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 – “Zinaida Baranova: More Than a Decade of Living on Prana” – will be presented in Russian 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 part 2 of our 4-part program, “Zinaida Baranova: More Than a Decade of Living on Prana,” on Between Master and Disciples.

In the lush countryside of Russia dwells Zinaida Baranova, a septuagenarian who has dispensed with the need for food, relying solely on prana for sustenance for over a decade. In 2006, she made headline news in Russia when she was discovered to have been living food-free. Although she was 70 years old at the time, scientists who examined her were astounded to discover that she has the biological system of a 30-year-old woman. Indeed, despite her advance age, Zinaida is rosy, happy, and a picture of good health.

What else can you tell us about living on prana? Do you use the energy from the sun or from the surrounding elements? Do you have any idea where this energy comes from?

In principle, the flows of energy differ a lot. Lately, there are even cosmic energies. In Agni Yoga, it mentions the energy of Materia Lucida (radiant matter), the fire energy. There is an energy that comes from the planet Logos. Then, in general, there are energies that are coming to the planet. Now, in fact, there is a very strong flow of energies to the planet, and every hour the pressure of these transformational energies changes within a nanosecond in which the Earth exists, multiplying 11 times with each passing hour. For example, in the next hour there will be 11 times more energy than in this hour, and so on and so forth. The energy is increasing very fast. There is a huge diversity of energies.

Sometimes, literally, the energy is not just coming, but rushing in, as many tell me. They are coming with a very strong pressure, very strong.

Do you feel that?

I feel them sometimes. When I am not relaxed, I feel hot, like in a sauna; such a state can happen. When a person is busy – meaning not relaxed – the energies cannot go through the person; they just avoid him and pass on. In order to be attentive and sensitive to those energies, my inner beings talk to me – my heart, my soul, my beings, Energofite, Firefly, Little Light, basically my greater “I,” let me know. And as they are telling me, all of the sudden I’d start sneezing. I’d keep sneezing continuously.

I’d feel that I was hot, that my hair was wet. I’d think to myself: “Well, well, well…” I’d drop everything and go lie down. At least I have to sit down, relax or lie down, and shortly after, in about 15-20 minutes, I adapt myself to the new flow and I can start working again. So this is how this process goes. If I look around, there is so much work to be done that I want to do this, and that, but more than once I was made aware that “your task is to transform yourself, and for everything else you will find others who can help, who can replace you. Someone else can do it for you, if it is really necessary.”

What are the steps necessary to transition to becoming food-free? Zinaida shared some tips and her personal experiences.

First of all, each person should decide for himself if he wants to switch to praniс nourishment. Is he ready to do it? Does he need this experience? Because this way of living is not necessary for all. And after getting an answer, he can work on it, on what he needs. But before you ask the body this question, it is important to switch to a vegetarian diet; it can be a raw food diet, mono-raw diet,

juices, or only water. I want to mention only one thing, which is I am not sure about the dry fasts. During those seven years which I was improving my health and preparing, I did not have more than three days of fasting. No more than three days, and especially not without water.

Of course, it is important to go through the process of cleansing the body first, then afterwards think about living on prana. If this is needed, the body will respond. But to make this switch permanently, it is necessary to go through some alternative lifestyle so that the body can replace its activity with the energy that we’d normally get from physical food. What does this mean? It is necessary to engage all the energy centers in our body in order for it to work. For that, it is important to keep your thoughts pure, the inner spiritual part, and the physical body; and this is to open up the energies.

To seek someone else’s help to tamper with your energy centers is very harmful, very harmful. This could cause so much damage that you might find yourself in a medical institution afterwards. This is my answer to this. So we should not rely on others. It is always good to find your greatest Self, we can say.

Yes, it is necessary, first, to raise your spiritual potential and the connection with your greatest Self, with your soul, with your heart, so that our cells can also help us in this matter. According to the experiences of some breatharians, losing weight is one of the processes that occur during the transitioning stage before the body stabilizes. For Zinaida, she did not experience this.

When the body is ready to live with no physical food, is it true that one doesn’t lose that much weight? It feels like you are always, always full?

I, for example, do not feel hungry, this is number one. Secondly, I need to do something with my weight because I still have some that I need to lose. But being like this is also included in God’s plan in a way. It doesn’t work for me: I cannot lose weight. On the contrary, some kind of “rounding” of the body is going on. In order to cleanse the body and transform it, one should space it out. At least this is how it is with me. It might work differently for others, I don’t know. This is how it works for me and that’s it.

When I switched to the alternative nourishment, I was more than 90 kilograms. I was losing weight very slowly, very slowly. Could you tell us how you feel this energy, this nourishment?

I don’t feel that I am being nourished. I don’t feel that I receive any nourishment, and I am getting full. This is like breathing, eating like breathing. When there is enough air, we don’t feel that we are breathing. I don’t feel this nourishment as well. This is occurring constantly, and when the energy centers are working, they regulate the process; it is regulated. The heart regulates it and also the solar plexus. The solar plexus, it’s like the “master of ceremonies” who regulates it, and our heart is our higher consciousness. It understands, knows everything, and keeps everything in balance. Regarding meditation, I have a “dynamic” meditation – I am always moving. If a question arises, I immediately receive the answer.

What can you tell those people who want to live on prana? What kind of obstacles can they expect and how to overcome them?

What can they do? It is necessary to figure out your mission. Therefore, each person should receive his own answers to the questions he has, that most people have… He has to receive these answers himself. He should stand up, relax, stand like a big pendulum, and enter the state of oneness. It may not even be meditation, as many do it, but to be in a kind of meditative state or in communion with one’s greatest Self.

Turn to your heart and ask, “Is it necessary for me to have the experience of switching to pranic nourishment at this point of my life?” And if your body leans forward, as if you even have to make a step forward in order not to fall, it means yes. If backwards – it means no. This is what Jasmuheen mentioned in her books that she writes; there are many books on this topic. And then you start reflecting, if the answer is yes, you should start thinking about when to start, how to start, and the time frame; basically, to think through every detail of this process, how to go further.

Compassionate viewers, thank you for your generous company for today’s episode of Between Master and Disciples. Join us again next week for part 3 of “Zinaida Baranova: More Than a Decade of Living on Prana.” Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television for Good People, Good Works, coming up right after Noteworthy News. May Heaven continue to bless our planet with love, peace, and spiritual fulfillment.

Literature on Living Food-free When I had freed myself from the flow of those thoughts, there was silence – everywhere was silence, tranquility, and there was also silence in my soul – and no questions, no words, no thoughts at all, absolutely none. And the light was entering my being, and exiting… as I saw it in such a pre-dawn state. I was in such a heavenly state, and the tears were falling – such silence, bliss and light.

Tune in to Supreme Master Television on Sunday, May 22, for our program, “Zinaida Baranova: More Than a Decade of Living on Prana,” on Between Master and Disciples.

Tune in to Supreme Master Television today for our program, “Zinaida Baranova: More Than a Decade of Living on Prana,” on Between Master and Disciples.