taste, and I cannot claim even now to have brought them
under complete subjection. I have considered myself to be
a heavy eater. What friends have thought to be my
restraint has never appeared to me in that light. If I
had failed to develop restraint to the extent that I
have, I should have descended lower than the beasts and
met my doom long ago. However, as I had adequately
realized my shortcomings, I made great efforts to get rid
of them, and thanks to this endeavour I have all these
years pulled on with my body and put in with it my share
of work.
Being conscious of my weakness and unexpectedly coming
in contact with congenial company, I began to take an
exclusive fruit diet or to fast on the Ekadashi
day, and also to observe Janmashtami and similar
holidays.
I began with a fruit diet, but from the standpoint of
restraint I did not find much to choose between a fruit
diet and a diet of food grains. I observed that the same
indulgence of taste was possible with the former as with
the latter, and even more, when one got accustomed to it.
I therefore came to attach greater importance to fasting
or having only one meal a day on holidays. And if there
was some occasion for penance or the like, I gladly
utilized it too for the purpose of fasting.
But I also saw that, the body now being drained more
effectively, the food yielded greater relish and the
appetite grew keener. It dawned upon me that fasting
could be made as powerful a weapon of indulgence as of
restraint. Many similar later experiences of mine as well
as of others can be adduced as evidence of this starting
fact. I wanted to improve and train my body, but as my
chief object now was to achieve restraint and a conquest
of the palate, I selected first one food and then
another, and at the same time restricted the amount. But
the relish was after me, as it were. As I gave up one
thing and took up another, this latter afforded me a
fresher and greater relish than its predecessor.
In making these experiments I had several companions,
the chief of whom was Hermann Kallenbach. I have already
written about this friend in the history of Satyagraha in
South Africa, and will not go over the same ground here.
Mr. Kallenbach was always with me whether in fasting or
in dietetic changes. I lived with him at his own place
when the Satyagraha struggle was at its height. We
discussed our changes in food and derived more pleasure
from the new diet than from the old. Talk of this nature
sounded quite pleasant in those days, and did not strike
me as at all improper. Experience has taught me, however,
that it was wrong to have dwelt upon the relish of food.
One should eat not in order to please the palate, but
just to keep the body going. When each organ of sense
subserves the body and through the body the soul. Its
special relish disappears, and then alone does it begin
to function in the way nature intended it to do.
Any number of experiments is too small and no
sacrifice is too great for attaining this symphony with
nature. But unfortunately the current is now-a-days
flowing strongly in the opposite direction. We are not
ashamed to sacrifice a multitude of other lives in
decorating the perishable body and trying to prolong it
existence for a few fleeting moments, with the result
that we kill ourselves, both body and soul. In trying to
cure one old disease. We give rise to a hundred new ones:
in trying to enjoy the pleasures of sense, we lose in the
end even our capacity for enjoyment. All this is passing
before our very eyes, but there are none so blind as
those who will not see.
Having thus set forth their object and the train of
ideas which led up to them, I now propose to describe the
dietetic experiments at some length.
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