JustLive » diet

Spiritual Suvival In A Temporal World: Chapter Nine – Seek Harmony

Harold — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:00:14 +0000

This is the ninth chapter from Les’ online novel titled, Spiritual Survival In A Temporal World, for our companion site JustGetThere. This chapter again covers diet on multiple levels and how it relates to inner peace and relative harmony.

Spiritual Survival in a Temporal World

Chapter 9

I’ve been thinking about what’s been said so far and I thought it might be a good idea to do another chapter on diet before moving along to something else. Although ‘eating’ is a physical act, it has major spiritual implications. In a certain sense there is no such thing as the physical. It is just a more manifest expression of the spiritual which is… everything. It’s all spiritual. Light is life and there are degrees of light precipitating downward into the manifest until light becomes solid. The sun is an expression of something finer and that is, itself, an expression of something finer and so on and so on up and in; the reverse being more and more down and out; for the sake of illustration.

The sun causes plants to grow. There is a fiery nutrition there which is absorbed by animal forms which consume them, including your own. Sunlight transforms into a power which makes the physical body possible. So, let us think of your body as frozen sunlight; light in extension.

This power can take the form of many things beneficial and many things poisonous. It’s a mere alteration of one thing assuming a myriad of states all as a result of the operation of the sun which, as has been said, is itself an expression of something finer.

Alcohol is a poison. Snake venom is a poison, whereas the serpent power is the resident motive force in everything. Snake venom anti-toxins are made from snake venom. There are many powerful truths that can be intuited from this by the inquiring mind. It appears from this that life and the conditions in which we find ourselves are all a result of the choices that we make. We make these choices based upon our reasoning and knowledge. When reasoning and knowledge are sound we make profitable and correct choices. When they are not, our choices are unsound and lead to undesirable conditions and complications. One of these is dis-ease or, the loss of harmony. Harmony in being is the optimum goal.

In today’s world, the common diet is more garbage than gold. So it is with our other diets; what we take in with our minds, what provokes our feelings, what we breathe and HOW we breathe. Proper breathing and eating both require a similar degree of attention. Fifty percent of the digestion takes place in the mouth. If you don’t chew your food long enough for this to take place well, …you do the math. It is the same with breathing. People who do not have control of their breath are in a poor position to manage negative emotion or to center their mind. Their energy is much less than it could be. Every organ is affected because posture is affected which effects everything else. Much of what I say may seem simplistic. It is up to the reader to extrapolate from what they read.

It’s the reverse of what it natural and normal for you to put shit into your body. Shit is supposed to come ‘out’ of your body. We’ve come to a point as a society where we put garbage in and garbage out. It’s a small percentage of humanity that takes the proper course.

Unfortunately, with many who are attempting to do the right thing another feature enters the mix and that is to become extremist in one’s practice and in one’s judgment of others. Keep in mind what has been said about snake venom. You can poison yourself trying to do the right thing, just as much as by doing the wrong thing. It is harmony you want, not some idealized white dove in the meadow of personal purity. Don’t scrub the pot so hard that you break it.

Some alternative dietary modalities verge on insanity, such as those who proclaim that eating honey is stealing from the bees, or that milk is only for calves and so on. I’m not a meat eater but I know that for some people at their level of personal development it is necessary. I’ve seen as many healthy meat eaters as I have unhealthy vegetarians. The thing to remember is that some meat may well be better than other meat. Some vegetables are better for you than others and, more importantly, some vegetables are better for you personally than others. A lot depends on your heritage and where you live and the particular genetic complex you have arrived at in your ongoing journey which does not end with death or begin at birth.

You can stop all input from the world outside and wind up unhappy in a room alone with no idea where to go. Consider balance above everything else and include ‘intention’ and a sincere desire to encounter the indwelling self. I have said in other places that if anyone were to go into a room for several days and take only water and for the duration ‘pray without ceasing; falling to sleep when it is unavoidable and awakening to immediate prayer with out ceasing that they could not fail to have an experience with the indwelling self. Think about it. You could not fail to have an experience. But who would do this? Not many would do this.

This is preferable to walking away from the world when you are not ready. But you do want to step away from the world at this time because the world has become a whirlpool that is sucking the inattentive and the willing down into a maelstrom of darkness. It is so because the opportunity for spiritual transformation is so great. Whenever the door begins to open for a spiritual quantum leap, all of the forces of ‘the world’ manifest strong attractions for the purpose of distraction from this possibility. It’s physics really.

Develop a burning need for union within. Let is accompany you on your daily rounds. In the midst of the chaos and lies and false advertisements for something that cannot be acquired or purchased in the marketplace, let your mind and heart be made aware that all is well and that none of this can touch you.

