This program discusses
the possibility of
breatharianism, or living
without eating food, and
is not a full instruction.
For your safety,
please do not attempt to
cease eating without
proper expert guidance.
For your safety,
please do not attempt to
cease eating without
proper expert guidance.
Today’s Between
Master and Disciples –
“Isabelle Hercelin:
Breatharianism
as a Way of Life” –
will be presented
in French and English
with subtitles in Arabic,
Aulacese (Vietnamese),
Bulgarian, Chinese,
Czech-Slovak, English,
French, German,
Hindi, Hungarian,
Indonesian, Italian,
Japanese, Korean,
Malay, Mongolian,
Persian, Polish,
Portuguese, Punjabi,
Russian, Spanish
and Thai.
In scriptures,
the human body
is often referred to
as the temple of God.
Yet, it is quite
an uncommon privilege
for any soul to
attain this sacred abode
that houses the Divine,
as it is truly a blessing
to be reborn
as a human being.
On several occasions,
Supreme Master Ching Hai
has spoken about the rarity
of this phenomenon:
To be reincarnated in
the human world is hard.
You have to have
enough Human Quality.
You have to have
affinity with the parents
and with the society,
with the people around
which you are born.
Very difficult.
To be a human,
you need some merit.
You have done
something good
in the past
in order to be able
to pick a human birth.
As a living temple of God,
the human body
is fully equipped
with miraculous wonders
that can be awakened
in those who
are spiritually conscious
and have complete faith
in the Creator of all life.
Inedia,
Latin for “fasting,”
is the human ability
to live without food.
Since time immemorial,
there have always been
individuals who
can sustain themselves
on prana,
or the vital life force.
Through the grace of
the Providence, inediates,
people who follow
a food-free lifestyle,
can draw the energy
from nature
to nourish themselves:
They live on the chi
from the ground,
or from the forest,
and from the sun
and from the air.
They make use
of all that.
Or they live on love,
on faith alone.
These individuals are
known as breatharians(pranarians or inediates),
solarians, or waterians,
and they come from
all walks of life, from
different cultures, and
all corners of the world.
Indeed, the possibilities
and miracles in this life
as our benevolent Creator
has designed for us
are endless;
we only need to connect
within to recognize
our abounding largess
as God’s children.
Supreme Master Ching Hai
has lovingly
recommended
a weekly series on
Supreme Master Television
to introduce
those individuals
of the past and present
who have chosen to
live food-free on Earth.
May their spiritual stories
enthrall you;
may hearts be opened,
and horizons be expanded.
We now invite you
to join us for the first part
of our 4-part series,
“Isabelle Hercelin:
Breatharianism
as a Way of Life,”
on Between Master
and Disciples.
For the past year,
Isabelle Hercelin
has dispensed with
the need for physical food
and has been living
as a breatharian.
Without food, what
nourishes and keeps her
so youthful and vibrant?
Since you don't
eat anymore –
I mean physical food –
what nourishes you?
What do you call prana?
I find it difficult to explain;
it is difficult to express.
To me, this energy of life
is an energy of love,
but I can't even express
this love which is present
in all things,
in all situations,
in all emotions
and in all relationships –
and it really, immensely,
fills you up.
For Isabelle, there isn’t
any physical food
that is comparable
to the sensations
of living on prana.
And this love…
For me, this confidence
that I have in life...
I can't say
how I feel about it.
It’s not easy to express,
but it fills you up
100,000 times more
and 100,000 times better,
and it is 100 times
more satisfying
and 100 times better than
real food, even though
I truly thank the Earth
for everything that she
has given me until now.
In the course of
human history,
there have been many
food-free individuals
who relied on
the cosmic energy
to sustain their physical
bodies and spirits.
Quite a few also lived
for tens of years
merely on faith, love,
and complete devotion
to Jesus Christ or God.
It is no different
for Isabelle.
People say that
you get your nourishment
from faith and love.
Yes.
Could we say that?
Yes.
And it nourishes me from
a dimension, I would say,
extremely vast.
It nourishes
my whole being,
more than the real food,
which is very limiting.
This energy of life which
connects me to everything
and creates this food
for me, fills me up…
When Between Master
and Disciples returns
after these brief messages,
we’ll find out
how Isabelle’s journey
to breatharianism began
with a change of diet
to one that is healthier
and more compassionate.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
Welcome back to
Between Master
and Disciples
on Supreme Master
Television.
Let’s continue
with our feature,
“Isabelle Hercelin:
Breatharianism
as a Way of Life.”
What made Isabelle
gravitate toward
a lifestyle without food?
She’s an ordinary housewife
with a normal family life.
I was born in Paris.
