Being raised with a Jewish label
on my body, contemplating JC was a no no.
Somewhere down the road I
learned that he was not a Christian but a little Jewish kid from Bethlehem. So,
I questioned, why and how did he ever become a Christian or God? He never did
and never was either.
His mission was to lead the oppressed people
he came in contact with back to Eloi (God), or Eluhanu (Friend). or Abba
(Father) or Jehovah (All Mighty) or Allah (All Compassionate) or Krishna (All
Attractive) or Ajita (Unconquerable) or whatever name you want to attach to his
and our Father.
After he departed,
“Christianity” manifested and ignorance abounded due to the truth
never being understood.
So, with a Jewish label on
my body and risking scorn and condescension, why can’t the Jewish people
appreciate his mission?
All he was doing was to try
and lead people back to their Father. If you can appreciate that, you will
never commit an abomination by appreciating anyone trying to lead people back
to their Father.
So, due to envy and the fear
of losing control over the people he was subjected to incredible cruelty.
Let me paint a different
picture and I pray you do not take offense to
what I am about to reveal to you. It comes form love and compassion.
First and foremost, please try to understand that the body
is a vehicle driven by a driver. The body is temporary but the diver is
eternal. Knowing this, sets the stage for for relevant issues.
How sad things have become when we attack people simply
because they may be of a different race, color, or religion than we are.
The Hispanics hate the blacks; the blacks hate the whites;
the Muslims hate everyone. In the inner cities where the colors and ethnicity
is mostly the same (blacks and Hispanics), identity has to be recognized by
different colored armbands. And if your armband is a different color than the
other guy, he becomes the enemy. All
this hatred and all this prejudice comes about because of the various “labels”
the soul is wearing. Yet, no one has the vision to see this and yet we accept
this as the gospel.
When I came into this world I had many labels. Male,
Caucasian, and Jewish were there at the very outset. As I started getting older
and bigger I gravitated to others with like labels to insure a peaceful co-existence.
But then other things came into play. Things like envy, not
liking someone’s personality, or judging others completely by their looks. All
these factors determined who we wanted to be friendly with and who we did not.
Never once did we ever go beyond the superficial because we never knew there
was anything beyond the superficial.
So, growing up I was conditioned to accept the “like”
consciousness. There were Italian gangs, Polish gangs, Jewish gangs, and black
gangs. If you didn’t belong to one you kept a low profile and were careful not
to offend or “tick” someone off. If you did, in a short period of time you were
confronted by at least 20 guys wearing the same label.
As we got a bit older and went to church or the synagogue or
the mosque, we were led to believe there was separation between the body and
soul. Did that ever sink in? No. It didn’t sink in because we did not fully
have this faith. And not having the faith nor anyone that could put this
difference into perspective, life in illusion went on.
But there are other processes that will enable us to come to
the conclusion that our material body is not who we really are.
For example, we can closely observe the ever-changing,
non-enduring nature of the body and the constant, enduring nature of who we
really are. Look at a picture of your
body when you were a baby or a kid. What you’ll see is not just a smaller
version of what you are wearing now, but a completely different body that is
gone completely.
The physical body according to Guy Murchie in his “The Seven
Mysteries of life”, and Paul Weiss in his “The Living System: Determinism
Stratitfied”, say that the body is made up of countless numbers of tiny
particles called molecules and atoms and that these material particles are
constantly being replaced by material particles from the outside environment,
in the form of food, water, air, etc. And, over a period of five to seven
years, this process of metabolism brings about a complete change of the matter
that makes up the body.
So, when you look at that picture taken years and years ago,
rest assured that every molecule in that body in the picture is long gone. In
fact, this cycle of ‘out with the old and in with the new’ takes place every
seven years.
Yet, you existed then and you still exist now. And if that
body you once had is completely gone and you still exist now, you must see that
today’s body will be completely gone in seven years so how can you be the body?
And if you still cling to the idea of being the body, which one are you or were
you?
The material body can be compared to changing your clothes.
First you had a baby body; then you took off the baby body and put on a child
body; later on you wore an adolescent body but gave that up for a young adult
body, and on and on and on.
