Fasting Revisited

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donovan

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There were a couple of threads recently about fasting. For anyone interested there is a segment on the radio program "This American Life" where a reporter undergoes a twenty day fast. It is located at http://www.thislife.org/ and is episode 259 broadcast 2/20/04. It is about 20 minutes into the show if you don't want to wait through the first story. "This American Life" is found on many NPR stations and is a good listen.

A couple of quick caveats concerning the show. This guy is a journalist who picked a fasting program off of the Intenet. Enemas are not necessarily required. :D And secondly, because Jesus and Buddha and Gandhi fasted he skewed his expectations for results somewhat towards the extreme, but I think it is a fair report and includes interviews with Doctors and other fasters. If you are so inclined, check it out.

Jack
 
Since it is ramadhan (ie fasting month) for muslims, i have also started fasting. A word of advice. NEVER GO GROCERY SHOPPING WHILST FASTING. I did and ended up with 5 different types of choc. chip cookies. I also went to Krispy Kreme last week on the second day of the fast and ended up buying a couple dozen donuts.

I think fasting is great as long as you know how to do it properly. I don't do it properly 'cos i stuff myself when i break my fast. However, i think i'm gonna have healthier meals and not really eat too much that i get heartburn.
 
Hi All-

I've been tempted to conduct a three-day fast in order to "rinse" the system of internal poisons and other general nastiness. It sure couldn't hurt and would probably be a beneficial experience in the event one subsequently found himself/herself in a mandatory fast. I personally would do it with diluted fruit juice and vitamin supplements.

~ Blue Jays ~
 
Point44,
I could have told you that before--think what that would have done for Jewish-Muslim relations!

Our day of Atonement is coming up--26 hr. fast. I don't care about the food-or even the whisky-- but 26 hrs w/o coffee!!!! Oh dread!

Have a safe Ramadan- and don't overindulge--at night, nor on Id-al Fitr.
 
I've never understood why Ramadhan is considered a fast. As I understand it, you only refrain from eating during daylight hours. Here in Portland, Oregon, that's maybe ten or twelve hours a day... maybe. It's a half-time fast at best. You get to eat every day, just not during the daylight hours. Many of us have dinner around six in the evening normally and then don't eat much if anything until breakfast at six the next morning. That's twelve hours and yet we don't consider it a "fast." I often get so busy I don't eat much if anything during the day anyway -- and, yeah, you're hungry for dinner, but I hardly consider it much of a "fast." In fact, I often get my best work done this way.

At least if you're Christian and you give up something for Lent, you do without that thing for six out of every seven days over a course of almost seven weeks.

I heard the story on This American Life. Very interesting.
 
You not only refrain from eating but drinking smoking and sexual thoughts. Don't know bout you but just the last would be almost impossible for me :D
 
Gollnick said:
I've never understood why Ramadhan is considered a fast. As I understand it, you only refrain from eating during daylight hours.
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Islam originated in Saudi Arabia and you can bet the daylight hours are longer over there. And when it was originally conceived as a religion by their Prophet Muhammed, it was in the desert where each hour without food and water, and no air conditioning, let you know you're fasting.

Although some of their intellectuals will tell you the physical benefits of Ramadan fasting, the act itself goes well beyond that. The big thing with Muslims is the feeling of community that everybody is practicing the same thing. In many of those countries that's predominantly Muslim, notably Saudi Arabia, you'd better not be munching on something in public during the daylight hours or you'll get the beatdown.

For Muslims, it's more than purifying the system. It's one of their five pillars of Islam -- meaning it's mandatory, whether you like it or not. And community pressure of the Ummah doesn't allow you to disrespect their practice during this month unless you munch away in hiding.
 
There are a couple other aspects to fasting for Ramadan, Chuck, that should be taken into consideration. I'm not a Muslim so I apologize if I misrepresent anything here. I have fasted for Ramadam as a spiritual discipline four or five times. First off, Islamic fasting includes liquids. I just checked the five day forecast for Riyadh and they are hovering at 100 degrees each day. Day length is just under 12 hours. I found fluid restriction to be a challenge here in Texas. I can only imagine it in the Middle East. Secondly, my understanding of one of the purposes of the Ramadan fast is to act as a reminder of our vulnerability as humans without the mercy of God in our lives. A day in the desert without water is a powerful reminder. And lastly, the evening breaking of the fast is meant to be a time for gratitude and family togetherness. Combined with the prayer cycle and reading of the Koran every 24 hour period during Ramadan is designed to help keep the mind focused on God. True, it is not a fast in the sense of extended periods of time, but if you eat moderately the effect is definitely heightened throughout the month.

Again, these are the ruminations of a good ol' boy from Texas. :D I apologize if I have said anything inaccurate.

Jack
 
I used to do a 3 day fast once a month in my 20's (never did any enemas though, lol), but I've gotten out of practice in my 30's...I did do a 5 day fast 2 months ago and it felt really good...I like to do it to remind myself that food isn't everything...sometimes I forget that ;)

an important thing to do is to ease yourself in and out of the longer fast, start and break your fast with a day of juice and vegetable soup broth...
 
Fasting to me = being broke. No Thanks.
Actually I can see where it would be good for the body from time to time.
I heard the TAL story last weekend & it was intriguing.
 
shaldag said:
Point44,
I could have told you that before--think what that would have done for Jewish-Muslim relations!

