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October 2021 / More

Convictions & Concerns

TAT members share their personal convictions and/or concerns

Fasting: A Personal Perspective

“There's hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness.” Rumi

Introduction

Fasting has long been part of spiritual practice and while the topic of fasting is occasionally mentioned, I feel it rarely gets much credit or the attention it properly deserves. Over the last ten years or so, I have gradually incorporated fasting into daily life, introducing longer fasts every few months, including during solitary retreats. I have found fasting to be a powerful tool, primarily for gaining mental clarity.

I have divided the article into three sections:

     1. Personal experiences
     2. Fasting Physiology
     3. Fasting Psychology

The essence of this article is really about my personal experiences and so you may find this enough reading to begin with. Afterwards I give a little more detail on fasting physiology and psychology, which you may wish to explore in more depth if and when you decide to explore fasting for yourself. I hope you will learn that with some persistence, fasting can be done without feeling hungry and without suffering.

I'll discuss some key-terms like ketosis and metabolic flexibility and show how metabolic health can improve the fasting experience. Finally I look at the psychology of fasting, the challenges and blockages to a successful fast and why we might break a fast earlier than we intended. I will comment on things like mental health and the gut-brain axis. Items in Italics are explained in the latter sections.

1. Personal Experiences

I see fasting's subtractive qualities as something like a meta-strategy that blends beautifully with all elements of spiritual work. From my own journey into food and fasting, I've learned that periods without eating seem to have a wonderful effect of bringing clarity to the mind and the thought processes. Energy is freed up and so is time. The more I fast the easier it gets. A fast seems to bring a kind of calm transparency that is not normally present when I am eating throughout the day. For this reason I have adopted a schedule of intermittent fasting.

Intermittent Fasting (IF)
I began my fasting experiences with what's know as 16-8 fasting—fasting overnight for a period of 16 hours and eating in the a day for period of eight hours. This does not mean that I ate Dunkin' Donuts continually for eight hours and then stopped eating for 16 hours; I simply skipped breakfast, which was ironically what I preferred to do as a child.

I don't do IF every day because fasting is a way of mildly stressing the body, and just like exercise, too much of it can be detrimental. I prefer to practice IF around 5 days per week because, over the years, I've found this pattern suits my body best. You may want to try a short fast a few days a week if this is new to you.

In more recent times I have built up the fasting period to 20 hours or more, effectively one meal a day. I don't get hungry in the day or have cravings, indeed sometimes I almost have to remind myself to eat.

Along with plenty of water, I also drink a few cups of black coffee or tea but no milk, and definitely no sugar. The key is to avoid taking anything into the body that may trigger an insulin response, so effectively you don't want to consume anything with calorific value. I do not recommend any products that have artificial sweeteners either as they may also stimulate an insulin response.

I try to eat a generally healthy diet, mostly vegetables, and generally low carbohydrate, avoiding any processed food when I can and eating very little in the way of starches like bread and pasta. This way of eating isn't strictly necessary to gain the benefits of fasting but I have found that my taste for sugars and carbs in general has changed over the years, and oftentimes sweet things now taste quite sickly.

Time recovered
Fasting has freed up my schedule like nothing else you can imagine. I don't think nearly so much about food in the day as I used to and I spend much less time shopping or preparing food and cleaning up afterwards. It's also a money saver. You won't believe how much energy is given to food and thinking about it until you fast.

Longer fasts and solitary retreats
As one fasts more and more, the body becomes metabolically flexible and can switch more easily from using glucose for fuel to using fat stores. This natural faculty of the body is know as fat-adaptation. I think it's important to understand that fat-adaptation is easier and quicker if one generally eats a low-carb diet, particularly if one has any metabolical issues—which is sadly most of us.

Longer fasts require some preparation to have the best results. When I tried my first 4-day fast, I felt so awful after 36 hours, I effectively couldn't do anything other than lie on the sofa, never-mind thinking straight or to 'search within'. I made it to 3 days but had to stop because I felt so awful I thought I was going to die. With a little preparation however, I believe these extremes can be avoided.

For longer fasts I now make sure I eat a very low carbohydrate diet for 3 or 4 days beforehand. I also make sure I am well hydrated before I begin. During the fast, I take small amounts of salts (electrolyte) supplements, particularly sodium salts (table salt). When fasting (due to ketosis) the body excretes more water and it's easy to become both dehydrated and salt deficient, leading to brain fog and cramps. I recommend taking a broad spectrum salt that supplies sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium. Be wary of salt supplements that contain sugars, sweeteners or things like maltodextrin. These products can throw the body out of ketosis and make the fast ineffective. A good quality sea-salt or Himalayan salt dissolved in water may be a cheap and effective alternative to buying expensive sports-drink products.

