Natural Foods

 

INTRODUCTION

 

By Jorgan

 

        Most all leading authorities in the health field who demonstrate therapeutic health programs and/or lecture and write books on their philosophy in health care will often display incongruity in their views and methods used in practice.  The sincere health seeker who expects to be nurtured, supported, and reassured in his quest for understanding can very well end up feeling confused and discouraged by these inconsistencies.

        In my experience, the security we may feel in conformity can often be misleading, resulting in what is only imitative and superficial.  Rather than attempting to establish a philosophy of health from a linear point of view that might fulfill your expectations for certainty in making your choice for a health program, I suggest that we step back and take a more realistic view on this question regarding our health education and practice.  Until we are experienced and knowledgeable in our health practice, it is to our benefit to explore all of the available resources for inspiration and information.  However, while doing so we must not be gullible and succumb to a rigid or fanatical philosophy of health that we impose on ourselves or others.

        It is obvious that even those who profess to be health practitioners and work as professionals in this field can be biased in their views, misinformed, and present a poor example of health themselves.  Medical doctors often do represent poor examples of health or of having acquired any real understanding of disease or its cause, in spite of the extensive education they receive and the inflated fees that they charge.  What is most important for us to understand are the basic principles that make up a sound and workable philosophy of health.  When we discover these principles for ourselves through our own research, we are then prepared to incorporate their meaning and significance in any form of health program that we may become involved with.

        All health programs use some form of therapeutic treatment.  But only a holistic program will incorporate them all as needed.  The holistic practitioner will always adhere to the basic principles while remaining flexible in using the outer form of the program.  For example, if diet is used as a therapeutic form of treatment as part of a health program, the underlying principle that supports this form of treatment is to eliminate all foods that toxify the body while learning to incorporate all foods that will detoxify and sustain physical well-being.  Even though health proponents may not agree as to what foods to eliminate and what foods are best to incorporate, as well as how they should be prepared, combined, or consumed, they will agree that the basic principle is to detoxify and to sustain health.  It is up to each individual to resolve the differences and variables in the outer forms that comprise the details in a therapeutic program, while remaining sensitive to realizing the basic principle in the form of verifiable results.

        My health program is a result of many years of research in the health field and subsequent personal experiences with detoxification efforts.  My quest has been to explore the reasons that may be the underlying cause of body toxemia and the myriad pathological symptoms that can result in physiological and psychological disorders.  It is my intention to present an educational overview on this subject of toxemia.  In facilitating this overview, I invite you as a student of health to be prepared to take a holistic approach to understanding toxemia and the chain of causes that must precede to it and proceed from it as results.  The ultimate purpose of this education is to develop the skill that would implement our freedom from the ignorance that propagates toxicity.

        My program will reveal with blunt frankness the radical truth of how we toxify our bodies.  It is imperative that we learn to recognize the symptoms of toxicity and to begin to realize its significance as being a poisonous condition of the body which can result in serious health disorders.  Furthermore and most importantly, I provide a detoxification program that is the focal point of my research.  This detox program is a complete body flush designed to dissolve and remove the most stagnant toxic matter.  The benefit of this detoxification is experienced to be a profound rejuvenation.  It is of fundamental importance that a holistic approach to our health care is cultivated that will establish the balance and integrity to the whole person.

 

 

LESSON ONE: GROSS HUNGER

        What is Gross Hunger?  Isn’t it the desire to consume what is toxic to our health?  And, why do we desire to eat food that toxifies our bodies?  Don’t we eat mainly because we are compelled or driven to satisfy or gratify our desire or urge to experience the many taste sensations that we have become addicted to?  We have acquired an appetite for the stimulating affects of various foods and drinks.  We have been induced and indoctrinated into eating habits.  And, by a process of imitation we continue to sustain eating lifestyles that are degenerating and debilitating to our physical health and psychological well-being.

        To put it simply, we as a humanity are mutually perpetuating a condition of slavery to food addiction.  Furthermore, we propagate weakness, indolence, and stupidity in this regard.

        I say this because as a whole, we do not inquire into nor admit to the cause of our diseases and suffering.  We look for symptomatic remedies for our ailments or some kind of treatment that will suppress the uncomfortable symptoms.  We are superficial in our understanding and mutually promote a shallow view.  We remain gullible to profit motivated industries that exploit our naive tendency to addictive dependency on unhealthful products.  We are enticed to willingly participate in our own demise.  By being passive and conforming, our discriminative judgment is obscured.  Consequently, our life force is drained while prematurely we grow feeble, become chronically ill, and succumb to the oblivion of never having understood the real cause of our suffering or realizing our potential in health and well being.

        I have explained why we are driven by Gross Hunger, which is because we have ignorantly cultivated the habitual activity of pursuing the pleasurable and stimulating effects associated with food.  Simply this.

        Now, what then may we ask is real hunger, if Gross Hunger as I’ve implied is fundamentally a false hunger?  I realize, of course, that almost no one would admit to hunger being an illusion.  But then, I also realize almost everyone is caught up in a groupish mentality and not capable of individual inquiry and insight.  I am only intending this information for those individuals who have the interest and capacity to understand.

        Biological or real hunger that has degenerated into craving is what I term Gross Hunger and is an abnormal condition of the body.  In point of fact, it is a chronic disease that is the creator of all maladies of the body and—as well— is the indirect cause and aggravation of our psychological disorders.

        Gross Hunger is only real in a relative or negative sense but not in an essential or absolute sense.  It is like the hunger for tobacco, coffee, or alcohol.  These are not essential substances for the body to ingest.  But it seems so to those who are addicted to the bodily sensations associated with these substances.

        Real Hunger has degenerated into a craving to satisfy a desire for a particular sensation that one has become dependent upon for gratification.  One, of course, is only momentarily gratified and soon becomes addicted to the habitual pursuit and repetition of this illusive sensation.

        I dare say that Gross Hunger itself is a sensation.  It has a cause and is a result of that cause.  It seems that most of us have never been introduced to this cause nor have we ever fully become acquainted with its character as such.  I invite you to explore with me where few have dared to venture, and we will discover that what is felt to be hunger is unnatural.  In other words, it is a deception.

        Now, I intend to introduce you to this cause of Gross Hunger and facilitate your acquaintance with its character—and best of all—to reveal the real freedom from this human dilemma that perpetuates the craving and suffering syndrome.  First, it must be admitted that we are all born into this human theater with an innate disposition to crave and suffer.  We are gullible to the negative influences of this human dimension because we ignorantly crave to be satisfied in the wrong way.  Unless we cultivate the initiative to inquire and learn, we continue to succumb to the negative influences that condition us to suffer the consequences of our ignorance.

        At some point we become passive; and to justify the pain of being ignorant, we accept suffering as a natural condition.  We sink into the mass mentality.  Pleasure, comfort, and security become our “God” and suffering our “Nemesis”.  We exhaust our life force in the pursuit of the one and the avoidance of the other.  This Gross Hunger that rules our lives and causes us to indulge in all forms of stupidity—even when we have become informed or aware of the dangers—could be likened to the example of being possessed by the devil or a demon.  Though I am not advocating the belief in such a dramatic example, it is a fitting one. An example that more fully elucidates one’s predicament and potential freedom is this: we have a body mind, a feeling mind, a thinking mind, and a knowing mind.  The knowing mind has the potential to unite the other three minds into one mind of which they really are one.  But this can only be realized by exercising the potential of the knowing mind.

        The manifestation of knowing anything profoundly is rare.  What is usually manifested as knowing is on the level of the thinking mind.  This mind comes to a series of analytical and logical deductions in regard to data.  The result at best is a belief without acknowledged contradictions or doubt. 

        The feeling mind inspires and energizes the body mind to manifest in accordance with this belief.  If the thinking mind is not attuned to the knowing mind, there will be no insight into the subject being thought about, felt about, or acted out as being true.  And it is most likely the thinking mind will become conditioned by all the surrounding influences with no discerning or discriminating quality to guide or protect one.  It is therefore inevitable that one’s actions become fragmentary and contradictory.  This causes stress, turbulence, distortion—and ultimately—deception.

        It is generally understood that when the term “mind” is used, it only implies the process of thinking.  But in the effort to more exactly illustrate the essential meaning through my example in this lesson, I’ve represented three functions of mind, while referring respectfully to a fourth aspect of mind.  To clarify further to avoid any confusion that may arise in reference to the terms body mind, feeling mind, and thinking mind—also with a special regard and appreciation for the term noetic mind, I will explain what is meant in using them in this way to illustrate my point.

        The term body mind refers to the sensuous, visible, physical form that includes all its internal and external functions.  This is what I represent as the most gross form of the mind that manifests as our behavior relative to the world event.  The term feeling mind refers to the subtle form of mind that is not visible or not audible but is felt in the body as the various moods of passion.  When the feeling capacity of the mind becomes agitated, I have termed it the emotional mind.  The term thinking mind refers to the capacity of mind to conceptualize, rationalize, discriminate and judge.  Most thinking is habitually involved with satisfying the sensuous needs of the body mind in response to the persuasive demands of the passions that give form to the feeling mind.  The term noetic mind represents an open, spacious, inclusive quality of mind that is absolute, innate and direct, rather than implying that it has any form, content, or function.  It is this noetic quality of mind that provides the harmonic by which the three functions of mind I depict are synthesized into one.

        When we are in the presence of the unifying quality of the noetic mind, we feel, think, and behave in accord with what is fundamentally realized to be true in the relative field of experience.  We are then enabled to exercise our potential to focus our mind as one energy that can accomplish our intention or purpose without contradiction or distortion.  Within this unity of mind, will-power is innate and spontaneous in exacting the discipline required for maintaining a holistic approach to  health care.

        And, this is my point!  We can not feel, think, and act in accordance with a correct view in health practice if we are divided in ourselves.  We will succeed only when we can feel, think, and act in harmony with what we know to be true.

        So my attempt here is to approach this cause of disease and suffering with insight.  And, what this insight reveals is obviously the whole view of the subject in question.  What we need is the whole view—without distortion.  Distortion is caused by our biases, preferences, opinions and beliefs that make up the conditioned view.

        If and when we are born into this human dimension with the predisposition to be gullible, it remains inevitable that we will be conditioned.  That is to say, the three fundamental aspects of our mind—the gross or form aspect of mind, the subtle or feeling aspect of mind, and the analytical or conceptual aspect of mind—will not be attuned to the spacious or open quality of mind.  This is the real meaning of the word ignorance.  It means to ignore what one potentially knows.  If one persists in ignoring this potential to know, one will never manifest its noetic quality.  And therefore, the three aspects of mind will not manifest Harmony.  If there is no fundamental harmony in the mind, there is “dis‑ease” and craving is born.  Craving really is disease in the real sense of the word.  Relentlessly pursuing sensual gratification, emotional satisfaction, and mental equilibrium.

        If all of the foregoing illustration depicting body mind, feeling mind, and thinking mind—as well as noetic quality of mind—is confusing because perhaps it sounds too philosophical and abstract, allow me to phrase it in more simple terms, because this point is crucial for us to understand in order to succeed in our approach to health care.

        When through ignorant indulgence in a variety of substances that condition our body to crave and depend on those substances, we have caused addictive appetites that demand to be satisfied.  This satisfaction comes in the form of a variety of sensations felt in the body, such as comfort or stimulation that can be destructive to our health.  But often, by the time we become aware of the degeneration of our health and perhaps desire to do something about it, we discover that we are unable to command or summon the control over what I’m calling the body mind.  This is because our body mind has been conditioned to respond to only those sensations it has become accustomed to.  This control can only be acquired through the patience and skill in using the feeling and thinking mind.

        Desire to rectify the situation will rise in what I’m calling the feeling mind.  The desire to change will never rise in the body mind—rather quite the contrary.  The body mind does not reason nor feel the significance of things, but simply enjoys pleasant sensations and suffers painful ones with no discriminating overview.  Though the body certainly does have a quality of intelligence that determines growth, development and function in ways that are beyond our feeling and thinking capacity to comprehend.  And, that is precisely why I qualify it as the third aspect of mind.  However, it is the form aspect and will respond in harmony with feeling and thought only if the latter two are in agreement.

        So, it should be easy to understand that even if the thinking quality of mind becomes well-informed as to appropriate health practice, it can not override the feeling mind and force the body mind to comply with the ideal program for health, no matter how beneficial and necessary it may seem to be in thought as a plan of action.  If our feeling mind has become emotionalized, it will not have the quality of feeling calm or in unity with thinking, and will tend to succumb easily to the chronic conditioning of depression, boredom, fear, anxiety, frustration, jealousy, hyper-excitement or dullness—to name a few—that will certainly produce an agitated feeling mind.

        Even when we are inspired to feel in accord with our thinking, it is often only a temporary alliance.  This is so because our feeling mind becomes easily agitated when stressed by particular environmental influences that we react to.  When the feeling mind is weak and susceptible to being agitated, its quality to inspire control or unity between the mind of knowledge with the body behavior is undermined.

        As an example, everyone knows—or it is logical to assume—that to know a substance is toxic to our health and will cause pain and suffering, we would immediately and simply cease the use of it.  But of course, we soon discover that it doesn’t so simply follow that we do what we know.  Why?  Most people would say because we don’t have the will-power.  Well—what is will power and how do you get it?

        I assert that real power of will is something more than crude force, because forcing the body to comply with your ideal always brings repercussions in some negative form sooner or later.  And also, one never feels relaxed with this kind of effort because it is an unnatural strain.  Real will is a spontaneous cooperation between the three functions of mind.  It is effortless in the sense of there being any force, but it correctly may be classified as work, but work that is positively progressive and has an enjoyable quality.

        So how do we acquire will?  We simply focus our mind energy as one.  How?  By being mindful we remember to feel the truth in what we know and manifest it in our behavior.  Too simple! You knew that already.  Yes, most of us probably do know that, but then, why don’t we do it?  We don’t do what we know because we have no “presence of mind” that is whole; we are fragmented and easily distracted.  When there is distortion in our capacity to feel and think with clarity and harmony, the will as a focus of power is dissipated by becoming divided into many little wills that quarrel with each other.  Each little will is the result of being conditioned to desire its particular sensation, feeling, or thought.  Therefore, we can understand how we become neurotic or even so insane in our behavior that it would be humorous if it were not so tragic.

        There would be no hope if we had only the world view available.  However, the unifying quality of what I’m terming the noetic mind is our salvation from this dilemma.  And for this fourth aspect of mind to bring clarity to thinking, balance to feeling, and coordination in behavior, it must be invited.  We must pause to consider its value and learn to allow its quality to infuse our whole being.  We must not be passive to the manifold social influences that condition our minds or the clarity of our noetic quality of mind can be obscured.

        I have elaborated on this subject of hunger to illustrate “why we are hungry?”  And, I have stated that gross hunger is the craving to be gratified by gross food stimulation.  And I have pointed out that by experiencing the effects of this stimulation we naively become addicted to these gross sensations caused by the particular food or drink ingested.

        And, I’m saying what is felt to be hunger is unnatural.  But because one has been indoctrinated into believing it is natural behavior, we therefore justify this sense addiction as normal.  We tend rarely—if ever—to inquire into its validity.  And, we remain incapable of comprehending the root cause of our perpetual suffering and degeneration as a humanity.

        To be an addict means to be enslaved or controlled by a force or power to which you have not the intelligence nor will to resist.  The real and fundamental danger in being an addict is the degenerating effect it has on our health and freedom.

        I have said why we are addicted to gross food eating habits.  And, I have stated being a food addict produces a passive state of dependency on various sensations caused by these foods.  I have made the claim that this dependency is degenerating to our potential capacity for physical, mental and spiritual freedom.

        So now, I want to make this point: If we do not exercise our capacity for freedom, we will then out of fear and ignorance take refuge and security in conformity to the mass mentality.  By so doing we eclipse our potential will to understand and realize the cause of our suffering.  Therefore, if being a food addict is cultivated and sustained by the effort to be gratified by the pleasurable sensations experienced, are we then not vulnerable to having to also experience the consequences of our indulgence?

