Diet

Answer: Work at developing your love for God. What does that have to do with losing weight? Because when you get past the immature place where you think worship is looking at something on a wall, thinking about something outside of yourself, and then doing exactly the opposite when you leave your place of worship -- when you understand that worship is an interior, moment-to-moment relationship, and that it can become deeper, deeper and deeper, and more alive, more joyful, more forthright, more safety-giving, and more strengthening -- then you want more quiet, more love, more unity, more peace. You become devoted to whatever it takes to make your body, mind, and heart more receptive to the spirit that you love. At that point you don't want to sit with a body that's uncomfortable to you -- not because the body is uncomfortable, or because you think about yourself as having an unpleasant body, but because the body itself is interfering with your ability to deepen your relationship with the Divine. Then you stop eating foods that upset you, because you don't want that. And when you go to bed at night, you don't want a disturbed sleep because the Work, your spiritual life, goes forward. At a certain point in your spiritual work, you never leave school. You get natural rests, but you don't leave school. So your love of God allows the God who has awakened this in you to begin to shape you according to His need to reveal Himself to you.

Question: I am struggling with ill health, and have been questioning dietary guidelines. My dilemma is whether or not we are to eat raw or cooked food. Actually I know that raw or live food is good, and that cooked food, according to some research, may not have much nutrition in it. I think of a forest fire whose aftermath of ashes actually nourishes new life. Can cooked food actually nourish?

Answer: I am not a dietician, but I will tell you this: Whole, fresh (preferably organic foods) – vegetables, fruits, and grains – are the best diet. You will know the best diet for you if you will put your love of God first. We can eat the same food and each of us will have a different reaction to that food. I know it's hard, and it's not much to go on: Make God your guide. How do you make God your guide? Remember Him. When you eat, watch what happens. Instead of being captured by that desire to stuff as much food as is pleasurable for you or as you can get in your mouth, eat consciously. Eat, knowing that you are acting out, as you are eating, something that has been taking place since the Light first penetrated the darkness at Genesis.

Watch. The same holds true with drugs and medicine. You want people to treat you. You want to abdicate your responsibility for your physical organism. You know why it costs so much money? The exact same reason it costs so much to have someone come over with a monkey wrench and twist a pipe… because you don't want to do anything except dream. You don't want to get your hands dirty. You don't want to bruise anything, and you don't want to be awake and watch what happens to you when you take care of yourself.

If you'll take care of yourself and be alert to yourself, you watch. The problem is, the appetites are stronger, aren't they? Eat consciously. Watch what happens. If you'll do that, you will know what you are supposed to eat. Raw is better. Organic is better. Eat as healthy as you possibly can -- not for the sake of some image of yourself, but for the purpose of increasing your ability to be quiet and whole.