RAMADAN 2013 is in full swing. Forlorn faces bear testimony everywhere. As often happens, the crime wave is low. Business is slow. But food and fruit sellers get a good ‘make good’ when the fast is broken.
Ramadan is much more sweeping in its observance than the Christian 40-days Lent. In my observations, older Christians take lent far more seriously than the young. But in Ramadan, the young and the old are together in the train. In the mind, I travel back to my childhood in an orthodox Christian home in which, as in all Christen homes, the left hand must not reveal to the right what it does. This is one of the reasons Christians distance themselves from the Ramadan which, indeed, may become for many Muslims an obeisance less in spirit and more out of habit, as many Islamic clerics have been advising nominal Muslims against since last week. Thus, my Christian friends often wonder every Ramadan season if I am not all nuts when I encourage them to join the fast. For me, Lent and Ramadan have the same goal. If properly observed, they offer the human spirit the possibility of loosening up a little the suffocating material fetters which bind it to this earth, and, through this, re-inforce its connections to the Spiritual World. It is from this world that the human spirit, as a seed, was planted in the material soil, from where its sprouting, germination, flowering and fruiting begin. When it has attained the utmost growth potential, it is admitted to the spiritual world as a now conscious and productive being who can become a useful tool in the continual upbuilding in Creation.
Religion separates many peoples in spirit. But it needn’t. I became more clarified about religion than my religion taught me when I came to the following recognitions.
• In His wisdom, the Creator placed His creatures in different parts of the Universe best suited to their spiritual development.
• In these locations, each people knew only of its existence, not of any other.
• Each people knew man was not the Creator, and sought recognition of, and access to Him.
• They were groping from below, upwards…and, whenever they became stagnated in their understanding of Him and His Will, He sent them teachers to expand their knowledge through the message brought by the teacher.
• Unfortunately, man has formed an iron-east cage called religion around each message and even prostituted the purity that, were the teachers to return today, they would not recognise their teachings and would distance themselves from religious practices which grew out of the original messages they brought.
• Had man not made religion a footstool for access to earthly power and influence, he would have found a common string in all these messages which would have united them into a single flight of stairway to the Creator who Willed these messages at various times for different peoples standing at different levels of spiritual development.
It was in these recognitions that I came to appreciate the pure teachings of Islam, for example and the mission of the Prophet to the people of Arabia, from which other people’ may profit. Just as, the Arabians, too, can benefit from messages sent to other people. I tell my Christian friends: If Islam means submission to the will of Allah, the Creator, and our Lord Jesus taught that no-one would be admitted to Paradise who didn’t fulfill the Will of His Father, isn’t there a common ring to the teachings, however different their routes to the Creator?
Anyone who has studies Arabian life before the advent of the Prophet would appreciate the spiritual import of the pure teachings of Islam that he bought. In that region at that time. Given the condition of the human spirit at that time which is perhaps still prevalent in other parts of the earth, it was necessary to focus the spirit of man five times in one day to the Creator by way of prayers to divert the spirit from the trappings of iniquities of the perverted spirit. It became necessary, also to separate one month in the year for intense spiritual reflections as which was capable of making the spirit cast off the material dross which weigh it down and soar home wards.
I do not know how the first Ramadans were observed. But as I reflected on this subject last week, a thought came to me. How wonderful would it be if man always observed the way of the wise ant and followed them. The ant knows it can be swept away by running water during the rains. So, before the rains, it gathers and stores all the food it would need in the rain season. So, during the rains when it hardly ventures for food, it hardly suffers want.
Women were buried alive for flimsy reasons. Beheading and other killings were rampant. Many of us still remember the story of Ali Baba and the 40 thieves we learned in primary school. I wondered what would a Ramadan experience would be like if, in the months proceeding a Ramadan, everyone had saved up for a holiday during Ramadan, and did nothing in that month besides the daily prayers and attending Islamic conferences, seminars, worships or lecturers? The purpose, of course, would be to gain insights and deepen one’s recognition with a view to incorporating the lessons learned into daily life. That would mean a changed life, a changed environment and a changed world. It would be evidence, after a Ramadan, if the past Ramadan had been utilised the way it is intended to be… a period of reflection, to draw strength to right the wrongs of the past and make the world a better place ever after.
