Part 24 (1/2)

IV. Developing the intuitive art of conscious eating.

Stage Four: Olympic Vegetarian Diet.

STAGE FOUR MARKS THE DIFFERENCE between a diet that simply aids health, well-being, and spiritual development and one that positively accelerates the process. Stage Four is 95-100% live food with approximately 50% biogenic food, about 50% bioactive food, and 0 to 5% cooked foods, like potatoes, or slightly cooked fibrous vegetables. So far, I have not been able to detect a significant difference between 100% raw and 95% raw in terms of day-to-day health or physical and spiritual energy. There may be a measurable difference in terms of longevity, however. My observation and hypothesis is that getting in touch with just the right amount to eat rather than overeating, even of biogenic foods, plays a more critical role for health than whether one has a 95% or a 100% raw-food diet. That 5% is important because it allows some social leeway, as well as keeps one from getting stuck in a perfectionistic-type thinking and eating.

Stage Four can be likened to the difference between a personal program of jogging, hiking, and aerobic exercises and a program actively training for the Olympics. Those who aspire to the ”Olympic diet” in the context of a fully centered and balanced life become spiritual athletes who often partic.i.p.ate intensely in the s.h.i.+ft of planetary consciousness. This in no way means that anyone who is not living on a Stage Four diet is not partic.i.p.ating in the process of planetary transformation-we are all doing so in our own way, just by being alive on this Earth at this time. So being on a Stage Four diet is not a prerequisite for being ”on the team.” There are many spiritually active people who are working very hard for the planetary s.h.i.+ft in consciousness who are not even vegetarians. In time, for the reasons pointed out in this book, I feel that many of them will eventually make the s.h.i.+ft to a vegetarian diet.

Those who choose to adopt a Stage Four-level diet may find it hard to ignore the issues of planetary transformation, such as the ecology, peace, equal rights, and health concerns, et cetera. Their very lifestyle will impel them in life-positive, evolutionary directions where they will want to contribute to the greater good of humanity and all life.

A potential psycho-spiritual danger of the 95-100% raw-food diet is the tendency to follow it as some sort of obsessive, self-righteous, self-centered ritual in the hope of achieving happiness, purity, or G.o.d just from the diet alone.

As I've said in earlier chapters, one cannot eat one's way to G.o.d or even personal happiness. Happiness and G.o.d are never one's own. They are a state of awareness in which there is no ”I” to claim owners.h.i.+p. G.o.d, when experienced as a state of noncausal happiness, is where the ego self or ”I” is not. The ”I” ceases to exist. It is a consciousness where polarities and distinctions of ”I” and ”Thou” end. Diet is a most important aid to this process, but the stabilized peace and happiness of G.o.d-awareness requires far more than just a well-thought-out and executed Stage Four diet. Intense focus on G.o.d with a clear heart and mind, supported by whatever psycho-spiritual tradition one chooses, has been the path for ages. Diet helps one walk more quickly and keep stabilized on that timeless path, but it is not ”the path” in itself. I choose to eat at the Stage Four level because it is the diet which most powerfully enhances my communion with the Divine. I am grateful, but not at all surprised, that a diet that most enhances the communion with the One is also the most healthy and ecologically harmonious diet as well. It seems that everything that leads to the Divine inherently creates harmony.

Stage Four begins with a complete nondairy vegetarian cuisine of primarily live, soaked, or sprouted nuts, seeds, grains, gra.s.ses, vegetables, fruits, and sea vegetables. It is a 50-60% biogenic diet. As we progress in the process of the Stage Four diet, there is an increase in the amount of life-generating foods, such as all forms of soaked and sprouted nuts, seeds, grains, and gra.s.ses, including wheatgra.s.s. There is a progressive decrease in cooked grains, which are acid, mucus-producing, and devoid of life-force-filled enzymes. Eventually, there is very little cooked grain in the diet except on occasion as part of the cooked 5%. Depending on const.i.tutional type, one may vary the percentage of sprouted foods and fruits and vegetables. This diet also can be varied to balance acid-base ratio, yin and yang, and heating and cooling elements. The Stage Four diet can be modified to have a cleansing, rebuilding, or maintenance effect, depending on how one organizes it based on individual requirements.

Because this diet is a ”jet fuel,” high-energy one, to successfully make it work in one's life requires more attention, knowledge, and spiritual maturity. We can no longer afford the luxury of a single theory or understanding guiding us at all times. It is necessary to become, as much as possible, in tune with the ”holistic pract.i.tioner” within.