        And, what is the ultimate result of food addiction?  I have found it to be toxemia.  The word auto-toxemia means self-poisoning.  Now why would we willingly poison ourselves?  As I have explained, we have failed to exercise our will to resist, and we as a humanity have sunk into a state of passive ignorance in regard to food.  And though there exist those who can properly inform and help those of us who will take the initiative to inquire and learn, they are rarely appreciated or tolerated.  So if real knowledge is secret, it is not because it is hidden but because of the disinterest of the masses to accept and practice the truth.

        In essence man is a spiritual being—not a physical being.  Our essence becomes densified as physical because we as individuals have degenerated into a passive state of ignorant sense addiction.  The deceptive sensation called hunger is actually the need for the body to eliminate this densifying toxic matter that has accumulated through ignorant self-indulgence.  Painful and uncomfortable symptoms of all kinds are the result of this indulgence.  The so-called medical establishment seeks to successfully suppress these symptoms, and they are highly revered and paid to do so.  When the ailment can not be suppressed, it begins to manifest as a chronic condition that often can not be eliminated except by surgery.  The more toxic your body is, the more you will feel the need to eat, especially on heavy starch, fat, and protein foods, as well as spices, gravies, sauces, and dressings.  Why?  This accumulation of backed-up waste deposits create a total body constipation condition and is responsible for all forms of disease and pains in the body.

        As I have stated before, the desire to eat and drink heavy and stimulating foods regularly and in quantity is an acquired habit, developed for the taste and stimulating effects of these foods.  What is ignorantly called “hunger” is one’s own withdrawal discomfort and is not real hunger.  Like any drug addict whose system has become toxified by the end product of the drug, a fresh fix is needed to suppress the withdrawal symptoms.  The food addict needs a continual fix from the suppressive and stimulating effects of these habitual foods and drinks.  If the body’s vital force is mainly and continuously being used for the acquisition, consumption, digestion, assimilation, and elimination of gross foods, then tissue constipation, fatigue, and toxemia become the resultant body condition.

        Furthermore, this degenerative condition is compounded in this way.  The desire for gross food tastes and stimulation become greater as the body is desensitized through indulgence.  The backed-up toxic waste condition in the body tissues has a dulling effect, causing a diminishing response to the gross food stimuli.  So that (as with the addiction to any substance ingested, injected, or inhaled) more is increasingly required for a desirable effect.

        In my experience, I have come to understand that this desire for gross food stimulation is a perversion.  And, it perpetuates a weakened state of dependency that results in toxemia.  Real hunger (as opposed to gross hunger) would be an appropriate response to the natural impulse to fulfill the nutritional needs of our physical bodies while adequately providing and sustaining a wholesome vehicle for an optimum manifestation of our spiritual potential.  When hunger becomes craving, that impulse to fulfill the natural biological needs of our body is degenerated to the level of obsessive and addictive dependency on sensation as being the object of satisfaction.  When one’s will to live is subjugated to gross sensation as the purpose and motivating principle of that life, then one is, from my view, perpetuating a gross misunderstanding.  This distortion in one’s understanding causes one to ignorantly exploit this impulse to fulfill the bodily needs as an excuse for self-indulgent modes of behavior in regard to food.

        It may be to our advantage to come to understand our compulsive eating behavior and to invite and/or evoke an explorative inquiry into evolving ways to implement our freedom from our slavery to food addiction.  To successfully do so will promote and sustain a whole and stable sense of well-being, not determined by a temporary sense gratification through food indulgence, but rather will be grounded in a fulfilled need that has come to rest in the equipoise of that well-being.

        Initiating the insight to expose a deception, and developing the skill necessary to rectify that deception, thereby creating harmony in our health and self-control in our dietary behavior is the focal point of this lesson.

        I advocate a self-control—devoid of depravation or force—that is the practice of a self-mastery grounded in understanding.  When we dedicate ourselves to a sincerely open and unbiased inquiry, the truth is revealed.

 

LESSON TWO: GROSS FOOD

        In this lesson, I want to clarify exactly what is meant by the term gross food as I use it.  Later, I will explain the need for a transition diet.  This is the method required to enable each individual to graduate successfully through the dietary changes that will facilitate a complete transition to cleansing foods.  And, I will explain what these cleansing foods are and how to use them for optimum results in removing the accumulated toxic condition of your body.  Then, I will introduce you to the stabilizing diet that will provide the essential nutritional grounding for the highest sense of well-being possible.

        The term gross, as I use it, means basically that which is unnecessary.  It also implies what is coarse, crude, or defiled.  I could describe the Essence of an element as essential and what is gross as non-essential in any respect.  Gross food does not inspire nor sustain life, though it does stimulate and therefore cause a variety of sensations that one can become addicted to.  But like any drug, the final result is enervation, toxemia, and disease.

        I consider it important to mention that gross thinking, gross speech, gross feeling or emotionality are compounded by gross eating addictions, and that all debilitating gross eating habits can be a contributing factor and a perpetuating force in gross behavior patterns of all types and classifications.

If one happens to have been born in a coarse environment to uninformed parents who are addicted to gross foods, it is most probable that you have acquired some—if not all—of their weakness in food addictions.  And therefore, it is inevitable that you have since growth in the womb, through childhood and adolescence to your present adult status, been accumulating many layers of toxicity in your body.

        If you could understand how serious your situation is you would want to do something about it.  Of course, I realize that not everyone is ready to be interested in health care.  The mass mentality will always be more interested in the distracted preoccupation with sensual indulgence.  But, I am presenting this knowledge to those few individuals who have the capacity to practice its principles.

        It is important to notice and to practice discriminating awareness in regard to all gross influences.  If one remains naive and gullible, one will be conditioned by these influences.  If one is conditioned by them, one will be controlled by them.  And, the result will be a coarse character that will manifest harmful behavior to oneself as well as others.

        A coarse character is a toxic state of mind, with self-centered ignorance being the underlying characteristic that precipitates all the negative feelings that give rise to the emotional mind.  To have one’s feeling mind emotionalized disturbs mental composure.  Therefore, the mind as a whole becomes unbalanced causing agitation.  This agitation distorts the natural frequency of the mental atmosphere, so that one feels or experiences a separation from the open or spacious quality of the noetic mind and loses that sense of harmony, peace, and joy that is so fundamental to health and well-being in the experience of the body mind.  The body mind is our form aspect of mind and all its functions as such.  And it is here in this body mind that we experience the consequences of our ignorance in the form of toxemia.

The feeling mind becomes emotionalized when it is allowed through ignorance to exclusively serve the body mind in the habitual search for gratification.  Because the sensual gratification of the body mind is only a temporary relief from the tension of desire rising in the feeling mind, frustration results, causing a chronic state of agitation.  This agitation in the feeling mind produces a restless longing for peace, satisfaction, or harmony.  While the feeling mind remains emotionalized, it will compel the thinking mind to devise ways to satisfy feeling through sensual gratification..

At the height of desperation for satisfaction, debilitating habits, dependencies, and addictions are established.  When longing rises to the intensity of an inquiry, the feeling mind appeals to reason within the capacity of the thinking mind for an overview.  If this inquiry is diligent and sincere, it will reveal the futility of this blind urge that always ends in frustration.  When this overview can be brought into focus through right knowledge acquired through appropriate study, insight is felt and established in the feeling mind as intuition.  One begins to feel the truth of what is understood in the thinking mind—and hence—the feeling mind is then willing to be guided by reason rather than sensation.  In this way harmony is established and Will is stabilized as One in accord with the highest understanding grounded in wisdom.

To remain mindfully present in the overview is the key that allows the noetic quality of mind to synthesize our thinking, feeling, and actions as one.

The fundamental problem to be resolved is to exercise our capacity and awaken our potential to restore our reception to the natural mental frequency.  The distortion exists when we short circuit our reception.  Ignorance is our habitual mental posture that obscures the path to this insight.  When willing we are then focused in practicing our potential to realize the truth as to how we create our own suffering.

Our choices for environmental influences are important and should be made wisely.  For we must realize that all available influences coming in through our body senses are food for the mind.  If that food is gross and one cultivates an addiction for it, we then coarsen our mind in all its aspects of thinking, feeling, and acting.  And as a result of this coarsening of our character, we will inevitably cultivate the craving to ingest gross foods and drinks.  These gross eating habits will then further compound and perpetuate the toxic syndrome of our human condition.  The consumption of gross foods and drinks intensifies the craving and need for gross foods and drinks.

Ignorance is the predominant cause of our suffering.  Ignorance gives rise to craving in the body as a sensation.  Craving gives rise to dis‑ease in the feeling center, and feeling gives rise to desire in the thinking mind to satisfy this craving.  And this desire gives rise to selfish and exploitative behavior that is often aggressive, coarse, rude, and violent in all its myriad blatant or subtle forms of manifestation.

So why or how does ignorance exist?  Each individualized form of consciousness willingly ignores what is innately known until it is so obscured that it is forgotten.  Thus, when the harmony and balance of the natural state is lost, craving and desire to be satisfied is felt.  Consequently, the spacious, open, unlimited state of conscious awareness becomes contracted, dense, and tight.  All that is required is that one is willing to practice realizing the truth with mindfulness until one’s capacity to receive it is manifested.  If you persevere with mindful awareness in being attentive to your thinking, feeling and doing what you know to be true, you will certainly come to realize more of what is true.  If you do not abide in the truth of what you know, you will surely slip further back into ignorant passivity and will be controlled by negative influences.  Exercising our potential in health care is to abide in the truth and allowing the truth to reveal the way.  And of course, the only real freedom is freedom from ignorance and the inevitable consequences.

Let us now take an informative look at our gross food addictions and explore the means by which we will exact our freedom from these toxic habits.  In the eating and drinking of solid and liquid foods, the body mind processes this food in a manner called metabolism.  First, there is the process of acquiring the food, preparing the food, and ingesting the food.  All three of these actions are under the direction of the thinking mind, and therefore, within the reach of your direct control which we must learn to exercise and master.  If you do not master this control, you will remain a slave to food addiction.

How we control metabolism depends on how well we control the first three actions.  However, the control of metabolism in the body is essential to good health.  Metabolism is the body’s vitality or nerve force.  When this vitality is unobstructed and is flowing freely through open channels, we feel a deep sense of well-being.  When metabolism is high, our body mind will digest and eliminate the gross matter of what is assimilated.  Only the essence of what is ingested is used by the body.  This essence is called the life principle and its presence is demonstrated only in live food.  This principle is invisible, and like electricity only its action is detected.  It is this life principle that manifests and animates as our body form.

The body’s external activities as well as its internal processes cause end products or waste matter to be produced.  These  products are poisonous to the body if they were to accumulate.  However, they do no harm when they are neutralized by the blood and lymphatic fluids and then circulated to be efficiently excreted through the various organs of elimination.

As long as the nerve channels are open, the nerve energy will be balanced.  When the life force is balanced and strong, the metabolism will be efficient.  And therefore, the elimination of all toxic waste matter produced by the body’s own tissue as a result of its activity will be completely eliminated through the appropriate channels.  However, when any or all of these channels of elimination are partially and progressively blocked, we then put a strain on our nerve channels to carry more nerve force to accomplish digestion, assimilation, and in particular, elimination.  It also then requires progressively more nerve force for all our external activities.  It is easy then to believe old age is a reality, when actually tissue constipation is the reality.

Our nerve channels are constructed to carry a certain voltage or current necessary for normal body functions.  If the demand for more voltage persists, the nerve channels weaken and enervation results causing chronic fatigue and a low rate of metabolism.  When metabolism is low, all body functions drop below normal making one vulnerable to disease occurring in whatever body organ is the weakest or in the tissue that is most congested.  Eventually, the nerve channels also become blocked by the pressure from constipated and diseased tissues.  As a result of this condition, the nerve channels progressively become frayed or damaged and can short circuit causing nervous disorders due to overload.

When we eat heavy gross foods, not only do they fail to nourish the body with the life principle but also because of their dead quality are difficult for the body to eliminate.  The effort of the body to eliminate these gross materials takes much more energy and is a drain on the available life force.  Also, these gross foods leave a heavy toxic residue in the body that never gets eliminated entirely but accumulates layer upon layer until they result in tissue constipation throughout all the body systems.

When this tissue constipation increasingly accumulates to a degree when it begins to block the channels of elimination for the normal metabolic waste matter, then toxins become concentrated in the blood and cause mucus congestion with distress symptoms like fatigue and headaches, as well as others.  When this waste is backed up in the body, it is deposited in various tissues throughout the body and becomes stagnate.  This stagnate waste is very toxic and acts as an irritant to the tissues, as well as being the cause of innumerable acute, sub-acute, and chronic disorders.

For the body to effectively eliminate the normal metabolic waste, it is imperative that we maintain a wholesome life-style free from the gross stimulation extremes in our sexuality, entertainment, work, exercise, and food consumption.  If we persist in this ignorant disregard for what is unwise activity, we enervate, constipate and degenerate our bodies, condition our minds, and coarsen our feelings.  Look around—isn’t the world largely populated by this kind of person?

As mentioned before, how we acquire food, how we prepare food, and how we eat food are all very important.  Understanding this is really just simple common sense.  But when we have a conditioned mind full of wrong view, we tend to fall out of harmony with common sense.  The wrong way to acquire food is by doing work that is unnatural and disagreeable so that you can earn the money to buy the food.  This kind of work will produce tension and will create a tendency for self-indulgence in the most gross foods to compensate for the strain and drudgery of this wrong work.  Wrong work also creates an ugly, violent world propagated by false values.  We must learn not to participate in this gross mentality.  We must not be so controlled by the profit motive philosophy that we exploit one another heartlessly.  Or, we will be the perpetuators of sorrow in the world, compounding our own ignorance that can lead to our demise.

Ideally, the right way we all should be acquiring our food is to mutually understand what quality food is and to assist one another in creating better ways to provide it.  Those of us who understand the value of intelligent dietary practice should participate in educating those who are interested.  Best of all, growing our own food in gardens is the most wholesome way to acquire food.  But even if circumstances do not allow us to be gardeners, we can at least acquire our food with mindfulness.  We can do this by providing ways which benefit people for the money we earn.  And when we buy the food, we need to make the right choice as to its quality for health benefit.

It should be obvious that we should learn to prepare food so as to retain its quality and provide the most benefit to our health.  And in our food preparations, it is of the utmost importance that we learn to correctly combine foods.  Certain foods do not go well together and create digestive problems that can cause various disorders throughout the body.

Finally, how we eat the food we acquire and prepare is of equal importance if we will maintain the health and integrity of the whole body system.  The correct way to eat food is to be relaxed in a congenial environment and to chew and masticate the food well before swallowing.  We should be mindful of how often we eat and the amount.  Also be aware that the time of day or night we consume food is of some importance.

In the next lesson, we will study the method for eliminating the gross foods and proceed through the transition diet with cleansing and stabilizing foods.  But first, I will list what I have come to understand are the foods to be avoided which I call gross foods.  It is important that you come to this understanding yourself and you will if you succeed in detoxifying your body.  But first you must trust and explore this body cleansing process.  The foods that have the most toxic effect on the body are all flesh foods, eggs, and all milk products.  When not used with discretion, beans, grains, nuts, and seeds can be toxic.  All processed foods that have been packaged, canned, or bottled, and all foods that have been incompatibly mixed have a toxic effect.  Alcohol, coffee, tea, sugar, salt, black pepper, and most spices and condiments have toxic effects.  Herbs can be toxic if used without experience.  All cooked foods are devitalized and leave a slimy, toxic residue throughout the entire gastro-intestinal tract.  Cooked food will also progressively bloat and toxify all body tissues.  Need I mention tobacco.  Also, prescription drugs as well as street drugs are very toxic.

We can survive very well without any of these foods that I’ve mentioned.  And in point of fact, we will be much healthier in doing without them.  But because we have become addicted to their stimulating effects, they have become our heroin.  And we suffer painful physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms when we don’t have our usual daily dose of these substances that we have become accustomed to.  If we are to detoxify our body from their effects, we need to out grow our need for them.

 

 

LESSON THREE: THE TRANSITION DIET

It is essential that we become aware of our degenerating habits and that we feel motivated to inquire into the correct way to transcend them.  In essence, we are beings of light, openness, and intelligence.  So, when we experience the darkness of our ignorance, the confinement of our habits, and the disorientation of our confusion, it is like finding ourselves in a deep dark hole and realizing there is an open expanse of light above.  We feel a natural affinity for that spacious light and we are inspired to orient ourselves to it.

