Religious fasting

In addition, Latter-Day Saints may also fast and pray voluntarily for a full 24 or 48 hours when they feel that they need extra spiritual strength or guidance.

Not eating a meal in the evening I, monks, am aware of good health and of being without illness and of buoyancy and strength and living in comfort.

Prior to attaining Buddhahood, prince Siddhartha practiced a short regime of strict austerity and following years of serenity meditation under two teachers which he consumed very little food.

[9] On Uposatha days, roughly once a week, lay Buddhists are instructed to observe the eight precepts[9] which includes refraining from eating after noon until the following morning.

[13][14] Fasting is a practice in several Christian denominations and is done both collectively during certain seasons of the liturgical calendar, or individually as a believer feels led by the Holy Spirit.

[27] The early Christian bishop Maximus of Turin wrote that as Elijah by "fasting continuously for a period of forty days and forty nights...merited to extinguish the prolonged and severe dryness of the whole world, doing so with a stream of rain and steeping the earth's dryness with the bounty of water from heaven", in the Christian tradition, this is interpreted as being "a figure of ourselves so that we, also fasting a total of forty days, might merit the spiritual rain of baptism...[and] a shower from heaven might pour down upon the dry earth of the whole world, and the abundant waters of the saving bath might saturate the lengthy drought of the Gentiles.

[50] Additionally, Orthodox Christians abstain from sexual relations on Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, as with the entirety of Lent, the Nativity Fast and the fifteen days before the Feast of the Assumption of Mary.

Partial fasting within the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, abstaining from meat and milk, takes place during certain times of the year and lasts for weeks.

For example, the Feast of the Annunciation almost always occurs within the Great Lent in the Orthodox calendar: in this case fish (traditionally haddock fried in olive oil) is the main meal of the day.

Those who are unable to follow the strict observance may eat on Tuesday and Thursday (but not, if possible, on Monday) in the evening after Vespers, when they may take bread and water, or perhaps tea or fruit juice, but not a cooked meal.

[51] On Wednesday and Friday of the first week of Great Lent the meals which are taken consist of xerophagy (literally, "dry eating") i.e. boiled or raw vegetables, fruit, and nuts.

[51] In a number of monasteries, and in the homes of more devout laypeople, xerophagy is observed on every weekday (Monday through Friday) of Great Lent, except when wine and oil are allowed.

[57] "The General Rules of the Methodist Church," written by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley, wrote that "It is expected of all who desire to continue in these societies that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation, by attending upon all the ordinances of God, such are: the public worship of God; the ministry of the Word, either read or expounded; the Supper of the Lord; family and private prayer; searching the Scriptures; and fasting or abstinence.

[30] The Reformed Church in America describes the first day of Lent, Ash Wednesday, as a day "focused on prayer, fasting, and repentance" and considers fasting a focus of the whole Lenten season,[75] as demonstrated in the "Invitation to Observe a Lenten Discipline", found in the Reformed liturgy for the Ash Wednesday service, which is read by the presider:[76] We begin this holy season by acknowledging our need for repentance and our need for the love and forgiveness shown to us in Jesus Christ.

[32] In addition, within the Puritan/Congregational tradition of Reformed Christianity, special days of humiliation and thanksgiving "in response to dire agricultural and meteororological conditions, ecclesiastsical, military, political, and social crises" are set apart for communal fasting.

[79] Classical Pentecostalism does not have set days of abstinence, but individuals in the movement may feel they are being directed by the Holy Spirit to undertake either short or extended fasts.

Members may also implement personal, family, or group fasts any time they desire to solicit special blessings from God, including health or comfort for themselves or others.

[85][86] In modern versions of the Daniel Fast, food choices may be limited to whole grains, fruits, vegetables, pulses, nuts, seeds and oil.

Krishna is worshipped in twelve forms as Kesava, Narayana, Madhava, Govinda, Vishnu, the slayer of Madhu, who covered the universe in three steps, the dwarf (who beguiled Mahabali), Sridhara, Hrishikesha, Padmanabha, Damodara, Pundhariksha.

Shia Muslims usually refrain from eating on that day till the time of Asr Prayer and called it a "Faqa", which means abstaining from consuming food without an intent of a fast, in remembrance of the sacrifice of Husayn ibn Ali and his associates.

[102] Fasting on the day of Arafah for non-pilgrims is a highly recommended Sunnah which entails a great reward; Allah forgives the sins of two years.

Fasting and sexual abstinence are often observed by all participants in certain rituals—such as those performed to bring rain for planting maize or to end a drought—by those departing on pilgrimages to sacred places, and among extended kinship networks during curing ceremonies.

Consuming certain foods and plants, and abstaining from sexual relations enables humans to capture, control, and channel the flow of this energy to desired ends.

The Sikh holy Scripture, Sri Guru Granth Sahib tell us: "Fasting, daily rituals, and austere self-discipline – those who keep the practice of these, are rewarded with less than a shell."

(Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 299) Serve God who alone is your Savior instead indulge into ritual, he is only one who will save you every where: "I do not keep fasts, nor do I observe the month of Ramadaan.

||1||" (Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 1136) If you keep fast, to count everyday pledge yourself you will act honest, sincere, controls your desires, mediate.

(Guru Granth Sahib Ji, Ang 873) "Fasting on Ekadashi, adoration of Thakurs (stones) one remains away from Hari engaged in the Maya and omens.

(Bhai Gurdas Ji, Vaar 7)[114] The bigu (辟谷 "avoiding grains") fasting practice originated as a Daoist technique for becoming a xian (仙 "transcendent; immortal"), and later became a Traditional Chinese medicine cure for the sanshi (三尸 "Three Corpses; the malevolent, life-shortening spirits that supposedly reside in the human body").

According to the Engishiki, in the Heian Period, fasts began to be used as punishment for the Buddhist sin of meat consumption, initially for 3 days.

[116] By the Kamakura Period, much stricter enforcement and punishments began, with an order from Ise Shrine for a fast for 100 days for eating wild or domestic animals as defined above.