Jesus 40 days fasting in the wilderness: Buddha under the Bodhi Tree

In all great religions you will find great spiritual teachers had moments of truth like these.

Today, many religious people want to take you away from these shamanic experiences that actually Created Christianity and Buddhism or at the very least made Jesus and Buddha and others who they were in actuality rather just in people's minds today.

Though I have never created a religion for others to follow at one point I thought about it. Friends thought I should start another religion and I said to them, "People have enough religions to confuse them already. I don't want to confuse people anymore than they already are."

My point of view is that people (when they are ready) should enter the wilderness alone themselves to find God speaking to them in all the ways possible.

When I went on a 4 day no water and no food vision question in 1983 I experienced just how much more amazing each of us actually is than we tend to think on any given day.

This opened my mind to the fact that we all are potential a Jesus or Buddha all the time.

However, mostly we are completely ignorant of who and what we really are in actuality all the time.

However, when fasting in the wilderness alone (if you are brave enough and when you are ready) can come insights that you never even considered alone before.

However, for it to work there must be no civilization around you for miles and no humans around you for miles (which is a hard commodity to get to these days many places on earth).

The point is you don't want to be disturbed by any civilization. In otherwords nothing electronic, nothing written, no bicycles, cars motorcycles, planes, TVs and only maybe a sleeping bag and ground cloth and something in case it rains or snows to keep you dry and warm enough to survive this.

(mostly spring or summer would be best so you don't die of various kinds of weather. After all, you are planning to fast and you need to stay warm enough to stay alive.)

I have a friend who does a 40 day water fast every year or so and has done this about once a year since the 1970s. However, I wouldn't recommend that because when he comes off this sort of thing he sounds really nuts to listen to him for about the first month after this.

However, he swears by doing this and feels he is emulating Jesus by so doing. More power to him. But, this isn't something I would want to do for a variety of reasons.

Even the 4 days of no water or food I was only 35 when I did this not in my late 60s like now. However, I have heard of my friend Charlie Thom a Karuk Medicine man having done up to 9 days with no water or food in his 50s with no ill effects at all that I could see and who likely did 4 day vision quests into his 60s and 70s.

However, he was very aware of his place in the Universe and in the wilderness. Most people aren't and could freak out in various ways because of this when things got difficult during a vision quest.

So, like Jesus someone could theoretically fast for 40 days on water and be okay. And like Buddha someone could sit under a Bodhi tree until they became enlightened.

However, most of us would have to be very careful doing this and really assess our mental and physical health before we attempted something like this.