Real knowledge is like that expanse of light.  It reveals our ignorance and shows us the way to get free from the enslavement to our degenerating habits.

We all have differing capacities for self-discipline,  And, for this reason, we must go at our own pace.  So often in a flash of enthusiasm, we will begin a project only to experience a relapse of interest or stamina.  Discipline and perseverance take experience  and maturity of character.  But to develop that maturity, we must be first interested and motivated to accomplish something, and then exercise our potential to do or be what we aspire to.  When we can feel motivated, our energy is focused and integrated.  We then have the will to accomplish what we intend to do.  You can keep yourself motivated by attuning to positive influences that inspire your diligence.

It is a rare individual who can hear the truth once and do it immediately.  For truth to manifest in our behavior, we must have integrated with it—become one with it.  It then is not something we are trying to be or do; it has become our nature.  So to practice discipline is to exercise mindfulness in the face of our mechanical habit patterns.  These patterns have an electro-static charge and will need to be discharged by our skillful intervention with their automatic stimuli reflex association.  That is to say, we must learn to remain grounded in our mindful intention during the time these patterns are activated by provocative stimuli.  As we persist in the practice of mindfulness, our skill will develop and we will then be able to stabilize a positive grounding and, hence, the negative energy in these patterns will be liberated.

The words disciple and discipline (from the Latin "to learn and to teach") have a common root.  To be self-disciplined is to be your own disciple.  It is imperative that we learn the skill of self-government.  If we do not take the initiative to realize our freedom from our conditioned and emotionalized mind, we will be progressively controlled by negative environmental influences until we become too weak-minded and passive to resist.

The transition diet is a skillful method for weaning ourselves from old habit patterns by establishing our confidence in a regrounding of our energy.  With this diet, we can stabilize that grounding so as to experience a spontaneous and natural control.

The significance between real control and false control is that real control flows out of an intelligent willingness to cooperate with what is understood to be true.  False control manifests as suppression or force which will always cause repercussions.  When we are impatient and greedy for results, we tend to try to force things—to gratify our wishes.  When we fear the results of our indulgent behavior, we tend to suppress or hold ourselves down.  But, the energy that is bound up in that habit will break through and have its day once again.  When you divide your energy against itself like that, you only cause exhaustion and make way for apathy and a helpless attitude.

A weak will is the lack of capacity to concentrate and focus your mind energy.  You can generate this power of will by exercising your capacity to do what you understand.  And then, it is important that you take what small steps you can to actualize that understanding.  This is how we should use the transition diet.

For many years I had progressively made efforts to wean myself from the more gross of the gross foods.  Though in the beginning, as I explored this process I would often relapse into food binges and would consume great quantities of the very foods that I was trying to avoid.  When this would happen, I felt devastated and defeated.  Often after these food orgies my belly would be so distended and I felt so toxic and bloated that I could not lie down in any normal position to sleep.  I would prop myself up and sit out the night studying and observing all of my toxic symptoms.

These periods were very painful.  But, they did afford me the opportunity to study and learn about toxicity.  While bloated, I was able to feel and see the results and identify related symptoms of acute and chronic disorders.  And, I was able to observe with great interest how these symptoms would vanish as I allowed the elimination of this toxic condition.  And, I even learned in time how to assist the elimination.The usual experience is for people to accumulate toxic matter gradually over many years since childhood.  In this way their bodies have become desensitized to much of the effects of gross food.  And, because most people keep themselves distracted in so many ways, they progressively grow oblivious to learning the real cause of their bodily ills.

When we are children, as a rule our metabolism is higher, our nerve force stronger.  And, this is the very reason that children get sick more often than adults.  They are strong enough to get sick.  Their bodies have not as yet become dulled by the gross food they are being fed.  And so, their bodies are still sensitive enough to rebel and create a healing process to eliminate the morbid matter running free in their blood stream before it can settle in the body tissues.

If the body is clean and healthy, the more immediate will be the reaction to any toxic substance ingested.  So when I would go for long periods without toxifying my body with certain gross foods, my body would then be more sensitive to the toxic effects of this food and I would immediately experience toxic symptoms whenever I ate them.  Also, I could not help but notice that my physical appearance would fluctuate drastically between looking very gross and ugly to looking relatively refined and attractive.

So in this way I learned to benefit by my negative experiences.  But, I was yet to understand how to control my urge to binge without suppression.  And, it has been many years of struggling with this problem before finally coming to an understanding of how to change negative patterns without suppression.  I have actualized the solution, as you will also when you are able to understand the principle.

Though I mentioned this principle in my introduction, I feel the need to reaffirm its importance.  Because our success in moving through the transition diet depends on our rightly understanding this principle, for we can not really succeed at anything until we are ready to be whole-hearted in our commitment to it.

If we know that something is right to do but we can not get ourselves to do it successfully, we must be willing to look at the reason "why" and then re-evaluate and determine a more skillful approach.  How we approach accomplishing something will most surely determine its outcome.  We must be rightly prepared if we are to succeed.

The principle that we must practice in order to succeed in the correct way is Mindfulness.  The way that you actualize this principle in your life is by finally coming to a full-hearted decision to transcend negative habits.  I had been a hard-core tobacco addict for over forty years.  The first time that I tried smoking with my childhood buddies, I became nauseatingly ill and vomited out the car window.  Then I laid back in a cold sweat and was so dizzy that I couldn't sit up.  Everyone laughed and I was assured that eventually I would get used to it.  Well, as I repeatedly practiced this disgusting ritual, I not only developed a tolerance for this poison, but I soon acquired an addictive craving for the substance.

As the years went on I developed many good reasons for wanting to quit.  And, I did quit many times.  Yes, and I also started many times.  I tried every conceivable way to out-trick my smoking desire.  One of my best that I was always sure would work was to isolate myself in some remote mountain retreat miles from any store.  It always worked until one of three things would happen.  no matter how much I thought I had quit, as soon as I would encounter someone who happened to be in the area who sure enough smoked, I would ask them for a smoke.  Or, after a time when my nerves would be so screaming for their fix that it was unbearable to tolerate as if I were actually possessed by the tobacco demon, I would walk any number of miles no matter what the weather conditions were or the time of day or night.  I would trudge through forest and over mountain passes until I would come to a main highway; and with one thought pounding in my brain, I would begin my desperate search for a butt.  The last of the three was always a surprise and a great disappointment because I really felt that I had control of the impulse to smoke.  But as soon as I would get back to a town or civilized area, I could not resist the urge to buy a pack.  Anyone who has ever tried to control a degenerating habit by suppressing the urge to do it will eventually give in.  Until you do you are miserable, and when you do you are miserable.

For us to succeed on the transition diet, we must first be interested.  Then we must be inspired by the fact that it is possible to succeed when we exercise our potential to be mindful.  Then, we must practice these dietary principles until we become motivated to sustain the positive results obtained.  To sustain a high level of motivation is crucial to success and is of primary importance.  Mindfulness is the skillful means that we employ to sustain motivation.  We practice being attentive to the positive influences that support the results attained.  We realize and accept the fact that we will need to bear with some withdrawal discomfort from old negative habits.  But we must be exceedingly mindful that we do not entertain the thoughts that would reassociate us with this negative energy.  When we remain steadfast in this purpose, the negative energy pattern will discharge.  As we learn to persevere, we will begin to experience a new grounding in the positive energy field.

The secret of practicing this subtle skill of mindfulness is in the activation of your noetic vision.  Ordinary attention is one pointed and linear, and as such is useful but limited.  Ordinary attention can concentrate on an object only by excluding other objects.  And, therefore, it is subject to distraction by other objects.  While mindfulness is open and spacious, expressing the quality of awareness..  It has no point of issue but rather is holistically cognitive, and so there is no distraction.  This view is all inclusive.

As I have stated, to sustain motivation is of primary importance for success.  While motivation is the direct amount of energy we are agreeing to commit to a project of interest, it is the exercise of our mindful awareness that will keep that energy focused and flowing.  Being mindful, we take refuge in continually remembering with awareness what it is we really intend to do.  We are not distracted by our withdrawal discomforts from old addictions, but rather we welcome them as passing signs that indicate our freedom.  Their pain is a price that we are now willing to pay, being a result of my past indulgences.

If we entertain or dwell on thoughts that circulate in our mental atmosphere that suggest a relapse in out commitment and try to resist this urge to give in to an old addiction pattern, we will "feel the tension begin to rise."  And it is at this moment that we must "remain steadfast in our mindfulness."  If we succeed, the tension will subside and we will have reaffirmed our commitment to do what we intend.  These thoughts associated with these addictions will rise until the energy in these negative patterns liberate.  They will liberate when you no longer think or act on those thoughts that give energy to those patterns.  When you think these thoughts and the tension rises, you will feel caught in the contradiction of how you're being.  Usually, we succumb because we feel overwhelmed by the mounting tension.

We can never ultimately really succeed if we waste energy trying to suppress these thoughts or avoid the objects of addiction.  These objects will be there and these thoughts will rise.  The secret is to remain grounded in your aware-full presence of mind; and, we do so because we are interested to understand and not because we are forcing anything to happen.  And so as these thoughts rise or these objects appear, we don't follow after or get involved with them.  As we succeed in this way, our will becomes tempered, our mind composed, and our body detoxified.

An important point that I must emphasize for your clarification is this: A teacher can introduce you to a workable and effective detoxification program and can even inspire you to want to accomplish the results; but only you can do it.  It becomes your responsibility to sustain your interest and to attain the results.  If you do not exercise your capacity to persevere, you will not succeed.

And so it is imperative that you wisely determine your priorities in the effort to detoxify your body.  You must feel whole-hearted in your commitment to succeed.  If you are whole-hearted in your interest to dedicate yourself to take the necessary steps in your accomplishment of the transition diet and if you are prepared to proceed with mindful attention in taking those steps, then you will succeed.

My intention is to suggest a general outline for a transition.  It is up to you how you will work out the details of your own transition diet.  How you will proceed may vary and fluctuate.  But, you must remember to adhere to the primary principle and, that is, to wean yourself from gross food addiction.

This health care program is my personal testimony to the fact that it is possible and the results are worth the effort.  And, I would like to share my experience with this procedure so as to give you a practical view of how it works.  You may proceed with your transition diet at your own pace as you free yourself of gross food addiction.  However, you are always free to eat them should you choose to.  Eventually, you will have no craving for them, nor will they any longer control or influence your behavior.  Moreover, a profound sense of well-being is experienced as a result of this accomplishment.

There are three aspects to the transition diet to understand.  The first function or step in the transition diet is to include some of the gross foods that you enjoy and are not willing to give up immediately.  As I have explained before, if you try to be overly strict, you will likely relapse into food bingeing on those very foods that you are not allowing yourself.

The second step and a most important one to understand is how to appropriately introduce and use the cleansing foods.  In my experience, what I term to be cleansing foods are basically raw fruits and vegetables used in conjunction with herbs.  But I must stipulate the significance in learning discretion in using them for optimum results.  If not used judiciously, they may create obstacles in your progress and cause discouragement that can result in doubt and confusion.

The third step is to successfully have established yourself in the stabilizing or maintenance aspect of the diet.  This is of course where you want to generate your regrounding.  While you work at skillfully stabilizing, you will be using the cleansing action of fruits and the stabilizing action of vegetables as you progressively out-grow your gross food cravings.

People have varying degrees of capacity to determine how they will progress.  So, while you work at stabilizing, you are always free to partake of any of the gross foods.  But, the principle to remember is to progressively learn to practice the skill of balancing the toxic effects of this gross food.

We need to understand how to identify the toxic effects and to neutralize and eliminate this gross matter so that it will not hinder or defeat our progress.

One way to facilitate the excretion of this toxic accumulation that I’ve used are hot baths of a kind that make you sweat.  If you do not have access to a hot springs or sauna, you can at least steamy hot shower or tub soak.  And then wrap up in a sheet, lie down, and cover yourself with blankets until you sweat yourself dry.  This is a good detoxification method when you have eaten some heavy gross food and feel sluggish or have a headache as a result.  You can create a sauna bath effect by running an electric heater in the bathroom while you soak in the tub or shower.  However, you must use caution when using or touching electric appliances when your body is wet because water conducts electricity and you can receive a painful if not fatal shock.

Another wonderful method that is very useful in helping to relieve a toxic condition that I use when available is the art and skillful practice of body manipulation in the form of massage or accupressure.  this science varies as to the skill of the practitioner and the way in which the various methods are employed.  However, the object of this work is to relieve the internal stress caused by the toxic effects of gross foods and living habits by first causing the recipient to reach a deep state of relaxation.  And then through the skillful manipulation of the nerve reflexing pressure points, the nerve meridians are stimulated to open so that the nerve force will flow uninhibited by muscle tension or toxic congestion.  All the elimination channels are likewise reflexly stimulated to open; so that this stagnant gross material can be expelled.  After one of these sessions you may feel very blissful, but the good results from bodywork of this kind are destroyed when we repeatedly indulge in our old gross habits.  This kind of bodywork intricately and delicately adjusts and balances our body functions.  Meanwhile, this balance can easily be disturbed if we do not change the lifestyle that produces this negative condition.  This method only has lasting value if and when you assist its healing action with wholesome living habits.

Another productive way to assist toxic elimination is to do some physical labor, particularly that which will cause you to sweat and increase your heart rate and breathing.  But often after having done some hard labor, people will feel the excuse to reward themselves with some toxic treats or a heavy gross meal.  So of course in this way you defeat the results gained.  You must be mindful at these times and replenish and refresh yourself with some cooling fruit.  Then take a warm shower, followed by a cool shower, finishing with a brisk rubdown with a coarse towel.  After a while when you feel the fruit has cleared your stomach, them prepare a scrumptious vegetable meal that will satisfy your need to feel grounded.  Get into the habit of working in this way and you will assist the detox process while making effective progress in the stabilizing of your energy.  Your effort should always be to reground your energy in the positive field of wholesome living habits.  in doing so you not only reap the benefits, but you become an example of integrity and wisdom that will manifest the noble qualities of character that benefit and uplift all those who are fortunate to know you.  To succeed in detoxifying your body is more a matter of attitude than it is in following some prescribed food recipies or exercises.  You can be totally innovative and creative with your transitiondiet.

The principle that we are determining to realize is that of self-discipline, or to be in effect self-governed and grounded in and motivated by our own understanding.  Understanding is our platform for action, and therefore to acquire understanding we need experience in the field of our interest.  To get that experience, we need the right information so we are anabled to explore the field of our interest.

I am prepared to assist you with this information, and though you must be open to receive, you must not be gullible.  To be gullible is to be so weak that you passsively allow other people’s ideas or energy to influence and manipulate you.  It becomes your responsibility to digest and properly assimilate and manifest this information.  I propose a transitional lifestyle that will put your life in focus and qualify the meaning of your existence.  You must take a holistic approach in order to confirm and exact your regrounding, to cultivate an awakened view and an inquiring attitude, and to proceed with mindful awareness of where it is you’re going and what you must do to get there.

LESSON FOUR: DETOX

The populace as a whole shows very little interest in preventative health care.  Most people are grossly misinformed as to correct dietary practice and remain naive and gullible to the mass media propaganda that induces the weak minded to serve their profit motivated industries.

Mindless conformity to the established dietary mode is the root cause of our multifarious human disease and suffering.  This ignorant and passive lack of interest to inquire into our popular dietary standards is the perpetuation of social stupidity in this regard.  Where I would expect to share a common awareness and cooperation in something so crucial to our quality of life as health care, I often observe a blatant disregard.

The status quo mentality is crude and rigidly bound to the wheel of imitative modes of behavior.  Noble examples of integrity and radiant health are rare as role models.  Impressionable young minds are soon indoctrinated into the food addict’s superfluous lifestyle.  This type of person makes up our mental climate at large, thereby causing a barrier to a progressive understanding or a collective participation in this respect.

One must take the initiative as an individual and exercise the courage to determine one’s priorities as to what is beneficial to wholesome dietary practice, in spite of social apathy in this respect.

