Fasting during Ramadan

[Mondsee]

Today is the first day of Ramadan, and I am thinking of fasting like Muslims do, not for any religious reason, but to try out fasting for a longer period of time. It is well known that fasting is practiced by many spiritual oriented groups around the world, for example Yogis in India also eat just twice or even once a day... so there's gotta be some benefits that I'd like to test out for myself.

Has someone here experience with fasting in general, or at least during Ramadan? Do you have any advices worth sharing? Thanks!

[Conrad]

It defenitively has it's benefits. I have not fasted for a long time but I'm going to fast the whole month from tomorrow. I'm curious of the results, especially spiritualy speaking. 

Edited May 5, 2019 by Conrad

[Empty]

Yes, do it.

 

I have been practicing Ramadan since I was 17. Muslims do it just traditionally. 

If you want to fast in this Ramadan. I advice you to do it as a retreat. Fast and meditate all day long. You will get a lot pf growth out of it. 

[Truth Addict]

@Mondsee

If you want discipline, fast from dawn till sunset.

If you want emotional mastery, fast among other people, your ego will be vulnerable and it will get triggered very easily. That can help you understand your ego and have a grip on it.

If you want mystical experiences, fast for multiple days alone, I'm not sure about this one though because I haven't tried it yet.

Edited May 5, 2019 by Truth Addict

[Mondsee]

@Conrad cool, looking forward to hear about your experience. Today I did some physical activity at noon, and since then I've been seeing every drop of water as the most beautiful thing ever. I had never been waiting so eagerly the sunset!

@Empty sadly I won't have the opportunity to take this period as a full retreat. I'll continue with my daily activities, just skipping meals until after the sunset. But thanks for the advice! I will make sure to include at least one short meditation daily!

@Truth Addict

39 minutes ago, Truth Addict said:

If you want discipline, fast from dawn till sunset.

That's the plan!

39 minutes ago, Truth Addict said:

If you want emotional mastery, fast among other people, your ego will be vulnerable and it will get triggered very easily. That can help you understand your ego and have a grip on it.

Do you mean among other people fasting or not fasting? currently I'm doing it on my own, everybody around me is eating their usual 3 meals a day, and carrying their delicious bottles of water around. It's just day 1 and I'm already seeing water as the most precious thing ever. Water is incredibly beautiful!

42 minutes ago, Truth Addict said:

If you want mystical experiences, fast for multiple days alone, I'm not sure about this one though because I haven't tried it yet.

I'll leave this as an advanced level for now. I didn't plan strategically taking multiple days off in a row, but in the future I may try this

[Truth Addict]

@Mondsee

They don't have to be fasting with you.

The point is to stay aware of how your ego reacts when your body lacks food and water, the most important factors for survival.

The reactions include both to food and water, and when interacting with other people.

People here do it unconsciously, they get angry and have word fights everyday during fasting.

However, hang in there, it gets better and easier everyday.

I wish you all the best ❤️

Edited May 6, 2019 by Truth Addict

[Mondsee]

@Truth Addict gotcha! I'll pay attention to that  Thank you!

[Anton_Pierre]

@Mondsee Deny your ego simple pleasures and it will show you it's true nature. Remember that it's not you.

[How to be wise]

@Mondsee Fasting only makes your meditation sessions more difficult. It will only be a hindrance in the beginning. Perhaps when you’re advanced, you may use fasting to grow yourself. But definitely not the beginning.

[aidenhall]

I've used Intermittent Fasting as a tool many times and I've enjoyed it.

But depending on the period before and after fasting, and the length of the fasts each day, you need to aim to get roughly the same amount of food as you would if you had eaten your western traditional 4-5 times a day, you listen to your body and eat what you need within your "eating window". There's some research the fasting mechanism makes each calorie you eat to become more effectively used, so you can drop a few hundred calories of your total. But my own experiments and this research didn't show mind blowing results, so I don't know this part really.

As religious fasting tries to imitate poverty as well as many other things, it also prohibits water, which is the one detail that really sets it apart from something like Intermittent Fasting. I've found absolutely no benefit abstaining from just pure simple water during the fast, might even be dangerous to dry out like that every single day so many days in a row. 

If you're going to experiment with meditation or some other spiritual practice+fasting WITHOUT water, that's another story and something you have to figure out yourself.

