By Subhasis Chattopadhyay –
Life jokes with us, and when the ICM Team asked me to write on fasting, I eagerly agreed without disclosing the delicate fact that I had never fasted my entire life; neither do I intend to do so. So, my exploration of fasting is more an exploration of why I do not fast. I remember Matthew 7:3-5:
Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye.
Before I preach to others what I do not practice, I thought I’d do well to meditate on self-evasion and what it is to make excuses for being hedonistic. To appear fancy, I’d even ally with Carvaka and forget the ascetical message of Vedanta. All for the sake of name and fame through this blog post and token interreligious dialogue. My excuse is the eternal excuse of the reprobate: I am only too human. So dear reader, read this post with many pinches of salt.
The thoughts that come to me when someone fasts are:
1. Of the food that is saved: is it distributed to those who get nothing to eat; in other words, is the saved food reaching those who fast through the year because they are starving due to poverty? Or in the name of fasting, someone is hoarding and practising miserliness?
2. Why is a person fasting? Studies in psychology tell us that there is often a pedalling between fasting and gluttony as there is a pattern between dry periods and binge-drinking as also periods of ascetical celibacy rapidly cycling with unchaste behaviour leading to feelings of guilt and consequent repentance. Fasting is a disastrous fixation by itself; sugar levels in the body fluctuate in a way that one can potentially fall ill through hypoglycaemia. Or the need to fast maybe just a neurotic self-affirmation which has nothing to do either with self-mastery, in Martin Seligman’s schemata of positive psychology, nor might fasting make a person achieve mystical union with God. Unless fasting takes one to God, what value can any self-denial have?
3. It is easy to fast; easy to glut. Easy to abstain from drinks totally; easier to drink with abandon. Easy to be celibate, easy to be profligate. Easy to be an introvert, easy to be an extrovert. But it is hard to walk the Middle Path of the Buddhas (sic). Gautama, the Sakya Muni, Buddha, discovered that the Middle Way is the Way to inner fulfilment.
The Bible too says that there is a time to sow, a time to reap and a time to relax. Thus, whenever I think of any extreme action I tend to agree with the Bible: all is vanity, and everything under the sun is vanity. For is it possible that fasting is an act of one-upmanship? I fast more than my neighbour and thus I gloat, though Christ forbids us from telling others when we fast; for none should know one is fasting. How often do we find people with long faces keeping the letter of the Law and interiorly basking in the ill-gotten glory of asceticism?
The Bhagavad Gita says that only that asceticism which leads to the Supreme Godhead is asceticism. Everything else is ephemeral. Yoga, according to the Bhagavad Gita ( there are many other Gitas), is meant for the moderate of food and sleep. Persons tormented with hunger, overweight gluttons, the dullard or the sleep deprived cannot achieve yoga with God. Yoga means, within this context, a mystical union with God.
Why trouble the body which is the Temple of God with hunger or excessive eating when we can care for it with moderate eating? Instead, why not quieten the mind? Why not fast interiorly? Let me illustrate: I am a Hindu; an unworthy heir to Sri Abhinavagupta and Sri Kshemaraja. But while I call myself an heir to these two ancient seers; I do so without knowing Sanskrit or controlling my senses from running riot. I cannot perform the corporal act of fasting; yet I write on it. This is samsara. This is sin. This is the root of hypocrisy.
All the while I find the American Fr. Clooney SJ whose essay on Sri Ramanujacharya appeared in this website earlier knows Sanskrit and has been able to control his senses drawing them inward sufficiently. Therefore, I am forced to practise fasting by refusing to be drawn in momentary fluxes of these times: I refuse to engage myself with either right-wing Christianity which harangues from pulpits or right-wing Hinduism which form lynch-mobs. I choose to still my mind and obey the Yoga Sutras and Jesus and search for the Kingdom of God which is within me. I shall fast by not allowing myself to be swayed by political fluxes reported 24*7 on the news and social media and will focus on mastering Sanskrit and try to fast one day a year.
A Catholic priest knows more Sanskrit and more of fasting than I who want to be an heir to Sri Avinavagupta. Fie on me! Therefore, I must watch fewer movies online and read less popular fiction, and this will be my fast. Since, like the Little Drummer Boy, I cannot do great things for God. Small things suffice for me. Instead of pretending to be like Sri Avinavagupta and equating myself with Fr. Clooney, I have to just try to be honest with myself and start fasting one day at a time before I instruct others in ways of self-control!
Subhasis Chattopadhyay is a blogger and an Assistant Professor in English (UG & PG Departments of English) at Narasinha Dutt College affiliated to the University of Calcutta. He has additional qualifications in Biblical Studies and separately, Spiritual Psychology. He also studied the Minor Upanishads separately. He remains a staunch Hindu. He had written extensively for the Catholic Herald published from Calcutta. From 2010 he reviews books for the Ramakrishna Mission and his reviews have been showcased in Ivy League Press-websites.