Often our success with establishing a sound and workable dietary program and maintaining its effectiveness will depend upon our ability to create a supportive environment or lifestyle if we are to sustain the positive results.  This may mean a change in profession, residence, type of entertainment that we indulge in, kind of possessions that we require, and in particular—the quality of friendships that we cultivate.  The kind of environment that we are exposed to and the type of people that we become involved with have a powerful influence on our lives.  These influences are like a food and will have nutritional consequences that can be a profound determining factor in how we feel.  As a result, this will shape much of how and what we think, and will inevitably promote and cause what our behavior will be.

It is critical that we remain firm while being simultaneously open and flexible in making our dietary and lifestyle changes.  A steady progress is more substantially supportive than forced changes, and may cause repercussions that can be overwhelming.  We want to grow in developing and practicing our dietary skills, but we must avoid forced growth.  If we try to suppress our old dietary habits before our bodies have outgrown the dependency on gross foods, we may set in motion a food bingeing pattern that can be devastating to our health and undermine our progress.

We must understand the principle involved in making these changes in a proper way.  The favorable results gained in a sound dietary practice will influence and facilitate a biological and psychological regrounding of our energy.  Thereby, this regrounding in physical well-being will eventually free up the static energy charge that would activate our old negative patterns.

When we are integrated in our interest to make these changes, we open the way to succeed.  Then we must persevere in a single‑minded focus in the face of distraction while diligently practicing our dietary skills.  As we succeed in creating our regrounding, we come into a natural harmony that feels like an effortless flow.

People who go on these packaged weight-loss programs that have been developed and promoted by the commercial industries are naive and gullible in my opinion because they are led to believe that just losing weight is a healthy solution to their eating disorders.  Even though they may in a short time lose weight, giving them the illusion of feeling better and looking more attractive, they have only retarded their appetite with a gimmick.  They have not made any substantial steps in the detoxification of their bodies, so it remains likely they will eventually slip back into old eating patterns because their food cravings have only been suppressed.  When eating disorders are suppressed, the energy charge they contain will go dormant for a time and this can be deceiving.

Moreover, these diet concoctions are not designed to dissolve and remove toxins from the body, but rather to inhibit the desire to eat and create a feeling of fullness.  Though they make claims to be nourishing, I do not consider them to be a real food in a nutritional respect.  And, it is my belief that when these kinds of “short-cuts-to-health” products are used, they leave behind a toxic residue in the intestinal tract that further toxifies the body systems and tissues.  People are duped into believing that weight-loss is the absolute criterion for health and the final reason and purpose for a diet program.

However, the real purpose in practicing a dietary regime is to thoroughly cleanse the body tissues of all old accumulated toxic residue and to rejuvenate and synchronize all body functions as a whole.  Weight loss and looking better are incidental to a good detox program.  While these may be a welcome benefit to those who are overweight, we all know slim people who are bloated and toxic.  Slim does not mean healthy.  Only a toxic-free body is healthy.

Detox centers, fat farms, and health ranches all provide a variety of programs that employ forms of fasting, diet, exercise, baths, massage, and other types of therapeutic treatments.  With the more progressive centers that provide health care programs, you can expect good results because a person is in the hands of experts that encourage and guide you through every crucial step of the program.  While in such a controlled and supportive environment, people are often transformed and make spectacular progress in detoxification and rejuvenation.

In a way, these places provide a useful service.  But, the overhead expenses for a health center to operate are excessive, and therefore to compensate they must charge an inflated amount to make their profit.  And so for many of us, this kind of health care service is not available.  But even for those of us who can afford this luxury, there is a drawback unless the person has the fortitude and determination to make it work.  It’s relatively easy to do well in a controlled and supportive environment, but very often we observe a relapse when a person is back in the habitual environment with the supermarkets, restaurants, refrigerator, TV, snacks, and old friends—to name a few,—along with the usual boredom and pressures of everyday living.

My point here is that we may use whatever supports of this kind are available, but we can not ultimately depend on them as crutches.  If we are to maintain our commitment to healthful living habits and sustain the results that we gain there from, it is imperative that we compose a lifestyle that will harmonize and synthesize all of our interests into a congruent whole.  It may be redundant to repeat again, but any enduring success will depend upon our firm whole-hearted interest and the single-minded endeavor to create a lifestyle that will incorporate and support a quality health care program.

In my years of research in the use of health care programs, I’ve come to understand the fundamental principles that are necessary if we are to succeed in a more profound transformation of our well-being.

The fundamental principle and primary purpose for our developing and practicing an exercise program, for example, is to vigorously assist in keeping the air, nerve, and fluid channels vitalized and opened.  Thus, when the circulation is dynamic and these airy, radiant, and watery elements are unobstructed and flowing freely throughout the body, the organs and tissues are bathed and nourished with the life principle.  Our basic body structure is formed into a visible, earthy medium comprised of trillions and zillions of evolved and specialized units that compose the cells into what appears to be a solid mass.  The dynamically polarized cell units create a magnetic energy field that will attract its own kind and repel what is foreign to its function as a unit.  The units function in various specialized ways to combine and create bone, flesh, and organs that maintain the compacted and unified density required to sustain mobile stability as a whole body unit.  Thus, for this body unit of ours to function with fluid flexibility in the outer realm of our human dimension which is simultaneously composed of the radiant, airy, fluid, and solid elements, we must not allow the individual body units to become overly densified.  The significance of this illustration is to demonstrate the fundamental purpose and benefit derived from our using movements that are designed to skillfully circulate the airy, watery, and radiant elements vigorously and extensively throughout and within our earthly semi-solid medium.

Ordinary body movements that comprise our daily activities are usually rather limited with respect to variety and intensity required to promote and sustain these elementals in dynamic circulation.  Also, many of our daily activities and postures are unhealthful and tend to inhibit and block the flow of our energy.  When our energy is not properly primed and circulated through these channels within the solid medium, the body as a whole becomes stiff and develops adhesions within the tissues.  The organs become sluggish in their capacity to take in nourishment and eliminate waste.  The elemental circulation within the air, fluid, and nerve channels begins to resemble more the flow of a swamp than a bubbling creek.

Perhaps, if our bodies were more ethereal, radiant and refined, we would not as a humanity be so attracted to or dependent upon such a gross plane existence that is so sensually exploitative of nature and each other.  Allowing the body to become over-densified through gross food indulgence and lack of appropriate activity create a gross body that is weak and consequently dies of disharmony and disorder within its elemental functions.  It’s appalling that we tend to accept suffering a morbid death to our human form as normal and unavoidable.

Even though we may agree that a well-designed exercise program that is implemented skillfully will bring favorable results, we need to understand that this is only a substantial part of maintaining a good health program.  When we continue as many do in gross food eating addictions even though we may exercise vigorously, we will not discover or appreciate the holistic benefit from exercise that is in harmony with a wholesome diet.

It is true that a certain benefit is derived from the stimulating effects of exercise on a toxic laden body in that circulation is increased.  Though this circulation may flush out some of the more mobile toxic matter, it also will draw in more toxic substances that are ingested, and they will penetrate and settle in all body tissues and will accumulate and slowly impair all organ function.

Also, it is useful to realize that the more toxic a person’s diet is in gross food intake, the more necessary it becomes to depend on high-stress forms of activity or exercise to assist in the elimination of toxic accumulations.  However, the benefits achieved in this respect are undermined by the fact that when a toxic body is stressed in this way it will cause an enormous strain and wear on all body systems that will prematurely deplete overall vitality.  The more bloated and constipated our body tissues become with toxic accumulations the less capacity we will have for strenuous activity without causing harm.

Often, people equate health with muscle strength and size.  The fact is that much of what causes massive muscle size is toxic bloat in the tissues.  If the person were to eat a clean diet, the swollen tissues would be cleaned whereby emptying this excreted matter through the organs of elimination.  The muscular strength that a toxic person may feel or demonstrate is not a profound strength of well-being, but rather a superficial or crude strength.  When the muscles are used in hard labor or intensive sport activity like football, the musculature are continuously being charged with the fire, air, water, and earth elements that will most certainly generate muscle size and power.  However, the motive that compels a person to emphasize the kind of activities that will cause exaggerated muscle size and strength will result in other systems of the body to be heavily stressed, deprived, and depleted.  Of course, this is all compounded by a toxic diet that aggravates and feeds this limited kind of attitude.

Another common error that many people make in their judgment when appraising the appearance of others in regard to health is to equate tissue bloat with health and vitality.  If the features have a firm chiseled look and the body is lean and tends toward symmetrical refinement, relatives and friends may try to persuade us to join them in their food orgies and will warn you of looking frail and even anemic.  This level of mentality is only sensually motivated in regard to food.  People who hold this limited view have never cultivated a knowledgeably sensitive insight into the philosophy of health care.  Their judgment is grounded in ignorance, and while they tend to be misinformed and rigid in their views, they are controlled by their preferences.

It is rather amazing that people in general being toxically bloated along with the accompanying symptoms of discomfort and illness will come to accept this condition as normal.  And yet, this limited but prevailing view is very often arrogant, smug, and intolerant of the more progressive ideas in health care.  The principles involved in a progressive health care philosophy are three-fold.  These three principles represent the whole view in health care.  They are the three pillars that support and promote our body of health from its foundation to its highest pinnacle of well-being.  They are quite simple—and yet—it is rare for them to be simply recognized and practiced.  But when they are practiced we experience a radical transformation in the fundamental balance of our well-being.

The first principle that we must become familiar with is to educate ourselves to understand the philosophy that explains what a toxic condition is and how it evolves.  And in conjunction with this education, we must develop the skill to recognize what is toxic in our environment as well as the symptoms that reflect toxicity in our bodies.

It is not my intention here to list all the toxic environmental hazards.  However, as health awareness practitioners, it is well worth our while to become familiar with the toxic influences to which we are commonly exposed without knowing the dangers to our health.  Moreover, if we are to become skilled health practitioners, we must train ourselves to correctly observe what the appearance of a toxic body is in contrast to a healthy one and to learn to verify the physical symptoms that reflect disorders.  So, to recognize toxicity is our number one principle.  When we practice familiarity with this principle, we grow ever more skillful and proceed with a wise discretion in our choice and use of environmentally safe products while using caution in our dietary practice.  Practicing our health program in this way will initiate a major step in the development of our capacity to avoid creating or causing toxicity to ourselves or others.

Once we learn what a toxic condition is and can identify the symptoms that reflect it, then the second principle to understand is how to detoxify the body.  We will successfully learn to detoxify by exploring and implementing the most progressive and skillful means available for this purpose.

Once we have succeeded in cleansing our body of the major load of toxic material, the third principle is to sustain the results.  We accomplish this by learning to maintain our stabilizing diet.  The stabilizing diet is where we want to be for the ultimate in health care maintenance.  But to jump there immediately from a gross food diet is for most of us a premature effort and will usually cause disturbing repercussions.  It is for this reason that we utilize a transition diet that is tailored to our specific capacity to out-grow our dependency on gross foods.  If we try to detoxify too quickly, we will feel so uncomfortable that we are likely to cause a relapse in our progress.  Also, when the body is over-stressed in the process of eliminating gross toxic matter, it can cause harm to organs and even death.  It is not recommended that the elderly or the weak, enfeebled and diseased persons go on a detoxification program without the supervision and guidance of a qualified expert in this field.

The principle in implementing the transition diet is to skillfully eliminate the gross foods at the rate that you are able to physically and psychologically tolerate, while you gradually incorporate the cleansing and stabilizing diets.  The transition diet is the sensible and safe procedure that enables us to wean ourselves from gross eating habits permanently.  The cleansing diet is the most thorough and efficient method to eliminate the accumulated stagnant gross matter that is impacted in the tissues throughout the body.  And, the stabilizing diet is the means to harmonizing and reordering the body chemistry to a dynamic balance.

In cleansing the body of toxic matter that has been slowly accumulating over many years since birth and even while in the mother’s womb, we must proceed with care and patience.  I must emphasize the importance of having first acquired sufficient knowledge and experience in this regard.  If and when possible, it is most beneficial to our progress when we are learning to detoxify that we engage the help and guidance of an experienced detox counselor.  The purpose of this teaching is to inform you as to the need to detoxify and to inspire you to want to do it while providing an educational outline of how it’s done.  Overall, this program represents my personal philosophy of health education and practice.  Herein is my testimonial that will bear witness to the beneficial results gained through a sound detoxification program that I invite you to verify with your own progress.

In the lesson on “Gross Food,” I provided a brief rundown of what foods in general to avoid.  It is not my intention to elaborate in detail the harm these foods cause to our health and well-being.  However, if you are not familiar with the facts that substantiate the toxic effects of these foods, I suggest that you search out and read some of the more progressive authors on this subject.

In recent years, extensive research by the most skilled and devoted health advocates have radically revolutionized what has been our conventional view of what is edible for optimum health.  This research has revealed a great ignorance that continues to be perpetuated by the status quo.  However, there is an ever-growing body of knowledge available that as yet remains an underground movement that is slowly beginning to emerge to educate those of us who are interested to know the truth.  Because this information is so contrary to the orthodox view, it is ridiculed and suppressed.

All foods have varying degrees of toxicity when ingested, either because they contain elements that are foreign to the needs of the body cells or their quality is not perfect.  It is nearly impossible to obtain quality foods unless you are fortunate to be able to cultivate your own in an unpolluted environment.  When we ingest foods that are high in the elements not needed or used by the body, we cause disorder in body chemistry.  So these elements are called “poison” or “toxic” for this reason.  People vary in their strength of physical constitution and their capacity to eliminate toxic matter before it can settle in tissues and cause harm.

It is my firm belief based on my research and experience that all bodily disorders are caused by an excessive toxic condition that has accumulated in body tissues.  This results in a level of stress that eventually weakens and disables the organs.  Germs, viruses, and microscopic life forms of infinite variety are always present in our atmosphere, and it is their normal function to circulate freely in and out of our bodies.  Contrary to popular belief, they are not the primal cause of disease.  However, if there is tissue weakness caused by toxic accumulation, these microorganisms are attracted to penetrate the weakened tissue, and their peculiar activity may create a morbid condition that we experience as a particular disease.  When the body is detoxified, these microbes will have no negative effect on clean healthy tissue.  Taking prescription drugs of any kind to suppress the symptoms of an ailment instead of curing the root cause of the disease through detoxification is the height of folly and can result in the need to resort to surgery.

The real way to restore health is to cleanse the body tissues with a detoxification program.  Even when organs have been damaged by living a toxic lifestyle, a measure of efficiency can often be regained by using the cleansing diet and adhering to the maintenance diet.

Both of my parents smoked tobacco.  And, my mother smoked even while pregnant with me.  So, I was compelled to experience the effects of this noxious drug running through my veins even before I was able to puff on one.  Also, I was raised in smoke-filled rooms that in the winter time were not well-ventilated.  As my parents puffed away, I again was compelled to inhale this toxic substance.  Until finally, or rather, inevitably, I began puffing on them myself—of course—being unaware of the deteriorating effect this whole experience would have on my future well-being.

In later years, my mother lost a portion of her lung that was surgically removed.  Even though she quit smoking and enjoyed a brief recovery, the cancer re-occurred in her lung tissue and took her life.  My father quit smoking some years ago but took up tobacco chewing which is just as bad in its own way.  My grandfather on my mother’s side served twenty-two years as a fireman, and while this entailed much exposure to toxic smoke inhalation, he also smoked tobacco for many years prior to the removal of his vocal cords because of developing throat cancer.  He quit smoking before he finally died of lung congestion.  Me?  As I’ve stated, I smoked compulsively for over forty  years and have finally managed to quit.

So, my point in this scenario is that even with the obvious damage to my lung tissue, I have reasonably recovered my normal lung capacity.  For several years, I continued to cough and spit up gray chunks of jelly-like mucoid material.  But, now my lungs have regained their youthful elasticity and I can breath without wheezing.  I wanted to make this point to illustrate that the recuperative powers of the body are innate and by way of illness the body tissues are only and always working to purge and eliminate toxic substances.  And if we are to recuperate from toxic influences, we must be aware and respectful of this natural healing process.  All we need to do is to skillfully assist the body by eating foods that cleanse the tissues so the body as a whole can regenerate.

