#AskYounusAlGohar - What is the Purpose of Fasting?

Fasting is a struggle to purify your Carnal Self. To refrain from eating is just one aspect of fasting.

The purpose of fasting is to reduce the intake of Negative Energy (Naar) and increase the intake of Divine Energy (Noor).

Negative Energy enters your body at all times while you breathe. However when we eat, we obtain a lot [more] Negative Energy. So in a fast, you stop eating for 15-16 hours to stop the Carnal Self from obtaining its diet of Negative Energy. When a person gets ill, he stops eating; but in order to get well, you still have to take medicine. During a fast, different types of worship such as Taraweeh and Salat are all ways to increase Divine Energy in you.

Fasting was prescribed to Christians also. It was something which had been made a religious obligation upon many nations before Islam. You are trying to weaken your Carnal Self, which is the source of all evil in your body. However, keeping yourself away from consumption of food is just one very tiny element of inner purification.

During fasting, you refrain from consumption of all foods, but at the same time, you must be able to replace that Negative Energy with Divine Energy so that your Carnal Self becomes purified.

Therefore to practise fasting effectively, one has to be enlightened in the heart. One’s heart must be articulated with God’s name; one’s heart must have learnt the art of producing Divine Energy.

If your heart is still not open and you are fasting, the job is only half done. Since the job is only half done, it is not going to benefit you in any way.

You will feel like you’ve taken some depression tablets when you fast. You’ll feel like you have calmed down. That is all you will get by the half job. If you continue to practise fasting without an enlightened heart, it is not going to benefit you at all.

As a result, you can see we are in the holy month of Ramadan. However, those ‘Muslims’ especially who do not get tired proclaiming that they are the purest of all Muslims – instead of purifying themselves, they are busy in human slaughter. They’re carrying out an organised butchery of mankind. Had their hearts and thought processes been purified; had their inner selves been purged, they would not even want to harm a tiny insect.

I am explaining the spiritual mechanism of fasting. Fasting in one sentence is to cut down on the intake of Negative Energy and increase the intake of Divine Energy. This is only possible when your heart is enlightened and has learned the art of producing Divine Energy.

Those who take every aspect of the religion as a ritual don’t dig beyond that ritualistic understanding. They are just wasting their time. Their practice of any ritual is futile – a complete waste. You can see the results. There are over a billion Muslims all over the world. But to be honest with you, even with the education they have, practically speaking, they are the farthest from any moral or religious values. They are those who don’t even know what ethical values are. Their religiosity is based on blindfoldedly practised rituals.

These rituals will only benefit you when you have learnt to effectively receive the spiritual benefits of that practice. Therefore any religious practice today in the absence of spirituality is a complete waste of time and energy. The result is null and void. Simple as that.