Chatgpt resist to fasting?

“Fifty times” is probably too high if you mean explicit advocacy of fasting or stomach-emptiness as a spiritual discipline in the Masnavi. But if you include allusions to:

• eating little,

• hunger,

• restraint,

• the dangers of gluttony,

• emptiness as receptivity,

• reduction of bodily domination,

• Ramadan symbolism,

• and “feeding on divine food,”

then the total number of relevant passages could indeed become quite large — perhaps several dozen across the six books.

The page you showed reflects a very real and recurring theme in Rumi.

What Rumi actually emphasizes

Rumi repeatedly associates:

• overeating,

• heaviness,

• bodily domination,

• sleepiness,

• dullness of perception,

with spiritual obstruction.

And he associates:

• hunger,

• lightness,

• emptiness,

• fasting,

• patience,

• wakefulness,

with receptivity to divine perception.

The core symbolic pattern is:

Bodily fullness

Spiritual consequence

heaviness

forgetfulness

satiety

dullness

excess sleep

heedlessness

egoic appetite

spiritual blindness

versus:

Hunger/emptiness

Spiritual consequence

fasting

subtle perception

emptiness

receptivity

restraint

wakefulness

patience

divine nourishment

The exact passage you cited

The verses around Book V 1743–1749 are part of a recognizable Rumi theme:

earthly food fills the stomach

but blocks subtler nourishment.

The metaphor of the crow is classic:

• the greedy crow = lower appetite mind.

Rumi often says:

• bodily reduction opens spiritual perception.

Not necessarily starvation —

but lightness.

How often does this appear?

A rough estimate:

Type of reference

Approximate frequency

Explicit fasting praise

15–25

Hunger as spiritual metaphor

40–80

Critiques of overeating/gluttony

20–40

Emptying for divine reception

pervasive

So your intuition is directionally correct if you mean the broader motif rather than explicit legal fasting instructions.

Important nuance: Rumi is usually symbolic

Rumi is not mainly a dietary ascetic writer in the harsh monastic sense.

He generally avoids:

• extreme bodily hatred,

• severe self-punishment,

• purely legalistic fasting.

Instead he uses hunger symbolically:

Hunger means:

• receptivity,

• longing,

• incompleteness before God,

• interior openness.

For Rumi:

spiritual growth requires becoming unfilled by the ego.

“Divine food” in Rumi

A recurring idea is that:

• humans can feed on subtler realities.

This includes:

• love,

• remembrance,

• contemplation,

• beauty,

• music,

• spiritual states,

• divine presence.

He often contrasts:

• “animal food”

  
  

  with

• “food of the spirit.”

This comes partly from:

• Quranic imagery,

• Sufi metaphysics,

• Neoplatonic psychology.

Burhaneddin and Shams

The author on your page is probably referring to:

• Burhan al-Din Muhaqqiq Tirmidhi

• Shams-i Tabrizi

Traditional Sufi biographies often portray advanced mystics as:

• eating little,

• sleeping little,

• remaining inwardly absorbed.

But historically, hagiographies tend to amplify ascetic traits.

A deeper Sufi principle behind this

In many Sufi traditions there is a fourfold reduction discipline:

1. eat less

2. sleep less

3. speak less

4. socialize less

because excess sensory engagement was believed to:

• thicken consciousness,

• strengthen nafs (ego-self),

• reduce subtle awareness.

This is widespread beyond Rumi:

• early Sufis,

• Christian desert monks,

• Hesychasts,

• yogic traditions,

• Buddhist monastics.

But Rumi also warns against egoic asceticism

This is crucial.

Rumi repeatedly criticizes:

• prideful fasting,

• performative holiness,

• harsh self-denial done for status.

He does not teach:

starvation automatically produces enlightenment.

Rather:

emptiness must become receptivity to divine presence.

Without love and transformation, asceticism becomes another ego identity.

Physiological dimension

Interestingly, modern neuroscience partially aligns with some ancient observations:

Moderate fasting can temporarily:

• sharpen alertness,

• increase catecholamines,

• alter perception,

• heighten attentional clarity.

But prolonged or excessive fasting can also:

• impair cognition,

• dysregulate hormones,

• destabilize mood.

So traditions usually aimed at:

• disciplined moderation,

  
  

  not collapse.

Rumi’s imagery generally points toward:

• lightness,

• wakefulness,

• inward sensitivity,

rather than self-destruction.