Just on the level of physiology, fasting seems to be a fairly powerful tool to achieve both precise and general health and consciousness goals.
If one shuts down the clockworks of food processing, immediately we have the following: 1. A gross "resting of the body's alimentary processes" that allows for various catchings-up and tissue repairings that the alimentary canal may need but cannot always do very well when food is constantly passing along it and bathing the tissues with renewed "attacks" of harsh chemicals that irritate them. 2. The blood's "food chemicals" dramatically lessen such that the blood can be said to become "purer or less burdened with a lot of raw material, e.g. nutritional cargo transported by the blood's flowing." Those organs that have to put out chemicals like insulin, bile, etc. get a vacation too. 3. The mind is less likely to be stimulated by chemicals that are byproducts of metabolism that are in the blood stream and somewhat toxic and headed for the liver/spleen/kidney cleaners, but until they are handled thereby, they are, as if, beclouding the blood with a fog of literally thousands of compounds -- some of which are serious challenges to the body's wherewithal to endure them -- meaning that if the blood's toxicity is too high, many chemicals are likely to be but partially processed and these bits and pieces can glom up here and there in the circulatory system. Lactic acid can build up, for instance, and it's a hefty toxin, but, if given rest, the body can take the lactic acid and recombine it into glucose and use it fully once oxygen is plentiful again. But until it does, lactic acid can be a strong negativity. (A ham sandwich takes 1500 metabolic steps to be "digested.") 4. The breath naturally lessens since oxygen is not needed as much. The body has a "let's think less thoughts" functionality that kicks in when the blood isn't delivering the building blocks for ATP production. The "energy" one normally has to indulge in any sort of focus is lessened, and thus the emotions' have their tipping points desensitized, and the mind is far less triggerable, and floods of ideation become trickles instead. Any mantra passing through such a mind has far fewer contenders for the spotlight of attention. 5. The psychology of the mind gains esteem points such that one feels like one is accomplishing something real that has spiritual implications. The sensations of fasting fatigue are, as if, a relentless droning that indicates one is doing tapas and something good is happening. A will-power mountain is being climbed and the psyche feels empowered to attempt such heights of operational control over very human and urgent needs. 6. Socially, the person is creating an example for those nearest to his life. A host of triggerings in the minds of others necessarily occurs since fasting is so obviously "unnatural" that philosophically speaking, society finds itself churning about a faster's modeling. Anytime you can get society to look within for axioms, dogma, rationalizations, just the turning of the mind inward can be a dramatic act of spirituality for some persons. 7. Spiritually, the mind is less likely to be entertaining the outer world's qualities as they pour into the mind via the senses. The sensations of tapas keeps the mind dwelling on the intent-to-fast, and this perforce has the person handling some of the most subtle energetic processes lest they trigger a landslide down a slippery slope that ends in one's swan diving into a giant sized bag of potato chips. The intellect is pronging constantly with "let's eat now," urgings that must be seen for what they are -- thoughts only, not guns held to one's head. To resist this stream of desires, the mind must transcend the intellect's ability to come up with an excuse to eat by countering such notions by attending to the subtler still emotions that empower the intent to fast. This is spiritual practice of considerable potency. I've fasted a lot -- in my youth. Did 48 days on fruit juice. Two weeks on water only. Months on fruit only. And all the above speculations seem valid to me. YMMV. Edg --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <noozg...@...> wrote: > > Mike Dixon wrote: > > Actually , I , as well as others have been on rounding courses in which M's > > instructions were to "not come out of your room for a couple or three days > > and just meditate. If you become hungry, have some bite of the apple." On > > my six month course we fasted on grapes or other fruit if you liked, for > > about three days each month. While in India, I learned that a fruit and > > milk diet was considered very purifying and satvic and raised the quality > > of ones experiences very quickly. Shantinand and many great yogis would > > fast on fruit and some on fruit and milk for days and weeks at a time. > > > > But these tapas are not necessary to achieve samadhi. But they are > something that people on the right hand path might do. >
