Dogma’s Role In Healthy Eating And Spirituality

Don’t be like a religious fundamentalist with your diet. Always consult your current body, not the dogma. — my recent tweet

I’ve devoted three posts exploring the best way to eat for our physical and spiritual health:
Meat Eaters vs Vegetarians In Spirituality
Eat For Your Health And Spirituality
Detox Your Body And Mind

In this post, I want to sum up the discussion. We are still talking about foods, but the point is our relationship with foods, or the way we choose to eat. And the way we choose to live in general, including our spiritual journey. (Photo credit)

The objective of any spiritual and religious paths

First, let me explain why I’m so passionate about healthy eating because some of you may be wondering, “Hey, I thought Yes to Me was a spirituality blog. . .”

Well, there are only two objectives in any spiritual and religious paths:

1. To establish direct contact and communication with divinity (whatever name you use for that divinity)
2. To realize that divinity is really within oneself.

All other objectives such as the search of the meaning of life, one’s own purpose in life, or the relief from pain in life (the biggest being the loss of the loved ones and fear of one’s own death) naturally follow when you achieve Objective #1. And Objective #1 leads to Objective #2.

Now do you think physical health would help establishing communication with God? Surely. Not that a sick person cannot communicate with God. In some cases, health crisis may even promote spiritual awakening. But if you want sustainable relationship with God, better health is certainly desirable. Trying to communicate with divinity while you are feeling so distracted with pain, your mind is cloudy and cluttered, full of fear, anxiety, anger, and resentment is like trying to tune in to the radio signal with an old cranker radio. You may be able to (and won’t you be impressed when it happens!), but it’s hard.

So it really pays to take good care of ourselves.

And as we get experienced with this divine communication, we realize everything is within us. God ceases to be some kind of third party, or even the second person. You start to remember you are God incarnated in the physical body.

Gee, don’t you want your body to show the glory of God as it is?

However, it’s possible we get sidetracked with the physicality and become materialistic. As we nurture our physical body, we also want to remember physicality is only one side of the coin, that we are a spiritual being in physical body.

I’m not eating healthy (and exercising and doing other healthy habits) just to be at my optimal weight (whatever that may be).
I’m not eating healthy just to avoid health problems.
I’m pursuing my best physical health for my whole being, including spirituality.

The role of dogma

When our spirituality is underdeveloped, it helps us to have a clear guideline of what to do and what not. This is the role of religions and their dogmas. For example, many religions recommend meditation and other similar practices of quiet time. They even call meetings at their religious houses to do this meditation and reflection so that people won’t miss it. Without these teachings, many of us would just miss it due to our everyday busy-ness.

Our spirituality, however, has grown to the point that we don’t need strict guidelines any longer. Each one of us can have direct contact with God and get advice from our spirit guides.

Certain religions still help many people. And even when your spirituality is well developed, if you find the guidelines work well with you, there is no reason you need to abandon them. So if your religion works for you, good for you.

But if it doesn’t, don’t bend over for it. Rather than following the dogma, consult your own inner guides. Develop your own spiritual way.

Likewise, if a certain way of eating — raw, vegetarian, vegan, Ayurveda , etc. — works for you, great. But if it doesn’t, don’t bend and twist yourself to fit into the dogma. Consult with your own body.

You are in the flow

Energy flows, so you are in a constant flow of changes. What worked for you three months ago may not work for you today. Change of the seasons and other aspects of your lifestyle and health can all affect your best way to eat. If you travel, the location affects you, too.

So you want to stay flexible, and let me repeat: consult with your own body (and with your spirit guides if possible) about the best way to eat. Or best way of anything. Don’t get stuck in dogma and judgment.

I was pretty amazed when my spirit guides recently told me to incorporate a little bit of eggs into my diet. (Very moderately, like one boiled egg a few times a week.) I checked what Skinny Bitch had to say about eggs. (I reviewed this book in this first article about healthy eating). It spends less than one page about eggs, saying that eggs of a sick chicken has condensed toxins and therefore no good for our health. Certainly. But what about organic eggs?

The book doesn’t have any point against organic eggs, even though it points out various problems of organic meats and dairies. It says animals raised organically are slaughtered in the same slaughterhouses with other animals, which treats animals really badly. It’s killing after all. And cows are sucked up with their milk with ongoing sucking machine, like a torture. Plus, humans are the only animals that drink milk after infancy — the nutrition of dairy is no good for adults. But eggs? Yeah, it has some saturated fat, so if weight and cholesterol are health problems for you, you may want to be careful. I don’t see any logical problem in eating good organic eggs of healthy hens, however. Still, the authors of Skinny Bitch accuse eating any animal-based foods and recommend vegan diet.

