Live without Food

DISCIPLE: Is it possible to live without food?

SRI AUROBINDO: Yes, it is, When I did my fast of about 23 days, while living in Chettiar's house, I very nearly solved the problem. I could walk eight hours a day as usual. I continued my mental work and Sadhana also as usual and I found that I was not in the least weak at the end of the fast. But the flesh began to grow less and I did not find a clue to replacing the very material part that was reduced in the body.
             When I broke the fast, then also I did not observe the usual rule of people who go on long fasts, of beginning with little food and so on. I began again with the same quantity as I used to take before.
              Gandhi's method of fasting seems to me to be the most unsuitable, ---of announcing beforehand and allowing all sorts of people to put in their counter-suggestions to him. I tried fasting once in jail, but that was when I used to sleep once in three nights. I lost ten pounds in weight. But I felt stronger at the end of ten days than I was before the fast. I could lift up a Wight, which I could not before.
               It was not for conquering sleep that I began the waking experiment, but because there was a pressure of Sadhana and I liked to do Sadhana rather than sleep.

EVENING TALKS WITH SRI AUROBINDO
RECORDED BY A. B. PURANI (page no. 482)