When most people think of the world, “diet”, they think of weight loss or bodily image, or perhaps physical health. However, most people are not aware that the regulation of food can not only transform one’s energy, but lead to an increased Self-knowledge, and spiritual transformation.
Most of our eating habits have been conditioned from youth. These are strict physical habits, such as the love of certain foods, like cake, ice cream or salty foods. Secondly, there are emotional habits that have conditioned our eating patterns, such as eating comfort foods, when we are emotionally down (and not really hungry).
The use of diet as part of one’s personal transformation, involves not only inserting in one’s routine specific aspects of right eating, but also the process of Self-knowledge, which allows us to observe our dysfuctional eating habits. These, as stated, arise out of emotional patterns that are not really resolved.
Therefore, the whole process of transformation through diet involves a gradual understanding of why we eat the way we do, plus the implimentation of right habits, not the immediate acquisition of an ideal pattern.
We start with four major forms of regulation. These do not include a specific regemin, but very generic processes that can adapt to one’s physical size (thin, medium or large) and biochemical (metabolic) individuality. They are very ordinary and are not esoteric or extreme. In fact, we use most of these daily, at least to some degree.
* Choice - this is a very commone sense notion. When we eat, we “choose” our foods: what foods we think we need or perhaps, want and desire. However, in this process, there are certain general food groups that we work with and observe when and how we veer off course. The major food groups are fruits, vegetable, nuts, seeds, grains, beans and a minimum or moderate use of dairy and meat products. The foods that we - experimentally - avoid, are the common “junk foods” such as cakes, cookies, candy, highly processes foods and so forth. When we do indulge, we are not doing anything wrong, only should look at how one came to the decision to eat this way. When other trainings are used, one will slowly move away from these habits.
* Amount - this also is a very common process that we impliment daily. When we eat we adjust the amount of our intake to what we can comfortable handle. However, we know that we do not always do this. We often “over-eat” and pay little attention to how this affects our mental clarity and energy (typical outcomes in transformation). Also, we tend to hit the extremes of over and undereating. Undereating causes over-eating, because the body will go into “hoarding” mode, when there is hunger, through evolutionary processes.
* Frequency - We not only attend to choice and amount, but we decide when to eat, which implies the choice of how many meals in a day. There is different energy that is produced if we eat two meals in comparison to four. Similarly, there is a different energy produced if we eat most of our food at night or in the first part of the day. Experiment with eating two larger meals a day, and compare it with eating four or five smaller meals. Also, eat lighter during the beginning of the day and compare this to eating heavier breakfast. Try to find which is the best time to eat more heavily and which are best to eat light meals.
* Purity - This involves the inclusion of a certain percentage of live or “raw” foods in the diet. This is the not the cultic lifestyle of attempting to eat 100 percent, or the focus of the whole spiritual transformation into diet. It is the experimentation of maximizing the diet with the percentage of raw foods into the total intake. With certain people, it may include 50 %; others, 90%. This purifies the whole body and leads to the purification of mind and soul.
The transformation of diet involves the re-hauling of the instinctual center or structure, which is often the disrupter of a transformed life. In other words, we attempt to work on our self, but the body has other things in mind. This is why, along with other trainings on other centers or structures, we slowly introduce more a more condusive diet towards transformation. This will slowly bring in a bodily, “alchemy”, which allows a complete transformation of mind, heart and body.
We waste so much energy through wrong eating, because the body uses so much energy in order to digest food. There are as many neurons in the intestine as there are in the whole brain! Therefore, it stands to reason, that if we make intelligence choices in our dietary intake, we can preserve so much energy. This energy is transferred to other aspects of our training and living processes.
William Edwards
Author, Trainer
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