The Power of Fasting

Abstract

Gandhi, who had experimented with diets for some years, finally discovered the religious value of fasting late in his stay in South Africa. From time to time he reminded his readers in India of the religious importance of fasting for everybody. In 1919, commenting on the Moslem Conference of Lucknow’s proclamation of Friday 7 October as a day of fasting and prayer, he welcomed their action and wrote: ‘Prayer expresses the soul’s longing and fasting sets the soul free for efficacious prayer.’ Shortly afterwards he elaborated in an article entitled ‘Fasting and Prayer’ as follows: ‘There is nothing as purifying as a fast, but fasting without prayer is barren ... it is only a prayerful fast undertaken by way of penance to produce some effect on oneself which can be called a religious fast.’ A year later Gandhi considered himself ‘a specialist par excellence’ in fasting: ‘I do not know any contemporary of mine who has reduced fasting and prayer to an exact science and who has reaped a harvest so abundant as I have.’ He rephrased his previous definition: ‘Fasting then is crucifixion of the flesh with a corresponding freedom of the spirit and prayer is a definite conscious longing of the soul to be utterly pure.’ However, the discussion of the religious value of fasting in general as an accompaniment of prayer never became a major theme for Gandhi.