Diet is one of the keys to being able to do this. Breathing is also diet because you are eating air. Investigate the blood, oxygen exchange. The mind eats as well. Controlling your diet on all of these levels will grant you a positive state in which to experience inner peace and relative harmony.

People get stoned because they don’t feel good. They don’t feel good because of all the bad diet on all the levels of consumption. You would become very high if you were judicious and cautious about your diet. When you practice meditation as well, the collective benefits are truly impressive. It’s not only the bad advice that you need to avoid. It is also the bad advice that masquerades as good advice.

The key to gaining benefit from this book is to think about what you have read and then let your intuition guide you toward realizations that are uniquely your own. You must seek out your intuition and thereby widen the gateway through which the information passes. Think of it as doing spiritual sit-up and push-ups because it is just that. You must exercise something in order to develop strength and ability. Good diet on all levels is a good start.

In That Shape Again

___

By Les Visible | JustGetThere Featured Author

Letters from the Devic Realm

Les Visible is a writer and recording artist. He has had a lifelong love affair with the Hermetic Sciences and the Martial Arts. He is a seasoned traveler in psychedelic realms and prefers the Devic Kingdom over the suffocating confinements of the Sub-Matrix. Along the way he has matriculated from the military to prisons and the maximum security wards for the criminally insane.

He has owned a metaphysical bookstore and some restaurants and worked in construction, as a cook, a club bouncer, a newspaper editor, a resort manager, a radio announcer, a standup comedian, as a lead singer in a rock and roll band and whatever he had to do to get by.

He lives somewhere in Europe with his wife Susanne and his memories. The truth has not been injured in the writing of this blurb. A collection of his works in various media can be found at www.lesvisible.com

Spiritual Suvival in a Temporal World : Chapter Eight – Find The Right Diet For You

Harold — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 13:00:24 +0000

This is the eighth chapter from Les’ online novel titled, Spiritual Survival In A Temporal World, for our companion site JustGetThere. This chapter highlights several different diet techniques that could best suit your lifestyle and goals for weight loss.

Spiritual Survival in a Temporal World

Chapter 8

Now where was I? Diet, right… Today I think we talk about types of diet and let me set them out and then discuss them. I won’t be discussing any of the specialized diets that deal with particular maladies, physical imbalances or weight loss programs. You can find this sort of thing in Cosmo where their relative merits can be considered in the context of the advertisers present in the magazine.

First off, there is ‘macrobiotics’, a system of bringing into balance ones physical being by eating particular foods in proportion to each other. It should be noted that the founder, George Ohsawa was a chain smoker who was working on making a macrobiotic Coca Cola when he died of heart disease. I practiced macrobiotics for a period of time and I can tell you that it is a near perfect diet for those it is suitable for. I had tremendous energy as well as a sense of enduring equilibrium. The downside to macrobiotics that I have seen involves two conditions. One of them is that a certain portion of practitioners become food Nazis. These people are no fun to be around. The other is having insufficient information followed by reduced benefits.

If I were to want to explore macrobiotics at this time I would not read George Ohsawa because it could well have you tired, confused and moving on in a short period of time. I recommend Michio Kushi and you can get all the information you want from one of his centers around the world. It makes sense to attend one or more of their courses. For those whose systems and temperaments are sympathetic to this diet you will find the changes that you experience to be remarkable and possibly even supernatural.

I’ve mentioned temperament and suitability. Let me be very clear here. No one diet is the answer for everyone. No diet will be successful if you ignore basic eating disciplines such as thoroughly chewing your food; not drinking during your meal or for twenty minutes before and after, observing correct posture and having a peaceful or ‘settled’ demeanor while you are eating. These are all big considerations whether they seem to be or not.

The next diet I would recommend is Arnold Ehret’s mucusless healing system. This basically presupposes that mucus in the body is responsible for most of the body’s ills. Arnold came up with a system that substantially eliminates the mucus from your body. Arnold was capable of incredible strength and endurance. Wikipedia (which I don’t like to use) has some interesting things to say about Arnold including his manner of death. I have practiced this diet as well and it’s a good one for those so disposed.

I suspect the raw foods diet might have evolved out of this and I’m not going to spend a lot of time on that one and here is why. I’ve observed the raw foods discipline and it’s another of those fanatically-disposed systems that one should be careful with. Elements of Veganism also fit into this category. This system can have you spending most of your waking hours preparing your food. It can be quite expensive and time consuming and has become a temporary trend among celebrities and trust fund babies. I’m not saying it isn’t a good system though I think it would cause a gas problem with a lot of people. You’ll have to look into it and see if it is for you. I think that saying cooked food is poison is a pretty stupid comment and makes everything else suspect to me. However… this diet is far superior to the ordinary human diet and you would be better off with this than with the rest of the options in the mass diet.