It is normal for the tissues throughout the body to produce mucous.  This excretion of mucous is a healthful function that provides the necessary lubrication for all body systems.  The mucous that we are more aware of is that which is produced by the lung tissue.  It is quite normal for the bronchial tubes and lungs to remain moist with mucous.  We are exhaling moisture at all times, and if by this action our lungs were to become dehydrated, the tissues would be vulnerable to irritation by the foreign matter that we inhale and would easily become infected.

So, when we inhale smoke of any kind directly or indirectly, or breathe polluted air, then the lungs and broncials are stimulated to excrete much more mucous to protect the delicate tissues from the irritating toxic substance.  The lungs and bronchials then work to expel this toxic matter by the action of forcing it to erupt out the nostrils and by coughing and spitting up the various quantities of mucous necessary to encapsulate and eliminate whatever the irritant may be.  If the invasion of pollutants is greater that the tissues can cope with through the normal actions of elimination, the toxic matter begins to accumulate.  These toxic substances are then held in a mucous solution which over time when not eliminated becomes dehydrated and sticky, and begins to adhere to the tissue linings.  Over a greater period of time, this mucous that is holding a toxic substance becomes so dehydrated, thick, and gooey that it hardens and begins to coat the tissue walls inside and out with layer upon layer of what could now be termed “mucoid” rather than “mucous.”

Before I explain how to use the cleansing diet in order to detoxify, I would like to further clarify just how toxemia occurs.  It is imperative that we develop a comprehensive view of this process so that we are inspired to avoid doing what is toxic to our health and well-being.  The gastro-intestinal tract from the mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, intestines, and colon to the rectum and anus will all be coated with a secretion of mucous.  This, we can understand, is a normal kind of mucous that will lubricate and assist in the digestive process of moving the ingested food mass along through this system.

But when foods and drinks are ingested that are not compatible to the healthful chemical balance of the body, the tissues of the gastro-intestinal tract are stimulated to secrete much more mucous than usual for normal digestion and elimination.  Foods that cause this reaction are referred to as mucous forming foods for this reason.  As mucous forming foods are consumed in quantities over an extended period of time, the entire length of the gastro-intestinal tract becomes a slimy, gooey medium that progressively begins to inhibit the normal functioning of this system.  This gooey, mucoid matter slowly accumulates as it becomes glued to the walls of the intestinal tract, creating layer upon layer of hardened mucoid material.  The colon in particular becomes heavily coated over the years with many gross layers of hardened mucoid matter that never leaves the body.  In some cases these coatings can be so thick as to allow only a small opening for fecal matter to flow through.  This mucoid accumulation most certainly does greatly retard the powers of our digestion and elimination.

Moreover, this toxic condition does not remain confined to the gastro-intestinal tract but has a compounded effect by the fact that these toxic materials are absorbed by osmosis and through the blood stream are circulated and deposited throughout the body.  In this manner, all body tissues become invaded and defiled with toxic substances that cause mucoid material to accumulate, thereby creating their peculiar negative effect within all body systems.  It is inevitable that most of us raised on the typical American diet will have accumulated many layers of stagnant mucoid throughout our lives.  Most all our ailments are due to this toxic mucoid that penetrates all tissues, causing congestion and stress that results in tissue constipation and malfunction of the organs.

In particular, when the colon becomes progressively impacted with toxic laden mucoid material, the action of this organ is drastically inhibited in its function and purpose to keep toxic matter flowing out.  When the intestinal walls become so encrusted with the old hardened mucoid, the peristaltic action of the colon is retarded.  The peristalsis are the normal contractions that will propel the fecal matter along to be quickly and effectively expelled.  Also when the medium within the colon becomes slimy from further consumption of mucous forming foods, the walls of the colon then become sticky.  This slimy and sticky condition slows the transit time of the fecal matter considerably.  This will cause the food eaten to putrefy, allowing the harmful putrefactive bacteria to multiply, thereby creating and releasing lethal poisons in the lower bowels that are taken up by the blood stream to create further negative effects throughout the system.

This is why colon hygiene is important and must be maintained with tissue cleansing foods.  The cleansing diet works because it cleans out the hard impacted material that over the years has accumulated in layers throughout the gastro-intestinal tract, and in particular, the large intestine.  This layered toxic material is imbedded deep within the tissues of the gastro-intestinal tract which is never completely removed even with a fairly good diet.  And, as a result of this toxic condition, the whole body is slowly and progressively poisoned, causing reflex disorders that manifest as painful symptoms throughout the whole body system.  When the body is clean and this cleanliness is maintained by wholesome eating, these disorders re-order and healthy tissue function is restored.  We can experience a freedom from ailments without resorting to surgery or the expense of the drug doctors to suppress our pains.  Of this, I am convinced to believe through my health research.

Before closing this lesson I will sum up by reminding you of the three fundamental principles of health care.  The first principle is to recognize toxicity.  The second is to learn how to detoxify.  And the third is to learn how to sustain the results.

LESSON FIVE: THE CLEANSING DIET

I think that it is appropriate at this point for me to reveal in some detail how you can successfully use the cleansing diet, in particular, in conjunction with your practicing the transition diet.  However, what I have to say in reference to my own progress with this health maintenance program is intended to serve only as an example that will illustrate an overview of how the diets work.  This overview should provide a workable guideline that will enable you to innovate your own dietary program using the appropriate cleansing and stabilizing foods.

It is important to understand that even though I will stipulate the ideal procedure for best results with this maintenance program, you should develop your own dietary plan that best serves your capacity for progress, while incorporating the detoxification principles that will support your effort.  For those of us who have the interest and the fortitude to transcend our debilitating eating addictions and to experience and practice excellence in health care, we should know that whole ripe raw organic fruits and vegetables are for the most part the perfect food.  While it may not always be possible to obtain the best quality in fruits and vegetables, it is still a far superior diet for keeping the body toxic-free.

Learning to eat fruits and vegetables in the correct combinations and in their whole raw state is the surest way to detoxify and to maintain a relatively high standard of well-being.  Raw fruits not only are delicious tasting but also act as deep and potent cleansers for dissolving and removing toxic debris from body tissues.  However, freshly made vegetable juices also have unique cleansing qualities and constitute an important part of a cleansing diet.  While herbs are in a class of their own, and if used with care can exact specific cleansing results.  These three comprise what I refer to as the cleansing diet.

Much could be said about how to use the cleansing foods.  There are innumerable subtle variations in combining and using these foods and drinks for specific cleansing results, such as the science of knowing how to heal a particular condition with the proper use of these cleansing foods.  Many books are written on this subject for those who would be interested in a more detailed account.  However, the body will do well to detoxify and heal itself if we adhere to the basic principles.  And, a general overview of how to apply these principles in our use of the cleansing diet is more than adequate for satisfactory results in most cases.

At some point in our progress with our detox program, we may find it worth our while to do some research into understanding the specialized and specific remedies for whatever our particular ailment may be.  If a general body cleansing doesn’t remove the cause of your malady, then a more specialized and intensive treatment may be required if the toxic condition is really deeply embedded.

I will give examples of three ways that I practice the use of the cleansing diet.  The detox action that these three modes represent are mild, moderate, and intense.  The mode that I use depends on the result that I want according to what is appropriate health practice in my life at the moment.  One of the very first things that I did in the application of my transition diet was to omit the conventional type of breakfast because all of them are very toxic.  And I began to eat only fruit upon rising in the morning.  It is best to eat or drink only one kind of fruit at a meal.  Some kinds of fruit are compatible but some others are not and will inhibit digestion.  When food, even if wholesome food, is not completely digested, it can contribute to further the toxic build up instead of removing it.

Eating only fruit in the morning is very refreshing and cleansing to the system.  This practice of eating just one kind of fruit for the morning meal is what I refer to as the mild mode in using the cleansing diet to assist in detoxifying.  This procedure is a good way to maintain internal hygiene after you have detoxified.  But also the more toxic your body is, the more reason one should start with the mild mode of cleansing.

For me the kind of fruit that I eat in the morning depends on what quality of fruit is available.  For example, I may eat my fill of melon or whatever kind of fruit that is in season.  It might be grapes, nectarines, pears, apricots, cherries, or apples.  Other favorites are bananas, figs, and dates.  However, because oranges and grapefruits are usually available throughout the year, I often have fresh citrus juice most mornings.

The more progressive way that I use the cleansing diet is to practice the moderate mode for a deeper cleaning of the body tissues.  When you have graduated to the stage in your transition diet where you have begun to eliminate most of the more gross foods and you are ready to tolerate a deeper cleansing, then using the moderate mode is appropriate and very beneficial.  The way to practice the moderate cleansing mode is to just eat raw fruit or drink the freshly made fruit juices throughout the day.  At the end of the day you would have your regular meal consisting of mainly vegetables.

The ideal way to practice this mode is to space the fruit meals two or three hours apart, preferably three, because it is important that you do not disrupt the digestion of the previously eaten fruit meal with the next.  We want to allow adequate time for the previously eaten food to clear the stomach and small intestines.  When we do not allow enough time, we cause stress to our digestive organs that will invalidate the positive effects that the fruit would have in detoxifying our system.  When the food is not given time to digest properly, it becomes acid and mucous forming, thereby increasing the toxic condition of our body tissues.

With observation and experience, you can develop the sensitivity to know when it is appropriate to eat the next meal of fruit.  You can learn to feel the stomach contract and shrink when the previous meal has cleared.  If you are being very active, then it will pass along the digestive tract more quickly.  But if you are relatively inactive, the digestion time is much slower.  Also, a person’s rate of metabolism, their age and degree of health or toxicity will determine much of how we will digest our food.

An example of a general guide as to how I space the time starts at seven o’clock in the morning, then proceeds to ten, one, and then four in the afternoon.  That makes four fruit meals, after which at approximately seven o’oclock in the evening I have my regular meal.  Of course, we don’t have to be so absolutely mechanically accurate about keeping a schedule as long as we remain sensitive to the principle of preserving the efficiency and integrity of our digestion.

Most all fruits have unique qualities that are cleansing and enhancing to our health.  However, with experience we learn how to use them for optimal results.  There are some basic rules that we must learn and adhere to in employing the cleansing diet correctly.  For example, there exist a variety of ways that we may implement the diet for the most appropriate result.  For instance, watermelon can be eaten at every one of the four fruit meals and will promote a very special deep cleansing when we are healthy enough to tolerate a more intense removal of toxic waste and it is convenient to do so.

Other types of melons, of course, can be used, and you will discover as you experiment that they all have their own peculiar cleansing effect.  You can eat a different kind of melon at different meals but it is better that you do not mix them with each other at the same meal.  However, because melons are so similar in their chemical composition, this need not be a rigid rule.  Therefore, they are relatively compatible when diced in bite size chunks to make a delicious fruit salad.  But never mix melons with other fruit and especially with any other kinds of food.  Melons are very incompatible with other foods and will most certainly cause much stress to the digestive system that will eventually weaken these organs and contribute to developing disorders that will defeat our progress.

Citrus fruit eaten whole or juiced are also excellent deep cleansers of toxic matter from the body.  However, because they are intense in their action of dissolving and removing mucoid, they can cause cleansing reactions such as skin eruptions, dizziness, and headaches.  This means that the toxins are being loosened and are circulating in the blood stream which will cause discomfort and stress until they have passed out of the body by way of the bowels, kidneys, skin, and breath.  Therefore, one must use discretion and proceed with caution when using citrus fruits.  However, when you are able to tolerate this deeper cleansing, you can just eat oranges or grapefruit throughout the day, or they can be juiced.  Lemons can also be juiced and blended with the orange or grapefruit juice.  These three can be favorably blended as juice or eaten together, but they should never be eaten with other fruits or foods.  It is important in all cases to obtain fresh good quality fruit that is properly cultivated and ripened or it will cause an acid reaction in the digestive tract that will then cause a mucous condition.

Another example of how to implement the cleansing diet is to eat different kinds of fruit at different meals throughout the day.  But one must understand that there is a proper order in which to consume the fruits that are very different in their composition so as to obtain the best results and not to disrupt the digestive process.  Fruit advances rather quickly along the digestive tract, and the more juicy its composition the sooner this juicy mass will move into the small intestines to be digested and absorbed.  So we must be aware to not eat a juicy food after a relatively more solid food.  Because, of course, the more solid food will take longer to digest and move through the digestive tract since it is more dense and concentrated, while the juicy food, requiring less time to digest, will catch up with and disrupt the digestion of the former.

An ideal example would be to eat melons or citrus fruit for the first meal and then nectarines, peaches, pears, or apricots for the second meal.  Incidentally, these four fruits are so similar in composition that they can be diced in a fruit salad together with no ill effects.  For the third meal, one could have an apple.  And for the fourth meal one could have bananas, figs, or dates.  Also, these three fruits can be eaten together as a relatively fair combination.

This is just an example to illustrate the importance in being aware of how we combine and in what order we consume our fruit meals for the maximum benefit.  Usually, we would not combine so many fruits in one day except on those occasions that they are available and we desire to enjoy the variety.  However, the best results are gained by practicing simplicity in our cleansing diet.

The third way that I practice the cleansing diet is the intense mode.  This way of practice is for those of us who are seriously interested in attaining the deepest detoxification possible.  Unless you have accomplished your transition diet and have succeeded in eliminating all the gross foods, you should not attempt the intense mode.  However, once you are able to adhere successfully to the maintenance diet of fruits and vegetables and have practiced the mild and moderate modes of cleansing with no serious discomfort, then you may be ready to employ the intense mode for a deeper cleansing.

It is important that you should be relatively strong in your vitality to go through a deep cleanse.  Also, you should be inspired, confident, and well-informed as to the proper procedure, and if possible, receive the counsel of an experienced health practitioner who is able to guide you through the steps to be taken.

Books can be informative and inspiring, but they can never take the place of a one-on-one relationship with an experienced person in the field of your interest.  Books will never answer all your questions because the needs of each individual are so unique and personal.  And so it is to our advantage to make use of whatever personal assistance that is available.

The intense mode of cleansing requires that we just eat fruit for a number of days as a fast from all other foods.  Fruit fasting, I feel, is preferable to that of fasting just on water exclusively.  It’s not as stressful to the body as a water fast.  It’s even enjoyable and the results are profound.  The fruit is refreshing and nourishing while its action is dissolving and removing toxic debris from all body tissues.  Another advantage to the fruit fast over the water fast is that all the digestive processes continue to function and it is relatively easy to resume normal eating when the fast is ended.  With just a water fast, the organs severely contract and the digestive juices cease to flow while the bowel also ceases to eliminate toxic waste.  Usually, enemas are necessary for best results on a water fast.  Pure water fasts can provide beneficial results when performed by someone who is experienced and relatively toxic-free and enemas or colonics are properly administered.

Certain fruits are more conducive to facilitating the fasting process than others.  For example, bananas are not a good choice as a fasting fruit, nor are dates or figs because they are too dense and concentrated, with relatively little moisture.  The most ideal fruits for fasting are melons, oranges, and grapefruit eaten or juiced; and also apples, juiced or eaten.  Another excellent fruit for fasting are grapes when they are available in good quality especially picked ripe from the vine. 

I recommend a maximum ten day fast as being sufficient for a thorough and deep cleansing.  I feel that a series of ten day fasts interspersed with the use of the stabilizing diet is the most effective method for restoring balance to the system.  Fasting for longer periods is not necessary and can be a drain on vitality.  However, when one’s system is relatively free of toxic debris, it becomes easier to fast without feeling stressed because there is little toxic material left to be eliminated.  The more toxic one is the more uncomfortable one will feel.

Fasting any number of days up to ten is useful when employing the intense mode of the cleansing diet.  Being flexible and innovative in applying this cleansing mode to your individual requirements and capacity is recommended as long as we adhere always to the basic principles and proceed with awareness.

Some examples of how to proceed with an innovative program could involve choosing what fruit I want to use for my fast and deciding how many days that I want to perform the fast for the results that I want.  Such as, having refrained from additional food the night before after the last meal and then consuming just grapes every three hours throughout the following day for four meals would make one complete day of fasting.  Then I could decide to eat a normal stabilizing meal as my final meal of that day, or I could decide to make the fifth meal another grape meal and continue with the fast into the next day.  When I have completed each day of fasting, I would then decide if I wish to eat my normal meal in order to stabilize myself or whether I felt capable of going on with the fast.  It is important to remain sensitive to the proper control of your cleansing reactions by stabilizing when you need to so as not to detoxify any deeper or faster than is comfortable to tolerate.