I do not advocate fasts longer than 3 or 4 days. Maximum health benefits arrive at 4 days and may begin to diminish thereafter. There may be specific benefits to longer fasts but from my perspective, I feel that the cons begin to outweigh the pros after 4 days, particularly with regard to short-term suppression of the immune system.

The 'X' factor
Somehow the fasted state encourages my mind to slow, to become a little vague and fuzzy as ketosis begins. I find this state peculiarly pleasant and useful for 'going within', for inner silence, clarity and for taking the 'edges' off habitual and reactive thought processes. The mind-body appears to become less active in this state. If I get a little 'brain fog' when going into deeper ketosis after a few days, I find that usually a walk or light exercise, a herbal tea or a black coffee helps.

Illness or Poor Health
I do not fast if I am feeling unwell, run-down or exhausted and I do not recommend longer fasts of more than 24 hours without seeking professional medical advice, particularly for those with any health conditions. Fasting can suppress the immune system in the short term yet strengthens the immune system in the long term. Do your own risk assessment, your own cost-benefit analysis, particularly if considering a longer fast.

“There's hidden sweetness in the stomach's emptiness.
We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox
is stuffed full of anything, no music.
If the brain and belly are burning clean
with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire.
The fog clears, and new energy makes you
run up the steps in front of you.
Be emptier and cry like reed instruments cry.” Rumi

2. Fasting Physiology

“A little starvation can really do more for the average sick man than can the best of medicines and the best doctors.” Mark Twain

Fasting simply means to go without. Research has shown that fasting may encourage a plethora of physical benefits including improved insulin response, increases in growth hormone and cellular repair, inflammation reduction, weight loss, metabolic flexibility and may reduce the incidence of chronic health conditions that lead to cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It turns out that there are some very sound reasons that fasting is good for the body. Many of us don't realise that we are suffering from metabolic conditions created by a diet high in sugar, low in nutrition and a sedentary lifestyle. We have poor insulin sensitivity, and many of us are pre-diabetic and do not realise it.

While the human body evolved to deal easily with periods without food, we now live in a world where food is so plentiful that we might become quite anxious at the thought of the fridge being empty, let alone that an empty stomach might be good for us.

The physiology of what happens to the body when we stop eating is complex and how a fast is experienced depends a great deal on the general health of the body. Below is a rather simplified version of what's actually going on at a deep cellular level in the mitochondria.

When we go unfed for a period of time, the body begins to switch from utilising glucose for fuel, to burning fat. Glucose is the preferred fuel—in other words, the body will use glycogen first before diving into fat stores. A vast amount of hormonal changes begin to occur as we fast, and ketones build up as fat is metabolised.

‘Ketosis is a metabolic state characterized by elevated levels of ketone bodies in the blood or urine. Physiologic ketosis is a normal response to low glucose availability, such as low-carbohydrate diets or fasting, that provides an additional energy source for the brain in the form of ketones.’ Wikipedia

For those not used to these physiological changes, the unfamiliar feelings of hunger, thick-headedness and tiredness, can feel uncomfortable and distracting. As the fast continues, further metabolic changes occur. The term keto-flu has been coined to refer to the brain-fog and lethargy that occurs as glycogen stores are depleted.

It is natural for us to be able to switch easily from glucose to fat burning and with persistence, the body can re-learn to 'switch' between the two fuel states. This ability to switch is known as 'fat-adaptation'.

When this metabolic switching process becomes inactive due to excessive consumption of sugar and starchy carbohydrate (i.e. the standard western diet), we have lost something much more than just a physiological trick of the body. Research is showing that the loss of metabolic switching may indeed be one of the root causes of the high rates of chronic disease we see in the Western world today.

The steady mental clarity that comes with burning ketones rather than glucose, in me, seems to have a powerful effect on concentration. As we go to and beyond 48 hours without food, we start to significantly boost levels of BDNF (Brain-Derived Neutropic Factor). This protein plays critical roles in learning, memory, and the generation of new nerve cells in the hippocampus. BDNF also makes neurons more resistant to stress. 

Low carbohydrate and ketogenic diets, when employed appropriately, can quickly be effective in retraining the body to switch fuel states. I would say that even the most metabolically unfit person could make the switch within 5 to 6 weeks. A fitter person within a week or two, or even a few days.