We all can profit from these lessons. The Christian observances, such as Easter and Christians can be a lot more valuable for spiritual development and ascent, if they are stripped of the revelry which today embalms them. If the adherents of all religious would adjust themselves as suggested, our world would definitely become Paradise. But that appears a pipe dream today. For we all seem to approach these spiritual lifelines more out of habit than in search of the spiritual enablement they may offer. Like most spiritual; clerics have been preaching, fasting from sunrise to sunset all the days of the Ramadan does not by itself cleanse us of sins or confer on us Blessings from on High.
Really, it would be preponderous to believe that the Creator is glad that we are not eating and drinking when we should and for this reasons, will shower us with His Blessings. What is His profit in our not eating and eating? To my view, which some of these preachers, have reinforced, is that, if we gain deeper spiritual recognitions of fast and utilise them in daily relationships we become different, better persons than we were the day or year. It is this inward change which attracts to us a changed or new environment filled with those things we call blessings. If you aid I become more loving persons, won’t our environment become more loving? If recognise the service which the sun, moon, stars, trees and oceans, among others render to our lives on earth, and we appreciate the need to act likewise in our jobs, our country will work as Nature works… electricity would not fail, the governors and other public officers will not steal public money, the motor mechanic will not play games with your car, store keepers will not steal from the shelf, lecturers will not extort money from their students, the police will not take bribes, doctors will not refer their patients to India because of commissions from referrals… everything would be as it should. We, like our world, cannot change for the better when we abandon our vices during the Ramadan or any religions fast season, only to reactivate them when the fast is over. That way, we fast only out of habit.
Health benefits
There are many health values in the Ramadan fast, as suggested. Many great doctors in Europe place their patients on a fast. Dr Paul Bragg and his daughter Patricia Bragg detail their work in the book THE MIRACLE OF FASTING.
Dr. Hebert M Shelton, N.D., an American naturopath and Alternative Medicine advocate (October 6, 1895 – January 1, 185), a vegetarian and supporter of rawrism and fasting, was so famous through his clinics that, in 1956, the American vegetarian party nominated him as its candidate for the United States Presidential Election. As a child, he spent quite some time among animals, studying their habits, especially how they fasted to regain their health when they were sick. Dr. Shelton was to spend his work life preaching that
•Cooking food kills life-supporting substances in it.
• The body is naturally endowed to heal itself when it is sick.
•Fasting can cure all diseases.
As was to be expected, his colleagues heavily condemned his advocacy of fasting instead of medical treatment for the sick. But his image as a physician towered over theirs because of the results his patients were getting. He belonged to the Hygiene movement launched by Dr. Isaac Jenings and Sylvester Grahaim in 1832. Among other assertions, the Hygienists taught that if internal hygiene was clean, no disease could take hold of it. So popular was this movement that schools included hygiene in their curricular.
In 1992, Dr. Shelton published his first book Fundamentals of Nate Cure. Impressed with the work of the Hygiene movement he soon changed the title to An Introduction to Natural Hygiene. A follow-up book, The Science and Fine Art of Fasting, was so successful that the Indian Prime Minister then, Mahatma Ghandhi was reported to have consulted it before embarking on his public fasts.
Dr. Shelton was arrested and jailed no fewer than three times in about 30 years for allegedly practicing medicure without a licence. But the harassment did not stop him from preaching his ideas about the advantages of fasting over medication in the treatment of diseases. In 1972, at the age of 787, he fell ill and would be unable to help himself out of this condition, a neurological that was thought to be Parkinson’s disease. Perhaps he had lost the will to live. For six years earlier in 1972, he had been bankrupted by prosecution for the death, through heart attack, of a patient at one of his schools. The school was shut down.
Although Dr. Shelton is gone, his ideas live on. Central to these ideas are the following thoughts
• A fast gives the body a physiological holiday.
• This is a period of rest from digesting food and absorbing it.