I must emphasize that it is necessary for you to understand the importance of consuming only fresh fruits and their juices for fasting or at any other time.  The fruits and juices in bottles and cans are pasteurized or preserved in other ways that make them inadequate for the purpose of detoxification and are even harmful to health.  This also includes the frozen, dried, and powdered variety of fruits that have been processed and chemically treated.  Though they may taste good, these foods are dead and do nothing to enhance health.  In fact, they only create an illusion of well-being like a drug while they slowly and steadily undermine our health.

When we employ the intense mode of cleansing especially for the maximum of ten days, it is an immense advantage to keep our bowels open and functioning.  The highest percent of the most gross toxic matter must be eliminated by way of the bowels.  Also, significant amounts of toxic substances and residues from all over the body drain into the large intestine by way of the lymphatic circulation.  The lymph glands collect toxic matter from the blood and hold it in solution until the way is clear for it to flow out and drain into the colon to be expelled from the body.

However, when the colon is allowed to become inactive while fasting, this process of elimination is impeded which drastically burdens the other elimination organs such as the kidneys, skin, and lungs.  When your tongue becomes heavily coated with toxic mucous and your breath is putrid and foul smelling, it means your colon is impacted and needs to clear its contents so that the backed-up toxins that have been loosened by the action of the cleansing diet are enabled to drain.  When this loosened material is allowed to eliminate, it’s as if a great pressure has been released and one feels immediately uplifted.  While this loosened material is circulating in the blood and lymph fluids and it is backed up in the organs and tissues, one can expect to feel ill and stressed.

There are two reasons why the bowels become inactive during a cleansing diet.  First of all, when we fast just on the juice of a fruit such as oranges, grapefruit, or grapes, we are not ingesting enough fiber to cause the peristaltic contractions of the intestines to move the contents along.  Also, it’s possible that the bowels have likely become accustomed to the heavy stimulation of more gross foods that force evacuation.  The solution, of course, is to include eating some of the fruit whole for the fiber needed to keep the digestive tract swept clean of debris.  For example, freshly made apple juice is a perfect juice to fast on for healing tissues and removing toxins.  But if we were to just eat whole apples we don’t get the extensive cleansing effect because the juice is more concentrated and pervasive in its action.  However, while eating the equivalent in whole apples would create too much fiber without the superior cleansing effect of the pure juice.  So, it’s reasonable to allot some of the meals to only juice, and at least one to eating the whole fruit.

The other reason the bowels can become inactive and refuse to evacuate during a cleansing diet is because so much toxic mucoid material is being loosened in the colon along with what’s entering from other parts of the body that it creates such a congestion in the alimentary tract that the colon becomes compacted.  When this happens, the condition in the colon is often so sticky and slimy with loosened material that the bowel becomes fatigued and is unable to mobilize the flow of its contents for efficient evacuation.  At this point, one needs to assist the bowel to open up by employing the enema effectively for the purpose of flushing the lower bowel with just enough water required to loosen the impacted material.  This, in most cases, will clear the blockage at the rectum and allow the contents in the descending colon to begin to move out so that the rest of the material will begin to flow.

For those who have never been on a cleaning diet before and have never used the enema for the purpose of assisting the cleansing process, I sincerely urge you to learn.  For those of you who may find the idea of giving themselves an enema disagreeable and even disgusting, you should think of how really disgusting it is to have all that putrid toxic mess inside your body.  Rather, we should appreciate the idea of how much better we will feel to get it out.  To successfully complete a cleansing program, we must be serious in our intent to do what is necessary.

There have been many books written on health practice in which the author states his reasons for or against the use of enemas and colonics.  I do not advocate a rigid view in either case, but rather my experience allows for the option to use the enema when I feel the conditions warrant this procedure.  I assure you that there is absolutely no harm in flushing loose some hardened compacted matter from the lower bowel.  In fact, only benefit will result.

To take an enema is easy and not as uncomfortable as you might try to imagine.  So, for those of you who understand the value in employing the use of the enema when needed, you should purchase the appropriate equipment if you don’t own it already.

To flush the lower bowel with approximately a quart of water is simple.  Just fill the container with lukewarm water that is a pure water.  Do not use chlorinated tap water because chlorine destroys the friendly bacteria in the colon.  Hang the container by its hook on the shower stall and allow some of the water to escape out of the tube to clear the air from the tube.  Lubricate the tip with a small amount of soap or vegetable oil, and then insert gently in the anus.  You can arrange to lie down on your back if it’s convenient for a faster flow of the water, but it will also flow in while you’re standing or kneeling as long as the bag is hung higher than the point of entry.

If you feel any pressure from the incoming water encountering the blockage in the lower bowel, you can try massaging your abdomen to relieve it or hold your arms above your head and rotate your torso from side to side.  If this doesn’t relieve the pressure sufficiently for the water to finish flowing in, then you should sit on the toilet and relieve yourself of whatever will flow out.  When finished, then continue to take in the rest of the water and repeat until you have sufficiently relieved yourself of the blockage.

Though receiving colonics is not a necessary part of maintaining the cleansing diet, it deserves mention as a worthwhile procedure that can be beneficial in facilitating results.  For those who may not be familiar with colonics and how they work, colonics are usually given by professionals in a business establishment.  A special device is used to inject water into the colon, and when the fecal matter is sufficiently loosened the flow of water is reversed and the waste is flushed out.  This procedure is repeated until the entire colon is flushed clean of all the loose material.

Colonics are useful for assisting and enhancing the results of the cleansing diet.  But, they can be expensive and they are often not conveniently available.  However, if you do decide to make use of this service, make certain that it is from a responsible establishment that does not use the city’s chlorinated tap water unless it has been filtered by an approved quality filtration device.  We use a Multi-Pure water filter in our home that connects to the kitchen faucet.  This filter eliminates the highest percent of pollutants from the water that are harmful to health.

As a rule, one should not take laxatives.  This is not a worthwhile health practice for a couple of good reasons.  They are only symptomatic in their treatment and do nothing to relieve the cause of a sluggish or compacted bowel.  And if one is doing nothing to correct this condition, it becomes easy to rely on laxatives as the only alternative.  Then over time, this habit will weaken the function of the bowel even further.  Because most laxatives are not designed to heal, soothe, or strengthen the bowel in its efficiency, but on the contrary they are harsh irritants that force evacuation.  The usual commercial brands of laxatives are destructive to health and should be avoided because they are prepared from substances that should not be ingested.

However, there exist the natural laxative qualities of fruits and vegetables.  But as it can occur when our system is too toxic or weak to respond to healthful diet as a means to efficient bowel regularity, then a good quality herbal laxative is the best remedy.  Herbs have healing qualities that soothe and strengthen the bowel.  And, when used moderately as needed to assist our healing and cleansing program, they, like enemas, do no harm.  But, of course, we must use mindful discretion as to when and how often it’s warranted to use either.

There is an herbal laxative called INNER CLEAN that I have used and recommend.  This laxative is a superior quality herbal combination developed by health pioneer Professor Arnold Ehret.  It is available in a natural loose mixture or in a compressed powdered tablet and can be purchased in health food stores.  While it is thorough and consistent in its action, it is also very gentle, and its potency can be regulated by taking just the amount that you specifically need.

It sometimes happens that when we first go on the intense cleansing mode we will experience constipation.  This is partly because we are no longer eating the amount of bulk that the intestines have become accustomed to which will stimulate the necessary reflex to evacuate.  So in this case, if you eat a small amount of the fruit that you are fasting on in its whole form to provide the bulk and fiber needed along with a sufficient dose of the INNER CLEAN herbal laxative, the bowel will soon empty.  You can begin this procedure with whatever dosage is required to empty the colon completely of its old store of contents and until you can finally see the fresh fruit coming through in your stool.  Then you can gradually reduce the dosage of the herbal laxative to just the amount required to have a relatively normal solid movement.  When normal movements have occurred, you can then discontinue the herbal remedy.

In describing the three modes of using the cleansing diet, I have given some examples that illustrate how to combine and use fruits that are conducive for attaining a deep and thorough cleanse of organs and tissues.  I highly recommend the fruit fast for accomplishing these results.  However, you should know that herb teas and vegetable juices will also bring equally good results in cleansing the body of toxins.  And, they can be used in all three modes of the cleansing diet in the same way that we use fruits, such as drinking herbal tea in the morning for breakfast instead of fruit juice, or drinking herb tea throughout the day in place of fruit.  And, you can even fast on herb teas up to ten days for the intense cleanse in the same way as you would with fruit.  Herbs are excellent cleansers with special properties that make them seem almost magical in their peculiar ability to remove deeply embedded toxins and in their healing effect on tissues.

It is not within the scope of this lesson to give a detailed account of how to combine and use herbs for cleansing and healing.  Herbology can be a complex and exacting science to understand and practice in detail.  For those who are interested, I suggest that you purchase some good books on the subject at your local health food store.  Once you have a reference book, it will explain which herbs to combine and in what proportions for the effect that you want.

Meanwhile, there are standard herbal tea preparations available in health food stores that are good quality and require nothing more than heating water and following the directions on the box.  This is a workable solution for those who do not want to study herbology or be bothered with buying the dried herbs in bulk and having to prepare the blend.  However, some people even learn to gather their own herbs in the wild then cure and blend them to perfection for specific treatments of toxic conditions.

I buy a variety of dried herbs that I know are good cleansers and store them at home in glass quart jars in a cool dry place out of the light.  Then when fruit is difficult to get or I desire some variety in my cleansing diet, I use one that seems appropriate.  One of my favorites is the unroasted Dandelion root tea.  It’s a good tea for its all around health benefit.  Then there are some teas that I mix for a particular flavor or cleansing effect.  I just recommend that you use good quality herbs and keep it simple by learning just a few good blends that are effective cleansers.  These will be more than adequate.  We don’t need to feel overwhelmed about having to become herbalists unless we want to, of course.  Otherwise it is sufficient to know just a little.

It is okay to use honey in your teas if you require a sweetener.  Some of the more potent cleansing herbs can be rather strong tasting without honey.  But in some cases it is more important that we don’t alter the tea in any way that would inhibit its cleansing action for best results.  This decision will depend on our experience and subsequent understanding on how to use the herbs for the effect that we want.  However, it’s not always necessary to be so absolutely strict all the time or we will cause ourselves to feel tense with our program.

I might mention here in regard to honey that I do consider it a wholesome food.  However, because it is such a concentrated food it should be used in moderation.  Because honey requires very little time in the digestive tract to be absorbed, it should not be eaten with other foods that require a much longer transit time and a more complex digestive process, such as for example with proteins, starches, and fats.  Otherwise, because honey is a concentrated carbohydrate it will be held up in the digestive process of the heavier food and will ferment causing digestive disorders.  It is all right to use honey on fruit salads or in fruit smoothies except with melons or citrus fruits.

Only purchase honey that has not been over-heated and filtered in its processing.  When the honey has been over-heated and filtered, it destroys the healthful qualities of this wonderful food.  In general, supermarkets have very poor quality honey.  Health food stores usually have honey that will granulate and this is evident to the fact of its purity.  However, it is much better to obtain your honey from a local beekeeper.

Vegetable juices are excellent cleansers and are equal to fruits and herbs in their value in this respect.  Whereas herbs may be more uniquely selective and specialized in their cleansing activity, they are also more medicinal than nourishing in their quality.  Vegetable juices, however, when skillfully blended in a variety of masterful combinations can also be very exacting in their healing effects with specific disorders.  Perhaps fruit could be considered more intense as a cleanser even to the point of being harsh, causing one to feel over-stressed from the sudden quantity of elimination that leaves one feeling weak.  Vegetable juices, however, when used judiciously are very sustaining and nourishing in their quality while their cleansing action is slower but steady and thorough.

So, vegetable juices when used in conjunction with herbs and fruits in the cleansing program provide a distinct advantage in helping us to balance our progress.  Because the vegetable juices are so sustaining and nourishing while being thorough cleansers, they allow one to proceed with the ten-day cleansing mode with relatively little discomfort.  For the moderate mode of cleansing, I often drink my fruit juice in the morning and my vegetable juice in the afternoon, then I have my meal at the end of the day.  Also, for the mild mode of cleansing, it is all right to drink vegetable juice for your breakfast.  However, if you intend to eat or drink fruit juice during the day, it is better to use fruit first and vegetable juice afterwards.  This is because vegetable juice will take more time to digest, allowing the fruit to catch up with it in the digestive tract and cause an incompatible mixture that can be disturbing to proper digestion.

Of course, to realize the benefits of vegetable juice as a wonderful cleanser and also to enjoy as an exquisite taste treat, one must invest in a good quality juicer.  For a serious-minded health practitioner, it is well worth the investment and will add an invaluable, healthful dimension to your life.

As with herbs, many informative books have been written on the art of vegetable juicing and are usually available in health food stores.  The authors may differ somewhat on their diet philosophies, but if you maintain the basic principles that I’ve proposed while remaining open to explore all the possibilities for realizing those principles, you will not get confused.  Proceed with mindfulness while trusting your own experience to verify the facts.

In juicing vegetables, carrots are the basic vegetable used, while usually only a small percent of the other vegetables are blended with it.  Carrots make a delicious and healthful drink by itself and are available year ‘round.  Drinking nothing but carrot juice is very healing to the whole system while being relatively stabilizing in its nourishing quality.  My favorites are carrot and spinach, carrot and celery, or carrot and beet juice.  Try vegetable juice and you will discover a whole new world of dietary delight that will be most health-fulfilling.

LESSON SIX: STABILIZING DIET

 

We proceed with our transition diet by slowly eliminating the gross foods at a rate that we can comfortably tolerate while we skillfully incorporate the cleansing diet foods with discretion, so as to induce our detoxification.  During this transition period of phasing out old eating habits and eliminating the morbid accumulations through the action of the cleansing foods, we need to maintain a nutritional balance for best results.  We want to maintain our progress in detoxification while simultaneously we sustain an enhanced sense of well-being.  If we disturb this integrity of well-being by trying to progress too quickly, we will cause a loss of vitality and feel progressively unstable.

So, it is imperative that we understand and appropriately implement the stabilizing diet.  It often happens that we become over-zealous or greedy for results in practicing our detox program, causing repercussions that will momentarily defeat our progress.  However, if we skillfully apply the stabilizing diet, we will succeed in making the transition diet a smooth and enjoyable experience that will result in a stable sense of well-being.  By this I mean that we should not feel any extreme food cravings or mental agitation.  Also, we would not experience any unbearable elimination symptoms as a result of our detoxification, nor any inordinate loss of vitality.

However, it is to be expected that we will at times feel some agitation in the process of giving up foods that we are addicted to.  But, by skillfully using the stabilizing foods you will minimize this effect, helping you to maintain control.  Also, when we employ the more intense modes of cleansing, we may cause cleansing reactions that can be uncomfortable, but the intensity of this discomfort will be manageable through the correct use of the stabilizing diet.

Cleansing foods predominately tend to loosen and empty out waste accumulations, while stabilizing foods tend to fill in the cellular structure with the necessary nutritional grounding.  Too much cleansing food will make one feel too light and airy, while too much grounding food will cause one to feel heavy and earthy.  Understanding how to create and maintain the balance is what is meant by the stabilizing diet.

I have stated that fruits, herbs, and vegetable juices are predominately used for their superior cleansing properties.  We must learn to use these cleansing foods with skillful discretion for maximum results in the  detoxification of our bodies; however, it is equally important to use these cleansing foods in a way that is complimentary to the grounding foods in maintaining a balanced well-being.

The stabilizing diet is composed of what I refer to as the grounding foods.  These foods take a longer time to digest and eliminate, and will tend to sustain a more solid feeling of well-being than cleansing foods.  However, if we are to experience superior health, it is crucial that we cleanse out all the old debris of the gross grounding foods from our addictive eating habits and make the transition to wholesome grounding foods.