Another process is to meditate upon different parts of your
body and ask yourself whether or not you are that part of your body. If you are
not the hand, are you the arm or the leg, or the back, or the neck, etc?
What if a part of the body is missing or if an organ has
been transplanted or you had a hip replacement? Are you now made up of
different people or are you still you?
And know you are not the ever-changing mind. If you have
ever tried to control your mind how can you be the mind? There is no way the
mind can attempt to control itself. That has to be done by an independent
source.
So, if you are not the body and you are not the mind, who
are you?
You are the spirit soul, the non-material spark of the
Supreme Spirit Soul that does not cease to exist when the body ceases to exist.
The conclusion is that your gross body and your subtle body
(the mind) are material in essence, but your true essence is spirit.
There are two quotes from the Bhagavad-gita that are truly
relevant to this:
“Know that which pervades the entire body is indestructible.
No one is able to destroy the imperishable self. Only the material body of the
indestructible, immeasurable, and eternal living entity is subjected to
destruction”. Bg 2:17 – 18
“For the self there is never birth nor death. Not does the
self ever cease to exist. The self or spirit soul is unborn, eternal,
ever-existing, undying, and primeval. The self is not slain when the body is
slain”. Bg 2:20
In 2 Corinthians 6, Jesus had said that it’s better to be
away from the body and be at home with the Lord rather than to be in the body
and away from the Lord. But, one can also be in the body and at home with the
lord.
So, had the people in Missouri or George Zimmerman and
Trayvon Martin known this, Trayvon Martin would still be alive.
If the radical Muslims knew that the meaning of Allah was
“The All-Compassionate One”, would they still kill those that do not follow
their path?
If people could transcend the color of a person’s body and
see beyond that superficial covering or transcend the “religious” labels we all
wear, would there not be more kindness and compassion in the world?
And lastly, if we could understand who the true Owner of
everything is and simply see ourselves as caretakers, would there be any need
for war or would we simply share whatever God put wherever He put it?
To put it another way, if you see where that which made up
your house came from, like the wood, glass or stone, would you see yourself as
the true owner or the caretaker?
We come into the world and are led to believe that the goal
of life is to gratify our senses to the fullest. While it sounds great on paper
it only puts us on a horrendous roller coaster ride while we are here.
Why? Because even though we attempt to create sense
pleasure, it never lasts and always leaves us frustrated. Yet, we inevitably
try and try again because we know no other way.
What we seldom learn is while we are in the human form we
have a choice.
We can attempt to gratify our senses and go up and down on
the roller coaster or we can derive pleasure through a fulfilling process. That
process being to try to develop a relationship with God, endeavor to follow His
instructions, and try to humbly offer some service to him.
What this does is to change our vision and perception and
allow us to see things as they really are with clarity and full understanding.
In a true spiritual path there are Four Regulative
Principals that go beyond the 10 Commandments:
No eating of flesh or eggs.
No sex outside of marriage.
No intoxicants.
No gambling.
Why adhere to this?
Intoxicants dull the senses, the mind and behavior, gambling
creates anxiety and turmoil within, and the purpose of sex is for the
procreation of humanity.
The no eating of flesh and eggs is a bit more involved. As
the soul moves or transmigrates from body to body, the highest form is the
human form.
While in the lower species all actions are governed by the
laws of nature so no karma is involved. The human form is different.
Jesus said every action has a reaction. So, how does that
apply to eating flesh or eggs?
Remember, the soul, which is ten thousand times smaller than
the tip of the hair, is going from body to body but it cannot move on to its
next body until it leaves the present body naturally.
If the human form partakes in slaughter for consumption,
there are two reactions:
One, the soul in the body that was consumed for consumption
has to take rebirth in the same body type until it can leave naturally.
Two, the soul in the body that consumed the flesh, takes
birth in a lower form and goes through the process of transmigrating to the
human form over and over and over. Not only does that soul do that, but it
involves everyone involved in that animal death process, all the way down to
the busboys and dishwashers in the restaurant.
With regard to eggs, which is the chicken’s period, eating
them restricts birth and the same reaction prevails.
Yes, eating plants involves killing them as well. But, in
various scriptures God says “If one offers Me with love and devotion a leaf, a
fruit, a flower or some water, I will accept it”.
