OTTAWA, CANADA, July 5, 2008: (HPI Note: The Ottawa Citizen asked several religious leaders about their religion’s look on obesity-related health issues. This is the answer from Radhika Sekar of the Ramakrishna Mission.)
For Hindus, the body is the vessel that carries our spirit across the ocean of life. Thus Ayurveda, the healing system based on the Vedas and Yoga, views body, mind and spirit as a single continuity. The physical is composed of the elements — air/space, fire, water and earth — coded in three biological forces, doshas, that determine the physiological and psychological processes of all living organisms. Good health occurs when there is harmony and illness sets in when the doshas are imbalanced.
Thus Ayurveda emphasizes diet and lifestyle in its treatments. Foods have direct and specific influences on the three doshas and are classified accordingly. Often it is what we eat, as well as how much, that causes problems. Obesity is treated therefore with exercise and the avoidance of foods that generate excess kapha, the earth element that hampers fat metabolism. A qualitative change in diet can produce remarkable results. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna discusses the effect that the three types of food (sattvic, rajasic, tamasic) have on health, personality and spiritual state.
Religious Giving Tops $100 Billion In 2007
https://www.hinduismtoday.com/hpi/2008/7/5#3.shtml
UNITED STATES, July 5, 2007 (Religious News Service): Giving to religious charities and congregations passed the $100 billion mark for the first time in 2007, according to a recent report by the Giving USA Foundation.
Giving to religious groups increased 4.7 percent, bringing the total to $102.32 billion.
The report, released June 23, shows that donations to religious causes accounted for half of all individual charitable giving. Three-quarters of all giving in the U.S. came from individual donations to charity, the report said.
Del Martin, chair of the Giving USA Foundation, said, “And what you can’t forget is that the ‘little guys,’ the families most affected by the economy, kept on giving despite any worries they might have about their personal situations.”
Charitable giving consistently represents 2.3 percent of the average American’s disposable income year-to-year, a figure that held up in 2007, according to the report.