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they don't show any joy. Their faces are sad, dull, sleepy. They are suffering, they are torturing themselves, just for the simple reason that it brings the attention of the people.
Anything, howsoever stupid, is possible for man if it can bring attention to him. In Russia before the revolution there was a Christian sect which used to cut their genitals publicly on a particular day each year -- and they had thousands of followers. Their only qualification for being spiritual was that they had cut their genitals. When the day arrived, they would gather in a church courtyard and they would cut their genitals and pile them up. And thousands of people would come to see this stupidity.
The women were not left behind... of course they were in a difficulty because they don't have hanging genitals to cut; their genitals are inwards. They started cutting their breasts -- they were not ready to be left behind. It was such a messy and bloody affair, but people were touching their feet, worshiping them, and all that they have done is just an ugly act against nature and against themselves.
What is significant if a man goes on a fast? Mahatma Gandhi used the strategy his whole life: It was nothing but catching the attention of the whole nation. And if he was going to fast unto death, the whole world's attention was immediately caught. Otherwise there is no spirituality in fasting: millions die starving. Millions are going to die in the coming ten, twelve years from starvation. Nobody will give any honor or respect to them. Why? Because their starvation is inevitable. They are not starving wilfully but because they don't have food; they are simply poor and starving people.
But Mahatma Gandhi had everything available to him, although he lived like a poor man. One of his intimate followers, a very intelligent woman, Sarojini Naidu -- has a statement on record that to keep Mahatma Gandhi poor they had to spend treasures on him. It was not a simple poverty, it was a managed show.
He would not drink the milk from a buffalo because it is rich, rich with vitamin A and other vitamins. He would not drink the milk of a cow because that too is rich, and
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