Why did Buddha fast?

[sridatta]

Fasting brings high alertness of brain and makes it very bright in the field of spiritual knowledge. But, everything in extreme is bad. Buddha realized the defect of extreme fasting and rectified His defect in course of time. Extreme fasting will even take away one’s life. Buddha became like a skeleton and became unconscious due to over fasting.

He realized His mistake and rectified it. Both over eating and over fasting are the two undesirable extremities like flood and drought. Fasting means taking little food and not avoiding food completely. It is told by a poet called Vemana that on fasting day, the rectum digests the remains of excretion for attaining energy necessary for all the activities of the body and this means that on the day of fasting, one is eating his own excretion instead of precious food from outside!!!

Universal Spirituality for World Peace