Wholesome grounding foods leave no toxic residue to sludge up the tissues and are relatively easy to digest and eliminate without causing unnecessary stress to our body organs.  Gross grounding foods very slowly over the years thicken and stiffen all body systems while causing chronic malfunction of organs that will result in pain, disease and the passive dependency on the medical profession to keep you alive.

As with the cleansing diet, the stabilizing diet is comprised of mild, moderate, and intense modes, in using the grounding foods that most appropriately serve our needs for feeling grounded.  The mild mode for stabilizing that would be complimentary to the cleansing diet would be to eat a raw vegetable salad in conjunction with using the cleansing foods.  Though raw vegetables are also effective cleansers, they are relatively more stabilizing than fruits or vegetable juices.

The nutritional content in raw vegetables is much more available in a complete and potent form then when cooked.  Cooking destroys much of the nutritional quality of vegetables.  Also, raw vegetables provide the fiber that will sustain the healthy functioning of our gastrointestinal tract that is so essential for preserving the peristaltic action of the bowel.  Cooking breaks down the cellulose that is the useful fibrous substance that provides the roughage necessary for efficient and effective bowel and tissue elimination.  Cooking destroys this roughage and creates a mushy consistency that progressively weakens bowel function.

If we consume the cleansing foods and drinks throughout the day at appropriate intervals and eat a large raw vegetable salad for our main meal of the day, we will maximize the cleansing results that we want while we manage to sustain a mild grounding effect without inhibiting the cleansing process.  Moreover, the natural vegetable fiber moving through the gastrointestinal tract helps to absorb and carry out the morbid material that has been loosened by the more intense cleansing foods.

The raw vegetable salad is the most ideal meal to eat when only a mild stabilizing effect is sufficient.  Because, not only do raw vegetables enhance and facilitate the cleansing process, they also provide the nutritional sustenance and fibrous bulk that we require to feel grounded and vitalized.

When we are “relatively toxic-free,” the mild mode is predominately the most simple and perfect way to eat.  However, when we are going through a more intense toxic elimination, it may be necessary to use heavier grounding foods to slow down the elimination, thereby relieving the stress on organs and the discomfort of cleansing reactions.

Also, it may be necessary to feel more grounded when we are doing hard labor or being very active in our worldly pursuits.  And sometimes, we may feel a special need to feel grounded when we are overly exposed to encounters with gross worldly influences that are agitating to our nervous system and a drain to our vitality.  It is good to feel light and open when we are sitting under a blue sky beside a bubbling creek.  But when we are faced with freeway traffic, concrete and smog, we will find it useful to densify and anchor ourselves by eating heavier grounding foods.

However, before I go on to explain the moderate and intense modes of using the stabilizing diet, I want to give some examples of how-to-prepare and combine a raw vegetable salad that will best promote and maintain our health.  As I have indicated before, I can specify the basic principles as I  use and recommend them, but it is up to you to experiment with these principles and innovate your own salad concoctions that will best serve your ideal in accordance with your individual capacity for health practice.

For my vegetable meals, I use a large salad bowl, big enough for the amount to be fluctuated as I may desire, with no danger of it spilling over the sides.  Also, I usually prepare salad meals well chopped, grated, and diced so that they can then be easily consumed with a spoon, making it convenient for retrieving the juices that collect at the bottom.  I dislike sitting at a table in the conventional way when eating.  I've never felt comfortable with the way the edge of the chair seat cuts into the back of my legs, nor do I care for the hunched over posture that compresses the diaphragm while attempting to keep the chin over the bowl in order not to drip in your lap.

I prefer to sit cross-legged and hold the bowl in my lap while eating.  In this way my chin is over the bowl while my back and torso are relatively erect, therefore allowing the abdomen to expand without pressure from the diaphragm being compressed by the hunched-over posture.  Sitting in this posture while eating is conducive to a more healthful eating experience for me.  However, I don't expect that many people will be capable of appreciating the benefit of eating in this manner.  But for those who care to try, you should begin by elevating the rump slightly with a cushion while loosely folding the legs below and in front of the cushion.  This will have the effect of helping the back remain erect.  Also, if you need back support you can sit cross-legged on a couch or against a wall.  For those who find this posture uncomfortable because of stiffness in the legs, pains in the back, tightness in the joints, or bloat in the belly, you can slowly persevere with your exercise and detox program until you loosen up.  I was fifty-five years old when I began seriously practicing this sitting posture, and it was painful because I was so stiff and toxic.  But, I persisted in my health practice, and in time my body stiffness melted away, and I now prefer and feel more comfortable sitting in this posture while eating.

Green leafy vegetables are my basic ingredient for almost any vegetable meal that I prepare, no matter what other vegetables that I may include.  I always first create a thick bed of whatever quality lettuce is available.  Any edible kinds of greens can be used, like raw spinach or beet tops, and even the wild varieties of greens that you can collect in the country.  Also sprouts, especially home-grown, are a welcomed addition to any salad.

The most common lettuce that I use are the standard varieties of romaine, red leaf, and green leaf.  Also, I often chop in some chunks of head lettuce for its wonderful crunchy texture that is a complement to any raw salad.  Any combination of lettuce is okay, but you can experiment with which ones go best with certain other vegetables to create the flavor and texture you want.

After I create a bed of lettuce, I often grate or chop in some green or red leaf cabbage.  Cabbage is not only crunchy and delicious in a salad, but raw cabbage is very beneficial for maintaining the health of the colon.  If you experience any stress such as gas in the bowel when you eat raw cabbage, then use it sparingly until your colon has a chance to further detoxify.  When the gastrointestinal tract has been sufficiently cleared of morbid matter, the raw cabbage will not cause flatulence but will serve to enhance the healthful functioning of the colon by facilitating the growth of the friendly bacteria in the bowel.  When the population of friendly bacteria gets low because of the putrid toxic condition of the colon, the harmful putrefying bacteria take over, creating a toxic medium in the bowel that is a leading cause for perpetuating toxemia.

Celery is the next basic green vegetable I add that I feel is so healthful and nutritionally essential.  Its relatively high fiber and water content are a great benefit in helping to maintain the colon cleansing effect.  The wonderful aroma and flavor of fresh celery is delightful, and I enjoy its particularly crunchy texture when cut in bite size chunks and mixed in with the lettuce and cabbage.  Also, we are fortunate to be able to obtain these greens most anywhere throughout the year.  Of course, we should be selective and shop for the best quality possible.

These three vegetables—lettuce, cabbage and celery—constitute the foundation of almost any salad that I make.  From this foundation I build the salad with one or two other vegetables that are compatible. Occasionally, I may prefer to indulge in a bit more variety and will add three or more different vegetables.  However, for digestive efficiency, it is best to keep the salad simple.

Before I describe some of the more standard salads that I put together for their mild stabilizing effect.  I want to mention here what condiments that I consider to be non-toxic.  I recommend and use these condiments exclusively, and have discontinued the use of all others which I consider to be harmful.  In spite of what we have been influenced to believe in the use of condiments, I have discovered through experience that it is wise to keep the seasoning pure and simple for obtaining the most direct and exact results.  If you prepare something very beneficial but you mix in harmful ingredients, you are undermining your progress and defeating your purpose.

The condiments that I use as seasoning in their fresh state are garlic and onions.  In the dried and concentrated form, I use garlic powder, cayenne, kelp powder, dill leaf, and basil.  Also for their particular nutritional benefit as well as seasoning flavor, I use any variety of dehydrated seaweeds that are available from the health food markets.  And, I use barley grass powder that is nutritionally potent while also adding flavor.  In liquid form I use a product called Bragg aminosauce, and occasionally, I use very sparingly the best and purest quality apple cider vinegar; both are available in health food markets.  I use only three teaspoons of oil on a salad but not every time, and only when I can get the purest quality.

It might be useful if I make a few more comments in some detail about the use of these foods as seasoning.  However, as I've said before, if you experiment with their enhancing qualities, you will soon be sensitive to the innovation of your own blends that will satisfy your taste as well as your health.

Garlic is a seasoning food that I slice as whole, fresh cloves, into almost every salad that I make.  Contrary to what people believe, garlic has a wonderful odor.  When the breath is foul-smelling after eating garlic, it is because the cleansing properties of the fresh garlic oils stir up the toxins in the body to facilitate their elimination.  When the body tissues are relatively toxic-free after a thorough cleansing program, there is considerably less foul odor and the breath will emit the pure clean odor of garlic, for which we can learn to appreciate and enjoy.

What I've said about garlic is also true for onions.  I like to use the sweet red or tender young green onion as fresh as you can get them and then chop the whole bulbs and green tops into the salad for flavor.  However, use garlic and onions sparingly with discretion, since they are aggressive cleansing foods.  When our purpose is to eat a stabilizing meal, we don't want to incite an intense cleansing.

Fresh sprouts can be used as an addition on your salads for added flavor and texture as desired.  I prefer alfalfa or mung bean sprouts, but there exists a variety of others that can be used.  Sprouts are usually available in natural food markets but are better freshly grown at home when it is convenient to do so.

Cayenne is a seasoning that I consistently use on almost all meals.  It comes in a red powder form and is available usually in a mild or hot variety.  However, one must use extreme caution when adding it to food, for a little goes a long way.  Only a very light sprinkle is required to obtain that spikey bite that we can enjoy or regret.  Cayenne, in spite of having this hot biting effect as we ingest it, is actually healing to tissues.  While concurrently, it increases the circulation by enhancing and opening up the flow through the small blood vessels, and thereby moving out stagnant blood and waste matter that would otherwise settle in tissues when we are sedentary.  Most health food stores carry cayenne in bulk form, which is less expensive to buy than in the bottles.

Kelp powder is a condiment that I sprinkle very lightly on my salads, not so much for flavor but for the assurance that it provides so many of the trace elements required in our diet, in particular, the trace amount of iodine essential to thyroid function.  The health of our thyroid gland is crucial in regulating and determining our over-all state of health.

Also, I occasionally use the dehydrated seaweeds like nori and dulse because of the nutritional value they provide.  They are concentrated and strong to the taste, so only small amounts need be used until you acquire a taste for them.  The way that I use them is to shred small pieces into my salad which allows them to blend in with the salad juices making them more chewable.

Dill and basil are harmless seasonings that you can use for creating the particular flavor and blends that you may desire.  However, the one that I use most often is basil because I prefer the flavor that it adds to my salad creations.

Barley grass powder is a concentrated form of a nutritiously rich organically grown grass that has been dehydrated.  You can sprinkle a tablespoon full into your salad for a potent nutritional benefit that is so rich in its healing qualities that it facilitates our cleansing program while also helping us to stabilize.

Raw apple cider vinegar made from whole organically grown apples that have been properly prepared is available only in health food stores and is the only kind that I use.  Raw apple cider vinegar that has not been prepared properly can be very harmful to our health and should not be consumed.  Only a small amount need be sprinkled on a salad, like two or three tablespoons, and this is sufficient to create an enhancing flavor.  But raw apple cider vinegar should not be used with starch or protein foods because it is not a compatible mixture for healthful digestion.  I recommend that it only be used on raw salads in a combination compatible with its use and will therefore not cause stress to the digestive functions.

Often people delude themselves into thinking that they eat salads while trying to feel confident that they are benefiting their health.  But in reality they are consuming a bowl of dressing with very little actual salad content.  Eating salads in order to indulge in the dressing is a significant example of the gross ignorance of the common mentality and will not result in any health benefit.  Most, if not all commercially prepared dressings, as well as the homemade blends, contain oil and vinegar of various kinds as their main ingredient. 

One must be aware of the fact that not all edible oil is healthful to consume.  We must realize that oil is fragile and turns rancid when exposed to light, air and fluctuations in temperature.  Oil, when exposed to strong overhead lighting in markets while they sit on shelves waiting for sale, deteriorate.  Though you may not easily taste or detect the rancidity, rancid oil has a degenerating effect on our health.  If we are sincere in our health practice and expect the highest results for our effort, we must eliminate the standard salad dressing concoctions and learn to appreciate the fine art of simplicity in the preparation and seasoning of our salads.

The use of oil is a hard habit to break, but if one is sincere in one's health practice, we must be moderate in the consumption of oil and also vinegar on salads, and especially, the cooking with oil, which renders the oil very harmful to our health.  However, a tablespoon of raw, pure extra virgin olive oil, sunflower, sesame, or flaxseed seed oil—all highly recommended for health enhancement—taken separately from other food can be nutritionally beneficial.  But when the oil is mixed with other food, it has detrimental effects by severely retarding the digestion of the food and the absorption of the nutrients.

I can say from experience that it is possible to learn to enjoy and relish the taste and feeling of well-being derived from simply prepared and seasoned raw salads.  To be able to enjoy and thrive on the wholesome quality of simple food is significant of a healthy constitution and an enlightened attitude.

I feel it may be necessary here to further clarify what I've been trying to say all along.  My health care program is a factual testimony of my years of experience with a sincere search for health—it is not my intention here to coddle, coax, or try to convince anyone to follow the principles that I've proposed in this program.  My intention is to provide an inspirational springboard of sound ideas that I have been able to verify through my personal research and experience with my health practice.  For those who are motivated to explore with me the possibilities for quality results and verify for yourselves what is the most workable line of action in health care, I share a common bond.

In further illustrating my salad preparations, it is not my intention that you should feel persuaded to imitate the principles that I purpose as you might a recipe book.  I would rather expect that you would experiment with discovering the validity of these principles and come to your own understandings with regard to your health practice.  I want to give you the basic principles to work with.  I believe in these principles and they work for me.  It's important that you take these principles and innovate the way in which they can work for you without sacrificing the essential quality of the principle.  How serious or exacting you are in working with your health care is ultimately your affair, even though I will always proceed to stress strict adherence to these basic principles for no less than perfect results.

The ideal principle that I purpose is to detoxify the body, and to maintain that state of well-being without feeling stressed out about it.  To enjoy a toxic-free body, we must accord ourselves to the laws of nature as simply and directly as you can understand.

So, now I want to mention one more product that I use and recommend for a healthful seasoning.  I refer to it simply as “Bragg sauce” but actually the brand name is BRAGG LIQUID AMINOS.  It is a specially formulated vegetable protein derived from soybeans, and is available in a liquid form that can be sprinkled on salads.  It tastes very much like soy sauce but is not a fermented product as is soy sauce.  I consider it to be a more healthful seasoning.  It has a subtle salty flavor that is satisfying to the taste even though it contains no added salt.  Bragg sauce is very concentrated, however, and will cause irritation to mucous membranes and excessive thirst, just like salt, if not used with discretion.  Only a few sprinkles for flavor enhancement is all that is required.

It is perfect to eat raw salads with no seasoning, but it is good to add seasoning if we do it wisely, adhering to the rule of simplicity.  Too much seasoning will upset the chemical balance of the meal and will have an adverse effect on our well-being, causing food cravings.  When we feel out-of-balance, we then are likely to go on food binges that can set in motion a toxic condition that is difficult to correct.  Bragg sauce is available in health food markets in large and small bottles, and if used sparingly is a healthful seasoning that can take the place of many others that are harmful.

Now I will continue with my illustration on preparing my raw salad in the mild mode of the stabilizing diet.  After I create a bed of lettuce, I grate or chop in some green or red cabbage and add some slices of celery chunks.  I then use either cucumbers or the sweet red or yellow bell peppers.  It is usually sufficient to use just either cucumbers or peppers but, often I do add both to a salad.  I prefer to use the English cucumbers when available because they come individually wrapped and are not waxed.  When cucumbers are waxed, they should be peeled before slicing into the salad.  But when you can obtain them unwaxed, they are more healthful if sliced with skins included.  I prefer the red or yellow peppers for flavor but green bell peppers are alright when they are available unwaxed. 

When this basic salad is ready, I will then shred into the salad a sheet of the dehydrated seaweed called nori.  I blend it well into the salad contents, so it can mix with the juices and hydrate sufficiently.  I may at this point chop in some green onions for their particular flavor enhancement.  Since I'm intending this salad to be a completely raw meal, the chief stabilizing food that I will use is either avocado or sunflower seeds.  When sunflower seeds are used, they should be purchased as fresh as possible before they have had a chance to become rancid.  Also, pumpkin seeds are nutritionally healthful to use in place of sunflower seeds, but do not mix seeds with avocado.  Always keep the seeds in the refrigerator.

