|
FastingFasting is a powerful tool for cultivating spiritual "awakeness". The Sufi fast is to totally abstain from food, drink, sex, and negative thought for a specified period of time, for instance, from sunrise to sunset for a number of days. The effect of this kind of fast is that the appetite does not turn itself off, as it does in the kind of fast that is most often undertaken in the West. The common western fast, where one avoids food constantly for a period of days but take liquids has benefits, but they differ from those gained in the traditional sufi fast. In the Sufi fast you never stop being hungry and thirsty. This sets up a condition of struggle against the nafs. Just as in body building one develops muscle by working against resistance, the will and soul are best developed by setting up conditions where they are forced to exert themselves against the inertia of the nafs. |
