Hunger and Thirst.

In the last post I introduced the concept of “training” for the Soul - methods believed to strengthen our personal connection to the divine.

In this post and the next few I’ll be taking a closer look at a few of these methods - exercises we can find across a broad range of religious and philosophical traditions that are known to deepen particular aspects of our spiritual life.

Before we jump in, let’s first explore the “why?” - what is the purpose of “training” the Soul? And for that matter, what does that even mean?

To answer those questions we have to first start with the concept of the Soul.

For thousands of years, philosophers and theologians have researched, meditated on, written about, and debated the nature of our Soul. The exact language and understanding of the concept varies across traditions, but for the purpose of this discussion, we can think of our Soul as:

Who we really are - our eternal essence, our irreducible uniqueness. Our Soul is ​​”the ultimate internal principle by which we think, feel, will, and by which our bodies are animated.”

Our Soul, or our true Self, is believed to be responsible for “higher order” action, typically associated with our “moral compass”, or our ability to reach beyond the self in service for others. Our Soul is our piece of the divine, and its strength determines our capacity to express it.

On the subject of strength, just as we can train our physical body for things like durability and performance, we can also “train” our Soul, improving our ability to conquer temptation and weakness, delay gratification, generate more compassion for others, and deny lower impulses in favor of higher ones.

The metaphor of “training” for the Soul is also a helpful one given the profound parallels between our physical and spiritual health - both our body and spirit atrophy without use, both require resistance in order to grow, and both demand consistent practice/habits in order to ensure optimal functioning.

In the case of our body, optimal functioning is meeting the physical demands of everyday life with effectiveness and efficiency.

For our Soul, optimal functioning is the full expression of our divinity - manifesting our unique offering to the world while living joyfully, righteously, and in service to others.

The “training tools” I’ll discuss in this post and the next few address those needs - providing the structure, resistance, and consistency needed for deepening our spiritual life.

Let’s get into it.

Training Tool 1: Fasting

Given the earlier conversation highlighting the deep connection between our physical and spiritual health, I chose to start this series with fasting - the perfect illustration of a “training tool” that bridges these two aspects of the Self.

Before discussing fasting in a spiritual context, let’s begin by taking a look at the practice from a physiological lens.

First, what is it and why do people do it?

Fasting is the voluntary abstention from food (and depending on the type of fast, also drink).

In the last five years or so, fasting has had a bit of a renaissance, as science has caught up to what humans have intuitively understood for thousands of years - periodic longer breaks from caloric consumption are overwhelmingly beneficial to our health, performance, and longevity.

Without doing a deep dive, the premise is simple - when your body isn’t occupied with tasks associated with processing food, it has the opportunity to shift attention to other vital bodily functions - cellular repair, immune function, and hormonal balance to name a few.

(Fasting is also a perfect example of hormesis. I’ll cover this concept in the future, but for the sake of this post - hormesis is a “dose-response” relationship in which a stressor (in this case caloric restriction) leads to favorable biological adaptations in an organism. Other examples of hormesis include things like heat/cold exposure, strength training, etc)

This is obvious, but for folks who are overweight, fasting has additional health benefits, as breaks from caloric consumption allow our bodies to use stored energy (fat) for fuel. In the process, we neutralize the dysfunction and illness associated with being overweight - metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, organ disease, etc.

On the subject of when (and how much) to eat, fasting is also in perfect alignment with our evolutionary history.

Prior to the Industrial age, rhythmic cycling of “absence and abundance” was a normal part of the human experience - a function of living more deeply connected to our environment and working with the ebb and flow of what nature provided.

In the modern world however, this deep connection to our environment and the cycling of food abundance is often no longer the case, as an average citizen in a developed country now has unbridled access to the most calorically dense food this planet has ever known.

Whether it be the grocery stores and fast food joints that line every street, or the delivery services dropping off world-class meals on our doorsteps, (for many of us) the quantity, variety, and ease of food access is unique to the time we are living in.

The choices that accompany this access to food brings us back to our conversation of fasting, more specifically, its connection to our spiritual development.

To understand fasting in a spiritual context we have to first understand the concept of asceticism - “the voluntary denial of physical or psychological desires in order to obtain a spiritual ideal or goal.”

The word asceticism comes from the Greek word askeo, meaning “to exercise” or “to train” and we can find examples of ascetic practices in Ancient Greece as early as the 4th or 5th century BC.

