Real Fasting & It’s True Purpose

I’ve just finished a 3 day fast consuming only water followed by a couple of days of vegetable juices as taught to me by my first mentor Peter Hudson.

I do this to prepare my mind for the tasks ahead and spend time contemplating on what I need to work on and more importantly, what I need to let go.

Gandhi was an advocate of fasting and said the power behind gaining 300 million followers was fasting. He knew that by gaining control over the palate and the other senses, everything else falls into line.

Gandhi unified his mind and body and it was this foundation that revealed his resilience and courage.

Fasting never was about weight loss, stem cell benefits and all of the other peripheral benefits of the body.

It was about escaping what needs to be left behind to move forward.

This doesn’t refer to just food but what we consume and watch in the media, what we read, how we behave and what we tolerate from ourselves and those around us.

It’s about stepping forward into a far larger, expansive potential but if we simply focus on the body, this opportunity is missed.

The true purpose is missed.

.If we can’t control what we consume, we cannot control little else.

One vice leaves the door wide open to all vice.

We cannot gain control of anything in our environment until we start to gain some control over what’s happening inside of us.

Modern life has us chasing an excess of everything and this is why the first thought people have regarding food, is missing out and depriving themselves.

It is the constant indulging that creates the real suffering.

I always taught that the fear and anxiety we contain and produce daily, is largely down to the food we consume.

Fear is connected to food.

The adrenals once triggered by an excess of the wrong foods force the body out of balance, into the flight or fight response.

This has an affect on the whole organism including digestion, immunity and our mindset. Cortisol is secreted from the adrenal glands and it is used for blood sugar regulation, reducing inflammation, metabolism and memory formulation.

An excess produced through stress and the wrong foods creates a caustic effect on these vital functions.

Even sections of the brain are inhibited through this excess.

Consider how well someone is going to react, think and behave in this mindset they have regularly created within themselves?

Fasting was never about weight loss.

It is about creating a robust mind above and beyond any of the benefits of the body.

The good news is you can have both, a strong mind and a strong body but it takes a different more thought through aim than just randomly hoping things will change with a bit of gym work.

A warrior mind of courage, honour and integrity throughout all of life is the real aim.

Courage and discipline are not restrictive but the way to true freedom, the very essence of life.

Freedom is experienced by escaping a frame of mind you were never meant to be and this very fragmented mindset is what leads us to an excess of the senses.

The excess of the senses is the darkened view we see the world through and it will reflect this obscurity right back at us.

Many of us are looking for an expanded potential in our endeavours and the obvious mindset that will have to accompany them.

But if we can't even control what we consume, how can we be a great vehicle for growth?

Seek out what is unnecessary for your journey.

Lose what must be lost.

Ask yourself, what are the things I must let go?