Pariprashnena — Q&A Archive

[quote][cite] abhiram:[/cite]I heard it is good for health but can you just drink it withot any problems?

If so, how, when?[/quote]

It is high fat and loaded with cholesterol.

It is not healthy???

I know some devotees who take it as medicine recommended by ayur vedic doctors.

It is healthy, unless you take too much of it, then it gets to be a problem.

You have to work off the ghee that you take in. There are some medical uses for it, but you always have to watch out and not go overboard.

It is recommended in various sastras as various methods of tapasya, fasting atonements and vratas. For e.g. Fasting for three days drinking only ghee.

but how much? a spoon? a glass with some water?

please explain.

i dont believe just drinking ghee is any good--on the contrary!

i dont know much or hardly anything about ayurveda myself, but underwent two months of ayurvedic treatment in south india recently, and while i was given medicated ghee for a few days, in increasing doses, the doc. recommended to use very little ghee in my cooking.

the medicated ghee thing was part of a pretty complex therapy, including massages, enema, and what not. after those few days drinking medicated ghee i got a laxative, and the ghee was supposed to wash out toxic stuff.

im sure that just drinking ghee over a long time will get your cholesterol levels up and perhaps lead to fatty liver disease or something.

according to this ayurvedic doc, tanmoy goswami in udupi, ghee is bettter than other oil for cooking, but in _small_ quantities.

in SP lilamrita (i think) i read that srila prabhupada recommended that devotees take one or two teaspoons of ghee with their prasadam; thats not drinking ghee.

something else i remember, again without remembering the proper quote:

drinking 1 l or more of ghee is one way a brahmana can end his life, if need be. (theres some cases where suicide is approved in sastra, like listening to your guru being blasphemed, per example.) the ghee will sort of smolder all the digestive fire in the body.

the other authorized way is fasting to death.

thanks you. I will not drink ghee then. You saved my life!

[quote][cite] phani:[/cite]theres some cases where suicide is approved in sastra, like listening to your guru being blasphemed, per example[/quote]

I hope we dont apply this in ISKCON...

[quote][cite] shina:[/cite][quote][cite] phani:[/cite]theres some cases where suicide is approved in sastra, like listening to your guru being blasphemed, per example[/quote]

I hope we dont apply this in ISKCON...[/quote]

We ignore them. After all its illegal and this particular type of suicide (drinking boiling ghee) is not just very smarta, but intact despicable. Chanting Hare Krishna is more effective then drinking boiling ghee, and is not illegal (in most countries). Just because something is in the sastras, it does not mean it is to be accepted as a rule, Prabhupada never suggested any form of suicide or drinking ghee for his devotees;-

The sastras are full of rules and regulations for different people in different modes. For example, some parts of the sastras engage people in illicit sex, but those are directly toward tamasic people to regulate their activities.

of course we dont apply this; we also dont kill anyone who offends our guru, which is also approved by sastra. imagine the blodshed!

vaisnavas are not supposed to follow all this stuff, particularly not today. serving krsna is always more important than following some smarta injunctions.

by the way, its not boiling ghee, but plain liquid ghee, as i understand. just as a little ghee poured into a fire burns, if you dump a bucket into your yanja, what will happen?

[quote][cite] ccd:[/cite][quote][cite] shina:[/cite][quote][cite] phani:[/cite]theres some cases where suicide is approved in sastra, like listening to your guru being blasphemed, per example[/quote]

I hope we dont apply this in ISKCON...[/quote]

We ignore them. After all its illegal and this particular type of suicide (drinking boiling ghee) is not just very smarta, but intact despicable. Chanting Hare Krishna is more effective then drinking boiling ghee, and is not illegal (in most countries). Just because something is in the sastras, it does not mean it is to be accepted as a rule, Prabhupada never suggested any form of suicide or drinking ghee for his devotees;-[/quote]

CC Prabhu putting Srila Prabhupadas instructions above sastra? Awesome. (Not that I say that the words of the acarya are above sastra; but they are more suitable for our understanding.)

Imho, Prabhupadas instructions are not meant to be above sastra (that would violate the g-s-s principle) but they tell how to apply sastra as per desa, kala, patra.

in Caitanya lila it was boiling ghee...

I said I hope we dont apply this in ISKCON otherwise we all should kill ourselves...

[quote][cite] VEDA:[/cite]Imho, Prabhupadas instructions are not meant to be above sastra (that would violate the g-s-s principle) but they tell how to apply sastra as per desa, kala, patra.[/quote]

Did my following statement not appear on some devotees computer screens? "(Not that I say that the words of the acarya are above sastra; but they are more suitable for our understanding.)" Srila Prabhupadas instructions are more important to conditioned souls than is sastra because they give us access to the knowledge of sastra while reducing the potential for misunderstanding that may occur by studying sastra directly. That is one reason there are purports, to make sure we get the right idea from sastra. It is why I am always reluctant to give any evidence from sastra without first carefully reviewing Srila Prabhupadas purport to make sure my understanding is correct, even if the verse seems clear on its own. Again, very purposefully stated, "Not that I say that the words of the acarya are above sastra..." Hare Krishna.

Should we not fall in the recurrent mistake of applying absolute concepts to our conditioned life, for us, Srila Prabhupada'b4s instrucions ARE more important than shastra. And that is just because we have no sukriti to understand shastra or even judge who is sadhu, what to speak of being one. But the current mood is we ARE sadhus and we HAVE sukriti. Tsk, tsk.

dont drink ghee without the prescription of a practicionist