'Starving yogi' astounds Indian scientists

[JohnSmith2007 353]

'Starving yogi' astounds Indian scientists

May 10 01:23 PM US/Eastern

An 83-year-old Indian holy man who says he has spent seven decades without food or water has astounded a team of military doctors who studied him during a two-week observation period.

Prahlad Jani spent a fortnight in a hospital in the western India state of Gujarat under constant surveillance from a team of 30 medics equipped with cameras and closed circuit television.

During the period, he neither ate nor drank and did not go to the toilet.

"We still do not know how he survives," neurologist Sudhir Shah told reporters after the end of the experiment. "It is still a mystery what kind of phenomenon this is."

The long-haired and bearded yogi was sealed in a hospital in the city of Ahmedabad in a study initiated by India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the state defence and military research institute.

The DRDO hopes that the findings, set to be released in greater detail in several months, could help soldiers survive without food and drink, assist astronauts or even save the lives of people trapped in natural disasters.

"(Jani's) only contact with any kind of fluid was during gargling and bathing periodically during the period," G. Ilavazahagan, director of India's Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), said in a statement.

Jani has since returned to his village near Ambaji in northern Gujarat where he will resume his routine of yoga and meditation. He says that he was blessed by a goddess at a young age, which gave him special powers.

During the 15-day observation, which ended on Thursday, the doctors took scans of Jani's organs, brain, and blood vessels, as well as doing tests on his heart, lungs and memory capacity.

"The reports were all in the pre-determined safety range through the observation period," Shah told reporters at a press conference last week.

Other results from DNA analysis, molecular biological studies and tests on his hormones, enzymes, energy metabolism and genes will take months to come through.

"If Jani does not derive energy from food and water, he must be doing that from energy sources around him, sunlight being one," said Shah.

"As medical practitioners we cannot shut our eyes to possibilities, to a source of energy other than calories."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.ce6e076d355a498ef621bad2bbef1a32.f1&show_article=1

[Peikko 1,575]

Um - call me skeptical. Not that he could fast for 15 days (with gargling for water) but that this guy never eats or drinks at all.

[JohnSmith2007 353]

Um - call me skeptical. Not that he could fast for 15 days (with gargling for water) but that this guy never eats or drinks at all.

I very much doubt it as well. I have seen other stories like this in the past and they have always been Indian Holy Men that are put forth as some sort of extra-human beings. I would like to see him locked in a glass room for a month or so with constant cameras on him. That would prove it one way or another.

[SMR 368]

Um - call me skeptical. Not that he could fast for 15 days (with gargling for water) but that this guy never eats or drinks at all.

Yeah, I'm skeptical, too.

15 days is quite a bit above average for not drinking but since he was "gargling" and bathing, it doesn't seem that it has to have a supernatural explanation. If he is really getting energy from other sources, why wouldn't he be willing to go a little longer? I mean, he's been doing it for 70 years. A couple months wouldn't have been too much to ask and would have put things beyond all doubt. As it stands, he's an outlier able to last longer than many without food but isn't in the realm of supernatural. After two months, even if he was drinking as much water as he wanted, he would be dead from starvation without supernatural intervention.

Of course, I'm not advocating killing him, but I under close observation it would become apparent if he was starving or not.

[Peikko 1,575]

I expect 'some' Indian scientist have a vested interest in proving that yogi's have special powers.

[Scott & Lai 12]

Do the experiment outside India by non-Indian scientists for at least a month. Any one want to place a wager on the yogi's willingness to do it under those conditions?

[Nagishkaw 510]

He's sneaking food and water.