To do this requires a certain amount of trial and error experimentation with a variety of live-food approaches, with real attention to acid-base balance and Ayurvedic const.i.tutional type. For example, one of my clients, who tested acidic, was primarily on live foods except for some grain each day. As soon as she stopped eating grains, her health improved considerably and her pH returned to the normal range. She also felt more balanced emotionally and spiritually. Theoretically one might claim that her new diet was incorrect because it was too yin, having eliminated the yang acid-forming grains, but the clinical results over time gave a total picture which goes beyond the limited theory of yin and yang balance in the diet as the only way to look at health.

My own diet is Stage Four with only occasional and incidental intake of raw or cooked grains. My personal and clinical experience is that grains slow down the movement of the spiritual energy in my body and dull the sensitivity to this energy. This may not be true for everyone, but this is the way grains work for me and many people I have observed. Although my diet may be yin, I balance it with the yang-generating heating energy of my physical activities of hatha yoga, fast walking, and pranayama each day; the heating energy of some herbs, like ginger, black peppercorns, cardamom, and cayenne, especially during the winter months; the heating energy of the fire meditation; the yang fire of the sun each day; the grounding nature of my holistic health work; and my full partic.i.p.ation in the running of the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center, humanitarian projects, and my intimate relations.h.i.+ps including those with my family. The harmony I experience comes from the balance of the overall net dynamic of yin and yang energies in my total life rather than just the mere summation of the yin and yang energies of my food. This is what I call the wholeness approach.

Diet is an important part of the delicate creation of a total, balanced, harmonious life rather than the focus of ones life in itself The Stage Four diet of 95-100% living food is a powerful, purifying, energizing, and spiritualizing force in one's life. This diet can help to activate or awaken the spiritual energy. It accelerates the detoxification and healing process on the physical, emotional, and mental planes.

The Latin root of the word ”vegetarian” is vegetare, which means to ”enliven.” The Stage Four diet fulfills this definition to the utmost. It is so powerfully enlivening that to balance the energy created by the diet, one almost requires a life built on a spiritual foundation. Such a spiritual foundation may include some level of spiritual outlook or understanding, a supportive social and spiritual environment, a connection with nature, right livelihood, meditation, and love. Without these other supportive activities and structures in one's life, it is easy to get thrown off balance by the intense physical and psychological toxins that are initially released when one is on this diet. Whereas the Stage Three 80%-raw, 20%-cooked vegetarian diet is generally easy to attain for most everyone who is ready and motivated, the Stage Four diet is more intense and more likely to be successful for those who are mature and balanced in all areas of their lives. For most people, it requires several years of experience and self-experimentation to become balanced and grounded with the full life-force power of this diet.

In Stage Four, the practice of self-examination and observation is crucial. At this level of refinement our ability to absorb nutrients is continually improving. As already discussed, the 30-year research of the Wendts, a family of medical researchers, established that a high-protein diet clogs the bas.e.m.e.nt membrane. As the excess protein is eliminated by eating less protein and no flesh food, the bas.e.m.e.nt membrane becomes more and more porous. This allows the nutrients to be more easily absorbed. Using an electron microscope, photographs by the Wendts showed that the bas.e.m.e.nt membrane of babies is very porous. This may be why they can grow so rapidly on a breast milk diet that is only 5% protein. On a 95- to 100%-live-food diet, this process of clearing the bas.e.m.e.nt membrane occurs more quickly than on other diets so that one can eat less and still absorb the same amount of nutrients. Eventually, especially for slow oxidizers, sympathet-ics, and kapha type people, one discovers that one does not need to eat three meals per day In my own life, I have essentially eliminated the evening meal, except for occasional raw juices or fruit. It was fascinating and exciting for me to be able to comfortably make this switch and discover that my weight remained stable.

How Much Do We Need to Eat?

EATING TWO MEALS PER DAY may be more closely aligned with what a healthy organism actually needs, although this will vary with one's const.i.tution. As a baby, there is an intense growth phase with rapid gain in weight, brain and nervous system myelinization, and maturing of organs and enzyme systems. During this time, the baby feeds as much as every two hours. As children undergoing rapid growth and development, three meals per day and frequent snacks seem appropriate. In the teenage years there is another rapid maturational growth spurt in which the teenagers seem to always be eating. Sometime in the early twenties, physical growth of the organism is brought to a close and we s.h.i.+ft over to more of a ”repair and replacement” metabolism. Much less food is needed to sustain this phase of the life cycle. If one continues to eat like a teenager, the primary physical growth that occurs is sideways! With this overweight condition come those unwanted ”spare tires,” but even more significant is the fact that waste builds up in the tissues and the circulatory system. When physical growth has reached its peak in early adulthood, for many, two meals per day will be quite adequate to support the physical function of the body.