Intermittent Fasting also has a strict Fast Window of AT LEAST 16 hours, including time in sleep, the research show that this is the time your body needs to get into the fasting mode, for the benefits to even start activating. I have a muslim friend that said he eats with his family very early in the morning before the sun rises, which means he most likely won't make it to 16 hours straight, because he's then going to eat with his family again like 22:00 in the evening? If he had skipped the early breakfast right after waking, he could have included the time sleeping in the fasting window.

My personality type is INTP so I just experiment with these kind of lifestyles for fun and the thrill and satisfaction of new perspectives, but what I've learned is that, unless you got some health issues with this and that, you're never going to fucking die trying these lifestyles out for 1-2 months or even 6 months.

I just jumped into the ketogenic diet for 4 months experimenting and observing myself, and I'm not one of those with diabetes, epilepsy or morbid obesity which it's often recommended for as a tool. My veins didn't get clogged and my cholesterol balance even improved. It won't kill you, as long as you stay within reason, you can fuck up Intermittent Fasting by fasting withing a window of 16-20 hours with water, but then eat only 1 meal of 500 calories, then in the long run it's no longer Intermittent Fasting, it's Starvation, which has a success rate of 0%.

Edited May 7, 2019 by aidenhall

[Mondsee]

@Anton_Pierre thanks, that's a good reminder.

@How to be wise Hey, I'm only on day 3, but at least up to this point I can report that fasting certainly allows you to focus on what matters throughout the day simply because of the practical consequence of not having to devote time to eat, drink, or even go to the toilet very often. Only now that I'm not doing any of that, am I noticing how much of a distraction that is. I've also noticed that very often I eat or drink out of boredom, that's all been very interesting. But at the very least, fasting also serves like a reminder throughout the day to raise your consciousness (if that's the purpose for which you're fasting). Every single time you feel like drinking water, or eating some food, is a reminder of: just stay conscious and wait.

@aidenhall I'm drinking a good amount of water early in the morning, before the sunrise, and having a single meal after sunset (a vast well-balanced dinner), including again enough water intake. Of course none of this is with intentions of reducing my weight, in fact, I'm very happy with my body, and I hope it doesn't change too much during this fasting period... that being said, I have certainly noticed that eating 3 times a day is really not necessary. We do it mainly out of pleasure and comfort... but it feels absolutely unnecessary (at least for an average young adult not doing an excessive amount of physical exercise).

9 hours ago, aidenhall said:

As religious fasting tries to imitate poverty as well as many other things, it also prohibits water, which is the one detail that really sets it apart from something like Intermittent Fasting. I've found absolutely no benefit abstaining from just pure simple water during the fast, might even be dangerous to dry out like that every single day so many days in a row. 

I was about to make the decision to allow myself to drink water, but not doing so was a great decision. Thirst is what actually makes a difference. I've found myself these three days waiting for the sunset to be able to finally drink water, more than be able to eat. I don't think it's too dangerous, as millions of Muslims do it every year... I think it's just a matter of making sure that you're drinking enough during the time you're allowed to do so.

9 hours ago, aidenhall said:

My personality type is INTP

Excuse my ignorance, but I dunno what that means ? care to explain?

[aidenhall]

On 08/05/2019 at 3:11 AM, Mondsee said:

 

@aidenhall INTP

Excuse my ignorance, but I dunno what that means ? care to explain?

https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality

It's one of several personality tests I find incredibly accurate to describe the complexity of personality with words, as far as language can go.

In the link above you are put in one of 16 types with factors in several degrees. You can take the test yourself in like 15min.

95% of the description is spot on, so I would trust the description of the test more than what I could articulate myself if I met a new friend.

Dunno if @Leo Gura is into personality tests, but I have a feeling he would fall into INTP as well, because what was so mind blowing about finding Actualized. Org on YouTube was Leo's thought pattern and my instant recognition of our shared insights, lonely insights I had independent in my late teens was finally mirrored and I know exactly what be was pointing at. Insight after insight exploding in my head when all the vague gooey understandings which I struggled to put into words all fell into place with his articulation skill hundreds of times stronger than my own. And when he articulates the insights 100 times better than you could at that stage of development, you can "complete" the insights faster and go deeper to the insights that require other "lesser" insights quicker. Intellectually beautiful at the time of discovery, my brain was drooling 

But personality types are more like this foundation of individual psychology and your own brain chemistry, and then on top of one of the 16 all 7,5 billion humans can go in, you have a more superficial personality type of your ego, which are all the tiny details of your interests and language 

Edited May 9, 2019 by aidenhall