The fourth session of the 84th round of Congress 60 educational workshops, specifically for travelers and companions, commenced at 10:00 AM on Wednesday, February 20, 2025. The session was led by Mr. Hossein Dezhakam as the master and guardian, with traveler Mohsen serving as the secretary. The topic of the session was "Inspiration from Ramadan."
Speaker's Remarks:
Hello friends, Hossein here, a traveler. I hope you are all doing well. By the grace of Allah, I’m doing well too. Today is February 20, 2025—the final month of the year 1403 in the Persian calendar. We are approaching Nowruz and the blessed month of Ramadan. The time is now 10:08 AM.
Before we move on to the main topic of today’s session, I would like to discuss some points raised during the Family Group Assistants’ Council meeting, which took place on Saturday, February 15, 2025. Every Saturday, I attend this council where decisions regarding the Companion group are made.
Decisions Made:
*Agents and Marzbans may sit at the back of the hall during workshops. However, once the session begins, there is no need for greetings or pleasantries, as this disrupts the order of the meeting. Sometimes, an agent or Marzban—who is supposed to be responsible for maintaining order—stands up to greet someone with hugs and kisses when they arrive, causing disorder. Holding these roles does not grant permission to engage in conversations or greetings at the back of the hall. It is also unnecessary to stand up to show respect whenever someone arrives. The session is formal. Just as it was once said that no one stands up at the dining table, no one should stand up during the session either. This rule should be observed, and typically, the on-duty Marzban should sit alongside the agent.
*Attendance for companions will only be recorded before the workshop and session begin. As soon as the session starts, attendance registration will end. The same rule applies to the men’s sessions—attendance is taken before the start, and once the session begins, the attendance sheets are collected.
• All Congress 60 branches must establish a disciplinary legion within their companion sections. All decisions made by these legions must be reported to the assistant liaison of the branch.
Currently, there are no disciplinary legions for the companion groups. From now on, each branch’s companion group disciplinary legion will include the agent, Marzbans, and the guardian of the guides’ sessions. The guides’ sessions have a guardian who is elected through voting by the guides themselves. Together, the agent, Marzbans, and the guardian will make decisions regarding any issues or instances of disorder. They will then report their decisions to the assistant liaison.
We are approaching the end of the year, a time that coincides with Nowruz (the Persian New Year), the blessed month of Ramadan, and the tree-planting season.
In Isfahan, camping groups and tree-planting teams have successfully reforested 1,700 hectares of land, combating desertification. Nearly 100 kilograms of special seeds, specifically designed for desert and arid areas, were planted by the members over several stages. With favorable rainfall, these deserts will hopefully transform into more fertile landscapes.
This is one of the significant initiatives undertaken by Congress 60. The organization has meticulously planned these activities and aims to expand such efforts to other regions. We need to shift more of our tree-planting efforts toward desertification control. It is a commendable endeavor by Congress 60, and similar projects have already been successfully carried out in many areas.
We have both the blessed month of Ramadan and Nowruz approaching. Nowruz brings a two-week holiday.
I should also mention that there will be no Physicians’ Legion meeting at Taleghani Park this week.
The important topic we have before us is the blessed month of Ramadan. Now, why does Congress 60 place such great importance on Ramadan? The reason is that we believe Congress 60 originated during the month of Ramadan, and the DST method was modeled according to this blessed month.
He says, "This carpet is not good." And then the response is, "Do you even know anything about carpets? Do you know what a carpet is? Do you know what a wate is? don’t want to look at it from that perspective, but I consider the Qur'an as a book. Have I studied it? Just saying, "I don’t accept it" is not enough. Some people say, "These were written by Salman the Persian, or copied from such and such a book, or copied from one another." You, who are educated now, with a bachelor's or even a doctorate—why don’t you try writing a book based on others’ work and publish it? Let 50 people follow you and accept you, it’s not that difficult!
When someone wrote a book 5,000 years ago, like Zoroaster with his Avesta, and it is still being embraced by many today, it wasn’t written casually. Or consider Moses or even Jesus, whose teachings, spoken over 2,000 years ago, still have two billion followers today. What is it about that Book that still draws two billion followers? Or the Prophet Muhammad, who has one and a half billion followers, and his book remains the most printed book in the world. So, the content of these books must be something significant. We can’t just say it was all arbitrary.