“Fasting is the first principle of medicine; fast and see the strength of the spirit reveal itself.” Rumi

3. Fasting Psychology—or more correctly—Food Psychology

We are so conditioned to having food around us that we take it for granted. Many of us have never known what it is like to have to wait for a meal, let alone what prolonged starvation feels like.

How do we come to understand the effect food has on us, the temptations and desires, if we don't get to grips with what not having food feels like? Would it be useful to experiment with times of no-food and observe the automatic responses and urges that arise?

“One of the brilliant and under-appreciated pearls of Richard Rose’s teachings, is that [self] definition requires comparison. The mind only knows something in terms of its opposite. We can only enjoy to the extent that we’ve suffered, for example. To get a perspective on how the mind 'uses' eating, we need some experience of fasting. Intentional fasting is preferable to imposed fasting....” Art Ticknor

Most of my life I perceived food as a pleasurable thing. I did not perceive food for its primary purpose, that of nutrition—for my very sustenance. While it was always obvious that I needed food to stay alive, it was a long time before it occurred to me that I should refocus eating to be primarily for nutrition, rather than just satiation.

It seems clear to me that we most often choose food that we enjoy, that tastes good, that gives us a lift. Food advertising is everywhere, usually for pleasure-food, chocolate and sweet things, burgers and cakes, and advertisers even associate food with sex. Cooking programs are all over the TV and internet. We are obsessed with food, and perhaps for all the wrong reasons.

I would argue that we are generally unconscious of our desire for food, and we have developed habitual impulses for times of day and for tastes and preferences. These impulses and cravings often override what we know is good for us and so we eat unconsciously, driven by desire and a fear of being 'empty'.

It's well known in scientific circles that the mind is neurally connected to the gut. This is known as the Gut-brain axis.

“The gut-brain axis (GBA) is a bidirectional link between the central nervous system (CNS) and the enteric nervous system (ENS) of the body. It involves direct and indirect pathways between cognitive and emotional centres in the brain with peripheral intestinal functions.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/

What we think is mostly driven by how we feel, and I would argue that much of how we feel is driven by our gut. When my gut is settled my mind is calm. If there is one thing that fasting has done for me above all else is to bring calmness to the body and hence calmness to the mind.

Conclusion

Fasting in itself won't get you to the pearly gates but I hope you can see that in terms of a meta-strategy for calming the body-mind, achieving clarity of mind, for energy conservation and general health, fasting has great potential and isn't just about self-denial or an extreme practice for ascetics. With some preparation and practice, fasting can be done without feeling hunger and without suffering. Above all, if you insist on dragging-out the Search for the next 30 years, you might need fasting to buy you some longevity and extra time.

If you are interested in anything I have written here, including fasting, low-carb or ketogenic diets, I highly recommend you do some further reading and preferably also take medical advice before you begin a fast, particularly if you are very overweight/underweight, very old/young, pregnant or have any health issues. All comments are my own and my opinion solely. I am happy to receive comments and corrections to any errors I have made. Please also see the references below.

Good luck on your fasting adventures.

Ben ( )

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This video from Thomas Delauer might be helpful and informative for general knowledge: https://youtu.be/S5W1XBf8d-I
And this from Dr Sten Ekberg: https://youtu.be/Wzmacu2TgFg

This fascinating video with Dave Asprey, including a section on spiritual fasting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGwAM7HyC6s

Mike Mutzel shares his vast knowledge of fasting, diet and nutrition: https://highintensityhealth.com/

The godfather of modern fasting and longevity research Prof Valter Longo: https://www.valterlongo.com/

A simple article on fasting physiology: https://www.zerofasting.com/the-physiology-of-fasting/

Research Articles of interest:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29086496/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK534877/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4367209/

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TAT Foundation News

It's all about "ladder work" – helping and being helped

Downloadable/rental versions of the Mister Rose video and of April TAT talks Remembering Your True Desire:

"You don't know anything until you know Everything...."

Mister Rose is an intimate look at a West Virginia native many people called a Zen Master because of the depth of his wisdom and the spiritual system he conveyed to his students. Profound and profane, Richard Rose was not the kind of man most people picture when they think of mystics or spiritual teachers. Yet, he was the truest of teachers, one who had "been there," one who had the cataclysmic experience of spiritual enlightenment.

