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Swiss woman dies after attempting to live on sunlight; Woman gave up food and water spiritual journe

DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
edited April 2012 in General Banter
Very sad!:( This is interesting, however. Anyone know of anything about this type of style of living? I know that fasting is a hugely popular all around the world, but not eating or drinking? I know Gandhi did this, but he was motivated politically.

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/swiss-women-dies-giving-water-food-thought-live-sunlight-article-1.1067359
http://www.angelfire.com/stars3/breathe_light/types.html
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/breatharian.htm

Comments

  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    Did she think she was a plant and try to photosynthesize? It is sad that she had the ignorance and stupidity to do it, I have not read the article by the way.
  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
    Did she think she was a plant and try to photosynthesize? It is sad that she had the ignorance and stupidity to do it, I have not read the article by the way.
    Check the article!
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    Okay, she didn't think she was a plant, but she was stupid. I know that may sound a bit harsh because she is dead, but it is really quite stupid. However, we learn from our mistakes, the Buddha attempted something very similar and nearly died before deciding it was a stupid idea. She however has paid the price. I can't help but think though, there must be a line or a point where you are so hungry and thirsty that you know you are dying and your natural reaction is to go and get some water or food...
  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
    Okay, she didn't think she was a plant, but she was stupid. I know that may sound a bit harsh because she is dead, but it is really quite stupid. However, we learn from our mistakes, the Buddha attempted something very similar and nearly died before deciding it was a stupid idea. She however has paid the price. I can't help but think though, there must be a line or a point where you are so hungry and thirsty that you know you are dying and your natural reaction is to go and get some water or food...
    I guess not?
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    It is human instict, if you have ever been really really thirsty or hungry, you know how strong the need is to find some resources. Maybe she was meditating a lot and was in a state of consciousness where she did not feel this instict so much, I don't know. Maybe she was so determined she killed herself trying. At the end of the day though, it was stupid.
  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
    Check out the thread about "http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/15298/in-the-beginning-there-was-light-trailer#Item_1
  • ArthurbodhiArthurbodhi Mars Veteran
    The Buddha don't make similar things when he wasn't a Buddha yet?
    But later he realize that all that things not lead to anything and only cause to him more suffering.

    This is a extreme asceticism, equal of dangerous that extreme indulgence.
  • DakiniDakini Veteran
    edited April 2012
    We had a thread on this about a year ago. Everyone who's claimed to be able to live on no food has been proven to have faked it. Apparently the Swiss woman didn't do her homework. How sad!
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    @Arthurbodhi I don't fully understand what you were trying to say, but do you not know about the entire story of how the Buddha came into being from the ignorant prince to the enlightened being?
  • ArthurbodhiArthurbodhi Mars Veteran
    @ThailandTom I was referring to the extreme ascetic practice that Prince Siddhartha take part before became the Buddha and how later he realize that this is not the way to the end of suffering.

    Sorry, I'm a little sleepy and my English is worst that ever. :)

    Blessings.
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    nono don't worry. I just thought you were asking if the Buddha tried starving himself and assumed you were unfamiliar with the story of Prince Siddhartha. :crazy:
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    Become a breatharian for life!! (PS, it will be a very short one..... )

    this is akin to assisted suicide.
    You're basically convincing people how to kill themselves.
    it should be criminal.

    Mind you, it should also be criminal to be that gullible.... :rolleyes:
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    That is what I was saying, that guy who looked like a professor in the video, he sits there talking about how he hasn't eaten or drank any water for however long it was, people may go and do what this swiss women has done and the blood should be on their hands.
  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
    The Buddha don't make similar things when he wasn't a Buddha yet?
    But later he realize that all that things not lead to anything and only cause to him more suffering.

    This is a extreme asceticism, equal of dangerous that extreme indulgence.
    I agree. That is why Buddha taught the middle way.

  • TalismanTalisman Veteran
    I heard that the dragon warrior is able to survive off of the dew of a single ginko leaf and the energy of the universe
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    The Randi foundation stopped accepting applications for their million dollar challenge from breatharians of all types because of concerns that anyone honestly trying to live without food would hurt themselves.

    Randi pointed out there are millions of men, women, and children in third world countries starving to death right now and anyone who really knows how to live on sunshine should fly over there and teach those poor people how to live without food. They would soon have all the world's cameras on them and have uncounted wealth and fame and not have to mess around with a tiny prize from him.
  • DaltheJigsawDaltheJigsaw Mountain View Veteran
    The Randi foundation stopped accepting applications for their million dollar challenge from breatharians of all types because of concerns that anyone honestly trying to live without food would hurt themselves.

