header pic header text

Volume VIII - The Art of Being

Health and Order of Body and Mind

Chapter XIII
A Question about Fasting

Question: Do you advocate a long fast from 30 till 90 days in order to purify the body for spiritual attainment?

Answer: I am not an advocate of asceticism, but at the same time, I see the good work that many ascetics have done and I do not wish to depreciate it.

Coming to the question of fasting, I think that fasting is one of the ways by which the denseness of the body can be diminished. And when one knows the right way of fasting, when one is under the direction of someone who really knows when a person should fast, and why and how he should do so, and how he could gain the benefit of his fasting, then great benefit can be obtained by it. Surgeons keep a person without food for so many hours or days knowing that it will help them heal quicker. In the same way spiritual teachers may prescribe a fast to their pupils: sometimes being without cereals, sometimes without eating meat, sometimes without bread, sometimes living on milk, on fruits, and sometimes, for a certain limit of time, without anything. They see the capacity of the pupil: what he can endure and how he can be benefited by a particular fast.

But, to tell the truth, I am the last person to prescribe fasting. I only give some advice if persons themselves wish to fast, for I know a story of a disciple who went to a teacher and was told, 'In order to begin the practices you must start with a three days fast.' One day he felt so hungry that he ran away from the city in order never to see the teacher again.

There is always a meaning if a teacher prescribes a fast; he has a reason for it. There is an amusing story of a great Sufi who lived in Bagdad; there are many stories of his wonderful achievements. He had told a young pupil of his to live on a vegetarian diet. The mother of this young man, having heard that since the boy went to the teacher he had grown pale and thin, came to give the teacher a little talking to. He was at table when she came and there was a chicken dish on the table. So the mother said, 'You are teaching your pupils to live on a vegetarian diet, and you yourself are enjoying chicken!' The teacher opened the dish and the chicken flew away. The teacher said, 'The day your son can do this too, he can also eat chicken.'

 

checked 16-nov-2015