How can we distract ourselves from desires arising in the body such as hunger?

Transcript

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See, the desires that occur in the mind, we can distract by remembering Krishna. But if the desires originate in the body, then how can we distract ourselves from those desires? Say, if hunger arises. See, we are not meant to deprive ourselves of bodily needs.
Krishna says, yukta ahara viharasya. There has to be regulated eating and other bodily needs satisfaction. Krishna says strongly that one who eats too little or one who eats too much.
A person cannot be a yogi. So in that sense, hunger is not to be denied. Hunger is a bodily need that needs to be fulfilled.
So basically, there is a difference between what you could say, biological hunger and psychological hunger. So biological hunger is need. The body is a vehicle.
It needs fuel. And it needs to be given. Now, psychological hunger is where we use food not to satisfy the body but to gratify the mind.
That means we use food for comfort, food for pleasure, food for relief. And then, basically, the difference between the two largely is psychological hunger is characterized by untimeliness and specificness. Let me say, if I have fueled my car and I have enough fuel to go to 100 miles and then suddenly after 30 miles the fuel meter starts saying, fuel is over, fuel is over.
What does it mean? Then it means the fuel meter is not working properly. It means the fuel is there but the fuel meter is not working properly. So say, if I had taken one meal properly, and this is supposed to go for 4-5 hours.
But after 1-2 hours, suddenly I start feeling hungry. And I have not done anything which will actually trigger my hunger. Then basically, that hunger which is untimely is psychological hunger.
And secondly, when the hunger is specific. Now, we will be hungry for food. But if I am hungry for gulab jamun, then that specificness is usually coming from the mind.
It is not coming from the body. Now, again, this does not mean that we have to deprive the body. In the process of bhakti, there is a regulated fulfillment of the desires for food also.
Sometimes, of course, when we do fasting, then we have to distract. So, how do we distract at those times? At that time, basically, the body, when it pushes us towards something, its pushing goes through phases. That means, say, if we consider hunger.
Normally, when we have to fast, at a particular time when we eat food, every morning we take breakfast and say we are fasting on a particular day. At that time, the hunger starts tormenting us. But just as in a vehicle, when it says the fuel is getting over, most vehicles have some reserve fuel within it.
So, like that the body has reserve energy. So, when we fast, at that time, the reserve energy starts getting tapped. But before the reserve energy will get tapped, the body will torment us.
Come on, eat, eat, eat, eat. But if you just tolerate that phase, and again, the tolerance is best done through absorption. If you are busy in something, if you are absorbed in something, then we will be able to tolerate it much better.
And then once that phase goes off, then the body switches from the normal, body needs energy. Either it will seek energy through the normal intake of food, or it will seek it through the reserve that is there in the body, in the fat, in the other places. All bodies have reserve energy.
So, that phase when the body is shifting from the normal energy through food, through the reserve, that is the phase when we need to tolerate. If we tolerate, then we can resist hunger also. Does it answer your question? Yes, thank you.