Further thoughts about fasting – freestyle

Dates in cup with prayer beads
By Rauf Alvi

Further thoughts about fasting |
Saturday – February 28, 2026

Here's my original post about fasting; read that before you read this post, or don't – the choice is yours.

    Aside from being something quite moral, fasting is also a very important part of spirituality around the world, and this is especially the case within Islam where fasting is referred to as Sawm (صَوْم), which more strictly actually translates into judgement, because within the Islamic tradition being able to fast—during Ramadan (ر-م-ض) in particular—is something that is required and judgement will fall on those who fast and those who don't fast. Of course, there are many other traditions that call for fasting and it should be worth noting the number 40, which is very significant from a metaphysical point of view, when it comes to the Judaic and Christian tradition. Of course, while being able to fast is in itself a form of discipline, it must be remembered that yes, people that are unable to fast should be judged as less able, but there are surely reasons you point out as to why these people are unable to fast, but then I must counter your rather weak point by stating that these people are more often than not fat and they are fat simply because they are unwilling to actually rely on discipline, and in the best case scenario these people lack skillful means, but I would consider it highly doubtful that anyone that has some insight would "fail" to go through with their fasting – this is why these people, fat as they tend to be, should be judged from a metaphysical point of view. Now, judging someone is not the same thing as shaming someone; I have no interest in wasting my time on the pointless individualism of shame, but I do believe that there is a distinction between the sacred and divine grace of judgement and that fowl populism of shame – as if shame somehow will "solve" the problems of the world and as if the individual himself should be meant to shoulder the burdens of the world, this stupid and quite frankly lazy "heroism" of the moderns. No, fasting was never about you saving the world, and if you believe that you will somehow affect change by your mere individual displacement of a certain amount of "trash" then you are sorely mistaken – you will never affect change. But fasting, again, was not about affecting change: fasting is about the recognition that you are capable of existing above the animal domain, yet of course, most moderns have lowered themselves beneath humanity and even beneath most animals, and this is why most humans have no real place within the metaphysical order of things. On that point though, about the metaphysical order of things (hierarchies), it must be stated that there's no such thing as the absolute bottom, since the bottom of the barrel exists outside manifestation and a state of complete and material dissolution is quite impossible.

    Fasting can also be about health, something that I have covered here as well, and when it comes to health most moderns have it in their mind that only the profane sciences have the answer, but this is of course not the case: there are many sacred sciences that hold a much more empirical, here this word should be understood in the strictest and truest sense, view on the health and fasting, read more about this here and here. But yes, there are in a profane sense, certain health benefits that are important to understand when discussing fasting, but since I am not a medical professional and since I do not wish to collide with the law and the state, I cannot further dwell on this here. But I can say that there are certain people that I understand to be "professionals", in the profane sense of course, that claim that you'd do just as well if not better by simply stopping eating all foods for about 7 – 14 days, but again I cannot continue to dwell on this.

    Apart from certain metaphysical and health benefits there are also other kinds of benefits having to do with moral grounding when it comes to fasting, read "Are certain foods immoral?", and if you have a rather narrower view on fasting, or actually a more flexible view depending on how you approach this subject, you may say that it's quite possible to engage in a kind of "selective" fasting, where you simply choose to not eat certain foods such as pork or other foods that are clearly considered immoral by one of the great revealed doctrines, and in the case of pork this applies especially for Islam. Yes, I believe that there's such a thing as a moral eater, and this also goes to "animal welfare", where you simply choose to not eat certain foods, and this is also a long held tradition within the Hindu context—Hindu in this context referring to Hindustani paganism (ॐ)—where it's considered highly immoral to eat certain foods that contain "products", the word product being one very monstrous example of the compartmentalization going on here in the modern world, that contain traces of sacred animals, and in the Hindustani context cows are particularly considered sacred; of course, the modern bastardization of "moral dieting" is called vegetarianism and veganism, often practiced by wholly confused and depraved Westerns who haven't got a single clue about the metaphysics of "moral dieting". Yes, this feel-good-attitude expressed by a certain subgroup of "white" men has nothing to do with morality; in fact this is quite the opposite of morality, since most of these people lack any regard, whatsoever, of anything beyond the latest fad, and really these "vegetarianism" and "veganism" neologisms are also something quite lazy, but in keeping with the attitude of the moderns where everything has to become "reinvented" and "re-imagined", in the true fashion of "evolutionism", to suit their particular and individual preferences. What does any of this have to do with morality? Nothing... Nothing whatsoever!

    But enough about modern people and their depraved ways: I believe that anyone should fast, at least if they claim to be a moral person, and perhaps more importantly if they believe themselves to be capable of the highest state of being – true enlightenment. And yes, this post might have been somewhat rambling, but that's because I am currently fasting while writing this, which means that I am effectively a little bit under the influence – which should be understood as a sign of my discipline.

Reginald Drax – February 28, 2026.