Fasting ( For Beatrix Kiddo)

On Saturday a friend asked me to write an article on Fasting because the fasting month is about 2 weeks away. I was away from home and busy giving a seminar but the minute I got back, I wrote furiously and the result is the article below. Of course having written so hastily , the article left much to be desired and I realise that I had not even touched on the spiritual aspects of fasting.

If you wanted to have a complete idea about fasting you can read my article here

The Muslim Fast

This article is a complete guide to successful fasting.

Quoting from my teacher

The essential spiritual task of Ramadan is saum. Saum is an Arabic word meaning “to be at rest.” Life is natural and rhythmic when activity and repose are mutually balanced. Tragically in our postindustrial world repose in the true sense of the word has become a lost art. The annual observance of saum during Ramadan is an occasion to revive this important human capacity.

This being at rest actually does not really mean we actually stop working and just lie back. Actually we work as usual and I have a full working day but we do not eat or drink. I know you may be thinking "wow that sounds unhealthy". Actually unless you have very serious health problems it actually helps most health problems. Even the dehydration was found to have a postive effect. Actually it is not really very long, a half day abstinence lasting about 14 hours.

I did say I wanted to focus on the spiritual aspect so here goes:
Actually for most people who fast , there is hardly any spritual aspect. They just get awfully hungry and thirsty in the daytime and at sundown they gorge themselves full of food and then desperately chew on all the munchies for fear of starving to death. Many of them are quite overweight actually....So they have a fear of starvation and fasting but aren't you amazed they do it anyway? It is quite amusing really that Muslims for the most part observe the fast even if they do not say their prayers and do all sorts of against the tenets things.

So when does it get spiritual ?

Let us go through the fast physical mental and then emotional. then moral and then spiritual:

Murshid says:

Physical

The physical saum consists of abstinence from food, drink and sex during the hours of daylight. When the active processes of the digestive and reproductive systems are suspended the body undergoes a catharsis that effectively cleanses and re-sensitizes its subtle channels.

Fasting lets the breath pass through every vein and tube of the body, which is possible only when there is no foreign substance in the body to block the channels. When the breath has touched every particle of the body, the body naturally becomes more sensitive and the pores of the skin open, making the centers transparent, so as to feel, outwardly and inwardly, all that is to be felt.<>

This is not going to happen if the person fasts like what I described earlier!

OK now for the mental aspect. Mind you most people who fast don 't fast the mind!! And fasting the mind is good practise to get spiritual.

The mental saum consists of abstinence from cognitive habits that deceptively objectivize subjective experience. True objectivity is intersubjective and universal. When the inner and outer senses are re-consecrated and oriented toward the unity of being, the hard edges of duality soften and the mind becomes deep and still.

To achieve this state the seeker gives up untruths and half-truths, gratuitous argumentation, gossip, and all manner of excess verbiage—uttered or unuttered.

I have verily vowed a fast to the Most Merciful and cannot speak to anyone this day.
—Qur’an 19.26

So how does one do the above? For one thing it sounds really difficult right? Here is one way. Everytime you open your mouth to say something , before you say it ask: It what I am about to say true? Am I sure it is true ? How sure am I? Ok if you keep getting a positive answer to these questions go ahead and say it otherwise keep silent. I think that will do for a start.


So on the emotional aspect , quoting again my teacher who quotes other sources:

The emotional saum consists of abstinence from reactive, fear-based strategies of repression and compensation that diminish and beguile the heart. Liberated from the defenses and substitutions to which it has unnaturally adapted, the heart reposes in the clear perception of its true desire: the Immortal Beloved.
--Pir Zia

Make your bellies hungry and your livers thirsty and your bodies naked, that perchance your hearts may see God in this world.
—Hadith

My heart attains self-sufficiency by eating its own flesh and drinking its own blood
---Hazrat Inayat Khan)

And again you may wonder, how does one do the above? Steven Covey says , we are not our emotions. It is true , emotions are like ripples on the surface of the pond and the depth of the pond remains calm . Understanding this we observe the surface ripples from our depths ..and how do you getto the depth?...that is a loooong story.

And we also have the Moral aspect and after this the spiritual aspect which means this post is not complete yet.......