Eating for rejuvenation

For most people, being on a spiritual path brings with it the principles of vegetarian living.  I too wanted to uphold the precepts of not eating meat to obtain all the benefits that spirituality had to offer.  While it is certainly much easier to enter meditative states by abstaining from eating meat, it is not so easy to obtain perfect physical health through this alone.

When you move from a poor diet to a healthy diet, it doesn’t mean that you will automatically experience the effects of complete rejuvenation.  Only when you know the exact laws of hygiene does this become possible.  Therefore, you need to gather the right information and then make the choices that work for you.

“The greatest of all diet reforms is the change from meat-eating to a meatless diet. This is also the first step on the spiritual path, the first gesture that rightness, justice, compassion, purity are being set up as necessary to human and humane living, in contrast to animal living.” — Paul Brunton

Figuring out a game-plan to get back to health involves a commitment that is based on the PRINCIPLES of revering and honoring life.  Even though we never know when we are going to pass away, at least we can enjoy a quality of life that most others would never know.

“So it is, Manjushri. There is not a single being, wandering in the chain of lives in endless and beginningless samsara, that has not been your mother or your sister. An individual, born as a dog, may afterward become your father.  Each and every being is like an actor playing on the stage of life. One’s flesh and the flesh of others is the same flesh. Therefore the Enlightened Ones eat no meat. Moreover, Mahjushri, the dharmadhatu  is the common nature of all beings, therefore Buddhas refrain from eating meat.”  — Angulimala Sutra

The ideal:

For healing, rejuvenation, and regeneration to occur physically being on a completely raw-food diet is essential for optimal health to take place.  It does take time to get to this level of purity.  It also takes a certain willingness to get educated properly in order to have confidence that this process works.  Nonetheless, whenever you create the right conditions in your body, healing will eventually come about.

Abiding with nature is the slow and steady way to become whole.

In order to create the right conditions for healing to occur it would be wise to complete a liver-cleanse and then an extended OJ fast.  Once you accomplish these pre-requisites, then you can choose to continue eating well, modify your diet, or go completely back to your old ways.  It is entirely up to you.

You never want to become obsessed or extreme about this.  You just want to give your body some time so that it has the chance to recuperate, balance and regenerate itself.

It may be that you are ready to take the next step and eat even healthier than before.  It is important to note that you don’t have to worry that you will be eating this way forever.  You could simply set a time limit for how long you want to cleanse and purify this way.

Here are two alternative diet-plans that create the precise conditions to maintain a healthy body:

Food combining:

While you are in the transition from an ovo-lacto vegetarian to a raw food diet it is best to learn the Food Combining Protocols outlined by Dr. Hay.  If you cannot become a complete Raw Foodist right away, that is OK.  No problem.  At the very minimum, you can have one cooked meal per day.  Over time you can become stricter.

The reason to follow these food-combining rules is because you want your body to run more efficiently and not accumulate acids in your body.  This path is one of making better choices with awareness of what is correct or incorrect for your body.

For example, right food combining means you would NOT mix proteins and carbohydrates.  Eating pizza would be a wrong food combination because the cheese is protein and the bread is a carb.  If you eat the wrong combination then acidosis sets in and invariably disease is not far behind.

Mono-diet:

The mono-diet is something you can adopt to refine your system more precisely than food-combining does.  The mono-diet says to eat only one food at a time.  This is a more perfected method to assure you are not making any mistakes and accumulating acids.  It is a simple process.  If you desire grapes then you keep eating all the grapes you want until you are full.

As a general rule, ten minutes later your stomach should be empty of fruit.  Then you could pick another food.  Maybe you wanted almonds next.  You would eat all the almonds your body desires until you weren’t hungry anymore.  It may take your system about 45 minutes or more to digest these nuts.

This is how you will come to know your body in exact detail.  Just be mindful and see how your body handles each particular food.  In all cases, try to get into the habit of chewing all your food into a liquid.  Your stomach is not a grinder.  It needs all the help it gets from the enzymes in your salivary glands.

WARNING: the following information is for informational purposes and no one can encourage you to move in this direction unless you are willing to self-experiment and have guidance/permission from your doctor, lama, healer or guru.

It has been said that grains, fruits, nuts, and vegetables constitute the diet that obeys nature in the correct way.   But, how many really know that breads are poor choices for food?  The way breads are made today may actually cause more harm than good.  For example, the ingredient in white bread utilizes the same paste to put up your wallpaper in your home.  Not good at all.

“I have to agree with the old medical books, bread is the staff of death, but if a person could chew it to a liquid, it would do much less harm.” –MH

Furthermore, it may be surprising to hear what the Master Herbalist has to say about vegetables.  How many people know that most vegetables are not proper human foods?

“Vegetables are not natural, they grow too quickly. BUGS love vegetables, because nature wants them destroyed. Humans need very small minerals that fruits from the tree possess. Minerals in the fast growing vegetables are too BIG and are known to get in the blood stream and can’t get out the kidneys, so they stick to the veins and clog our circulation over time.” –MH

It may sound strange and even shocking to hear that.  The good news is, when we are healthy and our VITALITY and LIFE-FORCE is STRONG we can pretty much eat anything and everything.  But, when we are sick and debilitated and have a so-called incurable disease we need to take every precaution to get back to health.

Three signs:

Some signs to look for while cleansing and eating healthy and taking herbal supplements:

1. the skin becomes clearer
2. the hair grows in thicker and darker
3. the teeth become whiter

This is very important to understand.  While experiencing the qualities of rejuvenation, the nails will begin to feel stronger and take on a clear sheen to them and will not look cloudy.  The hair will become thicker and appear wet, as if filled with life-force, and not dry or falling out.  And lastly, the teeth will become much whiter and not look sickly yellow.

