Meditation and fasting

[inavalan]

Originally Posted by Altair

...
To avoid such drama and exclude possibility of a 'mystical experience' being purely the result of a poor lifestyle,...

Still, that might be a valid 'mystical experience'! It is just that there are easier ways to achieve the same thing, and more reliably. Buddha wasn't skinny ... nor vegan.

To Starve your body,in my opinion,would do more harm than good.The Brain is a complex receiver,starved of nourishment,it can go haywire giving you all sorts of Hallucinations,not visions which is what you want.
I am not a vegan but I find that it helps more with my meditations the less meat I eat.I am speaking about what works for me.Admittedly I'm new to meditation so I can only speak for my experiences.
I don't rely on others teachings no matter who they are,I follow my own path,the one that works for me not a path read out of a book.

Originally Posted by hazada guess

To Starve your body,in my opinion,would do more harm than good.The Brain is a complex receiver,starved of nourishment,it can go haywire giving you all sorts of Hallucinations,not visions which is what you want.
I am not a vegan but I find that it helps more with my meditations the less meat I eat.I am speaking about what works for me.Admittedly I'm new to meditation so I can only speak for my experiences.
I don't rely on others teachings no matter who they are,I follow my own path,the one that works for me not a path read out of a book.

Couple of points.

Appropriate fasting can be very beneficial. Short fasts up to 48 hours are perfectly safe and very beneficial so long as one doesn't get carried away with frequency. Ketosis and autophagy. This was man's natural state prior to farming and civilization and part of the body's mechanism for cleaning up aged and corrupted cells and cellular structure. The body didn't evolve to be in a constant state of satiation.

I hear a lot about not relying on books (hard-gained wisdom) and totally relying on what's found inside. Without the guidance of thousands of years of accumulated wisdom and the practices and techniques derived from that wisdom how does one know the source, validity and significance of what's found inside?

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

Couple of points.

Appropriate fasting can be very beneficial. Short fasts up to 48 hours are perfectly safe and very beneficial so long as one doesn't get carried away with frequency. Ketosis and autophagy. This was man's natural state prior to farming and civilization and part of the body's mechanism for cleaning up aged and corrupted cells and cellular structure. The body didn't evolve to be in a constant state of satiation.

I hear a lot about not relying on books (hard-gained wisdom) and totally relying on what's found inside. Without the guidance of thousands of years of accumulated wisdom and the practices and techniques derived from that wisdom how does one know the source, validity and significance of what's found inside?

Bouts of fasting hamper your metabolism and make you more prone to infection
Early humans only lived till about 35.
Books can be modified.I'd rather learn from my own experience thank you.One *teachers* word can give you a guide only.

There are so many*Teachers* around yet they all teach different things.
There are so many religions around,told different ways to lead your life yet we all end up in the same place.
I don't want a debate so I'll leave you to it.

[Altair]

Originally Posted by hazada guess

To Starve your body,in my opinion,would do more harm than good.The Brain is a complex receiver,starved of nourishment,it can go haywire giving you all sorts of Hallucinations,not visions which is what you want.

Yes, agreed. And all extreme forms of asceticism are problematic, because they are attempts to induce mystical experiences through deprivation, which is known to lead to health issues, and this in turn will give hallucination. This can be prolonged fasting (=starvation), poor diets and fad diets (=malnourishment), sleep deprivation, or complete abstinence from sex and orgasm [I think if you abstain for longer than 2 months you'll go crazy..]. Taking any of it to the extreme, which is not uncommon in serious spiritual paths and practices, is an invitation to health issues. Good health comes first.

[Starman]

When I was in college I took a couple of classes on Nutrition and Behavior, and it was fascinating how food effects our behavior. One of the assignments in the class was to write down everything you ate or drink for a week, see what was on that list the most, and then go without it for a week. The assignment was about experiencing withdrawal and we had to write a paper about it.

At that time for me what showed up most on my list was chocolate, and I went without chocolate for a week. I went through chocolate withdrawal, craving, and dreaming about chocolate at night, etc. For other students it may have been peanuts, or some other food that they frequented. There are all sorts of food addictions.

After graduating I had a client while living in Colorado, and Eskimo girl who went through withdrawal from whale meat. It was highly improbable to be a vegetarian or vegan where she was from in Northern Alaska. Up there they ate for much more then just nutrition. A lot of people can’t fast, or don’t fast, because of withdrawal discomforts. But I think short term fasting can be beneficial.

Back in the 1970’s hanging around with a bunch of hippies, the prevailing wisdom at that time was that we should chew our liquids and drink our solids. Chewing liquids meant swishing liquids around in your mouth and actually chewing it, and drinking your solids meant not to swallow your solids until they were semi-liquefied. This was suppose to better help digestion.

The thing is I am in my seventies and I know a lot of people in their eighties who are healthy, and they drink alcohol and do all the things some say they should not be doing. Talked to a lady who was 102-years old and she attributed her longevity to smoking cigars and drinking whiskey. I must say I feel better about staying away from those things, and I also feel very good about short term periodic fasting.

Originally Posted by Starman

A lot of people can’t fast, or don’t fast, because of withdrawal discomforts.

Have you read anything on the gut biome? Then there are the nerve plexus and the vagus nerve.

If one consumes lots of sugars and carbs fasting is going to result in a much higher degree of cravings, largely due to the resulting gut biome. If one is at the opposite end, a keto nutrition plan, not only will the cravings be much, much less but it's a jump-start on fasting-induced ketosis.

I don't do keto, but I don't do sugar or refined carbs. I'm south of 20% and north of 10% carb intake. Fasting is pretty much a breeze, but I've not gone beyond 36 hours and don't intend to do so.

[ThatMan]

For me, fasting is a way to get closer to the divine, it's something that I've done from a very young age, not because of my religion, but because this is what I felt deep within me.

Originally Posted by ThatMan

For me, fasting is a way to get closer to the divine, it's something that I've done from a very young age, not because of my religion, but because this is what I felt deep within me.

That's fine if you want to use fasting to facilitate spiritual experience, however two points.

1 - Anything longer than 48 hours should be approached with reasonable caution and precautions.

2 - As far as meditation is concerned anything introduced into the practice that isn't the practice itself is a fabrication and at odds with the practice. That's not to say you shouldn't meditate while fasting, however it is to say you should let go of any expectations combining the two might result in something the practice alone will not. In effect it's introducing ego into a practice attempting to diminish ego's influence.