I’m not trying to prove anything from a religious standpoint right now; I want to focus on the month of Ramadan. When it’s mentioned here, there’s a sense of purpose. We don’t really know how to eat properly, there are many things we don’t understand. I don’t want to view prayer as just a religious act, because it’s not my area of expertise, nor do I want to look at it with a sense of sanctity.
What I do know is that those who pray—whether they are Sunnis who pray five times a day, or Shia Muslims who pray three times—wash their faces, wash their hands, and follow proper hygiene practices. They do all of this before sunrise when they get up to pray. Throughout the day, they bow down and rise back up, sitting and standing 17 times. Whether they’re reciting poetry or anything else, I don’t care. But when you see someone who’s 80 or 90 years old, they sit and stand like a spinning top, moving up and down with ease. Meanwhile, you see someone else who’s only 50, struggling to get off the ground, unable to rise once they’ve sat down.
It’s nearly impossible to find someone who prays regularly and weighs 160 kilograms. I don’t think that’s something you would come across. There’s something deeper at play here, and I’m not talking about their religious practices at all.
Let’s talk about eating—most of us don’t really know how to eat properly. They say, when you eat, look at your food. We just don’t know how to eat right. All the obesity that’s become so widespread around the world has already been proven to be a result of not knowing how to eat properly. Our bodies are made up of about 38 trillion cells, and each cell has many structures, like a city. Each one even has a mitochondrion, which acts as the powerhouse of the cell. 38 trillion! You can’t even imagine how many that is! If you take 5,000 and multiply it, how much do you get?
Now, if you imagine buses lined up from here to Karaj, which is about 40 kilometers away, with 2,000 buses standing in a row, how many people would that fit? Let me do the math: Let’s assume each bus is 20 meters long. In each kilometer, if there are 50 buses (since 1,000 meters divided by 20 meters equals 50), each bus fits about 40 people. So, in one kilometer, 50 buses would carry 1,000 people. If you do this for 40 kilometers, you’ll have 40,000 or 50,000 people—imagine that many people packed into buses, one after the other.
If you actually calculate this, you’ll see how huge the numbers get!
I want to emphasize how important numbers are! When I say 38 trillion cells, it’s impossible to even grasp. If you were to count from one to a billion, it would take you around 31 to 33 years! It’s not that difficult—just sit down and calculate it. If you count each number in one second, even more than a second for larger numbers, the time adds up. But if you take each number as one second, and then consider how many hours, minutes, and seconds are in a day, and then divide a billion by the number of days in a year, you'll see that it ends up being close to 30 years!
It would take us over 30 years to count from one to a billion! Now, consider how many cells our body has—38 trillion! Look at the incredible complexity inside us. These cells have built our entire structure, and yet, with all the science and knowledge we have, we still want to whip this body into shape with sheer force. We still don’t know how to repair this body, let alone create it. We don’t know how to handle every disease that comes our way—cancer has no cure, MS has no cure, Alzheimer's has no cure, Parkinson’s has no cure. Whatever disease we talk about, we say it has no cure, because we simply don’t know. We don’t have the understanding.
We try to treat obesity by cutting open the stomach, removing fat, shrinking the intestines, or even enlarging the stomach. We perform surgeries like these and end up causing a disaster. Why? Because we don’t know how to eat properly.
Obesity is just the body storing fat. Why does the body store fat? To prepare for the worst, it fears that it may go hungry in the future. So, even if it eats something as light as puffed snacks, it immediately converts it into fat. But if the body is consistently fed, it doesn’t need to store it. In Congress 60, we teach people how to eat properly according to a plan. If they follow that plan, they can lose weight if they’re overweight or gain weight if they’re underweight. Essentially, these 38 trillion cells—each one like a small city—manage and regulate their own systems.
The treatment methods we’re testing on rats—what are we really doing? It’s all just a protocol. We provide the body with certain conditions, and the body then changes itself. DST was the same. Using my medicine, especially during Ramadan, taught me discipline. There was one dosage at dawn, and another at sunset, at specific times. Throughout the day, I also took my medicine in an edible form, which helped me learn discipline. And from that Ramadan routine, I reached my results.