TIPS:

With the above information you have a tool to gauge where you are at.  Even so, one needs to study extensively these PROTOCOLS of abiding with nature.  MH acquired lead-poisoning from the factory he worked at, and only got his health back after following Nature’s laws.

Likewise, Dr. William Howard Hay had renal disease or kidney failure.  In the old days, it was called Bright’s disease and now the term is chronic nephritis.  Both these men achieved rejuvenation by following Nature and went on to document their results for the benefit of all.

Discovering the truth certainly comes from self-applied prevention.  I advise anyone to start reading MH’s 108 Pages booklet and the Dr. Hay book, Health via Food to get started.

Good Luck!
Neo

Principles of health

MH, at the Ask Barefoot Herbalist forum, always says that few people are willing to self-experiment with herbs and juice fasting.  I would say it is even harder to discern properly what true health really is.  In 2005, following the Dr. Hay protocol, I completed the 21 day Orange Juice fast and lost a pound a day in the process.  It is no easy task to accomplish.  However, to complete such a fast is the only way to obtain a proper BASIS for what is healthy for the body and what is not.

Many years later I fell off the path and started eating meat again.  I got bored and didn’t even feel like drinking distilled water anymore so I decided to do the Wiley Brooks challenge.  The diet would consist of eating one McDonald’s quarter pounder with cheese and a large diet coke on a daily basis for seven days.  This was quite crazy to consider and I do NOT advise anyone to just do it.  But for me, it was a lesson in discernment through Crazy Wisdom.

The Buddha taught the middle path and it makes sense since being a raw foodist was one extreme and the other was eating meat every day.

Like many philosophers say, you have to follow the PRINCIPLES of life to obtain excellence.  Even Josh Waitzkin, the famous Chessmaster, is one of the rare few who can easily explain how to play chess properly by following the exact principles to it.  Likewise, when following the Buddha dharma one must know, understand, and observe the ethical principles (precepts) to achieve the proper results.

So when I did the Wiley Brooks diet, over time, I would come to discern the differences and similarities between these two health protocols.  Unfortunately, the hair growth and strong feeling while on his diet was not enough to produce any incredible long-term results.  Not to mention the harmful side effects such as the tightening up of the channels and drying up of the lymph nodes would eventually lead to kidney pain.  A short time later a full detox would get me back to normal.  The Wiley protocol was a dead-end.

But the real measure of health came later when taking MH’s 2010 Longevity Spices for Life.

The three signs that the body is rejuvenating properly are the skin becomes clearer, the hair grows in thicker and darker and the teeth become whiter.  This is very important to understand.

On the right path toward rejuvenating the body, the nails will begin to feel stronger and take on a clear sheen to them and will not look cloudy.  The hair will become thicker and filled with life-force and appear wet and not dry.  And lastly, the teeth will become pearly white and not look sickly yellow.

With this known, you have a tool to gauge where you are at.  You just need to study the PRINCIPLES of health in detail.  I advise anyone to start reading MH’s 108 Pages booklet and the Dr. Hay book, Health via Food to get started.

Understanding the way food combining works, advocated by Dr. Hay, is the correct PRINCIPLE for obtaining healthy blood and therefore a healthy body which is more alkaline in nature.  For some, food combining is one of the hardest things to maintain but the rewards are great.  Others have had problems keeping track of the rules so they are encouraged to follow a mono diet.

The mono diet is the surest way to get back to health without making any mistakes!  What is a mono diet?  You eat only one type of food per meal and eat as much of that as you want till you are full.

Your first meal may be a fruit such as strawberries and you eat all the strawberries your heart desires.  The next meal may be almonds and you can eat all the almonds you want till you get full.  The reason for getting back to basics this way is your body won’t turn acidic on a mono diet.  The stomach now has a chance to be restored to its original healthy state.  The fault of incorrect food combination is: when you combine protein and carbs your stomach turns acidic.  This in turn, causes the lymph nodes to activate and the toxins go up and out the head rather than down and out the body in the correct way.  Since the stomach is overwhelmed and can’t handle the excess acids to digest foods properly… weight-gain and disease settles in.

So, the first step is researching the PRINCIPLES to good health.  Next, learn the proper rules to food combining.  Then, get educated on why juice fasting is important to rid yourself of environmental toxins from the air we breathe and the harmful chemicals and metals we have ingested over the years.

Once you accomplish a juice fast – whether it is for 7 days or 14 days this alone will help you discern the BASIS of what is normal health for you and nobody else.

Others have gone on to accomplish 21, 40 and even 108 days with ease because it is not a strict water fast that leaves your muscles atrophied.  The almonds eaten on the fast supply the body with enough protein so the muscles get what they need.  Lastly, find a middle path that works for you.  Even if that means on occasion you eat meat or junk food, now you have a suitable method to get back on track.  If you get sick…a three day OJ fast is part of your tool-bag to achieve health quickly.

The body is specially designed.  When you live by the laws of nature you experience health much faster than if you go against nature.  As you live in harmony with Nature you will begin to see how strong, resilient and efficient the body works.  These are the inner workings of true health that people have forgotten to pass down from one generation to the next.

Others suggest that this information has been suppressed time and time again.  Of course, one shouldn’t place too much importance on the body in exclusion to mind and energy work.  But when you master the body, it is much easier to forget about it and focus on the more important task at hand – enlightenment itself.

UPDATE:  The Master Herbalist has a new forum to play on and answer questions: The Barefoot Way Forum

Good luck!
Neo