    Randi pointed out there are millions of men, women, and children in third world countries starving to death right now and anyone who really knows how to live on sunshine should fly over there and teach those poor people how to live without food. They would soon have all the world's cameras on them and have uncounted wealth and fame and not have to mess around with a tiny prize from him.
    True words!
  • DavidDavid A human residing in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Ancestral territory of the Erie, Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mississauga and Neutral First Nations Veteran
    No kiddin'!
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    I heard that the dragon warrior is able to survive off of the dew of a single ginko leaf and the energy of the universe
    Yes they can...
    unfortunately I haven't met one late to verify this....
    The unfortunate thing is, that reading about this article, I keep seeing publicity for weight-loss diets and "how to lose 2 stone in a month!" type advertisements...

    and sadly, the saddest thing is that people lose a whole lot more than that, doing this...

    :(
  • BekenzeBekenze
    "how to lose 2 stone in a month!"
    :confused:
  • TalismanTalisman Veteran
    How heavy is a stone?

    lol

    what a cool question
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    lol, federica our British weight methods sound so, primitive. I have not gone to the convetor yet, but I have made a rough guestimate that 1 stone = about 7.65kgs :)

    On a serious note though, federica makes a good point. I could go on and on for hours about how the idealistic way to look is projected out to the public and how I feel about it, but I won't. It is just wrong.
  • ThailandTomThailandTom Veteran
    edited April 2012
    I was a bit off :-/ 1stone = 6.4 Kgs or 14lbs

    When I stopped taking valium I lost 3kgs in 4 days!
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    A British stone is 16lbs.

    (I believe some American weight measurements, bearing the same name, are different weights).
  • TalismanTalisman Veteran
    American measurments are even weirder. A foot is 12 inches? huh? 16 ounces in a pound? wtf? 5280 feet in a mile? ...
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    Metric is so much easier - 1 litre = 1 kilo!

    millimetre (1000th), centimetre (100th), metre...
    millilitre, centilitre, litre...

    so easy!!
  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    American measurments are even weirder. A foot is 12 inches? huh? 16 ounces in a pound? wtf? 5280 feet in a mile? ...
    They're not "American" - they're "English" - we didn't invent them. We're just too ignorant to change. The metric system is probably socialist (and it's definitely French), so we can't go there.
  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    edited April 2012
    A British stone is 16lbs.

    (I believe some American weight measurements, bearing the same name, are different weights).
    We have no stones in America. I was an adult before I understood that. We weigh ourselves in good old fashioned all-American pounds and ounces. And what's up with "fortnight"? :)
  • MountainsMountains Veteran
    Back to the OP - are we supposed to feel sorry for this woman? I mean seriously? If you put a loaded gun to your head and pull the trigger, odds are very good that you're going to blow your brains out. That's about what she did, only slower.
  • ToshTosh Veteran
    I feel sorry for people who blow their brains out or commit suicide by any means. Who knows what this woman suffered? Maybe she had mental health problems?
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    Yes, we can feel compassion for her. She was deluded. A lot of this delusion came from a known charlatan she had read about, a guru who claims he lived without food or water for 70 years. This man will never feel a minute's remorse or guilt for the woman's death. And people hold frauds like this up as examples of enlightenment? Sometimes I despair at the stupidity in the world.
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    By the way, when you go to the first linked news story about the woman, the article about her starving herself to death is immediately followed by a weight loss advert.

    Go figure.
  • zenffzenff Veteran
    So is the breatharian claim disproved now?
    No it isn’t.
    The second link in the OP sheds some “light” on this.
    “For a person to live on light, there are a number or requirements. When a person is in denial of an aspect of themselves, their energy flow is blocked. Denial creates these blockages.”
    The woman who died must have had some mental blockage stopping her from digesting the sunlight properly.
    The fact that she died is in line with the teaching. It was sad but really it was her own fault.

    (Just for the record; I’m just demonstrating the logic; it’s not what I think or believe.
    Idiotic belief systems need such a trick to survive without being disproved; that’s my point.)
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    By the way, when you go to the first linked news story about the woman, the article about her starving herself to death is immediately followed by a weight loss advert.

    Go figure.
    that was the point I was making in my post....

  • DairyLamaDairyLama Veteran Veteran
    The metric system is probably socialist (and it's definitely French), so we can't go there.
    :D
  • federicafederica Seeker of the clear blue sky... Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
    I go there all the time...on holiday..... :p
  • CinorjerCinorjer Veteran
    By the way, when you go to the first linked news story about the woman, the article about her starving herself to death is immediately followed by a weight loss advert.

    Go figure.
    that was the point I was making in my post....

    Oops! You're right. I somehow missed your post. Sorry about that.

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