We also provided a CD called 'Autophagy,' which was discovered by Japanese scientists. They found that when the body goes without food for more than 12 hours, it begins to break down and consume any waste, damaged cells, and imperfections inside it. It's like when you need copper, you melt a copper ingot and use it for whatever you need. But if you don’t have an ingot and you need copper, you start gathering old copper items like worn-out basins or cups and melt them down. The body works similarly. For example, the body stores fat and carbohydrates, but it doesn’t store protein. If you need protein, it has to be provided to the body directly—it can't store it.
So, the methods that people use to lose weight by not eating, their bodies don't get the protein they need. When protein isn’t available, the body starts breaking down muscles for energy. Why? Because, for instance, think about the stomach. The cells lining the stomach, the epithelial cells, change every 5 minutes due to the acid. They get destroyed and are replaced every 5 minutes. Other parts of the body might change once a day or even every hour. For example, the heart, which is a muscle, needs protein to pump blood effectively. So, the heart needs protein, the stomach needs protein, the kidneys need protein, and the bladder needs protein, because all of them are in a constant state of rebuilding. The skin also needs protein, as it's always regenerating. When there's a shortage of protein, the body starts taking protein from places like the face to use it elsewhere.
Now, some parts of the body have accumulated incomplete, unusable materials, which pile up and cause various kinds of diseases. When the body needs something, it takes these stored materials and burns them. So fasting isn't just a religious act—though it has value—it's not just a ritual. It’s something completely scientific. Why? For health, for increasing lifespan.
Sometimes we fast, and when we do, we act like we're entitled to something! We say, 'I'm fasting.' We even demand from God, 'Don’t you see I’m fasting!' But fasting is really nothing. It’s just one meal that’s missed for those who fast properly. They eat in the early morning as a substitute for breakfast, and they eat again for Iftar. Only the midday meal is missed. Some people, though, eat in the morning, Iftar, and dinner, eating three times more than usual. They eat whatever comes their way—sweets, snacks, dates, biryani, kebabs—like they are always at parties, just eating and eating.
So, fasting is for our health, and it’s written in the Book: 'Fasting has been prescribed for you.' It’s for our well-being. Whatever is written in the Book as a religious obligation is for our own health. Let’s set aside the religious aspect. But we all think that if we fast, we go to heaven, or we gain reward. Doing this brings reward, doing that brings reward—these are true in their place, but in the end, it all comes back to us.
So, let’s sit down and look at what’s written in this Book from 1400 years ago. You, who mock it—can you go a day without eating? You, who mock it—can you quit smoking?
In Congress 60, we usually prepare the Iftar together. It’s really a gathering, a small celebration. Everyone comes together—one brings rice, another contributes money, someone else cooks the food, and there’s coordination. When people eat together, they become closer to each other, and eating together creates affection. In the past, they would spread out a table and eat together, which was very enjoyable. But now, no. One eats at 7 PM, another at 6 PM, and someone else at 9 PM, and the concept of a shared meal is almost gone. Yet, during Ramadan, families still come together. They eat together for Dawn and Iftar
So, it's for our longevity. It's for the improvement of kidney function. It's for the improvement of bladder health. It's for the improvement of liver function. Do a study comparing those who fast and those who don’t, and see what the differences are in terms of health.
We’ve already tested DST with cold turkey. We observed how those on DST are doing compared to those on cold turkey. We conducted this experiment on rats. Now, if we do this experiment too, I’m sure we will achieve very remarkable results.
In Congress 60, some people fast partially, and I’m not concerned with those who fast in the standard way—they can fast according to their standard. What I’m concerned with are those who don’t fast, especially because of the First Journey program. We have 17,000 to 18,000 people following the First Journey program. They may try to do certain things. They might say: 'We’re having three doses a day, two cc in the morning, two cc at noon, two cc at night, but we won’t eat at noon and instead we’ll have three in the morning and three at night.' They do this for a while, and then they mess everything up. They completely disrupt the protocol and the program, and then their journey fails.
It’s written in the Book as well: you should fast, but if you’re ill, don’t fast; if you’re traveling, don’t fast. Everything is clearly specified. For those in the First Journey, OT medicine is considered actual medicine. We even consulted scholars and experts, and they confirmed that for those who are ill and need to take medicine, there’s no problem with that—especially for those who are in recovery. That’s why, in Congress 60, First Journey travelers fast, but they must take their OT dose right on time at noon. They can’t say, 'I won’t take it,' because that would completely ruin their journey.