Our day of Atonement is coming up--26 hr. fast. I don't care about the food-or even the whisky-- but 26 hrs w/o coffee!!!! Oh dread!

Have a safe Ramadan- and don't overindulge--at night, nor on Id-al Fitr.
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Thank you for the well wishes. I wish the same to you for your day of atonement. I am not sure i can take a 26 hour fast. Without food probably but not without water. I'd probably get through but will be on the verge of a headache by then i guess.

Gollnick.
The fasting in ramadhan is not about seeing who can go without food or drink the longest. It is not just about cleansing the system of toxins. It's a pillar of islam. So it's an act of piousness. It's an opportunity to train the mind and body to refrain from bad deeds. It creates family and community spirit. Also serves as a reminder of the less fortunate and hungry people in the world.

Yeah most of you can skip lunch during work. But that's probably out of laziness to eat or just because you're too busy. BUT...you have a choice. You don't feel like eating. Don't eat. In ramadhan you make a conscious effort to refrain yourself from eating, drinking, sex and whatever else that you're not supposed to do. There is a diffrence here. The fasting in ramadhan is not really for the health of the body but for the soul.

No food, no water, no sex and basically don't do anything bad. The punishment for having sex during the fasting period is severe. I think it is a consecutive 60 day fast on other days of the year. This means if you go 58 days fasting and miss a day then you start all over again.
 
What I found in my years of travels is that Muslims are more intense in their ways and especially with regards to Ramadan. This goes from the complete illiterate to the college grads. It's how they are raised in their beliefs and practices, and that carries over to straight community and peer pressure.

I have lived many years in Muslim communities and families and see how that indoctrination works. Children at a very early age are prepared for fasting albeit at easier levels initially. As adults, the pressure is intense. Even if you are a non-believer (Al Kafirun), you want to fast too out of respect for the community of course, but even if you are inclined to munch in the daytime, the community pressure on you makes you feel guilty. Also, there are very religious guys (Mutawah) who in some places can get you arrested if you're an adult munching in public.

The act of fasting annually is built into their system so even when they immigrate to the West, they keep it up. It's amazing as I've seen even the most wayward guys who drink, party and do a lot of non-Islamic things, make the effort for fasting or at least give the appearance of it. Those guys are a lot more steadfast and intense than a lot of Westerners.
 
In the Baha'i faith we fast from march 2-21st from sunrise to sunset. it is meant to be a time of spiritual clensing and recuperation, like ramadan. we abstain from food or drink for daylight hours. Women who are nursing or pregnant, the aged, the sick, the traveler, those engaged in heavy labor, as well as children under the age of fifteen, are exempt from observance of the Fast.

From- Shoghi Effendi, Directives of the Guardian (New Delhi: Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1973):

"The fasting period, which lasts nineteen days starting as a rule from the second of March every year and ending on the twentieth of the same month, involves complete abstention from food and drink from sunrise till sunset. It is essentially a period of meditation and prayer, of spiritual recuperation, during which the believer must strive to make the necessary readjustments in his inner life, and to refresh and reinvigorate the spiritual forces latent in his soul. Its significance and purpose are, therefore, fundamentally spiritual in character. Fasting is symbolic, and a reminder of abstinence from selfish and carnal desires."
 
losangeles said:
I have lived many years in Muslim communities and families and see how that indoctrination works. Children at a very early age are prepared for fasting albeit at easier levels initially. As adults, the pressure is intense. Even if you are a non-believer (Al Kafirun), you want to fast too out of respect for the community of course, but even if you are inclined to munch in the daytime, the community pressure on you makes you feel guilty. Also, there are very religious guys (Mutawah) who in some places can get you arrested if you're an adult munching in public.
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This is probably true for most arab countries but in Malaysia, non-muslims can eat when and whatever they like. Although most of them will be more mindful when muslims are around as they sometimes believe that they would offend us muslims. This is not the case. I have no problems with anyone else eating in front of me.

But muslims do get arrested for eating in public during fasting month. The funny thing is they are carted off in a hearse sort of vehicle. It's a van usually used for transporting bodies. Another thing is when they are arrested they have to carry their plates with them in the van to wherever they're gonna be charged. It's hilarious when you see these people in the newspapers. Plate in hand with all the food and in the body van.
 
Thanks for sharing that. I can see how humiliating it would be to have a plate of the food, and if one's in the newspapers to boot -- everybody seeing you. That dude has to feel like a real dumbazz.

You're right, it's in the Arab countries that I travelled mostly. I had a chance to be with the serious Muslims, and in one level, I respect their intensity. I'm not talking about the good-time guys who party and drink and go to places (like Bangkok) to "when in Rome do like the Romans", but the super religious guys who keep people in line, and they keep their own selves in line too. It's good to see some people really believe in something, stand their ground and willing to die unconditionally for what they believe.

Back in the day, some of them (talking about young engineers) paid their own way to Afghanistan for a month holiday -- paid some contributions to Afghan cause, took training in the desert in certain camps and got a chance to shoot at Russians. Then they'd go back home and tell stories in the office. But they believed deeply in protecting the Umma globally from all intrusions.
 
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