Basic vegetarianism is a good catchall for anyone seeking to evolve their diet. It’s a good place to start and after a period of adjustment and familiarization you can specialize further on. Veganism is a curious one for me and I find that I don’t generally like to be around Vegans because they have a real capacity to develop a fascist mindset. You might hear that, “I don’t eat anything with a face.” Well, potatoes have eyes. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. When I hear that eating honey is stealing from the bees, my bullshit meter starts to act funny. When I hear that a cow’s milk is for the calf or curious views on chicken eggs, I begin to wonder. I’m not saying milk and eggs are good for you. I rarely if ever consume them but I do eat cheese and yogurt on occasion. My system of operation violates tenants of every one of the systems I have mentioned but that’s me. I’m basically a vegetarian but I occasionally eat fish and have NO PLANS to stop. Probably the Hindu and Thai diets suit me most.

Kinesiology is something you might look into as you develop a diet for yourself. All of us have some intolerance to something and it would be good to find out what that was.

Here are some things you should absolutely avoid; soft drinks, refined sugar and artificial sweeteners, processed foods, commercial meats, milk as a beverage, commercial snack foods and candies, most canned foods. This isn’t a comprehensive list but it’s a good start. You will note that I don’t mention caffeinated products like coffee and tea. I think moderation is the key with these but you must remember that caffeine affects the adrenals in a way similar to continuously starting your car while it is already running. Certainly caffeine is no good for you.

You can’t go wrong by eating whole foods, fresh vegetables and fruits. I’m not sure about organic foods as a total commitment; then again, if you can afford it, why not? It’s good to maintain perspective. Eating right will not make you immortal. It will not change other bad behavior not connected to diet. It might make changes easier and that’s the idea. Diet is just one thing to be concerned with. It is a big concern. Take a look around you at the appearance of people who have no concern about what they eat. Look at the society as a whole. Need I say more?

Nothing that I will discuss or consider in this book is going to be comprehensive. You need to look into things on your own. One thing I will HIGHLY recommend is Robert Gray’s healing system. You want to get The Colon Health Handbook by Robert Gray and his healing products. There are a lot of colon cleansers out there and some of them are radical and uncomfortable to use. This is the best, the slowest program and the most complete. It takes around two months to accomplish it but you will NOT BELIEVE how you will feel after you have done it. It will blow your mind. I’ve done it several times now. It makes very good sense to clean your colon at the beginning. Follow the instructions exactly and do not waver. It may cost you 2 or 3 hundred dollars to follow the complete program but you will not regret it. You absolutely will not regret doing this and the energy harvested will give you a major jolt in terms of continuing.

Regardless of which diet you embrace you must remember that eating too much is a mistake no matter what. Try to learn to stop eating when you are only half to two thirds full. It will make a tremendous difference in your well being. Remember to eat slowly and consciously and with gratitude. Remember to fully chew your food and not to drink liquids while you are eating. Look into occasional fasting.

If you should choose to follow up on what you read here you will find the benefits to be priceless. Don’t get sucked down into the hole that the wider culture presents. That is not the way to go. We may have more to say about diet as we go along. For myself I usually eat only once a day. Don’t be a fanatic. George Ohsawa says that if you follow his diet 90% of the time you can eat ten percent of whatever you want. I don’t know where we are going next but we’ll find out when it happens. Be well.

And a song

Everlasting Love

___

By Les Visible | JustGetThere Featured Author

Letters from the Devic Realm

Spiritual Suvival in a Temporal World : Chapter Seven – You Are What You Eat

Harold — Thu, 20 May 2010 18:47:42 +0000

This is the seventh chapter from Les’ online novel titled, Spiritual Survival In A Temporal World, for our companion site JustGetThere. This chapter addresses diet, and the practice of eating with gratitude.

Spiritual Survival in a Temporal World

Chapter 7

We’ve all heard the phrase, “You are what you eat.” You’ve probably also heard, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he” You’ve likely heard, “for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be also.” These are all connected to a common truth. Life feeds on itself and how you think and feel about what you eat has a great deal to do with its impact on you.

Life is a radiant ‘serpent power’. You’ve seen the mystical serpent with its tail in its mouth. It’s called ‘serpent power’ because when viewed in operation by those capable of seeing it, it behaves in a serpentine fashion. If you want to see an example of our mysterious origin and how the force that animates us behaves then close your fist and look at the spiral that it makes.

It is important to follow a proper diet. A proper diet functions on more levels than that which affects the stomach. We consume with our hearts and minds as well. It’s good to remember that both heart and mind are only different levels, or expressions of the same thing. It’s also good to remember that one does not live by bread alone.

