Is drinking urine medicially or spiritually beneficial?

From: keshav nimai das

prji, pamho. I came across a person who has habit of drinking his own urine. we have heard about even morarji desai, who was a big leader who used to do same activity? is it a kind of treatment? is it really benificial for health? is there any spiritual aspect in it?

Transcript

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Question from Keshav Nimai Prabhu I came across a person who has a habit of drinking his own urine we have heard about even Moraji Desai who is a big leader used to do the same activity, is it a kind of treatment is it really beneficial for health is there any spiritual aspect in it answer medical opinion my medical opinion if I talk about allopathic medical opinion is divided about the benefits of urine therapy in general it is discouraged because it is a waste product coming from the body and it is likely to contain some toxics which the body wants to excrete from itself so to drink it is considered to be harmful but in certain cases there might be some benefits from it so Prabhupada’s attitude towards this was dismissive actually speaking from a physiochemical point of view even a stool might contain some things which are which may provide some chemicals which the body needs but Vedic culture tells us that certain things are certain things are clean certain things are unclean and the waste products that the body has excreted out are generally considered unclean and in fact one of the prominent forms of torture for captives or imprisoned persons is to make them eat or drink their own waste products one of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps was that the Nazis made the imprisoned Jews eat their own stool and that was quite horrible so in general eating one’s waste products is quite a costly thing to do so in certain situations if medical advice for certain specific things recommends that the urine be taken then it may be taken is there any spiritual aspect to it generally speaking no so Ishtar Prabhupada certainly didn’t talk about it now in Ayurveda again the medical opinion is divided for certain situations in certain extreme places it might be recommended but in general the broad principle is that what the body has by its own mechanism thrown out that the very indication the body has excreted it is that it is not something suitable for the body so therefore as devotees we look at things from the scriptural point of view and from the we can also look at it from the medical point of view from the scriptural point of view, Prabhupada’s stand against this was quite clear that it is considered shuchi to such an extent that even when it comes out of one hole from the body we consider the whole body to be contaminated that’s why we have to wash our hands and wash our legs at that time and what to speak of something which contaminates even while going out of the body how can we take it inside the body again that is surely very contaminating from the point of view of cleanliness that is foundational to the practice of spirituality and as I said from the medical point of view the mainstream opinion is that it is unlikely to be beneficial except under some exceptional circumstances that’s why as devotees we don’t have to get involved in any of these things this world is a very complex place and as Bhaktivinoda Thakur said so anybody can come up with any survey which says that this is beneficial for health drink it so we don’t depend so much on empirical findings we focus on scriptural understanding and we understand surely nobody is going to make just as Prabhupada would tell those who wanted to take drugs to go high that you cannot purchase spiritual advancement just by some material substances by taking some material drugs if we make spiritual advancement that would mean that Krishna is subordinate to matter similarly just by taking some material products especially by taking one’s own waste product one can obviously not make any spiritual advancement that’s why as devotees we don’t get involved in these things and if we are connected with some people who are thinking of doing these things we can discourage them as much as possible but overall if somebody is too attached to these things just keep that aside and focus on practicing devotional service that’s how we can tell those who are involved in these things so they might feel that they might claim that there are certain health benefits for it so they do such things so if that’s what their feeling is then at least in the initial stage of Krishna consciousness there is no need to absolutely demand that they give it up no urotherapy is not a regulative principle so if somebody feels that that is beneficial somebody has certain ideas about it, fine let them practice Krishna consciousness develop faith in scriptures and over a period of time then they will start seeing the validity, the authenticity and the truth of the Vedic understanding