When a man can look at a tempting dinner and not eat, when no one says no to him but himself, or when he can face the mad urge of a strong radiant passion and curb it—not because he must but because he will, knowing that he wants something a thousand times more than he wants his own natural satisfaction, then he is on the short cut to higher possessions and neither deep nor high can keep his own away from him. High stakes are hard to win, and the short cut is not the pathway of the weakling or the coward, but it belongs to the strong heart and resolute mind.
The third reason for fasting is attainment. There are those who never get what they want, never get it when they want it, nor how they want it; never keep it if they get it and often, when they have gotten it and grown tired of it, they cannot cast it aside and go on into union with their next desires.
So we fast for attainment on all planes of being and for attainment which will fulfill and accomplish our selfhood. We have learned that we may have what we want, when we want it and how and where, and that when we have lived up our desires we must unload them and eliminate just as we did on the physical plane. Mental, emotional or spiritual stagnation is just as dangerous as plethora in the flesh. We fast to displace the old things and attain the new quickly and harmoniously.
There is no use dragging on year after year with hope dead in our breasts. Life is joy