Everything is composed of sunlight which is also radiant energy. The green in your vegetables is a chemical change that sunlight went through. We are light in extension. Think of your body as frozen sunlight that feeds on sunlight. Without the sun there is no life and no light. Of course, this sun is a physical expression of another sun and there may be more rarefied examples deeper in or further up; depending on how you see it.

I’ve said at other locations and on many another occasion that I believe one of the most powerful emotions that a person can possess is ‘gratitude’. A key feature that you should possess when you eat is, ‘gratitude’. Eating with gratitude is a magical act of great power. Observe how people eat and you will learn a lot should you be open to the evidence. Observation of life and a willingness to see into it will reveal understandings and truths that are hidden from most.

I am not a religious person and I belong to no religion. This does not mean that religion is not, in part, based on real truth. It means that religion obscures as much as it reveals and it often and invariably interprets wrong. Religion tends to view God anthropomorphically. It makes God a bigger you with all of your prejudices and shortcomings. God becomes a big idiot who reflects your little idiot perspectives.

Those who have looked more deeply into spiritual things with a questioning mind often come to see that all spiritual things have a scientific basis and can be explained and understood in scientific terms. Of course, there are those elements that will always be beyond the conscious, reasoning mind but even they conform to rules of behavior.

So, I practice certain behaviors that you also see among religious people. I always say ‘grace’ and I am, as much as I can remember to be… grateful. Eating with gratitude will change your life. I do not pray in the conventional way but I do contemplate and aspire toward a higher ideal of myself. I not only profoundly believe in a divine agency, I ‘know’ it is there. I possess a capacity to be willful and rebellious against my own best interest too… but, I’m trying to quit (grin). As will be the pattern here, before we can talk about the best diets and the choices of diet it is necessary to talk about the philosophical and metaphysical aspects of eating. It is important to know that we are feeding on different levels all the time and that the physical act of eating is only the most widely recognized practice.

In these times gratitude has been bred out of the process the same way that whole and nutritious food has been replaced by unhealthy garbage. You don’t see people take a moment to bless their food these days. You see them pile in, talk with their mouths full, drink while eating so that the digestive process is interfered with, not bother to chew so that complete digestion doesn’t take place, etc. You see the litter of our fast food nation everywhere and you see the physical condition of those who exist off of it. If I can get any idea across to you, I would want it to be gratitude. Be grateful. Get in the habit of being grateful for everything and you will see that you have more and more reasons to be grateful.

You don’t have to believe in a white-bearded fascist on a far away throne. This god is no more real than the god that the atheists do not believe in. But there is a living conscious force in you and if you feed it, its presence will grow. My wife does not believe in this god and generally is not inclined in this direction; though she is more spiritual than she will admit. The key inducement to my marrying her was during the first dinner I prepared when I asked if she minded if I took a moment to be grateful for my food. “Not at all.” she said and she joined me and has since. She understood the principle.

Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because much of contemporary religion and the religion of any time may be filled with absurdities and priest centric machinations to part you from your money and your reason does not mean something is not there. It is what feeds you. Be smart. Be grateful. Grow into a better idea of yourself and let your suffering diminish. Eating smart is a way to turn down the flame. If, as the Buddha taught, “All life is pain caused by ignorant desire.” then the more erratic and impure your flame, the greater is your suffering. Passionate people suffer more than others, DEPENDING on the nature of their passion. Turn down the flame and consciously feed it. True enjoyment will come and you will be healthy and filled with life.

This book is about ‘spiritual survival’. It is necessary to constantly point out that everything we can see and perceive has an invisible source. Acknowledge it. Be grateful. For those who are sincere and possessed of genuine interest, you will find much to assist you in these pages. And it is important not to associate any of it with me. Take what is useful and place your gratitude where it belongs. I’m just another climber on the ‘spiral staircase’. Since we are all on this staircase and since it is a spiral, always remember, try to never piss over the railing.

Remember too that this is a book about being welcomed into a community that will form around you as you think and feel and eat your way into it. Gratitude will be the light source that allows you to see AND recognize your companions. We all want to live in this community and we can but we must journey there and it is a journey within as well as without. You don’t simply buy a bus ticket. Many a prosperous soul eats properly but misses the connection between the spirit, mind and body. Living on a trust fund and dressing in white; attending seminars and talking about high minded things doesn’t guarantee anything. We need to approach the thing itself with humility and awe and most of all, gratitude. Talking about it steals the energy to do it.

In the next chapter we will present various diets and the esoteric practices that complete them. We have different needs and no one diet will work for all. For the moment you can start feeling grateful. Let your heart soar in the contemplation of what awaits you. Be grateful that someone attends your every footstep and waits at every point along the way. You are never alone and all the forces of good will fly to your side once you have taken hold of the conviction to carry on… once this conviction has taken hold of you.

Prevail

___

By Les Visible | JustGetThere Featured Author

Letters from the Devic Realm