im_fasting_for_a_month_as_of_today pipedream Ramzaan has begun, today is my first fast of the month. i'm a little hungry, but not starving. i get to eat when its time for the evening prayer, Maghrib, which is at dusk. i ate before the morning prayer, Fajr, which is just before sunrise. Sehri and Iftaar. sehri is eating in the morning and iftaar is when you break your fast for the day. fasting is a totally for-God thing. you fast for nobody but God and you're supposed to do it whether you like it or not. it teaches you self-discipline, equality (now you know how it feels to be hungry, plus everyone's in the same boat as you) and strengthens your faith. Ramzaan ends with Eid-ul-Fitr, which is a three-day festival where you get scads of money (Eidi) and pretty clothes and trucks of good food :D so today i'm fasting. 031027 ... blah-ze i said that when i started my exams. my parents said i should. then i repeated it every day after that, with 'this time for real' tacked on. it shouldn't have been hard. i wasn't even giving up much. i even tried to start drinking the skinny milk stuff. it didn't work. i hate being health concious. but something about a litre and a half of milk a day makes me tick. and there was no way i was gonna give up my five steaks a week. 031027 ... User24 offers his deepest respect for you, pipedream, doing something physically straining due to your belief is a very powerful statement. 031028 ... misstree yay pipedream! fasting is a very powerful, very difficult thing. one water_brother fasts for three to four weeks about twice a year, as a matter of self-discipline, and though i worry for him, he takes vitamins and drinks juice and broth and such, and it is a very cleansing practice. i send you a copy of the smile that you give me, and wish you luck, wellness, and peace. 031028 ... Death of a Rose take care pipedream. I'll bring the huge fan and keep those 'hunger sparklies' away from you. 031028 ... stork daddy oh sure! when it's all about proving the strength of the spirit everyone thinks it's okay, but when you're trying to make weight for a match everyone thinks you're "sick" and need to be more "healthy" 031028 ... blerp! all about the reasons 031028 ... User24 stork daddy, I respect anyone who's willing to make an otherwise unneccesary personal sacrifice for no reason other than their beliefs. Making the weight for a match is a sacrifice made for physical personal gain, every day people make such sacrifices, and although each sacrifice may mean a lot to the person doing it, it wouldn't touch me to know that you've quit smoking, but only because your partner insisted, however if you did it out because your religion forbade smoking, well, then that's more impressive. What I'm trying to get across is that we all make sacrifices for future benefit, and of course spiritual enlightenment is a benefit, but the fact that you're willing to go through physical pain to reach mental goals is IMHO, more worthy of respect. 031028 ... u24 that's not to belittle your efforts, what (I assume) you're doing is still a worthy goal, but, well, you brought it up, I responded. 031028 ... nom my mom didn't eat for over forty days when i was dying, i don't think she slept much either when i turned blue in front of the doctor he didn't know what do to it was my mom who saved me 031028 ... notme maybe 'struggling to live' would have been better than 'dying', please take that into consideration when reading my previous blathe, thanks 031028 ... notme and pipedream, stork dada i respect you both 031028 ... notme and just for the sake of further babble,... i realize i mixed up a few memories, i don't think it was forty days on that occasion, my fuzzy brain (the moths i tell ya) ma mère has fasted more than several times that i know of i wonder how david blaine is feeling right now 031028 ... stork daddy of course i'm doing it for a belief. the belief that it makes me a fiercer warrior. it's all part of the self mastery that culminates in my match, where i don't give into the gnawing doubt that my opponent won't tire, much the same as i didn't give into the gnawing doubt that i couldn't get through the hunger. it is a commitment, a tempering of the soul. i know much of my mettle before the match has even started and in essence continue to fight against my own weakness as embodied in the strengths of my opponents be they my hunger or another's intentions. of course i guess you mean that a means to an end is less respectable than an end in and of itself. i find that religious fasting is most often considered a means to some higher communion itself and so really is just a means to an end. and if anything, it validates the connection between the spiritual or mental and the physical, showing how one can affect the other. i think that ability to let part of you fade away so as not to distract from a part of you you feel is more essential is spiritual no matter what your justifications for it. whether it results in