Science Of Life

Author(s): U S Dugar
Publisher: U S Dugar

Page 72

and freedom to heal and take control of body. Fasting helps one to transcend addiction and attachment to food, and to realize that man doesn't live by bread alone. It is the change of seat of power, who the master is? Body must not be master, otherwise one cannot go inward. If one feels hungry let the body feel and not the mind. It will be painful in the beginning, but it is a bliss, when reached beyond body and becomes the master. And once the body has known it, the body gets adjusted.
Fasting is a big and far reaching exercise in the domain of human nature and enables one to bear the hardship of difficult time and situation. Penance does not only mean just fasting, it actually grooms a person to face the odds and inevitable more courageously and audaciously. Freed from having to satisfy physical hunger, one can then turn one's attention to feed the mind and spirit. One gains self-confidence in one's ability to control life process, to set a goal and carry out an intention. The mind gets clearer, and spiritual awareness deepens.
Jainism is known for the extreme asceticism. Penance or the sustained mortification of karma body and control over the body as related with the soul is elaborated and insisted on in the Jaina cannons. Mahavira himself carried out severest austerities of various types for the period of twelve and half years of his journey towards awakening. He ate food only on three hundred and sixty days, i.e. an average of eleven days' fasting for one day meal. He did not fast for less than two days at one time. Some times for 8 days, 15 days, three months, four or five months, he did not eat. During all his fasts he did not drink water. He left
75