Filmed in the spring of 1991, the extraordinary documentary follows Mr. Rose from a radio interview, to a university lecture and back to his farm, as he talks about his experience, his philosophy and the details of his life.

Whether you find him charming or offensive, fatherly or fearsome, you will not forget him, and never again will you think about yourself, reality, or life after death in quite the same way.

3+ hours total. Rent or buy at tatfoundation.vhx.tv/.

2012 April TAT Meeting – Remembering Your True Desire

Includes all the speakers from the April 2012 TAT meeting: Art Ticknor, Bob Fergeson, Shawn Nevins and Heather Saunders.

1) Remembering Your True Desire ... and Acting on It, by Art Ticknor
Spiritual action is like diving for the Pearl beyond Price. What do you do when you don't know what to do or how to do it? An informal discussion centered around the question: "What prevents effective spiritual action?"

2) Swimming in the Inner Ocean: Trips to the Beach, by Bob Fergeson
A discussion of the varied ways we can use in order to hear the voice of our inner ocean, the heart of our true desires.

3) A Wider and Wilder Vision, by Shawn Nevins
Notes on assumptions, beliefs, and perspectives that bind and free us.

4) Make Your Whole Life a Prayer, by Heather Saunders
An intriguing look into a feeling-oriented approach to life.

5+ hours total. Rent or buy at tatfoundation.vhx.tv/.

Return to the main page of the October 2021 TAT Forum.

 

Founder's Wisdom

Richard Rose (1917-2005) established the TAT Foundation
in 1973 to encourage people to work together on what
he considered to be the "grand project" of spiritual work.

Core Albigen System Principles
(in no particular order)

Part 2 of 3 (continued from the September 2021 TAT Forum):

6. Transmutation of energy to sharpen intuition and to protect ourselves from entities, outside influences, and nature’s distractions.

“Mystics must have found that celibacy was amenable to the search, or they would have given up after a hundred years or more of the experiment.” ~ Richard Rose, The Albigen Papers

“Since the sex-act has a definite impact upon the mind, inasmuch as it is able to alter states of mind, or to bring about deceptive states of mind, it is worthwhile to assume that the inhibition or control of the sex-act will somehow inhibit or control a state of mind that is not conducive to our search.” ~ Richard Rose, The Albigen Papers

“If exorcism is a workable function, that demonstrates that there are entities who are able to seriously affect our lives and behavior, then it is the responsibility of the psychiatric scientist to broaden their scope, not to pretend that the whole concept of entities will go away if we ignore it.” ~ Richard Rose, Energy Transmutation Between-ness and Transmission

“If the purpose of mankind is to produce energy for other beings, which may not be visible to us, then that energy would need to be subtle because we are not visibly attacked and eaten. This theory of the existence of entity-parasites, does not automatically bring with it the need to accept these entities as being of superior essence. They would no doubt be strategically superior, but then so would a mosquito, or flea, if either were able to tap our veins, drink, and get away without our knowing it.” ~ Richard Rose, Energy Transmutation Between-ness and Transmission

“In regards to kundalini, sex was designed for propagation, but applying the principle, ‘Milk from thorns,’ it becomes quantum energy—for transmission or projection.” ~ Richard Rose, personal correspondence with John Kent (contained in Kent’s Richard Rose’s Psychology of the Observer: The Path to Reality Through the Self)

“These findings add more meaning to my advice on the needs of celibacy, and the different approaches to celibacy by the different sexes—which advice came about as a result of intuition. Consequently I take a step further and by giving my life’s experiment as a witness, assert that intuition itself is directly related to celibacy and the management of prostaglandins.” ~ Richard Rose, from a 1981 lecture in Akron, Ohio titled "The Psychology of Miracles," as transcribed in The Direct-Mind Experience

7. Turning the internal head back to “dead center” (relates to between-ness).

“If you think of a foot that is itching, you mentally turn away from it. If the nose starts to itch, it does not matter if you scratch it or not, but immediately turn away from it. One at a time a hundred things will pop up, and the early exercises in such meditation will be an exercise in deflecting any and all thoughts except the ones which we agreed to tolerate, long before we sat down to think about it.

“Something happens after this routine is practiced for a length of time. We begin to notice a motion within the head. The physical head does not move, but we become conscious of a mental head that literally turns away from a view. When you are able to turn this internal head, whenever you wish, without any inability to continue thinking, you are half way home.” ~ Richard Rose, Psychology of the Observer

Jacob's Ladder © 2001 Richard Rose.>

“Now from this contemplation, the dashing back and forth across this upper line (E-F) [in Jacob’ Ladder], man arrives at an Absolute realization. He arrives at a point in which his head is on dead-center. There’s no place left for it to go.

