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to an optimum state. Fasting restores good digestion and elimination, and peristaltic action is quickened. The freer the body is of toxic materials flowing through the blood and lymphatic system, the clearer is the ability to think.
One can survive without food for some days but not without water. Water as it is, is most unsafe medium to survive. Our system also generates water by combustion going on in it. Fasting without drinking water gives better purification. Not only food and water but all objects which are foreign to the self are to be discarded when one is performing fasting. Renunciation should also include untimely sleep, unwanted physical urges, tendencies and all types of physical and mental violence. Fasting is penance only when the person observing it does not entertain any inauspicious thoughts, when it does not result in bodily weakness, and when the activities of mind, speech and body remain unimpaired.
Mahavira as soon as initiated into monkshood he practiced meditation and observed fast for three days. Jainism has special significance for fasting for 3 days at a stretch. The intestines have enough food for 3 days and an average person has enough reservation of energy to keep him alive for 90 days without taking food. The cleansing and detoxification symptoms, and the loss of weight and muscle mass, are the most severe and intense for the first three days, energy levels also tend to be lowest and most problematic. Energy levels seem to return to relatively normal levels after the first 3 days have passed. The tongue becomes coated and the breath foul as the body excretes waste through every opening
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