Dogma. It can guide you or bind you.

Conclusion

So use dogma as a guideline to get started in healthy eating, or anything. But don’t get trapped in dogma. Nor in anti-dogma, which is just another dogma. As you grow in experiences, learn to rely on your inner guides. Get out of the duality value system.

By the way, after writing this post, but before posting it, Lisa the mommy mystic posted an interesting article about dogma and anti-dogma dogma. She draws from her experience in parenting, so especially for the moms among you, I highly recommend checking out her post.

Do you have any questions about optimal diet? About dogma or anti-dogma? Please let me know in the comment. Thank you.

Review: Ancient Secret Of The Fountain Of Youth By Peter Kelder

I’m so impressed with this little book that I feel obligated to introduce it to you. It’s a small book of a 100 pages or so, no frills. The simplicity and its longevity (the current version was first published in 1985. It says the book was first published in the 1930s) show there is something remarkable about the book.

I’m often disappointed with books that come with so many frills. Quite often, the latter half of the book is a rehash of the first half so I can just scan through quickly once I read 50 to 60% of the book. It leaves me wondering why the author had to do this — if you only have material to fill 100 pages, write 100 pages and be done with it. Making it to 200 pages by being redundant doesn’t add any more value.

So when this book got right to the point that this is about toning the seven chakras and raising their speed, and immediately went to the business of explaining the five rites (yoga-like exercises), I was impressed. I took out my exercise mat just as fast.

The five rites (well, there are additional two if you want to become what the author calls “superman / superwoman”) are simple. The author maintains they are of Tibetan origin. I’m doing the three repetitions of each as the book recommends. The goal is to do twenty-one reps of each, which probably takes about twenty minutes or so. They are not difficult, although some takes a bit of getting use to.

You can read this book in a few hours. But of course, the “secret” is in doing the thing every day. Try it for yourself.

And if you have tried this, let me know what you think. Did it help you improve health and rejuvenate? What do you think about physical immortality?

Detox Your Body And Mind

In the previous post Eat For Your Health And Spirituality, I suggested you explore your own best way to eat by consulting with your body. I don’t think it’s a good idea to let someone else — whether they are professional nutritionist or spiritual leader — decide that for you. Because each of us is different. And because you are responsible for your truth. (Of course, this is not just about diet — don’t buy into someone’s else’s truth just because he or she has a nice title or reputation).

Learning from the pros and more experienced people is good, but you make your own final decision.

Now here is one caution in doing so. Are you really free to make your own decision? Or is your decision influenced by internalized ideas and years’ of habits that have taken roots in your body? (Photo credit)

Addictive thinking

Most of us are addicted to certain substances and behaviors. It doesn’t matter if the substance is legal or not (that’s another aspect of the problem) — if you are conditioned to do / eat whether you really want to or not, then you are addicted.

All addiction share one common patten of thinking: It tries to justify itself. Whether your addiction is to drugs, alcohol, sugar, caffeine, or something more specific like hamburgers or fries or chocolate or ice cream, while the substance and the behavior pattern is in you, you are not really making your own decisions. Your addiction is making your decisions.

So, in order to make your own decision, you need to detox yourself. Otherwise, it will be like, “Okay, I’m going to eat meat. Let’s collect all the supporting data that justifies meat eating. Which famous spiritual leaders eat meat? Which nutritionists support meat?” Pretty soon, you do have a very strong argument how wonderful meat is.

My experiment with caffeine

Let me explain by example. I used to drink a small coffee almost every day. I could say I didn’t particularly like coffee, but I was in the habit of going to coffee shops anyway.

To find out if caffeine is really okay or not for me, I decided to stay away from it for a while. In theory, there are both studies that supports caffeine and cautions its negative effects on health. And as long as I keep drinking coffee, I naturally tend to listen to comforting opinion that says caffeine is fine. Further, I have no problem making a long list of famous coffee drinkers who seem to be quite fine.

But none of such things really matter. The best, most fair way to find out my truth with caffeine is to distant myself from it.

If I felt no change without caffeine, at least it’s not doing any wrong. If I felt better without caffeine, then I know caffeine is not good for me. If I felt bad without caffeine, then I need to figure out if it’s withdrawal symptoms or deficiency symptoms.

