Mental Fasting Required

Sri Lakshmana Swamy

To make spiritual progress it is useful to moderate food, sleep and talk. With too much or too little food, the senses rebel and the mind is impossible to control. Buddha once joined a group of sannyasis who were starving themselves, and for a while he followed their practices. Eventually he became too weak to meditate and so he started to take food again. It was only after he started to take food that he realized the Self. One should always take the middle way and avoid all extremes of deprivation an indulgence.

Some devotees go on fasts for days at a time, but such extreme practices are not necessary for spiritual progress. The only fasting that is required is mental. Starve the mind of all thoughts and all other methods become redundant.

Q: Moderating one's food and conversation is relatively easy, but how does one control sleep? For the past few days I have been sleeping at least nine hours every day, but I am still finding difficult to stay awake when I meditate. Is it bad to sleep so much?

LS: It is not harmful to sleep for a long time. By controlling one's sleep I mean that one should not more than the minimum number of hours to keep the body healthy and alert. The amount of sleep that is needed will vary from person to person.

If one falls asleep during meditation it is an indication that one is not meditating intensively enough. If concentration and earnestness are weak, then drowsiness sets in and there is a tendency to fall asleep. This is a natural process which many people experience. There is a critical level of effort; if one can reach this level then there will be enough energy to stay awake, and meditation will proceed intensively even though the body and mind may be tired. If one can sustain this level of intense meditation throughout the day, then the amount of sleep one gets becomes irrelevant because the meditative current continues even while one is asleep.