The origin of ascetic practices in Ancient Greece was largely connected to physical excellence - training for combat and preparation for athletic contests. Similar to the concept of hormesis described earlier, the practices developed with the understanding that an appropriate amount of resistance/stress creates positive adaptations for the human organism. As society evolved and the definition of human excellence moved beyond the physical, ascetic principles that were initially applied to training the body were converted to approaches meant to develop the whole person - improving intellect, ethics, and spiritual depth.

Just as in ancient Greece, ascetic practices have been apart of virtually every major world religion and philosophy around the world - from Aztec religions to ancient Mesopotamia to Buddhism to Christianity, the importance of controlling and training our physical impulses has been central to religious/philosophical thought for thousands of years.

Fasting is arguably the most common of all ascetic practices, and although the exact reason for engaging in the discipline varies between faith/philosophical traditions, we can find several purposes that extend across a host of belief systems.

As mentioned a moment ago, fasting is an effective training tool for gaining mastery over our physical impulses. When we feel the sensation of hunger and consciously deny its pull, we are essentially establishing a “hierarchy of self” - teaching ourselves that we are in control of our body’s impulses and not enslaved to its every desire. This management of our biological cravings creates greater distinction between our more base, animal nature and our Divine Self, showing “who is in charge” of decision making.

Secondly, fasting is an example of “voluntary hardship” - the practice of choosing to engage in disciplines/experiences that are uncomfortable, scary, or demanding. Just as with asceticism described a moment ago, this elective confrontation with discomfort can yield immense benefits that are often curative for our physical, mental, and emotional health.

In today’s world, disciplines that possess an element of voluntary hardship are more crucial than ever, as many of us now live in a state of undeviating comfort with wildly distorted expectations for pleasure and a numbness to the beauty and joy of much of life. Often referred to as “hedonic tolerance” or “hedonic habituation”, the side-effects of perpetual comfort are similar to that of drug addiction - as soon as an intoxicant is removed (in this case comfort/pleasure) a new psychological or emotional “low” is reached as a result of dysregulation to a person’s “hedonic homeostasis”. More simply, folks that spend their days scrolling, playing video games, and shoveling rich, calorically dense food into their face will eventually have a tough time enjoying a sunset, a hug, or a simple, nutrient-dense meal. Fasting provides one way to jump off this dopamine rollercoaster so many of us are stuck on, interrupting and recalibrating our understanding of pleasure while making us more resilient and mentally tough in the process.

Just as with training for our body, our ability to choose higher principles over lower desires improves with exercise, and fasting can do just that, serving as a daily/weekly/monthly tool for strengthening our will. Doing something difficult each day (in this case denying a hunger impulse), improves our ability to make other hard decisions in service for our own good or the good of others. We can think of fasting as a metaphorical barbell for our willpower and resolve, providing the resistance necessary for positive adaptation in these areas.

Lastly, fasting can provide “uniquely potent sensory experiences” that often teeter into the metaphysical realm. The revitalizing, almost “house-cleaning” like physiological effect of fasting described earlier can provide mental and spiritual clarity that bridges the gap between body and Soul. Although shorter “intermittent fasts” likely won’t provide the stimulus necessary to alter our perception of reality or elicit visionary states, an exploration of longer multi-day fasts may yield some glimpses.

On that note, how long? How often? Should I drink during my fast? Is coffee okay?

There are so many great resources that focus on the nuances of different styles of fasting, the benefits of each, etc. so for this post I chose not to do a “how-to” of the discipline. Rather, I was hoping to spark some curiosity and discuss its capability as a tool for deepening your spiritual life.

If this did pique your interest and you’d like to gather some more information before skipping some meals, I’d recommend the work of Peter Attia.

Good luck.

"Fasting as a religious act increases our sensitivity to that mystery always and everywhere present to us. It is a passageway into the world of spirit to explore its territory and bring back a wisdom necessary for living a fulfilled life. It is an invitation to awareness, a call to compassion for the needy, a cry of distress, and a song of joy. It is a discipline of self-restraint, a ritual of purification, and a sanctuary for offerings of atonement. It is a wellspring for the spiritually dry, a compass for the spiritually lost, and inner nourishment for the spiritually hungry." - Fr. Thomas Ryan