In the Old Testament, God said it was permissible to eat
certain kinds of flesh only if the blood was completely drained. He allowed the
eating of flesh because people were living in the desert and could not grow
plant foods. Today, everyone eats the blood.
Eating plant-based foods allows one to develop a
relationship with God by simply offering the food to him before it is eaten.
Years ago I knew a guy that ate the Standard American Diet
and he said the would offer the plant foods and not the flesh foods. Then, he
said, he realized he was being hypocritical and stopped his duplicity.
But developing a relationship and turning to God, as Jesus
tried to teach. Who, as the Supreme Soul, resides in the heart along with the
soul, is the ultimate solution to avoid addiction to materialism.
So, the materialistic choice is temporary and frustrating
because sense gratification leads to misery.
Developing a relationship with God, following His instructions will
instill a happiness never imagined.
When I undertook my path it was solely based on faith and
the best thing that ever happened to me.
So, what one must strive for is to be sincerely
compassionate, forgiving, humble, tolerant, free from envy, truthful, gentle,
and to control their senses and not worry if the guy living next door has more stuff
than you.
Nothing like food for thought is there?
Sources:
The Bible
The Bhagavad-Gita-As-It-is
Just to put things in perspective, after I graduated from Weequahic High School and before going to Seton Hall University, I had a part-time job working for a butcher. I was the delivery guy and occasionally had to go to the slaughterhouse to pick up products for the store. Needless to say, I had no consciousness nor awareness, as change never came then despite the horrors I witnessed on an almost daily basis.
After graduating with a degree in accounting from Seton Hall, I eventually got married and moved to a town called Livingston. Livingston was basically a yuppie community where everyone was judged by the neighborhood they lived in and their income. To say it was a “plastic” community would be an understatement.
Livingston and the shallowness finally got to me. I told my wife I was fed up and wanted to move. She made it clear she had to be near her friends and New York City. I finally got my act together and split for Colorado.
I was living with a lady in Aspen at the end of 1974, when one day she said, ” let’s become vegetarians”. I have no idea what possessed me to say it, but I said, “okay”! At that point I went to the freezer and took out about $100 worth of frozen, dead body parts and gave them to a welfare mother who lived behind us. Well, everything was great for about a week or so, and then the chick split with another guy.
So here I was, a vegetarian for a couple weeks, not really knowing what to do, how to cook, or basically how to prepare anything. For about a month, I was getting by on carrot sticks, celery sticks, and yogurt. Fortunately, when I went vegan in 1990, it was a simple and natural progression. Anyway, as I walked around Aspen town, I noticed a little vegetarian restaurant called, “The Little Kitchen”.
Let me back up just a little bit. It was April of 1975, the snow was melting and the runoff of Ajax Mountain filled the streets full of knee-deep mud. Now, Aspen was great to ski in, but was a bummer to walk in when the snow was melting.
I was ready to call it quits and I needed a warmer place. I’ll elaborate on that in a minute.
But right now, back to “The Little Kitchen”. Knowing that I was going to leave Aspen and basically a new vegetarian, I needed help. So, I cruised into the restaurant and told them my plight and asked them if they would teach me how to cook. I told them in return I would wash dishes and empty their trash. They then asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was an accountant.
The owner said to me, “Let’s make a deal. You do our tax return and we’ll feed you as well”. So for the next couple of weeks I was doing their tax return, washing their dishes, emptying the trash, and learning as much as I could.
But, like I said, the mud was getting to me. So I picked up a travel book written by a guy named Foder. The name of the book was, “Hawaii”. Looking through the book I noticed that in Lahaina, on Maui, there was a little vegetarian restaurant called,” Mr. Natural’s”. I decided right then and there that I would go to Lahaina and work at “Mr. Natural’s.” To make a long story short, that’s exactly what happened.
So, I’m working at “Mr. Natural’s” and learning everything I can about my new dietary lifestyle – it was great. Every afternoon we would close for lunch at about 1 PM and go to the Sheraton Hotel in Ka’anapali and play volleyball, while somebody stayed behind to prepare dinner.
