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SEEING HOLY LIFE IN PRACTICE
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gymnosophists' community (photo 1). The guru was well into his fifties, and had not worn any clothes for the last 35 years. I had heard about the existence of this sect of monks who were clothed with the wind only, but this was quite an unexpected adventure. If I had any picture of such a community, I would have imagined a few shriveled old men for whom life had nothing left to offer anyway. But here I met a few dozen young people – most of them between 25 and 35 – who had vowed not to wear any clothes for the rest of their lives, never to have any possessions, never to take part in worldly pursuits, but to seek the values of the soul only. They live a perfectly disciplined life, in a perfect daily rhythm. Complete control over even the least manifestation of sexuality is an absolute condition. To guarantee that they are never alone: three monks are always together, during the day as well as the night. I asked one of them how that is possible, at such a young age – the youngest one had been there since he was nineteen. It is a matter of mind and diet. These sensitive meditating vegetarians know exactly the influences that various foods have on the body. Water and sometimes a little fruit juice is their only drink, which they take along with their food once a day. But control of the mind is the key. The smallest thought which could be a blockage on the path to enlightenment is immediately ignored and replaced by meditative thoughts they know from the Jain teachings. To them every female is either a sister or a mother. Sexuality is of course the most intrusive and most visible emotion. But the same measure of self-control applies to all things of the body, speech and mind. They pay no attention to hunger, thirst or pain; heat or cold, not even when their feet bleed during pilgrimage due to glass splinters, thorns or sharp pebbles on the road.
One might expect that, as a result of their lifestyle, a photo of these people would remind us of a concentration camp. But nothing is further from the truth. They are the most perfectly formed people one could imagine, with a happy expression, neither too fat nor too thin, with a shining skin,
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