Source: huffingtonpost.com

Indeed, only through the remembrance of God,
do hearts find contentment (Quran 13:28).

The holy month of Ramadan is once again upon us and those Muslims who are fortunate to witness it are obligated to fast for the entire month, unless, they are old, traveling, ill or unable.

The Quran says that fasting has been commanded to Muslims as it was commanded to all other faith communities prior to them (2:183) in order that believer become God conscious.

The purpose of fasting is to make the awareness of God and the relationship between the human self and the divine more acute and more conscious. The experience of fasting is like none other.

The highest level of the fast is the fast of the heart. This is the peak of spirituality: At this level one is deeply in love with God and one aspires and longs for nothing but God. You achieve this through meditation on God, and by emptying your heart of everything but the love and longing for God.

One whose heart is fasting, finds solitude even when in a crowd, finds silence even when there is uproar all around her, finds calm even during a storm. Her heart is content and filled with love, for indeed she is experiencing divine love.

The Persian Poet Hafez captures this state in his inimitable style:

The subject tonight is Love of God
And for tomorrow night as well,
As a matter of fact
I know of no better topic
For us to discuss
Until we all are united with the Beloved.

Fasting in the end is a special relationship between the lover and his beloved.

The believer fasts for her Lord and nothing else matters. It is neither the promise of forgiveness nor the reward of heaven that motivates except the love of God.

The Indian poet Ghalib summed it up beautifully:

who cares for a heaven that promises hoors (virgins) that are millions of years old.” and to that I add; we fast because we want to fasten our souls to our Lord.

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