Since I was the new guy, and didn’t really know how to cook, I never thought that I would be asked to stay behind to cook dinner. Well, one afternoon, that’s exactly what happened; it was my turn. That posed a problem for me because I was at the point where I finally knew how to boil water.
I was desperate, clueless and basically up the creek without a paddle. Fortunately, there was a friend of mine sitting in the gazebo at the restaurant and I asked him if he knew how to cook. He said the only thing he knew how to cook was enchiladas. He said that his enchiladas were bean-less and dairy-less. I told him that I had no idea what an enchilada was or what he was talking about, but I needed him to show me because it was my turn to do the evening meal.
Well, the guys came back from playing volleyball and I’m asked what was for dinner. I told them enchiladas; the owner wasn’t thrilled. I told him that mine were bean-less and dairy-less. When he tried the enchilada he said it was incredible. Being the humble guy that I was, I smiled and said, “You expected anything less”? It apparently was so good that it was the only item on the menu that we served twice a week. In fact, after about a week, we were selling five dozen every night we had them on the menu and people would walk around Lahaina broadcasting, ‘enchilada’s at “Natural’s” tonight’. I never had to cook anything else.
A year later the restaurant closed, and somehow I gravitated to a little health food store in Wailuku. I never told anyone I was an accountant and basically relegated myself to being the truck driver. The guys who were running the health food store had friends in similar businesses and farms on many of the islands. I told them that if they could organize and form one company they could probably lock in the State. That’s when they found out I was an accountant and “Down to Earth” was born. “Down to Earth” became the largest natural food store chain in the islands, and I was their Chief Financial Officer and co-manager of their biggest store for 13 years.
In 1981, I started to do a weekly radio show to try and expose people to a vegetarian diet and get them away from killing innocent creatures. I still do that show today. I pay for my own airtime and have no sponsors to not compromise my honesty. One bit of a hassle was the fact that I was forced to get a Masters Degree in Nutrition to shut up all the MD’s that would call in asking for my credentials.
My doing this radio show enabled me, through endless research, to see the corruption that existed within the big food industries, the big pharmaceutical companies, the biotech industries and the government agencies. This information, unconscionable as it is, enabled me to realize how broken our health system is. This will be covered more in depth in the Introduction and throughout the book and when you finish the book you will see this clearly and it will hopefully inspire you to make changes.
I left Down to Earth in 1989, got nationally certified as a sports injury massage therapist and started traveling the world with a bunch of guys that were making a martial arts movie. After doing that for about four years I finally made it back to Honolulu and got a job as a massage therapist at the Honolulu Club, one of Hawaii’s premier fitness clubs. It was there I met the love of my life who I have been with since 1998. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. She said,” If you want to be with me you’ve got to stop working on naked women”. So, I went back into accounting and was the Chief Financial Officer of a large construction company for many years.
Going back to my Newark days when I was an infant, I had no idea what a “chicken” or “egg” or “fish” or “pig” or “cow” was. My dietary blueprint was thrust upon me by my parents as theirs was thrust upon them by their parents. It was by the grace of God that I was able to put things in their proper perspective and improve my health and elevate my consciousness.
The road that I started walking down in 1975 has finally led me to the point of writing my book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Hopefully, the information contained herein will be enlightening, motivating, and inspiring to encourage you to make different choices. Doing what we do out of conditioning is not always the best course to follow. I am hoping that by the grace of the many friends and personalities I have encountered along my path, you will have a better perspective of what road is the best road for you to travel on, not only for your health but your consciousness as well.
Last but not least: after being vaccinated as a kid I developed asthma, which plagued me all of my life. In 2007 I got exposed to the organic sulfur crystals, which got rid of my asthma in 3 days and has not come back in over 10 years. That, being the tip of the iceberg, has helped people reverse stage 4 cancers, autism, joint pain, blood pressure problems, migraine headaches, erectile dysfunction, gingivitis, and more. Also, because of the detoxification effects by the release of oxygen that permeates and heals all the cells in the body, it removes parasites, radiation, fluoride, free radicals, and all the other crap that is thrust upon us in the environment by Big Business.
For more, please view www.healthtalkhawaii.com and www.asanediet.com.
Namaste!