For withdrawal symptoms to calm down, it usually takes two to four weeks, so I decided to stay away from caffeine at least two weeks. No coffee, no tea, no soda, no chocolate.

Bam. I had horrible headache in the first few days of withdrawal. Then, it cleared like a magic. By the end of two week experiment, I didn’t even think about coffee.

In this case, it was obvious that the initial negative effect was withdrawal symptoms. And if a substance gives withdrawal symptoms, we know it is not good for our physical and emotional health.

How to do find out if a certain food is affecting you or not

So whether it’s meat, dairy, eggs, soy, wheat, sugary foods, or specific junk foods, the best way to find out the true effects of the food on YOU is to stay away from it for at least two weeks. Come on, I’m not saying forever. You can always go back to your old eating habit if you so decide.

Think of it as an experiment, not a diet change.

Now if the food in question is addictive, you are likely to have withdrawal symptoms and cravings. Deal with it one day at a time. It’s only for two weeks. Or you may be ready to go without it, like me waking up to be vegetarian one day, with no cravings or withdrawal symptoms.

Major detox

If you are more ambitious, you might want to do a major detox to cleanse your system. This will reset your overall food preference.

Water fasting would be ideal because it insulates you from all kinds of foods and their effects. Second best would be juice fasting. Third best would be to eat only vegetables with limited amount of carb vegs and fruits. (There is practically zero evidence that low carb vegetables such as greens can have negative effects on our health.)

You might want to use detox supplements like this along with controlling the food intake. Detox bath, such as adding 1 – 2 cups epsom salt, may help, too.

I’m currently doing the third option (eating plant foods only, paired with supplement and occasional detox bath).

What happens when you eat “bad” food when your system is clean

Here is an anecdote you can take amusement from. And a caution.

I ate cheesecake two days ago. I finally completed the draft of my eBook, so I was in a mood for celebration, and . . . my mind led me to cheesecake. Old habit dies hard.

It didn’t taste as good as I though it would. Oh, well.

Next morning, I had terrible stomachache. And embarrassing trips to bathroom. My head felt cloudy, and I had to take a nap afterwards. Ouch!

I didn’t have such a reaction when I was eating dairy often. It means my system is getting clean that even a bit of nasty stuff can cause major results. This is good — this way, my system is protecting itself. But it’s uncomfortable.

(Just to let you know — I know the cheesecake wasn’t spoiled. If it were, my system would have rejected it at the mouth, by automatically spitting it out, or at least at the stomach, by vomiting. I know this because my system does this with most of the fish sold in America or non-organic milk.)

Think about it — if you ingest a slightly toxic substance, which would be an effective way to protect your system, quickly getting rid of it or doing nothing? In the latter, the toxin stays in your system, your liver has to work hard, and still most of the toxins accumulate in your system. (And you may have though I’m the “weak” “sensitive” type. . . the truth is I’m healthier than the people who are okay with compromised foods.)

Detoxing and freeing your mind

The important point is this is not just about physical health. As I said in the beginning of this article, this is about freeing our mind. When we are physically addicted, our mind is addicted as well.

And my experience says detoxing the mind takes even longer than detoxing the body. My body is already out of cheesecake – the sugar and fat just don’t taste very good any more. But the conditioning in my mind still led me to have one. (Okay, lesson’s learned.)

How does our belief affect our health?

Just one more thing. Dr Bruce Lipton makes a big point about the placebo effect in his book The Biology of Belief. So, are all the effects of good eating really coming from our mind? For instance, raw food diet is all the rage now. There are so many stories of miraculous healing with raw foods, from obesity to cancer and other degenerative diseases.

Is it really raw foods that’s doing the good (physically), or is it because we hear these wonderful stories about raw foods and believe in them that bring out the miracles?

I don’t really know. I’d say, if it’s a positive effect, I care little if the cause was purely physical (foods) or belief. Or the mix of both.

I do think we are wise to be careful with negative beliefs. So if you are going to eat something that’s supposed to be no good to your health, have complete belief that the food is good for you. If you have any doubt or hesitation, even in the subconscious level, it can negatively affect you.

Dr Lipton says, in one of the YouTube video, “Belief is like pregnancy. You either believe or not.” Wanting to believe is not belief. Belief is simple and clear.

If you don’t 100% believe your food is good for you, you might want to change your eating habit.

So what do you think? Did this article inspire you to quit any foods or habits that you are addicted to? Please share in the comment.

Update: Here is a great article that beautifully explains the emotional side of food addiction. I think it helps a lot to understand our relationship with foods.
What Food Is Not at Choosing Raw

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