spiritual elation or victory or both isn't really important, it has inherant properties of ennobling sacrifice in which a person sees what they are capable of and learns what it means to exist. there's a reason that wrestling movie is called vision quest. pipedream good luck to you! and user 24...i demand you commend me. commend me now. i'm not going anywhere until you commend me. just kidding...it was all a joke. i'm skeptical that way. i'm even skeptical of the dogmatic skepticism i display. maybe i'm getting delirious from low blood sugar. anyways...peace to all those who walk the way, ahead behind or side by side 031028 ... pipedream thank you, everyone :)) yuuup storky you're got that pretty much right...and fasting for Ramzaan means total purity...abstinence from food, sex, lying and vice in general. think good thoughts. do good things. pray. the gates of Heaven are opened wide and the gate to Hell are closed in Ramzaan (seriously, thats a direst quote from le book) it makes me feel like i've been given another chance, every Ramzaan, to actually DO something in return for God...even if im a careless pagan throughout the year Ramzaan redeems me somewhat. i wish i prayed more; its not that im not grateful or i don't believe, i just dont feel enough fervour to do it. bad pipey. but thank you for your encouragement, love you all :)) today is fast #2. so far, so good. *grins* 031028 ... pipedream my gawd, nom, what *happened* when you were *that* ill? 031028 ... stork daddy sounds a lot like lent a little. wanna know what i gave up for lent last year? being catholic. 031028 ... celestias shadow go pipedream! i remember a boy i knew in seventh grade who fasted for Ramadan. i always tried not to eat in front of him during that month. otherwise i felt like a bitch. i'm impressed that you have that much willpower and dedication. i'd never pull it off. a week, yes- a month, never. rock on. 031028 ... pipedream that was really thoughtful of you, although if you're fasting it doesn't make much of a difference because you aren't going to eat anyhoo but still, one generally tries to avoid stuffing your face in front of a faster. YOU rock on :) im a little hungry now because i've been working. im sure anyone could fast, actually...its just the concept of not eating anything for a real reason, not just 'i dont feel like eating' or 'maybe this will bust inches off my butt', otherwise we've all gone a day without eating..give it a whirl sometime :) interesting fasting fact : Ramzaan is a bit of a lent thing, multiplied. the original concept came from judaism, that one fast before yom kippur or something. 031028 ... misstree stork daddy, that was beautiful. commendations from a little drunk tree for having that sort of will, mind over meat and mind over mind, and applause for having the insight and command of conceptions to express it so well. tools of the mind and paths of evolution take all forms. i'll toast you the next time i can confuse someone by doing so. 031029 ... pipedream *agrees* 031029 ... mon i guess i was being a bit overly dramatic with the keyboard again i was a couple months old, whooping cough which progressed to pneumonia, they missed the diagnosis at first, kept telling my mom she was being paranoid, but then i turned blue in front of the doctors and nurses and they tried to use a tube suction thing to get me to breathe but it wouldn't work and they started to panic, my mom was the only one who knew what to do, 'cause i'd been turning blue many times before they finally believed her, and so when i started breathing again they agreed outloud that "mother knows best". anyway,...i love the word anyway *watching the sparkles radiating from pipedream* wishing peace for everyone :.) 031030 ... pipedream that must have been really scary, mon...your mother is a cool woman *thumbs up* :) i choked on water once in the kitchen..i was all alone, and for just an instant i felt like i was going to die because i just couldn't breathe. drowning in a gulp of water, literally. rather scary, for that instant. asthmatic people have my total sympathies. *gives mon a balloon* i like balloons. i think i'll get me one today. purple. 031030 ... My Merry Masquerade like jane said..when fasting my writing seems to have an acute edge.."rawness" i also feel like i'm hurtling through the heliosphere..when i fast while i'm sleep deprived..and man it's so easy to write then...and i find that most of the malic and irritation that i work so hard to counter..just seems to dissipate..or just sit mutely there in the back of my head..watching and noting everything..and kind of amused at it's composure.. ... 040421 ... oldephebe purge the urge..purges and or ameliorates the propensity for pique... 040421 ... pd someone should put that to a skippy kind of little music *chuckles* purge the urge bulimics incorporated (i'm in such a sick mood, profuse apologies to anyone with an eating disorder) 040421 what's it to you? who go blather from