• During this holiday, the body spends more energy to remove poisonous waste products of everyday living which it bottled over many years from lack of time or energy to rid itself of them.
• These toxins are the sources or building blocks of acidosis and toxemia which make the body a breeding ground for all sorts of germs.
• Although germs, and other micro-organisms, including candida and other yeast, have been defended by some authorities as agents of Nature dispatched to an acidic body to devour causes of acidosis, they nevertheless get the body more poisoned through the waste products of their own metabolism, especially if they overstay their welcome.
• There is no medication that can restore a sick body to healthy; only the body can heal itself if it is given the opportunity to do so through physiological rest and support with organic ingredients natural to its self-cleansing protocols.
• asting is not starvation. During a fast, the body feeds itself with nutrients essential to its survival by consuming degraded tissue such as uterine fibroids tissue, for example; physician who incorporate fasting their healing protocols are, nevertheless, divided on how to successfully fast a patient. Many agree that one-day facts are inadequate to remove poisons stacked up over many years. While some believe whole fruit and fruit and vegetable juices alone should be taken during a fast, others believe only distilled water with no minerals dissolved in it is said to be so highly reactive and chelating that it drags out more toxins than any other remedy. But some physicians believe it is minerals and vitamins lacking in cooked food consumed over the years which actually do the job. Dr. Bernard Jensen, reputed worldwide for his fasting protocols, favours fruit and vegetable juices and green drinks.
It is around these thoughts that a whole industry has arisen which produces food supplements which may support the health of anyone on Ramadan or any other fast. My Muslim friends always ask me all the approach of Ramadan fast of what new supplements are on the shelf. Are Mr. Aliu and Mr. Wale Ajila listening? Ditto Mrs. Abdusallam and Mrs. Yahaya.
As we all know, the Ramadan permits no food or drinks from sunrise to sunset. Eating before sunrise is a huge task for the body which is not fully risen, and does so only with fulsome energy from the risen sun. So, breakfast has to be light, yet so highly nutritional that energy level does not drop during the day. Years ago, I used to keep a large store of unsweetened. WHEATABIX, a whole grain wheat product. But it is now scarce in the market. So, this year, I stocked a local product called Aadun, a popular Ijebu ground corn recipe embalmed with palm oil, pepper and salted. Wrapped in leaves, it keeps for months as I have discovered and confirmed with the producers. I take about three glasses of water when I rise to rehydrate and provide fluid for flushing out toxins. I know I need sodium and potassium calcium and magnesium for a long haul. They keep nerves and muscles calm. I juice one or two oranges, add juice of one time or a teaspoonful of Braggs unfiltered Apple cider Vinegiar. These give potassium. To the solution, I sprinkle a punch of Celtic sea salt or Real salt for sodium. To it all add the contents of one or two capsules of Coral Calcium, one or two scoops of Forever Living Products’ Forever Lite Utra. Then I add one tablespoonful of either Kyolic Green or Spectra greens, a blend of about 40 green herbs for chlorophyll, minerals, amino acids, trace elements and co-factors. I forgot to mention that Aloe Lite Ultra is a full minerals, vitamins and some antioxidants. Still, I do not forget Natural Calm for that readily absorbable magnesium which calms the nerves and muscles and have been observed by many users to stop palpitations of the heart and spasms of uterine muscles which cause period pains. So, here we are, breakfast is ready, with Aadun providing carbohydrate power and giving some fat. So, I do not feel starved during the day. But I do feel thirsty, once, I felt so light-headed I suspected dehydration and had to quickly drunk some water. As there is more time to play with in the evenings, I drink lots of water, followed by mixed fruit juice and a delicious, MSG-free cooked meal. Never take fruits over cooked meal. If disturbs digestion as the fruit ferments before the food is ready to leave the stomach. Also, avoid consuming vegetable and fruits together. That may cause a digesting not as well.
We still have a long time to talk before the Ramadan fast is over. While work may sometimes sway the spiritual focus, which I believe is the main impost, time should always be found in solitude for introspection on important questions of LIFE. The answers will surely come. Isn’t it said that the teacher will come when the student is ready?
