Fasting

Fasting blinds the body in order to open the eyes of your soul.
Rumi

The light of the world will illuminate within you when you fast and purify yourself.
Mohandas Gandhi

Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goals, if he is able to think, if he is able to wait, if he is able to fast.
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Good health is not something we can buy. However, it can be an extremely valuable savings account.
Anne Wilson Schaef

In the Christian calendar, the forty-day period before Easter is called `Lent´. The Germans use the word `Fastenzeit´, which means `the time to fast´.

Fasting has a long tradition in most cultures around the world. People have sought closer contact to their respective gods by abstaining from or cutting down on the amount of food they consume, especially in the time around the vernal equinox, when, in the northern hemisphere,  we emerge from the long dark days of winter.

Ramadan is one of the best-known examples of such traditions. In the Islamic calendar it is the month of fasting, prayer, giving, and self-evaluation. Observed by Muslims all over the world, it lasts 29-30 days depending on the sightings of the crescent moon. During this period, believers abstain from taking food or drink between sunrise and sunset.

Most Christians are familiar with the description of the tempting of Christ in the desert, as related in Matthew 4: Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, `If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.´

The first temptation is to misuse power. Maybe we could say it’s a temptation to stand out in the crowd; to be spectacular, special, important, or showy. When we’re young, we all want that. We want people to notice us. We want to be something special and to do something special, but Jesus refuses to play the game.

Then a second temptation: `The devil took him to the Holy City and made him stand on the very pinnacle of the Temple´ (Matthew 4:5) and tells Jesus to throw himself down. The second great temptation is to misuse religion by playing games with God. Jesus defers. What’s on offer here is transactional religion as opposed to transformational. But what religion is about is real transformation. Remodelling our mind toward love, diverting our heart toward community, opening our body toward living in the present moment.

The third temptation is the temptation to political power. It’s not inherently wrong. There must be a way we can use power for good. To a certain degree, every coach wields power. But until we’re tested, and until we don’t need it too much, we will almost always misuse it. If we’re not tested in the ways of power, very often we end up worshiping having power in and of itself. Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

My first attempts at fasting began in my mid-twenties. Drawn to fasting, particularly because it has such broad and deep roots in so many cultures, I wanted to gain first hand experience. My studies of Gandhi by this time had also intrigued me, especially how he had successfully used fasting as a form of non-violent resistance and how he practiced it as a vehicle of purification, taking him closer to the God of his understanding.

These early fasts were characterised by the most common mistakes; starting too abruptly and stopping in the same manner. This can lead to complications, sometimes painful. In some rare cases, they have proved even fatal. The first disclaimer, therefore, is never to think, as I had, that the mere willingness to try fasting equals the qualification to do it well.

In the early years, the need for regular enemas was not sufficiently incorporated in my practice. This has now changed, with one carried out every second day through to the breaking of the fast (break-fast). Movement, fresh air, silence, and rest are the other critical components of a successful fast.

Over the years my competence has increased, though it is clear to me today, three days after breaking a ten-day fast, that there is still much to be learned. Next year I will opt for bookending the fast with three days of raw fruit and vegetables. That feels like it might prevent the headache and corresponding discomfort that characterised the first four days this time round, and help me get an even more gentle re-entry into the exploration of food once the fast itself is over.

As I wrote last week, the emotional and spiritual progression of my fast resembled an inverted bell curve. The first days were a real struggle, accompanied as they were by very low energy levels and an underlying constant slight drone of a headache. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, making it impossible to spend any length of time in the fresh air.

In hindsight, I see that all me daemons (Saboteurs) had come out to play, preying upon my existential fears (future) and criticising me for not better preparing my new business venture, which had not been unfolding as my optimism had declared it should have (past).

This is a classic example of a stance of resistance to `what is´, the main source of suffering for all of humankind. Using the tools at my disposal, the resources accumulated over years of addiction recovery, mental fitness, and transformation, I pruned the destructive voices back as best I could, but then realised that this was simply another manifestation of resistance.

On day four or five came the breakthrough. First capitulation: `It is what it is – this is the starting point´, then acceptance. I remembered page 417 of the Big Book of AA states: `Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.´

It was as if I had turned 180 degrees and had decided to go with the flow of the flooded Rhein, along which I was walking at that moment, instead of insisting that it flow uphill, back up into the mountains.

The remaining days of the fast unfolded in ease and comfort. A lightness of body, mind, and soul set in. My sensual perception was sharpened beyond measure. I began to delight in every note of birdsong and every flash of colour, no matter how small, on my daily walks. My body with all its movements and perceptions became an absolute joy. I was swamped with gratitude, especially for the time and space the Universe had granted me for this fasting exercise, and the friends and fellows with whom I cultivate daily contact.

My mental fitness (PQ) practice ratcheted up a gear or two and the present moment became more and more my reality. Dreams were lucid, rest became a familiar friend, and I revelled in the sensation of waking, fully rested and grateful, for the gift of a new day.

Gandhi wrote:  `More caution and perhaps more restraint are necessary in breaking a fast than in keeping it.´ This is the real test. Can we exercise restraint when breaking the fast? I had done grocery shopping on day seven, stocking up fridge and larder with all necessary foodstuffs for the first few days. Could I resist the temptation to dig in too quickly, thereby causing my body to become overloaded?

Yes, it has been successful. Not perfect, yet successful. Breakfast on day one consisted of three figs soaked overnight in water and a pot of my favourite green tea. I have been taking thirty to forty minutes to eat each bowl of salad, consciously enjoying each mouthful. The practice of eating is now a meditation. The challenge is to keep that going, not to fall back into `wolfing down´ my meals. This is my new mental fitness practice.

This year’s fast has been a gift and a learning experience. I hope to apply the lessons learned in the years to come. Just in time for tomorrow’s equinox, my whole being feels purified and renewed, ready and willing to receive and utilise, to the full, the gifts of the unfolding spring.