Remembering the soul of fasting

We are in the month of fasting. Many would have fasted during the recent Maha Shivaratri.

Many will be fasting during Lent and Ramadan , both of which are currently going on. We are so focussed on fasting as nothing but self-denial from food and drink that we forget the larger purpose of why we fast, a classic case of in-attentional blindness—a psychological phenomenon where an individual fails to perceive an unexpected, fully visible object or event in plain sight because their attention is intensely focused on another task.

Fasting during Shivaratri is to increase the power of your prayers, of concentration, of meditation. We stay awake in the night and fast the entire night and day. We are carrying forward the tradition of Goddess Parvati who held the throat of Lord Shiva to prevent the poison from spreading in Lord Shiva’s body.

Lent commemorates fasting over 40 days when the devout imitate Jesus Christ who spent fasting in the desert before entering public ministry. These are the days leading to Easter which celebrates the Resurrection of Christ. It is a time of penance and prayer.

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar; it is believed that the Quran was revealed to Prophet Muhammed during this month. Fasting is one of the pillars of Islam when the pious abstain from food from dawn to dusk. It is a period of contemplation.

In all cases, fasting is considered as time of prayer, of heightened spirituality, of becoming God-conscious, of piety, of building patience.

It is a reminder of the condition of the poor and needy. It is a period of letting go—our physical need for food, our ego and to surrender to the Almighty. It helps one appreciate God’s infinite blessings better.

When you eat food or drink water after you have denied yourself over a period, it makes you grateful. It purifies you spiritually—and as medical science tells us, it also makes you healthy as it releases toxins.

Fasting should make us better persons-humble, helpful, empathetic especially after a period of introspection and meditation.

Each of us need to ask ourselves if after our period of fasting we have indeed become better persons, or were we so obsessed with the performance, the act of fasting, that we forgot the larger purpose of such fasting. And we cannot even call this inattentional blindness – this would be a case of, plain and simple, blindness.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)