Upvaasa: Belief or Myth?

We are living in a world where everyone is seeking health, happiness and well-being from the outside world. We are finding various ways of entertaining ourselves may it be social media, play stations or outdoor games as well. We are having fancy food which satisfies our urge of appetizing food and we at times have that drink to get a break from everything going on and enjoy a moment of buzz. All this is procured and is possible only by one and only means which is our body. So, don’t you think it also needs to take a break and replenish itself? We are connecting our mind and body to things which are outside but have we forgot the value of internal peace of mind?

We focus on everything but our body when we get up, but it should be completely the other way around, instead of looking outside for hope, health and happiness we should look inside by first connecting our soul to our mind and then start the day to enjoy it!

Upvaasa is one such traditional practice which can help you to attain mental stability by not spending a lot of energy in digesting complex food elements.

Fasting or Upvaasa are the means of detoxifying your body through a simple procedure. This procedure includes eating once or nothing for a span of 24 hours without any restrictions to drinking water. But before practicing Upvaasa we need to understand our body type. our body broadly comprises of three elements(Doshas) - Vatta, Pitta, Kapha which have the following compositions as enlisted in the table.

Our body is a blend of these three Doshas but one of these is predominant. So, every person has one Dosha with a higher amount of existence which means every one of us falls into one category from these three. The following table will give a peek into what kind of a body you have.

Every body type attracts some advantages and disadvantages which affects the way we practice Upvaasa and hence it is advisable to start with one day of Upvaasa and then increase the duration especially to those who live in cities. You can tweak some habits to suit yourself with Upvaasa. There are various types of Upvaasa but broadly there are two types - Water Fasting and One Meal Fasting.

Practicing water fasting involves drinking only water for a span of 24 hours because it is believed that a cycle of 24 hours is necessary to get your body into state of burning toxins.

One meal fasting involves eating only once in a day, for it to work most effectively one is advised to eat breakfast and skip everything until the next day but he can still drink water.

So, one might think why should we do this? Is this safe? What to do if I feel hungry?

Fasting has two types of benefits:

Physical:

1. Toxins in are body don’t escape easily they are there for a reason, we have to give them a reason to escape so we create an environment wherein we are in a caloric deficit which tricks them in believing they can’t survive in the body in future so they escape out.

2. Our Machine Relaxes.

3. It gives space to the digestive track which then clears any residue present in the body.

4. Our body functions even better than earlier.

5. Body feels lite.

6. Organ health improves.

7. There is one amazing benefit, consider our body as a society which has good people and criminals as well so when we eat junk food and even home-made food, we are letting the bad cells flourish but it is our duty to kill those criminals by fasting or else the criminals won’t let the good people which are good cells survive.

This kills the bad cells in which all the cancerous cells also get burned because if we don’t eat at a stretch of 8 hours they get burned but still the good cells thrive, like demonetization when our system had to cleanse the economy by changing the notes in which both honest and corrupt people suffered but at the end honest thrived and corrupt had sleepless nights!

Spiritual:

1. Burning karma.

2. It gives brain clarity and focus.

3. We get rid of all the instability in our body which gives birth to urges like eating sweet or junk food.

4. If we couple this with meditating or worshiping god, it gives a sense of spiritual satisfaction and makes us calm and patient

Practicing upvaasa for one day is safe for beginners then they can increase the duration as suitable to their body type. If one feels hungry during one meal upvaasa then he can have lite food like fruits and Chana, Juices, etc.

One should focus on the spiritual aspect to gain the best out of upvaasa. Upvaasa was an internal element of the lifestyle of our ancestors and there is a good thought that it was practiced so extensively in the earlier times. It was practiced on occasions like Mahashivratri, in fact Mahashivratri upvaasa has a greater significance.

It is believed that when the devotee observes a fast with discipline and spends the entire day at the feet of Lord Shiva, his/her mind is controlled. Moreover, evils like lust, anger and greed are subdued, thereby acquiring control over Rajas Guna. When you wake vigil throughout the night of Maha Shivaratri, you develop the ability to conquer the evils of Tamas Guna too. Therefore, Mahashivratri Vrat is significant.

People need to go back and do what their ancestors did as it had some reason behind it. But we in a hurry to neglect the belief out of laziness and end up in believing that it is all superstition. If you are one of those believers either you didn't give the logic behind a chance or it is possible you learnt it through someone who tweaked the practice to suit himself/herself.

Hence, it is equally important to understand the real pratha and get rid of the believes which people developed for their comfort by altering pratha and practicing improper ways of executing it. Some may also want to practice only those practices which have an impact and convincing reason behind it which is completely alright! We don’t want to be a blind follower, as we don’t follow anyone blindly on Instagram, right!

If combined with meditation it will work wonders in making your mental health strong.

Lets go back to find logic not reasons to ignore, lets unravel the astonishing ways to pursue life and lead a healthy life, and lets explore our inner peace which will act as a lens to clearly see the world around us!

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