“What happens when the head is on dead-center? Almost anything. My reason for putting it in the book was not so much for healing as for realization. It is more important to realize who you are and what you are than it is to heal someone.

“So the first profit that comes from having your head on dead-center is an Absolute realization of yourself. And then of course, if the experience doesn’t kill you, you might be able to do something on a mundane level.” ~ Richard Rose, The Direct-Mind Experience

8. The outer mind outwits the essential self.

“When one part of a man fools the other part, then the part that has been fooled is the essential self.” ~ Richard Rose, Psychology of the Observer

“Now to get around that unreliable mind, you have to become a super-psychologist; you have to know when you’re outwitting yourself. Now this may sound difficult to some of you—if you haven’t done any spiritual work on yourself you may not know what I’m talking about—but anybody who has tried to do any type of spiritual work will know they outwit themselves. It’s that simple.” ~ Richard Rose, from a 1977 lecture titled "Introduction to the Albigen System"

“We must be determined, yet we should never be ‘up-tight.’ Our perseverance should be in the head, watching how we outwit ourselves, or how nature outwits our fumbling attempts.” ~ Richard Rose, Energy Transmutation Between-ness and Transmission

9. Conciliatory principle between opposites—leaps in perspective. Umpire (Somatic Awareness). Process Observer. Absolute Awareness.

“We live in a relative world in which there is no wisdom; only linear thinking; duality not singularity. Stuck with linear thinking. But we have to see both from the conciliatory principle. You can’t know until you get above it. You won’t know what mental troubles are until you get above the mind. You can’t understand the mind with the mind.” ~ Richard Rose, from a 1981 lecture in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania titled "The Psychology of Miracles"

“So this fellow up at the top (point C) [on Jacob’s Ladder], this conciliatory principle, is the Umpire. We notice, if we observe our self, that something up there is saying, ‘Yesterday you were wrong, today you’re right.’ There’s an observing process going on inside the mind; a decision making process that has to do with the perpetuation of that body. That’s all it is; it’s a somatic mind.” ~ Richard Rose, from a 1976 lecture in Los Angeles, California

“We have a body-umpire that says don’t do this or that. But when you get to where you’re bickering with yourself over emotions that may louse up your mind, then the only thing that will save you is the observer. As [Hubert] Benoit says, behind, the third point of the pyramid, the conciliatory principle, the ‘I’ watching the whole straight-line experience of birth and death.” ~ Richard Rose, from a 1991 evening of hypnosis demonstration on the Rose Farm

10. A system of between-ness.

“Thought, no-thought results in Absolute realization. Now if it was an algebraic equation then my answer would be somewhere between thought and no-thought or ‘half-thought.’ No. What it is, must be found by trying it—you do it, you live it... and this is what happens! You reach an Absolute realization by looking between thoughts.” ~ Richard Rose, from a 1980 "Lecture on Between-ness" in Columbus, Ohio, as transcribed in The Direct-Mind Experience

“Between-ness is a methodicity. This is another one of the laws that I was referring to. There is a certain way that you are able to hold your head just on perfect balance, not being to the left or to the right.” ~ Richard Rose, from a 1975 lecture at Boston College, as transcribed in The Direct-Mind Experience

“Down below the word wisdom I have written something else—‘being’ and ‘Between-ness.’ The inner Self I capitalize, and the outer self is the fellow you smile at in the mirror. Your higher Self is synonymous with your Source. You don’t learn this through reason, and you don’t learn it always through crude intuition or superstition. It has to be perfected intuition and perfected reason. By this I mean the intuition has to be tempered with the reason. This causes, through wisdom—a change of being. It may be gradual, so gradual he does not notice it. What has changed him is this word ‘Between-ness’ because I have no other word for it even though it sounds like a very plain word. It is the conciliatory principle and the things that result from being between, never allowing yourself to flop fanatically to one polar opposite or the other.” ~ Richard Rose, from a 1980 Lecture on Between-ness in Columbus, Ohio, as transcribed in The Direct-Mind Experience

*

Thanks to Paul Constant for putting this material together. The document is available in pdf form at https://www.searchwithin.org/download/core_albigen_system_principles.pdf.

Return to the main page of the October 2021 TAT Forum.

Did you enjoy the Forum? Then buy the book! Beyond Mind, Beyond Death is available at Amazon.com.

 

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