It’s entirely up to them if they want to fast, but I recommend that they do because it helps with self-purification. At some point, they have to say 'no' to themselves, and that helps. They can take their OT dose at dawn, at Iftar, or at the usual time according to their schedule.
If someone smokes—whether it’s two packs a day or just five cigarettes—that’s fine. Don’t say, 'I won’t fast because I smoke.' Go ahead and smoke, but instead of 40 cigarettes, cut it down to four or five.
Some say, 'I have kidney issues, so I won’t fast because my kidneys need water.' Fine, fast and drink your water. You don’t need to eat an entire plate of kebab, Qormeh sabzi, melon, and watermelon. Just drink your water. At least do something. It’s all about supporting the structure of our body.
So, the conclusion is that those who can fast completely should do so—great. For those who can’t, they can fast partially: 20%, 30%, whatever they can manage.
If you’re in the first stage of your journey and still smoke, that’s fine—go ahead and smoke. But let me ask you: when you come to Congress 60, and there’s just one hour left until Iftar, can you go that one hour without smoking? If you arrive two hours before Iftar, can you avoid smoking for those two hours?
What about water? If you’re at Congress 60 an hour before Iftar, can you go without drinking water for that one hour? Can you refrain from eating for that hour? You don’t need to fast for 14 or 15 hours straight—just try for one hour.
These are all exercises for us
DST is a form of fasting—it is fasting. During Ramadan, you eat at dawn and then again at sunset. With DST, you eat every eight hours: at 6 a.m., then at 2 p.m., and again at 10 p.m. In fact, DST might even be harder than regular fasting because it’s essentially fasting from substances.
Why is it harder? Because during Ramadan, you can eat whatever you want at dawn. But with DST, you can’t consume as much OT as you like. It specifically says: 0.4 cc, 0.5 cc, or 1 cc—no more, no less. The quantity is strictly defined.
So, the DST method itself is a kind of fasting.
Following the Jones Legion or weight loss itself is a form of fasting. It says: eat your breakfast this way, avoid snacks throughout the day as much as possible, and have a proper, complete meal—include salad too. So, it’s a kind of discipline. And that’s exactly what we practice in Congress 60.
In Congress 60, whatever we’ve done has always been beneficial for us. Ramadan has never caused us any harm.
There was once a man who used to steal people’s sheep and then donate the meat to the poor as charity. When asked why he did that, he said: 'Stealing the sheep counts as a sin, donating the meat to the poor counts as a good deed, and in between, I get to keep the head, trotters, and intestines for myself!
In Ramadan, you fast, we provide meals, offer Iftar, and in the end, some funds remain for Congress 60. The amount left over nationwide reaches the billions. I remember last year, the academy had 200 million tomans left, another branch had 400 million, and so on. We raised money, bought supplies, held Iftar gatherings, and still had some surplus.
There are two things you shouldn’t do during Ramadan:
First, don’t be stingy with the food—don’t always go for the cheapest options like serving porridge every time.
Second, don’t go overboard by serving only luxurious and fancy dishes to compete with others. Serve good quality meals, but keep it balanced. It’s not a competition.
If you’re bringing food for Congress 60, bring the best quality. If you’re donating in the path of God, give the best you have—don’t bring spoiled, infested, or broken rice.
So, this is how it works: for raising funds for Ramadan, one of the guides will sit down each day to manage it. This year, Ramadan overlaps with Nowruz holidays, so we only have 17 or 18 days, but that’s still good. Hopefully, next year we’ll have the full month.
Those who bring food and those who donate cash contribute to a designated account in each branch. The agents and border guards handle the collection according to proper accounting procedures. After Ramadan ends, the remaining funds are transferred to the Congress60’s land account.
Hopefully, together we’ll have a great Ramadan, even if it’s shorter this year. I encourage you to try fasting, even for one day. You’ll see how delightful it feels to have a cup of tea at Iftar. Right now, you might drink tea without a second thought, but when you break your fast with tea, a piece of zoolbia (a kind of sweet made especially in Ramadhan), or a date, it’s truly enjoyable.
Thank you for listening to me.
Typed by: Companion Parisa
Translated by: Companion Marjan
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2/20/2025
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