A Year Without Food. Ray Maor
of breatharians would call for a complete overhaul of the way science perceives and explains the normative functions of the human body. Thousands of books would have to be rewritten to acknowledge the amazing abilities of human consciousness. For this reason alone, scientists and doctors generally prefer to put the subject aside as if it is a joke.
Science, let’s not forget, is missing a lot of information. It is hard to ignore that there is a big missing link in our theory3 of evolution and we still have not discovered the origin of the first self-cloning biological cell. In fact, we have no idea how life began. Science also cannot tell us if our thoughts are created in the brain.
That being said, studies have been conducted on the breatharian way of life. The most famous one concentrates on an elder Indian man called Prahad Jani. The other scientific study conducted on me is described in Chapter 6. You can also see it online at www.raymaor.com.
The Breatharian Character
Most breatharians do not seek an audience; they just want to be left alone to enjoy their lives. This is a key reason why the breatharian lifestyle is not better known. Furthermore, most breatharian personalities are naturally introverted, seeking comfort in nature and distance from society.
When one knows oneself as intimately as this process encourages, one becomes humble and there is no egoistic need to prove oneself to others. In addition, most people do not understand—and sometimes do not want to understand. They find the truth too confronting. Perhaps they will accept the possibility after spending several consecutive days with a breatharian, watching he or she live and breathe (or more accurately, not eat) with their own eyes.
However, even then their logical minds may still refuse to accept this as a real possibility and they will work hard to find alternative reasons as to why it is impossible. As a breatharian, you come to understand there are different levels of acceptance and understanding for different individuals.
This is precisely why I have decided to share my experiences and make the subject more public. I realize that I may be called a heretic or a liar. I also know that I am strong enough to deal with the initial ridicule the subject inevitably evokes in western society.
As a breatharian, it is my intention to demonstrate the fullness of our human potential and what is possible. We unfortunately live in a society that highly underestimates the individual capacity for greatness. The truth is, our body is a vessel for something much greater, stronger and awesome than society would have you believe. However, we cannot begin to understand this until we transcend the illusions that keep us living in survival mode and the limits imposed by society’s low expectations of what it means to be human. Know this: you are a soul, not a body and with the power of your mind you can create your own reality.
THE MANY BENEFITS OF A BREATHARIAN LIFESTYLE
Becoming a breatharian presents a great and exciting challenge to the spiritual seeker. It is a lifestyle choice not to be lightly undertaken and should only be pursued by people who feel a genuine inner calling. If you can accept that a pranic lifestyle is possible and if you have the desire to connect to a higher calling to push yourself to your own maximum potential, you might be ready to become one. You should however, understand that such a journey requires you to appreciate a power greater than yourself—whether you call it God, Spirit, Higher Self or any other name that describes faith in a greater power.
It is also important to recognize that becoming a breatharian is not the same as committing to an endless fast. This is what many people fail to understand when they first hear about this lifestyle. Breatharians have simply traded the traditional nutritional source of food for a purer source called prana.
This may sound daunting and difficult but from my own experience, I can say it is much easier than you may think. Don’t let your imagination and anxiety get the better of you!
Most people are afraid of fasting without ever having experienced it; simply the idea keeps them from entertaining a breatharian lifestyle. People who complete a fast often recount that it was much easier than they expected, as long as they maintained the right mindset.
Many breatharians undergo one of the known breatharian initiations (discussed in Chapter 7), like the Pranic Living Group Initiation, simply for the experience and then go back to eating normally soon after. Remember, this is not a one-way track and no one expects you to make a lifelong commitment. The process of transformation itself has enormous benefits for personal development, so if you are interested in undergoing the process even just once, I recommend that you continue your own research and find a guide or a group to assist you. The pranic initiation is easier than most people think. The real challenge starts right after, but this lifestyle brings many gifts and is totally worth it! I have categorized these gifts into four sections: Health Benefits, Individual Benefits, Spiritual Benefits and Environmental Benefits.
HEALTH BENEFIT
Longevity—Enjoy A Longer, Better Life!
Caloric Restriction (CR)4 studies show that mammals who decrease their food intake by one third to one half can expect a 20%-30% longer life span. They also experience reduced cardiovascular risks and improved memory function.
Benefits Derived From CR Diets
CR in Primates—An ongoing study on rhesus macaques funded by The National Institute on Aging was initiated in 1989 at the University of Wisconsin. The 2009 results showed that caloric restriction in rhesus monkeys slowed down aging and significantly delayed the onset of age-related disorders such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and brain atrophy. Eighty percent of the calorie-restricted monkeys were still alive at the end of the experiment compared to only half of the controls5.
Lifespan
Seventy years ago C M McCay et al. discovered that reducing the number of calories fed to rodents nearly doubled their lifespan. The extensions varied between species but on average there was a 30–40% increase in lifespan in both mice and rats. Caloric restriction has also been shown to preserve a range of structural and functional parameters in aging rodents.6
Activity Levels
Laboratory rodents on a CR diet tend to exhibit increased activity levels at feeding times, particularly when provided with exercise equipment. In one study, animals on a conventional diet showed little activity by early middle age, while those on CR diet were observed to run around the cage and climb onto and hang from the wire tops throughout their lifespan. In fact, the longest surviving CR mouse was observed hanging from the top of his cage only three days before he became moribund.7 Monkeys on CR diets also appear more restless immediately before and after meals.8 This is because under a CR diet the subject still get hungry, unlike the pranic lifestyle where the subject is not dependent on physical nourishment.
Reduced DNA Damage
Calorie restriction reduces the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS)9 which causes different types of DNA damage such as the presence of 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG). These indicators are used to measure the level of oxidative damage in DNA. On CR diets, decreased 8-OHdG