Adventures in Enlightenment: Hunger (final thoughts)

So this month's experiment has come to an end. And this was a good one. In fact I think it would be hard for me to stop doing this now. I think any time you add a little discipline to your life and go off autopilot in some small way, you are better for it.

Am I more enlightened? Hell ya. Isn't it obvious? But I didn't lose any weight. This doesn't surprise me much since I think I'm already at the natural level that I can get down to without serious effort and deprivation. (Something that I will probably experiment with in a future installment of Adventures in Enlightenment).

So what does the average religious person expect they will find in hunger? I imagine it's an identification with those who are hungry involuntarily and perhaps a metaphysical experience of the spiritual hunger.

For me the most interesting thing was observing that hunger is something that is not very scary or powerful. It just comes. Sniffs around and then goes away for a while. That surprised me since I think I had somehow acquired a *very* low grade fear of hunger. As if being hungry meant my blood sugar levels had gone down too far and I wouldn't be able to think straight if I was too hungry for too long. (I had a firend who was hypoglycemic and used to get really moody and generally unpleasant if he skipped a meal so I may have been worried about becoming that persona). Furthermore I found that it cleared out my mind. Knowing that I just wasn't going to eat anything between breakfast and lunch just freed my mind from worrying about it and not focusing on what snacks I could be eating and worrying if I'm eating too many snacks. Etc. Instead I just had one less thing to distract me, and strangely I didn't find hunger distracting at all. Surprisingly so.

OK, new experiment starts tomorrow and it's related to the one just finishing up. I'm that much closer to enlightenment now.