I have two brothers,
and when I was
about ten years old,
I moved to
and lived in Brittany,
in the region of Vannes.
When I was seventeen,
I left the security
of my family
to live with my husband,
the father of our child,
Maeva.
I am also the grandmother
of a little girl named Lola,
born a few months ago.
Since childhood,
however, Isabelle has had
a unique experience
with food.
Everything started
since my birth.
When I was born,
it was the era
of women’s liberation,
and thus I was bottle-fed
with baby formulas,
and that had
never agreed with me.
My parents didn’t know
what else
they could give me;
they were not informed
about the existence
of other options.
So I was bottle-fed and
was moved as quickly
as possible to solid food,
somehow or other.
Aside from the challenges
with baby formulas,
Isabelle was born
with a preference
for plant-based foods,
which is the diet that all
children naturally opt for.
And this solid food didn’t
agree with me either
because I think I was born
liking neither meat, fish,
milk, nor dairy.
So for my parents
and myself,
those mealtimes
were not easy.
I would sit for hours
in front of my plate,
and the rest of the food
would be put away
in a refrigerator
for supper in the evening
or even the following day.
And it went on like this
for practically
seventeen years.
I started grumbling
when I was about fifteen.
Supreme Master Ching Hai
has often shared that,
since birth, children have
an inherent inclination
for vegetarianism, a diet
replete with all necessary
vitamins and minerals.
However, due to
the misinformation about
the so-called “nutrition”
of flesh foods,
parents often force them
to eat meat,
to the detriment
of the children’s health.
When children are born,
many of them
reject meat, but we force
them down and then
after a while they
eat meat like naturally.
Many children don't want
meat at all – it happens –
and they strongly resist it.
If you give them
vegetarian from childhood,
they never demand meat.
Many of our fellow
practitioners,
they have children since
after initiation and their
children are nourished
by vegetarian food
and grow up
so strong and healthy,
less sick than any other
child, and so pink,
so beautiful and pure,
soft in the look.
They never demand meat.
In fact, when somebody
else gives them meat
by mistake, they were
shocked and dropped it -
a child of five, six, four
years old.
To Isabelle’s parents,
providing for their
children’s necessities and
comfort was their way
of expressing love,
and unfortunately, that
included feeding Isabelle
and her siblings meat.
It was very important
for my parents
to be well fed and that
it was also dignifying,
and this was love.
So some of you will
certainly experience that.
We give love
to our children
when we are able to bring
a piece of meat every day
on the table, fish,
and a balanced meal.
For them, this was
what was important.
So they were very vigilant
and made sure that
we get fed three times
a day in what is considered
to be a “balanced” way,
which was also
considered “balanced”
as well in society.
Fortunately,
in her teenage years,
Isabelle found
the willpower to say “no”
to the harmful meat diet.
I was somebody who
was very disciplined, and
so I started to say “Stop!”
to all the food that
I didn’t like, around
fifteen-sixteen years of age,
without knowing
what I could replace
for the things
that I didn’t like.
So I fed myself anyway
during all those years,
but not with pleasure.
Through
a chance encounter,
Isabelle discovered
a more palatable and
healthier animal-free diet
and, for the first time
in her life, enjoyed
the simple pleasure
of eating food.
When I left
the “family’s nest”,
I had the joy of meeting
a lady who had an
organic health food store.
And there
I’d learned the existence
of another type of food
which was much healthier
and much more pleasant
for me, which is typically
called “vegetarian.”
And it’s there
that I discovered that
“no meat, no fish, no dairy”
corresponds to food
that is labeled
as vegetarian or vegan.
And from there I really
started to nourish myself
with great pleasure.
What led Isabelle
to dispense with food
completely and
live only on prana?
Join us again
next Sunday for part 2 of
“Isabelle Hercelin:
Breatharianism
as a Way of Life.”
We appreciate
your company
for today’s episode of
Between Master
and Disciples.
Good People, Good Works
is coming up next after
Noteworthy News.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
Heaven bless,
and farewell for now.
Isabelle Hercelin,
a breatharian from France,
has been living on Light
for the past year.
And this was
the beginning of
an awareness –
even though there were
other things before –
the beginning of
an awareness that we are
connected to everything,
and that it is important,
as human beings, to be
respectful of this Earth
that welcomes us.
Tune in to
Supreme Master Television
on Sunday, September 26,
for our program,
“Isabelle Hercelin:
Breatharianism
as a Way of Life,”
on Between Master
and Disciples.
Tune in to
Supreme Master Television
today for our program,
“Isabelle Hercelin:
Breatharianism
as a Way of Life,”
on Between Master
and Disciples.