I think with fasting, especially the long fasts, your basically up against yourself.
Its "you" that you run into.
That's the area that's labeled spiritual.

I usually have for only spiritual reasons as well as for my body's health.

Er... yeah, I had what I consider to be a spiritual experience many years ago at a time of crisis. It's memory has guided me through lots of things, but I guess you could say I came off the track a bit physically and ended up in the brambles.

After many failed diets I was content to just live the rest of my life at home not doing much, and being morbidly obese that may not have been too long and I began to worry about this. Then, events conspired to lead me to find out about water fasting.

For me, fasting was the missing link. It is the vehicle for me to gain physical health and the spiritual side of me has reawakened with vengeance. You need a healthy body to support an active mind.

Fasting has made me realise how much at one we are with the planet, what marvellous bodies we all have, and brought me closer to my inner soul which is now bubbling with life.

The discovery of Water Fasting is for sure one of the most significant milestones in my life, if not the most significant. It has put me on the road to body and soul being at one with each other.

On another point... it is a common theme in the Christian religion that I was brought up with - and I am sure it is the same for other religions too - that a rich man must forsake his material addictions, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of god, you cannot serve two masters, god and man, etc.

In other words, you have to get rid of the crap in your life that is preventing you from being at one with god. God to me, means inner self by the way.

Too often I see people here trying to cling on to their busy job or whatever, or they want to add things to their fast (thus it's not a fast any more), or they try and find some other solution to their problems, which never seem to work. A common scenario is for someone to break the fast after a few days due to the pressures of life, and then binge on comfort food.

Unfortunately this is the rich man trying to enter the kingdom of god. You really do have to make sacrifices in order to make the fasting journey. Give up whatever is preventing you from fasting for the duration of the fast. It's the only way to get enlightenment. You can't serve your employer and god as it were. Your choice.

i could go on all week about this topic.

its great to read these responses.