Although two meals a day may appear to be undereating, it actually isn't because one's rested digestive system is more efficient in absorbing more nutrients from what one eats. If one doesn't eat after 2:30 PM until the next morning, the digestive system gets three-quarters of a day's rejuvenative rest every day. One of the ongoing issues in the Stage Four diet is eating too much based on one's increased ability to almost completely a.s.similate everything one eats. To clarify this concept, as the bas.e.m.e.nt membrane becomes more porous, less and less food is needed to give the same amount of nutrients. To eat more than is needed to fulfill one's nutrient needs, even if one eats only one-half as many calories as is recommended by government authorities, may still const.i.tute overeating when one's bas.e.m.e.nt membranes are clean.

Eating less is not a back-door invitation to anorexia. It is easy to tell if one is undereating because there will be noticeable weight loss and a lack of vitality and health. My clinical observation of appropriate, healthy weight levels is similar to the 1959 weight standards for health set by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and the weight chart for optimal longevity designed by Stuart Berger, M.D., in his book Forever Young. Dr. Berger's chart reflects the approximate weights that longevity researcher and professor at UCLA Medical School, Roy Walford, M.D., suggests with his calorie-limiting diet approach to maximize a healthy longevity. These weight levels are approximately 20% less than what Americans normally think of as an acceptable body weight. In looking at Drs. Walford and Berger's data on longevity, I was delighted to find that my stabilized weight was precisely what they recommended. My focus, however, has never been on weight charts or calories. It has been on developing the art of conscious eating which is eating just the right amount of food to be totally functional for every aspect of one's life and to enhance communion with the Divine.

Another factor to consider on a live-food diet is the improvement of the metabolic enzyme function as health improves. I have observed that some people initially need supplements, but after a while they need less and less. It seems that as health improves, enough life force is created to regenerate damaged and exhausted enzyme systems or even develop new enzyme systems. Dr. Kervan, in his cla.s.sic book called Biological Trans.m.u.tation, cites twenty-five years of research that shows how the body can make specific enzymes that can actually trans.m.u.te one mineral into another. Biological trans.m.u.tation is one explanation for how some people are able to live without food. They have created the prerequisite enzymes to biologically trans.m.u.te the basic minerals and other substances to make what the body needs. Obviously, not everyone is able to do this at present, but everyone theoretically has the capability.

There are several examples of people who have been observed to live on water alone. There is a Buddhist monk living in the Himalaya who was continually observed by medical researchers for forty-three months. During this time he only drank water. Theresa Neuman, a devoted Catholic peasant, is another individual who was observed to live just on water except for her once-a-week communion wafer. She too was observed continuously by researchers who acknowledged the veracity of her ability to live without food. The Taoists in China also mention certain masters who have achieved this ability to live on just air and water. Although living on water is not even a spiritual goal, it hints at our incredible potential as humans.

These stories are not told so that we should aspire to learn how to live on just water, especially since the water these days is not so reliable. The point is that our enzyme systems are constantly improving so one needs to eat less and less in order to a.s.similate the same amount of nutrients. Because of our different attachments on many levels to eating three meals including snacks, it is not necessarily so easy to give up these patterns. The secret to making these changes is to go slowly, patiently, and with a great gentleness on oneself. Make changes that are comfortable. Forcing changes in diet too quickly often results in reversals that are self-defeating.

On a living-food diet, I have personally found that it is easier to experience an extraordinarily exquisite, gentle, eternal flow of the Divine energy coursing through the physical and subtle bodies. The more we experience this energy, the more we are filled with it. The more we experience ourselves permeated with this Divine energy, the more we experience the truth of our existence as ”That,” and know that this divine experience is our primary ident.i.ty. This profound and continual experience is not the same, however, as awareness of the One, which is a totality beyond any experience of time, s.p.a.ce, senses, and energy, and especially beyond words to describe it. The experience of Divine energy helps us feel connected and a part of the flow of the universe. It is the reflection of the One in the mirror of the human body. It is a constant reminder of our eternal nature, of our Divinity. To me, this is the great blessing and grace of a living-food diet. If we are to be in this body, why not live in a way that helps us feel connected to the Divine energy? Why not live in a way that has us experiencing the grace of G.o.d's touch?

Preview of Chapter 25.

SAFE AND HEALTHY WATER is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain because of the high degree of water pollution throughout the world. In this chapter we discuss this issue and the ways we can create healthy water for ourselves. You will also get a chance to play biochemist again as we consider a new biological energy a.s.sociated with water colloid systems. It is called zeta potential. Are you ready to consider the seriousness of our water problem? Are you ready to do something to protect yourself and your family?

I. How did all of this water pollution begin?

A. The origins of our tainted water supply B. Cancer increase related to water consumption II. Finding or making healthy water A. Bottled, mineral, filtered, distilled water advantages and disadvantages B. Charcoal filtering C. Reverse osmosis D. Water distillers III. Structured water and zeta potential A. Liquid crystals in water-what they do B. Surface tension of water.

