The fasting period, which lasts nineteen days starting as a
rule from the second of March every year and ending on the twentieth of the
same month, involves complete abstention from food and drink from sunrise till
sunset. It is essentially a period of meditation and prayer, of spiritual
recuperation, during which the believer must strive to make the necessary
readjustments in his inner life, and to refresh and reinvigorate the spiritual
forces latent in his soul. Its significance and purpose are, fundamentally
spiritual in character. Fasting is symbolic, and a reminder of abstinence from
selfish and carnal desires.
(From a
letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly
of the United States, January 10, 1936; Lights of Guidance)
