In part 3 of this interview, THIERRY CASASNOVAS continues his advocacy for life. He shares his own journey with CELINE FRÉSARD, and the role of fasting in the healing process.
Q: Can we move to a subject that is very dear to you – fasting? Can you tell us about your experience of fasting and its role in the body’s regeneration process?
TC: In fact, this topic is a continuation of what we have just been speaking about, because the approach I propose is:
1. Realization of life itself
2. Observation of life itself
3. Worship of life in itself
We discover it, we understand it, and we love it.
Now, you don’t love something without respecting its needs. So you start honoring and serving life, which means respecting the vital needs of your body. And in this context, fasting is magnificent.
Fasting is a complete turn around from modern, secular science, which asks us to do this analysis, take this remedy, have this operation, and so on. In fasting, we sweep it all away. It’s science for dummies, healing for dummies. There is nothing to understand, nothing to buy, nothing to do. You do nothing and let it all happen.
Fasting is an experience in which you realize that your outwardly oriented hyperactivity deprives you of all the life that is within yourself. Fasting is doing nothing on the external physical level.
Normally, fasting means abstaining from food, sometimes even abstaining from liquid, abstaining from frenetic activity, and remaining quietly at rest. The law of homeostasis tells us that any living system returns spontaneously to a state of equilibrium, and it returns to balance all the more spontaneously if we are at rest. Fasting is the experience of rest, therefore the optimal experience of the development of life itself. It is an extraordinary moment when you can drop everything and observe life spreading inside yourself. You have nothing to do, so you remain quiet, and all of a sudden the fire that was dying out in you grows and strengthens. Imagine that possibility, if each of us realized it!
Fasting is an experience in which you realize
that your outwardly oriented hyperactivity
deprives you of all the life that is within yourself.
We start with a lot of fire, we have this very important flame, we are young and we have energy. Then as life progresses, the flame begins to decline. At some point, we open our eyes and ‘Ooh la la’ we see that it has really diminished. So we stop, let it grow again, and return to life. Can you imagine what a healthy lifestyle that is? It is beautiful. Every time you see your flame go down slightly, you know what you have to do. Stop. Fasting is a perfect way to achieve this. It is the fastest way to let life flow through you when you need it.
But a lot happens in the body. Things we don’t understand. It is necessary to simply cross them with the conviction and certainty that everything that happens during fasting goes in one direction only – towards life. Everything that happens is good. Absolutely nothing can happen in our body that does not go in the direction of life. It’s impossible because life is moving towards life.
So fasting is the maximum experience of deploying the life force in oneself. Moreover, in this process of introspection, there is a physical and a spiritual dimension. It comes back to Lekh lekha. In fasting, even on the spiritual level, what must happen happens.
Q: You present fasting as a return to life, but there are certain uncomfortable stages and moments when you feel weak, when you question yourself. It can create fear and anxiety. Can you explain to us what’s going on?
TC: I work from the conviction that the fasting process is moving towards life. Let’s take a concrete example: this summer I injured myself. I received a heavy load on my leg that cut my skin right down to the tendon. Today my skin has reconstituted itself. It is all pink. This I call life. But to get there, I had to go through the healing process, with a phase where the scar was nasty and painful; it was a necessary step.
Life goes towards life, and to achieve this it uses its own paths of regeneration. Sometimes we understand them, sometimes we don’t. It is important to study them, because there is indeed no reason to suffer just for the sake of suffering, and we can learn to relieve the body to the maximum in order to facilitate this path. But it is still necessary to go through the process.
For example, when I hurt my leg and the wound was purulent, and not at all pretty, if I had opened the wound so as not to see that, I would have blocked the repair process from happening naturally. I supported my body by putting Aloe vera on the wound to soften and accelerate healing, and honey because it is a wonderful adjuvant for healing, but I could not prevent the wound stage. We can relieve and support healing, and we can promote the cleansing of the body, because it is important to help it remove the waste it has accumulated, but there will be some uncomfortable moments.
Imagine you are driving on the highway and your fuel gauge lights up. You have two options. First, you can take a hammer and destroy the dashboard so that you no longer see the fuel gauge. The equivalent is often done when the body shows symptoms: we go to the doctor and come out with products that treat symptoms, without solving the underlying problem, which seems to be of no interest to anyone. We suppress the body’s signals: if we have inflammation, we take anti-inflammatory drugs; if we have a fever, we take medicine to reduce the fever; if we have pain, we take a painkiller. It is not complicated to cut off the functioning of the nervous system to eliminate pain, but did we solve the underlying problem that caused the pain?
In the second option, you see your gauge light up, you’re in a hurry, you really don’t want to stop because it’s raining and cold, but you stop anyway to refuel. The healing process is similar – we stop and refuel. It’s not always unpleasant, but it can be. The body has a lot of waste to dispose of, so it shows symptoms. And we have learned to run away from the symptoms all our lives.
Discomfort or pain is a normal signal from the living that indicates we have reached our limit. We have to slow down. Sometimes we are confused by what happens in the body during the cleaning and regenerative processes, but whatever happens, the only thing to remember is that it goes in the direction of life. This is the nature of the living. At the beginning we need to repeat it to ourselves: “The body is moving towards life.” I try to support, help and accompany people through the process, especially when it is unpleasant, to make it easier.
Q: So if we can get through the inconvenience of cleaning, what we call detoxification, we get to something else.
TC: Yes. This is what I call crossing the veil. The first is the fear of symptoms. This is what we are hooked on in today’s medicine. We are so afraid to feel, to be sensitive, and so afraid to suffer even a little, so as soon as we see a symptom approaching we run to the doctor and take medicine. In doing so, we may take a step back and not cross the veil. At some point, however, we have to cross it. And this requires conviction, commitment, determination, trust and tranquility. And this tranquility and conviction can only be based on one thing – the knowledge of the living. We can only cross the veil when we know why we are crossing it. Often it’s not much, though we make a big deal out of it.
For example, if you have a liver problem and you fast, the liver will produce bile when it cleans itself, and you will probably vomit it up. One of my associates had hepatitis B that spoiled his life, and he had been in treatment for many years. While fasting, he vomited for three days, but it wasn’t a disaster because after those three days his liver was healed.
So turning around every time a symptom appears is not living. We stay in a warm hell, while we are asked to go through that mirror and access life. Life awaits us on the other side, it awaits us in complete confidence in its power – a confidence that allows us to cross the illusion of symptoms and truly begin to live.
To be continued
Interviewed by CELINE FRÉSARD
Thierry Casasnovas
