Shamelessly heavy

This time I am absolutely shamelessly heavy! Twenty-five or thirty years ago, once I weighed 178 pounds. In Puerto Rico, when Nadeshwar saw my stomach, he said, “Shame, shame!” I will never forget it! Strangely enough, those pictures show that I look even heavier than 178 pounds.

Now my fate has cursed me to repeat the story. Two days ago, I weighed myself and I cried. I wrote down in my notebook, “Shame, shame,” and I put four or five exclamation marks after it. Now I am determined to lose 25 or 30 pounds. Each time I lose five pounds, I shall give prasad.

The day before yesterday, we came to the Bahamas. Yesterday my weight was 174½ pounds, so 3½ pounds I had already lost. Today I have lost a pound and a half more, so tonight I shall give prasad and share my happiness with you.

I arrived here at the ripe, heavy weight of 178. Today I am 173. Very often, when I weigh myself in my house, I go downstairs because the downstairs scale is one pound less. Upstairs I look at my weight on the scale and feel miserable. Then, when I come downstairs, the scale is one pound less and it gives me so much joy. Even a half a pound or a quarter of a pound less gives me boundless joy. I struggle and struggle only to see that I am a quarter pound less. That kind of torture I give to myself. When I really lose weight, I get tremendous joy. But to lose weight, one has to cultivate so much determination.

— 6 December 1997, The Bahamas