Hey DH,
Thanks for being nice to me. I really needed that.
You hit the nail on the head with the difference in the Western and Eastern approaches. The Western view is that everything here is at our disposal to use and that we are the pinnacle of creation. The Bible talks at one point about how all the animals are here for us. I read recently someone saying that we owe all industrialization and modern civilization to the Jews because of just this. Actually, he said that we owed our "televisions" to the Jews. I thought that was amusing. Because of this view that we are at the top of the material world and very much supposed to be rulers of it, tremendous advances have been made in agriculture, animal husbandry, science, intellectual persuits, and in two words ?? modern civilization.
Most Eastern Traditions are radically different than this. Perhaps that's why most of the studies on breatharians were done on Indians. Eastern philosphical traditions would argue that we are primarily spiritual beings stuck in these physical forms and the whole idea is to figure out how to liberate our spirits even if we are still in bodies, that all things are connected or one and that part of the way to get free is through compassion. Hinduism (one of the most ancient of religions of the east) has a strong tradition of "Ahisma" doing no harm to any living being. The animals most certainly are not here for us to use them according to eastern religions. Buddhism was actually an offshoot of Hinduism originally and the idea of doing no harm is strong in that religion as well. The Jains take ahisma to an extreme and the best case for a living breatharian is a Jain. The other case is a fakir (a Sufi who performs feats of endurance or apparent magic). The Hindus and Buddhists believe that through yogic practices in the path to enlightenment you naturally will gain siddhis ??supernormal perceptual states. Things like being able manifest things from thin air, move things without touching them, dematerialize yourself and materialize yourself somewhere else, slow down your heartbeat and/or breathing to close to nothing, knowing the future, healing others, etc. including no longer needing to eat are considered siddhis. The thing about siddhis is that they are supposed to be traps along the way to enlightenment. If you get too into your fabulous powers, you can miss the jackpot. They are like pitfalls more than goals. But, they are part of the path and universally accepted as not only possible, but proven to have occurred. It is part of the Eastern mindset to believe that this world is an illusion of the mind, created by and for us. When you wake up, you are no longer held to the laws of the material world as Westerners see them.
So, if you are a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim the idea of breatharianism would be a totally foreign concept boarding on blasphemy. If you are a Hindu, Buddhist or Jain, it would be a perfectly logical possibility based upon all you were taught your whole life and what you have heard and perhaps seen of yogis and fakirs with special powers.
I personally find these different viewpoints all simply wonderful! I love modern civilization and the ideas of the East both. Thank goodness there is so much variety in the world and that we are living in a time when we can be exposed to so many interesting ideas and ways of life.
Greenbunny