Fasting teaches people how to enhance the transcendent power over the earth\'s lust gravity. People who are enticed by food stalls or eat excessively when they break the fast exemplifies immaturity.
By
YUDI LATIF
·5 minutes read
Fasting teaches people how to do religious activities in a mature manner. It’s a form of worship that depends on your own conscience. Doing morally acceptable things is not because of external compulsion but because of one’s self-awareness. Fasting teaches people how to enhance the transcendent power over the earth\'s lust gravity. People who are enticed by food stalls or eat excessively when they break the fast exemplifies immaturity.
Fasting teaches (to adapt to) quietness that will enable one to listen to their inner voice. Those who fast under pressure of rebuke and threat of torment, is an act of fasting by slaves, who approach God only out of compulsion or fear, not out of preoccupation with the longing of lovers.
Fasting instills honesty to be brave to speak the truth to others with integrity.
Fasting brings ones’ personal relationship closer to the Creator by strengthening the bond of love with fellow beings. Fasting is a way to attain God\'s grace by following the path of rahmatanlil ‘alamin in life.
Fasting instills honesty to be brave to speak the truth to others with integrity. Even if we do not see God, he is always present in every snort of our breath.
Fasting instills ugahari, knowing when to feel enough. Not so much thinking about what you desire but being aware of what you do not need. Knowing exactly when the desire to dominate and control the party must stop; knowing the limit where accumulation of wealth and business opportunities can be attained properly.
It’s not proper to take all opportunities. Freedom to explore must not make one greedy. Indeed, all living beings need living space. A shared happiness can be attained when love grows sharing the realm. Healthy power is created in a reciprocal game between independent people. People can affect each other because each has a controlled domain. When all realms, economics, politics and cultures are controlled by one party, the relationship of power is one -way. A handful of people took control of all the space, pushing others to the edge. Impaired power relations can embody tyranny, which wreaks havoc on the earth.
Fasting reminds us of the law of equilibrium. When power relations are unbalanced, which causes the backflow, water that does not find a channel will gradually rise. With one typhoon, the tsunami of anarchy will destroy all walls of greed. So, start learning restraint. If you don\'t like being marginalized, don\'t marginalize others. If you don\'t like being pinched, don\'t pinch. If you like to be loved, give affection to others. Indeed, greed is like a fire that will burn all attainments.
Fasting reminds us of the necessity to share in the distribution of assets, opportunities and honored status; which is also in the roles and responsibilities of managing public affairs. It is not proper for an authority in a certain field to intervene other fields beyond the capacity of its authority; or vice versa. If a business is left to someone with no expertise and is not distributed proportionally, just wait for the destruction.
With true fasting, the dignity of man is exalted again beyond the value of material power. The lust of amassing wealth, expanding influence and exploiting knowledge has misled man to the point of allowing himself to become a mere factor of production, a slave to power and an instrument of experimentation.
In this slavery of worldly passions, the presence of religion, which should become the bearer of the missions of justice, love and sanity, often turns into a preacher that allows injustice, enmity and idolatry. Where is the (religious) mission of perfecting morals if religion is only used as a marketing package, a reason for fighting and an excuse for power? If religious ethos that is the basis of criticism against idolatry and corruption of material, power and knowledge begins to freeze; while other wells of morality dry up too; how can you be sure that any attempt at political reform can succeed without an ethical basis to support it.
Ramadan serves as a break to provide a moment of self-reflection, restoring spiritual energy to burn the parasites that degrade morality. Ramadan gives awareness that the desire to accumulate, to rule and to influence is never satisfied except by learning to do fasting. Self-control is the root that supports social control. Fasting is like a “kawah candradimuka”, a training center for self-control.
If all citizens learn to perform true fasting, the fat lumps of power and excess property in one group can be channeled into energy for another group, not into greed cholesterol that triggers social paralysis. Like the leaves that fall in autumn they can fertilize the grass below and around it. Every now and then we need to wither; let ego burn, falling and bowing on earth; understanding mortality which eventually triggers a desire to share, opening up to others with compassion.