Fasting and Your Mind offers an interdisciplinary look at voluntary food deprivation, both as a modern therapeutic practice and a traditional sacred ritual. It convincingly argues that, by fasting, we can exchange our cravings and trivial desires for a new thought process that conforms willingly to elevated mindfulness.
Part spiritual journey, part curative manual, this comprehensive narrative is also a systematic study of an ancient protocol for managing desires, consumption, and for enhancing self-restraint.
Scriptures and several thousand years of religious practice by a wide variety of sacred traditions have established that voluntarily depriving ourselves can be an effective means of heightening spiritual awareness. Fasting and withdrawing from worldly pursuits remain common elements of the scriptures of Hindus, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims, all recommending fasting as a religious practice.
Food deprivation has also enjoyed widespread approval among health advocates and nutritional gurus. The benefits of fasting, including weight loss, reduced levels of blood sugar, cholesterol and inflammation, have been consistently documented. Moreover, research indicates that fasting and calorie restriction have salutary effects on the aging process and improve cellular repair.
In addition, the physiological and psychological responses we experience during a complete fast, including the adjustment to ketones instead of glucose nutrition, have long-term beneficial effects on brain function, improving emotional health as well as physical well-being. They also enhance the production of enzymes involved in liver activity, thereby, promoting detoxification.
These physical and sacrosanct benefits of food deprivation offer rational and principled commentary on a timeless practice for nurturing our inner spirit. Fasting thus stands at the crossroads of the psychological and the noetic, of spirituality and neurology.
We are living at a time when most people feel that so-called consciousness must not only include scientific accuracy but must also provide spiritual nutrition. Science and religion do not often see existence as dealing with the same concerns. However as we better understand their respective realms, we begin to recognize common issues and viewpoints.
The quality of our life depends on the quality of our thoughts. In a fasting mode, our mind becomes introspective, opening to a unique frequency, to a different way of listening and understanding. The denial of desires prepares the way for a clearer perception of the sacred.
Fasting, thus, deepens the solemnity of our thoughts, inspiring and carrying us into a closer relationship with the Divine, and providing an extraordinarily satisfying encounter with the subconscious.
