Man 'Survives Without Food' For 70 Years

[Simulist]

From Yahoo News:

Man 'Survives Without Food' For 70 Years
Indian doctors are studying a remarkable 83-year-old holy man who claims to have spent the last seven decades without food and water.

Prahlad Jani.jpg

Military medics hope the experiments on Prahlad Jani can help soldiers develop their survival strategies.

The long-haired and bearded yogi is under 24-hour observation by a team of 30 doctors during three weeks of tests at a hospital in the western city of Ahmedabad.

Two cameras have been set up in his room, while a mobile camera films him when he goes outside, guaranteeing round-the-clock observation.

His body will be scanned and his brain and heart activity measured with electrodes.

"The observation from this study may throw light on human survival without food and water," said Dr G. Ilavazahagan, who is directing the research.

"This may help in working out strategies for survival during natural calamities, extreme stressful conditions and extra-terrestrial explorations like future missions to the Moon and Mars by the human race."

Since the experiment began on April 22, Jani has neither eaten nor drunk and has not been to the toilet.

"The exercise of taking this yogi under the medical scanner is to understand what energy supports his existence," Dr Ilavazahagan added.

"Jani says he meditates to get energy. Our soldiers will not be able to meditate, but we would still like to find out more about the man and his body."

Jani, who dresses in red and wears a nose ring, grew up in Charod village in the Mehsana district in Gujarat.

He claims to have been blessed by a goddess when he was aged eight, which has enabled him to survive without sustenance.

It continues to seem to me that this world is not as it appears.

[Simulist]

Here's an article about this from 2003, this time by the BBC:

Fasting fakir flummoxes physicians
By Rajeev Khanna
BBC correspondent in Ahmedabad

Prahlad Jani2.jpg

Prahlad Jani3.jpg

Doctors and experts are baffled by an Indian hermit who claims not to have eaten or drunk anything for several decades - but is still in perfect health.

Prahlad Jani, a holy man, or fakir, who is over 70 years old, has just spent 10 days under constant observation in Sterling Hospital, in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.

During that time, he did not consume anything and "neither did he pass urine or stool", according to the hospital's deputy superintendent, Dr Dinesh Desai.

Yet he is in fine mental and physical fettle, say doctors.

Most people can live without food for several weeks, with the body drawing on its fat and protein stores. But the average human can survive for only three to four days without water.

Followers of Indian holy men and ascetics have often ascribed extraordinary powers to them, but such powers are seldom subject to scientific inspection.

Mouthwash

"A series of tests conducted on him show his body mechanism is that of a normal person," said Dr Desai.

Mr Jani spends most of his time in a cave near the Ambaji temple in Gujarat state.

"He has never fallen ill and can continue to live like this."
Bhiku Prajapati, Mr Jani's devotee

He spent his 10 days in hospital in a specially prepared room, with a sealed-off toilet and constant video surveillance.

To help the doctors verify his claims, Mr Jani agreed to avoid bathing for his time in hospital.

The only fluid he was allowed was a small amount of water, to use as mouthwash.

One hundred millilitres of water were given to him, and then collected and measured in a beaker when he spat it out, to make sure none had been drunk.

Thank goddess

A statement from Ahmedabad's Association of Physicians says that despite no water entering his body, urine nonetheless appeared to form in his bladder - only to be re-absorbed by the bladder walls.

At the end of his confinement, doctors noted no deterioration in his condition, other than a slight drop in his weight.

"I feel no need for food and water," says Mr Jani, who claims he was blessed by a goddess at the age of eight and has lived in caves ever since.

He grew up in Charod village in Mehsana district and wears the dress of a devotee of the goddess Ambaji - a red sari-like garment, nose ring, bangles and crimson flowers in the hair.

He also wears the vermilion "tika" mark on his forehead, more often seen on married Hindu women.

His followers call him "mataji" or goddess.

More tests

He says he has survived several decades without food or water because of a hole in his palate.

Drops of water filter through this hole, he says, sustaining him.

"He has never fallen ill and can continue to live like this," said Bhiku Prajapati, one of Mr Jani's many followers.

"A hole in the palate is an abnormal phenomenon," says Dr Desai.

His colleague, Dr Urman Dhruv, told the BBC a full medical report is being prepared on Mr Jani's 10 days under observation.

Doctors say they cannot verify his claim to have not eaten or drunk for decades - but by observing his feat under laboratory conditions, they hope to learn more about the human body.

It is likely that doctors will want to examine Mr Jani again in order to solve the medical mystery he has presented them with.

[beeline]

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I'm hungry for him.

[ninakat]

Fascinating. I had seen the headline a few days ago and was wondering if they might put him under observation. Well, there you go.

Lots of people meditate. Millions. I wonder if there are any other examples of this that have been reported.

