Learning to Fast

KOMPAS/RADITYA HELABUMI

Yudi Latif

Fasting teaches people how to do religious activities in a mature manner. It’s a form of worship that depends on your own conscience. Doing morally acceptable things is not because of external compulsion but because of one’s self-awareness. Fasting teaches people how to enhance the transcendent power over the earth\'s lust gravity. People who are enticed by food stalls or eat excessively when they break the fast exemplifies immaturity.

Fasting teaches (to adapt to) quietness that will enable one to listen to their inner voice. Those who fast under pressure of rebuke and threat of torment, is an act of fasting by slaves, who approach God only out of compulsion or fear, not out of preoccupation with the longing of lovers.