I consider avocado to be the principle grounding food in the effective use of the raw salad.  The avocado not only provides the grounding results necessary for a balanced feeling of well-being, it also is highly nutritious and quite delicious.  Often I just mix the avocado into the salad in bite size chunks.

Occasionally, I prefer to mash it in a bowl with a fork, add just enough Bragg sauce to enhance its flavor, chop in some garlic cloves and then sprinkle in some cayenne pepper.  While blending this mixture well, I will then add a tablespoon of barley grass powder.  Occasionally, while continuing to blend this mixture, I add one or two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar or fresh lemon juice.  When I feel that I have the texture and flavor that I want, I thoroughly mix this blend into the salad contents.  Finally, I top the salad with such other herb seasonings like basil or dill as desired.

I've given one of my favorite ways to create the raw salad as a primary example of how to prepare and use the raw meal for stabilizing purposes in the “mild mode.”  It should be easy to imagine how to innovate a variety of ways to prepare this meal by using the basic ingredients that I've recommended.

However, I will go on to explain a few alternatives that I use in preparing the raw meal.  With avocados I sometimes use tomatoes in the salad.  Avocado is classified as fat and is therefore compatible with the acid foods such as tomato, apple cider vinegar, and or lemon juice on the avocado salad.  But tomatoes, lemon or cider vinegar should not be used with protein or starch meals because they inhibit proper digestion of the protein and starch foods.

There exists some alternatives that I use in place of the additional vegetables other than the basic ones I've suggested.  For example, I sometimes use raw broccoli or raw cauliflower instead of bell pepper or cucumber.  Even though broccoli and cauliflower are commonly cooked, they are nourishing and tasty raw in a salad.  Also carrots or daikon grated or chopped are delicious additions.  One of my favorites are fresh grated beets.  Also zucchini or yellow crooked-neck squash are good.  I'm sure that you could discover and use others, but these are the basic ones that I consistently use and are usually available throughout the year.

Often, when I feel the need, I will prepare any combination of raw vegetables that appeals to me and eat it without avocado.  I may or may not add any seasoning or may use only one particular seasoning.  I will sometimes do this to sustain a particular cleansing effect that certain raw vegetables provide.  When included, avocado is more stabilizing and will slow the cleansing process, which generally is necessary if we are very toxic.  The basic raw salad consisting of lettuce, celery, and cabbage with one added vegetable such as cucumber or red bell pepper will provide a minimum stabilizing effect which can be all that's necessary if we are intending a deeper cleaning and we are not so toxic as to feeling uncomfortable.

Another stabilizing food that I sometimes use in place of avocado or sunflower seeds is raw sweet corn.  It can be sliced off the cob and mixed into the salad or eaten plain from the cob.  When the quality of sweet corn is exceptional, I like to add a few squirts of Bragg sauce and enjoy it raw on the cob.  But, sweet corn should never be eaten with avocado or sunflower seeds because they are not compatible with digestion.

I would like to mention here a rather unusual way of preparing a salad in the mild mode that is one of my personal favorites.  For this cleansing and mildly stabilizing salad, I use basically only lettuce and celery, preferably head lettuce cut into bite-size chunks.

I will use whatever fruit is available such as apples, peaches, or pears—fresh and ripe—sliced into this bed of lettuce and celery.  As an alternative way of creating this salad, I sometimes slice in a combination of dates and bananas.  Also, I often top this kind of salad with honey if desired.  The honey that I prefer when I can get it is an imported Canadian clover called “Natural Rush.”  I consider this the best honey on the market and I think that you will agree if you ever taste it.  This is a superior quality honey and I encourage you to have your local health food store order it if they don't have it in stock already.

Honey is compatible with the type of vegetable and fruit combination salad that I've illustrated, but don't use it with salads containing starch, fat or protein foods, for it will cause digestive disorders.  For example, you would not use honey on a salad with nuts or seeds.

Though I 've mentioned using avocados, pumpkin, and sunflower seeds as grounding foods in the mild mode, I don't recommend using nuts for ideal results, with the exception of almonds because they are closer to the ideal in nutritional balance and digestibility.  However, it is best to use almonds that have been blanched because the skins are somewhat toxic.

An almond salad that I prepare occasionally for the mild grounding effect consists of the basic bed of lettuce and celery topped with a handful of almonds.  The only seasoning necessary is a little kelp powder, cayenne and basil, with a light sprinkle of Bragg sauce.  When you are relatively toxic-free enough to enjoy such a simple meal, it is very delicious and quite satisfying in its grounding effect.

Here, the principle of the mild mode is to stabilize and ground your energy in a balanced sense of healthful well-being.  We will actualize this principle and realize the ideal results by preparing and consuming quality fruits and vegetables in their raw state in correct combinations.  If you employ this principle with innovative skill that fulfills your particular dietary needs, you will progressively enjoy maximum results in your health and well-being that will approximate your ideal.

Now I will proceed to illustrate how I use the “moderate mode” of the stabilizing diet.  We can employ this mode whenever we feel the need or desire for a deeper grounding of our energy where it may be required or beneficial to do so.  Remember, the principle reason for a deeper grounding is to maintain a more stable balance in our well-being.  We don't want to feel too light or airy if we are involved in a more gross activity that may require a more gross energy.  Also we must use skillful discretion in judging the rate of our elimination of toxic matter that has accumulated over the years so we do not stress ourselves unnecessarily, causing strain to our organs.

As I have stated before, raw foods are more nutritious than cooked foods as well as being far superior in their cleansing effect.  And as a rule, those of us who are committed in our health practice to maintaining superior health will adhere ideally to a raw food diet.  However, this is not always applicable to every individual and to every circumstance.  So, we must refrain from forcing ourselves to comply with this ideal “absolutely” and rather take a practical and flexible view in our health practice.

And, in particular, those individuals who have been accustomed to a predominately cooked diet of the most grossly toxic food must proceed slowly with the transition diet for stable and lasting results.  We must exercise patience in our progress with the cleansing diet or we will feel so stressed by the cleansing reactions that we may experience a relapse into old eating patterns in order to feel relief.  So therefore, we must proceed wisely with a knowledgeable overview of the principles involved.  If we are committed and diligent in applying those principles, we will succeed.

So by implementing the moderate mode of the stabilizing diet, we slow down the rate of elimination and effect the stability that we may require.  We do this by including some cooked vegetables to our basic raw salad.  The basic raw salad is prepared—as I've already explained—with whatever variations are appropriate to your particular circumstances, requirements, or taste-preference.  We can always try, of course, to adhere to the ideal in principle as accurately as you are capable in this respect.

An example of a moderate stabilizing salad would be to start with the raw lettuce and celery as a base and then add cooked cabbage in place of raw cabbage.  Or, for a more extravagant combination, you can include any of the other raw vegetables such as the red bell peppers, cucumbers, onions, and garlic, as well as nori, dulse and any of the condiments mentioned, except apple cider vinegar which is not compatible.  Also, raw cabbage may be included along with the cooked cabbage.

Although some vegetables can be baked, I should mention here that it is preferable to steam most vegetables on this diet rather then boil or stir-fry in oil, for reasons that favor nutrition and digestion.  Other vegetables that I commonly use for cooking in this “moderate mode” of the diet are carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, or string beans.

You, of course, may include any of these steamed vegetables in any combination in the same meal with the raw vegetables.  But be aware of any ill-effects from these combinations and make adjustments accordingly while always remembering to practice simplicity when necessary for best results.

Three important vegetables that I use and recommend for their superior grounding effect deserve special notice.  Because during those times when we require a heavier grounding food, they provide this stability without resorting to the toxic grounding foods.  They are potatoes, yams, and hard squash.  Preferably, they should be baked, but slicing and steaming them is okay.  The butternut squash is mainly the one that I use and prefer.

When we require a more stable grounding, we can use what I refer to as the intense mode of the stabilizing diet.  We may feel the need to employ this mode when we have not yet overcome our craving for the more gross grounding foods during the initial phase of our transition diet.  However, of course,  we can and should include the intense mode of grounding ourselves as often as we feel the need to.

The “intense” grounding foods that I recommend for the maximum stability that they provide are short grain brown rice, millet, and adzuki beans.  Though these foods are useful in the intense mode for the maximum grounding they provide that will assist us in our transcending toxic foods like meat, cheese, and eggs, they must be used with discretion.  I use these foods more in the winter, because they will provide more body heat by thickening the blood.  But in the summer, they should be used less often and in smaller portions.  Remember that when consuming these foods even in small amounts and especially in large amounts, they will considerably retard the cleansing process.  Of course, sometimes this is desirable, but it will not be appropriate at those times when we are intending to accomplish a deep cleansing.

These foods should be obtained organically grown from a health food store rather than a supermarket because the quality is better.  The price will be higher but the benefit that we gain in facilitating our health will more than compensate for the difference in cost.

We should keep in mind that these foods used in the intense mode are somewhat mucous forming, but relatively less so than the more gross foods that I've mentioned.  And, if used with discretion they will facilitate your transition diet and enhance your progress in cleansing out the more gross toxic matter from your system.  The least mucous forming of these foods is millet, which can be used exclusively when you are thoroughly cleansed and relatively toxic-free so that you do not require the gross grounding that the others provide.  Whenever you desire to be more strict in your progress, just use millet as your main “intense mode” grounding food.  However, include the use of the others on those occasions when there is a need to feel more grounded.

Now in the preparation of these foods, there is a standard procedure that I use for the most healthful results—that you may want to incorporate—if you are to benefit from their use.  Always rinse these foods thoroughly in purified water at least three times, while agitating the contents with your fingers and then pouring off the water.   When the water has become clear, drain off the excess water from the pot and then add the measured amount of clean water required for cooking.  For example, with rice and millet you will add exactly two cups of purified water to one cup of rice or millet.  In the cooking water of the rice, you may occasionally add a tablespoon of curry powder which gives the rice a wonderful aroma and flavor.  Bring it to a boil and then lower the heat to a simmer for approximately one hour or until all the water is absorbed.

It is best not to remove the lid while the rice or millet is cooking, or you will allow the steam to escape.  You can tell if they are done by putting your ear to the pot, and when you no longer hear any water bubbling then lift the lid and with a fork pry apart to the bottom of the pot to see if there is any more water left to be absorbed.  If so, replace the lid and continue to simmer.  When it is done, remove the pot from the heat and let sit for at least ten minutes so as to absorb the steam and set up.

For the beans, it is important to soak four to six hours before cooking.  And, of course, they should be washed first before soaking in the manner described for the rice and the millet.  For one person, one-half cup of beans should be sufficient; however, you can use your judgment.  Add about four times the amount of water to that of beans and let them soak for at least four hours.  They will have swelled considerably after soaking and most of the water will have been absorbed.  It is best then to pour off the excess water and re-rinse.  Now add enough water to cover the beans, bring to a boil and proceed to simmer until tender for approximately two hours.  It's important, however, to occasionally stir the beans during cooking and to check to make sure that there remains sufficient water so they will not burn and stick to the bottom of the pot.  If the water is just bubbling up through the beans, then add more water to cover.  The idea is to allow just the sufficient amount of water to remain at the end of cooking to provide a delicious juice that is somewhat thick and not too watery.  Beans prepared in this way will not cause gas if your digestion is strong.

For best results, all these foods that comprise the intense mode of the stabilizing diet should not be eaten alone but used in conjunction with the mild and moderate modes of the stabilizing diet.  You should not just fill up on these foods alone because their effect is too heavy to provide a good balance for cleansing and stability.  If we over-stabilize, we will create a sluggish condition that will cause a toxic reaction.  An example of the correct way to incorporate these foods would be first to create our raw salad in the mild mode with lettuce, celery, red bell pepper or cucumber and onion or garlic and then mix in the intense grounding foods such as rice, millet or beans, but do not use these at the same meal.  This combination is very satisfying in taste while providing the cleansing and grounding effect required for sustaining our progress in our health practice.  However, when we desire a more elaborate meal, we may use the moderate mode by adding one or two cooked vegetables like carrots or broccoli along with the raw salad in the mild mode and rice in the intense mode.

We must, of course, always be mindful of the fact that simplicity in our food combinations is the ideal.  As we keep this in mind, we proceed to use these combinations with good judgment in regard to our progress in our transition to the use of the cleansing and stabilizing foods.

Before I conclude this lesson, it may be helpful for me to give an example of how to correctly use the transition diet in conjunction with the cleansing and stabilizing foods.  We must allow for exceptions to the ideal when we have not as yet transcended old eating habits.  As long as your attitude is positive in transcending your food addictions, you will improve your capacity to proceed to the level you are ready for.  Don’t feel defeated or overwhelmed by pressuring yourself to live up to some standard.  For those of us who still feel the need to include some of the more gross of the gross foods with this diet, I suggest we prepare and combine them with skill and caution, and to use them only occasionally for best results with our cleansing and stabilizing.

Keep in mind the principles I’ve already stated as guidelines for correct combinations and the use of condiments when including gross grounding foods with your detox program.  I will list two examples that I have used occasionally on the transition diet.

Prepare your basic salad as I have illustrated using whatever raw vegetables you prefer.  Then, to this basic salad add a steamed vegetable like broccoli, cauliflower, or carrots.  Now for my example in using a gross grounding food in the least harmful way:  We will add chunks of cheese to cover this salad and let it melt into the warm vegetables that top the raw vegetables, then mix well.  Add your condiments and enjoy.  However, it is best to use the raw, no salt cheese that you can purchase at health food stores and even some supermarkets.

Another example is to prepare salmon filets or chicken breasts, then cut into chunks and mix into your salad.  Use your imagination and innovate your own creations, but keep to the basic salad preparation and always add your gross food in a moderate proportion mixed throughly into your salad.

A word of caution—always make the raw vegetables the largest portion of your transition meal because they will help in neutralizing the toxic effects of the cooked or gross foods, and will provide the fiber necessary for eliminating them.

I will conclude this lesson with this thought:  “Always think of your salad as the foundation of your stabilizing diet and essentially nothing more is needed.”

 

“Only a toxic-free body is healthy.”

 

“If we are to maintain our commitment to healthful living habits and sustain the results that we gain therefrom, it is imperative that we compose a lifestyle that will harmonize and synthesize all of our interests into a congruent whole.”

 

“We must train ourselves to correctly observe what the appearance of a toxic body is in contrast to a healthy one and to learn to verify the physical symptoms that reflect disorders.”

 

“The purpose of this teaching is to inform you as to the need to detoxify and to inspire you to want to do it while providing an educational outline of how it’s done.”

 

“It is my firm belief based on my research and experience that all bodily disorders are caused by an excessive toxic condition that has accumulated in body tissues.  This results in a level of stress that eventually weakens and disbales the organs.”

 

“Taking prescription drugs of any kind to suppress the symptoms of an ailment instead of curing the root cause of the disease through detoxification is the height of folly and can result in the need to resort to surgery.”

 

“Cleansing foods predominately tend to loosen and empty out waste accumulations, while stabilizing foods tend to fill in the cellular structure with the necessary nutritional grounding.  Too much cleansing food will make one feel too light and airy, while too much grounding food will cause one to feel heavy and earthy.  Understanding how to create and maintain the balance is what is meant by the stabilizing diet.”

 

“I have stated that fruits, herbs, and vegetable juices are predominately used for their superior cleansing properties.  We must learn to use these cleansing foods with skillful discretion for maximum results in the  detoxification of our bodies; however, it is equally important to use these cleansing foods in a way that is complimentary to the grounding foods in maintaining a balanced well-being.”

 

“When we are ‘relatively toxic-free,’ the mild mode is predominately the most simple and perfect way to eat”

 

“Raw foods are more nutritious than cooked foods as well as being far superior in their cleansing effect.  And as a rule, those of us who are committed in our health practice to maintaining superior health will adhere ideally to a raw food diet.  However, this is not always applicable to every individual and to every circumstance.  So, we must refrain from forcing ourselves to comply with this ideal “absolutely” and rather take a practical and flexible view in our health practice.”

 

“We must, of course, always be mindful of the fact that simplicity in our food combinations is the ideal.  As we keep this in mind, we proceed to use these combinations with good judgment in regard to our progress in our transition to the use of the cleansing and stabilizing foods.”

 

------------------------------- By Jorgan, autumn 1997