I suspect he hasn't smoked pot. If he has, and didn't get the munchies, he's really got some extraordinary powers. And I'd want some of what he's meditating on.

[barracuda]

I wonder if there are any other examples of this that have been reported.

There are. I suspect they're mostly sneaking peanut butter from the jar when nobody's looking. Though I also suspect it can be done, to an extent.

http://www.breatharian.com

[streeb]

Military medics hope the experiments on Prahlad Jani can help soldiers develop their survival strategies.

How wonderful

[Cordelia]

Military medics hope the experiments on Prahlad Jani can help soldiers develop their survival strategies.

How wonderful

I agree....

........experiments on a holy man to better the military. Experiments on a holy man for anything. Experiments on anybody.

Maybe sometimes it's best to leave the unexplained to wonderment.

[Joe Hillshoist]

The Indian military has been studying the old writings for years looking for military advantages they can work on.

Honestly tho, the only way we can really understand whats going on in this guys stomach is to dissect it, hook it up to electrodes and shit and do some serious study.

[Hammer of Los]

"Jani says he meditates to get energy. Our soldiers will not be able to meditate, but we would still like to find out more about the man and his body."

Why can't the soldiers meditate?

It would do them good.

They can join First Earth Battallion!

[Ben D]

From Yahoo News:

"The exercise of taking this yogi under the medical scanner is to understand what energy supports his existence," Dr Ilavazahagan added.

"Jani says he meditates to get energy. Our soldiers will not be able to meditate, but we would still like to find out more about the man and his body."

In theory I accept that what this Yogi is claiming is possible, after all there is an implication of the underlying unity of energy and matter in Einstein's famous E=MC^2 in that it equally followsM=E/c^2. Einstein is quoted as having said, "Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter."

However in practice, since the Yogi requires to be in 'union' (harmony) with his environment in order for the most effective exchange of energy (or any other siddhi for that matter), there is a vast difference in being able to manifest such siddhis in a cave somewhere in the natural wilderness, and manifesting the same result in the midst of a psychically hostile environment generated both by any skeptical/disbelieving human researchers present and the general discordant backgorund vibrations present in a densely populated human society. (BTW, IMHO that is why a genuine 'sensitive' may experience difficulty to replicate certain feats in the presence of say someone like James Randi, for he is able to generate psychic interference vibrations that disturb the background of the local environment. I don't mean to imply that he (Randi) is even aware of it, it is just that skeptic's vibrations are out of phase with the those vibrations conducive to the efficacy of the attempted accomplishment.)

If the Yogi can exhibit even a limited degree of success under research conditions in a metropolitan hospital, then his credibility in terms of exhibiting greater anomalies in his cave environment is high IMHO.

The world is psychic through and through and psycological warfare is not merely taking place in the conceptual reality that mankind is conscious of, but is omnipresent. All vibrations, whether it falls in the conceptual domain of sound, light, energy, mind, spirit, or whatever, they are always subject to the same rules, i.e. that frequencies that are nearest being in phase will add and those out of phase will subtract. This understanding is the basis of all 'magic', both of the white and the black, for it an underlying principle of the nature of the cosmos.

Oh, and so far as soldiers being able to be in a state of meditation in the midst of the psychic holographic interference field of a war environment,... well good luck with that, even Arjuna had trouble there.

[Simulist]

The world is psychic through and through and psychological warfare is not merely taking place in the conceptual reality that mankind is conscious of, but is omnipresent.

I think I get what you're saying here, and I agree.

Something is intensely interested in seeing to it that we do not wake up and recognize ourselves.

[Ben D]

BTW, there may very well be considerable media hype and exaggeration involved, particularly when one sees that the horrid BBC was involved with this story previously, but that would not in any way disprove Siddhis as having reality in the greater scheme of things, nor would it disprove that this particular Yogi does manifest certain Siddhis that a normal person could not realize.

Still, it is easy and common for the media to build a strawman only to set it on fire later, to exaggerate a claim to a point of impossibility makes it possible to call fakery (no pun intended) when the results falls short. It is always just another day and another news story to be generated to feed the masses, pabulum indeed.

[Joe Hillshoist]

The fact is if this guy is for real the military will get nothing they will find useful out of studying him.

If he has to spend any time with mil types they will probably make him physically sick.

[Stephen Morgan]

If he has to spend any time with mil types they will probably make him physically sick.

That would be impressive, if he's genuine. He's not, of course. Just another bloke wasting his time on meditation, although in his case he undoubtedly doesn't believe in it himself.

[stefano]

Just another bloke wasting his time on meditation, although in his case he undoubtedly doesn't believe in it himself.

Eh? Why is it a waste of time, and why don't you think he 'believes in' it? What does that even mean?