The feverishness, and attachment or delusion, and diabetes

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar  at The Art of Living International Center, Bangalore:

In Tamil there is a saying, ‘veham, moham, madhu meham’. The feverishness, and attachment or delusion, and diabetes, they are all linked. If you are in a hurry to do everything, sometimes you are bound to get diabetic. So, slow down. ‘Moham’ means attachment. Mind is raising & clinging on to things and unable to be in the present moment and grieving. That is ‘delusion’, excessive attachment. It is connected with diabetes.

The sweetness has become like a cloud. ‘Meham’ also means cloud. Cloud is of no use. It only gives little shade. But the water in the form of cloud is not useful. You cannot drink it. When you are thirsty, stand in the cloud, the cloud doesn’t do anything to you. It can’t quench your thirst. So, similarly, there is sugar in the body but the cells in the body are starving. They are not able to use it as energy. See how ancient people, even when they name anything, there is a functional aspect to it.

‘Veham, Moham, Madhu-meham’. These things are something to be avoided and I really congratulate the effort Dr. Nagendra is putting and Dr. Nagratna.  I know them from last forty years. And they have been doing one-pointed service. You know, any big thing can happen only when there is ‘tyaga’, when there is sacrifice. And how dedicatedly they are working on this, documenting and doing research. We can have all this healing experiences, beautiful experiences, but it need that scientific documentation. And that is what India was lacking all these years. And this is a very big step that S-VYASA is doing to get this documentation done and bringing everyone together, all the organizations, throughout the country, throughout the world, like the string which joins the pearls. Lord Krishna says ‘I am the string which joins all the pearls’. And that work is being done now. With our Prime Minister’s initiative, I am sure the country will move very fast and so will the world. For us the whole world is our family, we have already declared ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (‘One World Family). Diabetes in India or China or any place on Earth, need to be tackled. So everyone will work towards that.

In Karnataka, a group of young people have started a movement: ‘Be Good and Do Good’. This is a very good initiative. Inside us there is this hurry to do everything at the earliest. And there is attachment in the mind. It is said that if you have these two in your mind, then diabetes will follow automatically. 

Hence, we need to slow down, walk slowly, reduce the speed a little. And there should not be any discrimination in mind. Keep your mind clean so that the feverishness of wanting something and if you keep thinking about it whole day, then it will definitely affect you. If you do these things, then you will have control over diabetes. Everyone should help and support this.

We should also take care of our food habits. Few people done research and it has shown that if we should use millet instead of rice, it will be good. And in our Vedic tradition it has been a practice that unless we put a drop of ghee (clarified butter) on rice till then it is not purified. Diabetologists say that if we put little bit of ghee on rice, then the digestion process gets slower. Due to which it does not form sugar immediately. See in ancient times, our Rishis (saints) have said such beautifully, ‘charity purifies money, ghee (clarified butter) purifies food, chanting purifies mind, service purifies action, kind words purify our speech. All these are important in life. Along with putting clarified butter on rice, it is also important to do Yoga. If you take ghee (clarified butter), then it is also necessary to do Asanas to digest it.