Julia Seton

“ 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. ”

“ When one has decided what he wishes to unload, planned carefully what he desires to attain, fasted and breathed for it, it can no more escape him than the budding flowers can escape the warm penetrating rays of the sun which, by natural law, drive them on into a wild burst of bloom. ”

“ The price of the better part is understanding, and understanding of life's finer forces can only come when one holds his whole being subject to the discipline of higher laws.
There are those who long to possess the very last gifts that life can hand them, yet want to gain them without self-conquest or comradeship with the things which are a part of the larger gain. They want fame, power, strength, wealth, love ”

“ When we are ready to step out from the law of relay into the larger one of manifested conditions we can turn on the stronger light of higher wisdom and Burbank ourself out of the old law and, through fasting, produce a new realization in a new form. We can unknow a thing ourself, with the power we realize into being. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nature does not use any of the crude food consumed by individuals for anything except fuel. It is used to set in operation the activity of the cells of the body, and these secrete their own substance,—much too fine a product to be taken from any of the badly cooked, mixed and mal-digested food stuffs. ”

“ The physical body must unload its waste products or the bloated, discolored flesh is its reward. There is no mistaking the signals Nature sets on the face of the ordinary individual. It speaks its message in tones too plain to be overlooked. One has only to look at the great crowd of disease-laden folk,—just go to the rest-homes, or the hospitals, or homes. ”

“ When once we have taken our desires firmly into our minds and come to the moment where we will not wait another hour, then fasted, our realization must pass, by natural cosmic law, into manifestation. ”

“ And there are seven planes of consciousness on which he has to make the exchange and fulfill the law.
Throughout all time the short cut for exchange has been fasting and celibacy. Whenever the ordinary race man wanted anything more than his own human indulgences, and was willing to put up the proofs by fulfilling the higher law of discipline, he made himself through self control—a magnet attracting to him, from out the Infinite Supply, the things he desired. ”

“ There are many who never set any kind of test for themselves. They are weaklings in body, mind and soul. When asked to give up anything,–from a doughnut to a dollar,–they whine, and sulk, and are perpetually sorry for themselves. ”

“ We fast primarily because we have found out that through fasting we can outstrip the laws of evolution and find the human pathway of transmutation. Evolution is the long way; transmutation is the Short Cut to higher human attainment.
There are four distinct human reasons why we fast. We fast for purification, first of all If there were no other reasons, this would be sufficient cause to entice us to this method of unfoldment. It is an unwritten law that Nature must unload the old as it passes on in its processes. ”

“ This is the lastest discovery in nutrition; we must know, once and for all, that the cells of the body are the divine producers, and all food taken into the body must be thrown out as soon as it has served the purpose of stimulating the cell into generation, secretion and excretion of the finer food substance within it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Life is joy through love and service. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, joy and a sound mind. People put up with things and places and other people that, in the true scheme of life, should have been unloaded long ago. ”

“ But no matter through which channel it is done, there are millions of cells of intelligence in the body working ceaselessly, night and day, in the gigantic plan of excretion and elimination, absorption and nutrition. As long as the normal unloading process is maintained, the physical body retains its normal health ”

“ The coarser substance of the food is thrown out from the gastro-intestinal tract, the finer through the kidneys, others through the perspiratory tract, and the still finer particles through the breath in respiration. ”