C. Our blood's colloid system and water.

IV. Factors that decrease zeta potential.

Safe and Healthy Public Water, A Nostalgic Wish.

JUST AS CONSUMING ORGANIC FOODS IS A WAY to avoid ingesting toxins, becoming aware of the quality of water one drinks and uses is increasingly essential in today's polluted world, since water can be a major source of toxins. According to Diet for a Poisoned Planet, less than 1% of the Earth's surface water is safe to drink. In some places in the United States and other countries, the term ”drinking water” for tap water should be considered nothing more than a nostalgic euphemism. In order to best understand which water is safe to drink, bathe in, and prepare food with, one needs to know more about water pollution, how to purify water to make it safer for use, and also what form of water is healthiest to drink.

Second to oxygen, water is our most important nutrient. Without it, we would not be able to survive. Water comprises 90% of a baby's body and around 65-70% of an adult's. According to Patrick and Gael Crystal Flanagan, authors of Elixir of the Ageless, our muscles are composed of 75% water, our brain is composed of 90% water, our liver is 69% water, and even our bones are 22% water. They point out that in a lifetime people drink an average of 7,000 gallons, or 58,333 pounds of water. Water is a major component of all our foods. Cooked grains are 70% water.

In general, fruits contain the highest amount of structured water, approximately 85%, and vegetables contain slightly less, although some vegetables, like carrots, contain 88% water. The water in the cell structure of raw plant foods is the most biologically active available. This biologically active water is termed ”structured” water. Structured water either already contains, or has the capacity to contain, more energy than unstructured water, such as distilled or spring water. Researchers have found that in structured water the angle of the molecular bonding between the hydrogen and oxygen atoms is different than uncharged, unstructured water. One can unstructure water simply by heating it (more on structured water in a later section of this chapter).

The problem of water pollution is very much in many people's awareness today. Since one can often smell, taste, and see water of questionable quality, the water problem is harder to ignore than invisible poisons in the food. Water that is visually oily, has a smell, or has an oily taste may be polluted with industrial wastes. If water smells like rotten eggs it may be intermingling with sewage. A metallic taste in water may indicate high lead or manganese levels. If the water is cloudy, it may indicate too much potentially dangerous organic matter or that the water is inadequately purified. A blue-green color may suggest a high copper level. If there is too much chlorine, one's stainless steel sink may become pitted or turn black. Color, taste, odor, and stains on fixtures indicate a high level of contamination. Lower yet still very toxic levels of contaminants are often colorless, tasteless, and odorless. A complete water a.n.a.lysis for microbial, inorganic, and organic contamination may be the only way to find out the quality and safety of one's water.

Radiation is one of the more deadly contaminants in water. Naturally occurring forms of radiation that are found in water supplies around the country come from uranium, radium, and radon in contact with the ground water. According to Diet for a Poisoned Planet, radium in the drinking water is one of the most important causes of birth defects and a cause of increased cancer rates. In Florida, elevated radium in the water has been a.s.sociated with increased rates of leukemia. In Iowa, an increased rate of cancer of the lung and bladder among males, and breast and lung cancer among females, was discovered in population centers where the radium in the water supply was greater than five picocuries per liter of water (the federal standard for maximum allowable radium in the water). Childhood leukemia rates were found to be nearly double in North Carolina and Maine in areas where the drinking water had high radium concentrations.

Maximum radon levels in the water should not be greater than ten pic-ocuries per liter. Since radon will leave water as a gas, an aeration unit to remove the dissolved radon gas from the water before it enters the home is an effective solution to the problem of radon contamination. Reverse osmosis water purification systems can remove uranium and radium. Activated carbon filters will remove radon. We will discuss these and other water purification methods later in the chapter.

In addition to naturally occurring radiation, the public now has to contend with radiation spills from several food and medical supply irradiation plants that have been built in this country. For example, in Dover, New Jersey, in 1974, the International Neutronics Irradiation Facility had a cobalt-60 spill which they tried to ”clean up” from their radiation plant by dumping 5,700 liters of cobalt-60-contaminated water down the bathroom drains into the public sewer system.

The water that the general public uses comes from two sources: underground sources, such as springs and wells, and surface water, such as rivers and lakes. Presently, both these sources are becoming more and more polluted as toxic chemicals, acid rain, raw sewage, agricultural herbicides, pesticide runoff, chlorination, fluoridation, sewage landfills, and radioactive wastes are either dumped into or seep into these two types of water sources. One of the best-known examples of toxic water pollution to date is the infamous Love Ca.n.a.l, where according to The New York Times in 1984, thousands of tons of toxic chemicals were dumped, including 60 pounds of the deadly poison dioxin.