Fasting without food. Why? Why Not? How? How Long? Does it work?
I grew up reading Amar Chithra Katha comics. Some would question, the growing up part, but then thats for another blog post :-)
For the unfamiliar, these are Indian comics that cover Indian mythology, history, religion, children's tales and much more. And if you know Hindu mythology, there is a lot of stories that involve penance and fasting and meditation going on. Anytime some character in these stories wants to win, beat, get power, develop some skill or wishes for incredible wealth or happiness, he or she goes off into the mountains and fasts or does penance. We are talking of hard penance and long fasting. Months and years as the stories go. They made it sound fantastic, the deity always showed up in the end, and he or she always got her boon. Yup. Don't you love happy endings.
I've always wondered why. Whats the deal with penance, and fasting and meditation. I believe mythological stories are always fantastic exaggerations of some basic facts or lessons. Hinduism has always revered knowledge as power and meditation and self realization and enlightenment as the ultimate knowledge and all paths to it as being sacred. I am guessing these stories aim to interest the young readers in that ultimate goal. To encourage and motivate them to meditate. To develop ones mental faculty, to develop focus, to develop an understand of ones self, attain Self-Realization.
So I hypothesized that fasting had something to do with developing exactly that. Or to put it simply, fasting, may be it helped the brain function or focus better in some way. So I decided I wanted to experience it for myself. But anyone with an understanding of basic biology will know that prolonged starvation is deleterious to your health. So I decided to research the topic on the internet and spoke to a few Doctor friends of mine.
Disclaimer: This was my experiment and plan for my fasting. I am an average healthy person. If you choose to reproduce this experiment, do so at your own risk. Do your own research and consider your health status and consult your own doctors too.
Continued in Part 2
I grew up reading Amar Chithra Katha comics. Some would question, the growing up part, but then thats for another blog post :-)
For the unfamiliar, these are Indian comics that cover Indian mythology, history, religion, children's tales and much more. And if you know Hindu mythology, there is a lot of stories that involve penance and fasting and meditation going on. Anytime some character in these stories wants to win, beat, get power, develop some skill or wishes for incredible wealth or happiness, he or she goes off into the mountains and fasts or does penance. We are talking of hard penance and long fasting. Months and years as the stories go. They made it sound fantastic, the deity always showed up in the end, and he or she always got her boon. Yup. Don't you love happy endings.
I've always wondered why. Whats the deal with penance, and fasting and meditation. I believe mythological stories are always fantastic exaggerations of some basic facts or lessons. Hinduism has always revered knowledge as power and meditation and self realization and enlightenment as the ultimate knowledge and all paths to it as being sacred. I am guessing these stories aim to interest the young readers in that ultimate goal. To encourage and motivate them to meditate. To develop ones mental faculty, to develop focus, to develop an understand of ones self, attain Self-Realization.
So I hypothesized that fasting had something to do with developing exactly that. Or to put it simply, fasting, may be it helped the brain function or focus better in some way. So I decided I wanted to experience it for myself. But anyone with an understanding of basic biology will know that prolonged starvation is deleterious to your health. So I decided to research the topic on the internet and spoke to a few Doctor friends of mine.
Armed with all that information, I decided to try a one week fast. No Food. Just water, and lots of it.
Disclaimer: This was my experiment and plan for my fasting. I am an average healthy person. If you choose to reproduce this experiment, do so at your own risk. Do your own research and consider your health status and consult your own doctors too.
Continued in Part 2
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