If the number of our breaths is fixed do exercises that accelerate our breathing decrease our lifespan?

Transcript

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the question here is I mentioned that number of breaths that we take are fixed so if you do exercises like jogging then we breathe faster at that time so is it that we are shortening our life by such exercises now in Ayurveda there is an elaborate discussion of natural causes of disease and death and unnatural avoidable causes of disease and death so first point to understand is this whole concept of destiny needs to be carefully understood we could go to another extreme and say that if everything is destined then even my getting disease is also destined and if it was destined that I will be cured of the disease, I will be cured also and if it is not destined then I will not be cured, so why take medicine why take medicine like well now so one time somebody had asked me this a few days ago this question that if everything is destined then why worry then why ask this question we never live as if everything is destined so in Ayurveda it is described that there is Ayurveda as compared to modern allopathy which is essentially non-theistic it doesn’t bring God into it allopathy is quite a theistic medical science but even allopathy is understood that there are certain factors which impede health and certain factors which promote health and those factors which impede one should avoid those factors which promote one should adopt so the rationale for this is to recognize that destiny is not always exactly something which is entirely frozen entirely frozen means what? that suppose I walk out of this room and you know I am in my own world and a little water slips somewhere and then I slip on the water and I fall now if I slip and fall was it by destiny that I slipped and fell or was it by carelessness one time some devotees were driving very fast while going to the institution they met with an accident and they said they went to Prabhupada and they said Prabhupada was this Krishna’s arrangement Prabhupada said it was your mismanagement not Krishna’s arrangement that means we have a responsibility to act intelligently to act competently in life in this life and if we don’t act competently then the reaction that will come to us we can’t say that they are destined so one aspect of of thinking I am acting responsibly is doing whatever it takes to promote our health so yes we could say that because of destiny I will get disease but then if we really are going to talk about destiny then we could also say because of destiny I am meant to go through the trouble of going to a doctor, paying for the medicine remembering to take the medicine and then I will get cured so if I don’t do that then what am I doing I am neglecting to do my duty now and when I neglect to do my duty that complicates the destiny further that brings its own consequences so the point which I am making is that none of us know what our destiny is none of us knows how many how many breaths we have so what can we do we have been given a body the Bhagavatam says that the body is like a tree and a tree will eventually give the fruit of liberation but if the tree does not exist the tree cannot give the fruit of liberation so therefore it is our responsibility to take care of the tree so that we can eventually get the fruit of liberation so whatever it takes to take care of the body we should do that so now is it that during jogging we breathe faster so our breaths will decrease no that’s not the point we should keep in mind the point we should keep in mind is that whatever is required for taking care of my health I do that if we just get too caught up in the whole concept of destiny we will become paralyzed I will give an example to illustrate this the 10th character when Kamsa is taking Devaki on her chariot on his chariot and suddenly here is the Akashwani so immediately he turns around and catches Devaki’s hair and is about to lop off her head and then Vasudev, Devaki’s husband gives an argument and he says Kamsa if death is destined then what will you gain by doing this terrible sinful activity of killing your own sister on her marriage day ultimately you will not be able to escape destiny now Vasudev could well have turned this argument around and he could have thought if Devaki is going to die if that is her destiny then what is the use of my trying to persuade Kamsa anyway she is going to die he doesn’t do that it could be a reasonable argument yes if it’s just trying to happen it will happen but he doesn’t do that why because what is important is not destiny what is important is duty as a husband it is Vasudev’s duty to protect his wife so he is going to do his duty irrespective of what destiny is and in contrast actually it is Kamsa’s duty also to protect his wife, protect his sister and he is being reminded of destiny because he is deviating from duty you are trying to avoid something from happening and for that sake you are giving up your duty even if you give up your duty even if you do such a sinful activity still that thing will come therefore don’t give up your duty the point is the Vedic culture is be duty centered not destiny centered so be duty centered not destiny centered so for us whatever is required for taking care of our health we should do that so if jogging is an exercise that helps we can do that if swimming is an exercise that helps we don’t have to get so paranoid then we could say that the Kshatriyas are fighting wars they will go at high speed with horses they will yell and scream and fight fiercely they are all wasting their breaths so is it that they are all losing their is it that they are all moving faster towards death no what is important is not how quickly or how slowly our allocated breaths get exhausted what is important is how we use the breaths that are allocated to us so for us to serve Krishna for us to do our responsibilities we need to maintain our health and for maintaining our health whatever exercises are required we should do that in general devotees minimize exercises that are excessively passionate so exercises that are excessively they not only take too much of our breath but also they bring us down into Rajoguna so exercises which are less passionate if we do them then they will not only take care of our health but they will also help us to keep Sathoguna by which we can practice Bhakti more peaceful