it. I’m hesitant  to use any kind of jargon, but we need to de lve into
how reification works.
The dictionary definition of reify  is  “to m ake something more
concrete or real.” The mental image of money gets reified into a
dollar bill, which you can fold up and stick in your wallet.
“Parenting” gets reified when  you decide to have a baby you can
hold in your ar ms. What’s earthshaking is that virtual reality owes
its existence entirely to reification.
The web of connections that entangles everything in the
spell/dream/illusion with everything else comes down to the
mind, b ecause connections ar e mind-made. No object is a ctually a
physical thing, pure and simple. “Object” and “thing” and
“physical” are strands of a mental web.
People find it relatively easy to accept that a piece of paper
currency is the reified form of a concept (money), but they balk
when they are told that the same is true of body, bra in, and
universe. The key is to reve rse the whole process of reification,
bringing physical objects closer to reality. As you now view them,
the bones in yo ur arm are so lid and fixed; it’s hard to accept thatthey are  fluid and malleable. But all physical objects are actually
processes in motion. Bones are no exception; they constantly
exchange a stream of oxygen  and calcium at the molecul ar level.
Each bo ne cell  is an activity of life in motion. If you wear shoes
that are  ill-fitting, your leg b ones will gradually bend to conform
to your lopsided gait.
The fact that a process is slow or fast doesn’t make a difference
to the basic reality that things are processes. Broken bones heal
more slowly than a cut finger, but the very fact that healing occurs
testifies to the body being a process. Bone cancer is much feared
because it is so  painful, but in their normal healthy state, nerves
connect your bones to the brain and then to the outside w orld. By
clumping toget her all the flee ting sensations you are having right
now, yo u seem to have a body that is fixed, but in reality your body
today isn’t the body you had as a newborn, toddler, or ado lescent;
it isn’t even the body you had yesterday or five minutes ago.
It’s surp risingly easy, then, to reverse the habit of thinking that
reifies t he body, turning a my riad of interconnected proces ses into
a thing. This reversal helps to get us back to where creation
originates, in consciousness alone. When you master the reversal,
you can undo anything in virtual reality by tracing it back to the
mind’s creativ e genius. This is what it means to th aw out
“thingness”: objects are reduced to a level of consciousness where
we can begin to experience  the creative process. As yo u come
closer to pure consciousness, the thawing process become easier
and faster. As “thingness” stops being so stubborn, experience is
transformed into something fluid, flexible, and malleable. The
reality of the “true self” is critical, because, as things stand,
everyone has a self filled wi th contradictions. The self you have
been identifying with keeps you in the spell/dream/illusion. The
true self takes you from illusion to reality.
T h r e e  V e r s i o n s  o f  t h e  S e l fThe tru e self lies hidden beh ind layers of disguise. The layers
are so thick t hat no one can confidently define what the self
actually is. “Self” is a convenient fiction, lumping together a
jumble of beliefs, experience s, old conditioning, and secondhand
opinions. This is a greater problem than you’d imagine. For almost
everyone, there is a wide gap between “being yourself” and
“knowing yourself.” The first is considered desirable. When you
are able to be yourself, you feel natural and relaxed, without
pretense or defenses. Knowi ng yourself is a different matter. A
century after Freud discovere d the subconscious mind, it has been
identified with the dark side of human nature. We repress our
urges of anger, anxiety, envy, insecurity, and even violence. Of
course you cannot get along with other people if you say
everything you think or act on your every impulse.
But the re’s mo re to it. When  the inner world is identified with
the dark side, people don’t w ant to look there. They dislike and
fear wh at they find, or mig ht find. We identify with the ego-
personality, which presents the self we want the world to see, and
we ignore the o pportunity to  explore what a deeper self might be.
In time, countless people actually believe that their ego-
personality is their real self. Yet there are two more selves we all
possess, and they are nothing  to fear. In fact, they are the  richest
sources of human fulfillment.
The first is th e unconscious  self. Even though we rout inely
shove negative emotions and impulses out of sight  in the
subconscious, the whole story is much more positive. The
unconscious self is creative and sensitive. When you walk into a
room w here two people have been arguing or someone was crying,
you silently sense it “in th e air.” Actually, you are sensing it
through your unconscious self. At the level below everyday
awareness, you constantly p erceive your surroundings. Y ou also
have the power of intuition in your unconscious self. You gain
“aha” moments when the unconscious self reveals something to
you that your conscious mind didn’t realize.
As you grow to maturity, you begin to value what is rooted in
the unc onscious. You feel confident, self-reliant, and sure  of what
you kno w. You  know how to  do certain things—cooking, driving,
balancing your checkbook, finding a good restaurant. B ut at adeeper level you have a settled feeling that is hard to explain.
Paying attention to all of your life experiences, your unco nscious
self distills the essence of your life into the experience of inner
fulfillment, wh ich over time becomes a natural part of w ho you
are. You know yourself a s a set of values, purpos es, and
achievements. There are countless people who do not arrive at this
stage, a nd they don’t know th e experience of inner fulfillment. Nor
can it be imparted, because so much happens out of sight in the
unconscious.
T. S. Eliot comes to mind on ce again. In 1925 he wrote “The
Hollow Men,” a poem that h igh schoolers used to love to recite,
because adoles cence is marked by hidden fears. The fir st verse
begins:
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass.
Writing in 1925, Eliot is exploring one of our deepest fears, that
life can turn meaningless, haunted by death and nothingness—the
ultimate hollow ness. In times of great peril and horror, as in the
two world wars of the twentieth century, the dread of losing all
meaning feels very real. Ye t the unconscious self, drawing on
reserves of infinite meaning, re-creates the world in a new image,
one that is livable despite all terror and horror in the past.
There is yet an other self, however, and it is even more val uable
—call it the “true self.” This is a level of awareness very close to our
source in pure consciousness. Pure consciousness is silent and
still. It has th e potential for mental activity before any activity
arises. I  identif y it with the simplest of all experiences, the  pure “I
am” of existence. This is the simplest of all experiences be cause itrequires no thought. You kno w that you exist; that’s all. As the still
silence of “I am ” starts to vibrate into thoughts, images, feelings,
and sensations, the first stirrings are very faint and subt le. They
are highly fluid and malleable, which is why desires and intentions
that come from our deepest source are not distorted by all the
cruder desires of the ego. “I want peace” is a subtler, fine r desire
than “I want a Porsche.”
At the level of the true self, all desire for change reaches its
goal, because only here is “I a m” enough to bring total fulfillment.
No exte rnal gratification compares with this. It seems strange on
the face of it that the mind at its subtlest level should be more
fulfilled than the mind at more superficial levels. Chasing worldly
desires is what life is all abou t to the vast majority of people. Being
still and quiet, by the same token, feels very uncomfortable for
many. “There’s nothing to do,” we complain. Yet stillness can
unlock new realities. The key is that pure consciousness c ontains
infinite resou rces of creativity, bliss, intelligence, lo ve, and
awareness. By living close to the source, you have access


ote	sleep	because	they	contain	the	natural	muscle	relaxants
magnesium	and	potassium.	They	also	have	carbohydrates	that	will	make	you
sleepy.	They	are	a	low-water,	starchy	fruit	that	digests	slowly,	so	you	can	have
one	ideally	a	few	hours	before	bed	if	you	find	yourself	getting	hungry	but	want
to	eat	something	that	is	sleep	inducing	rather	than	stimulating.
SWEET	POTATOES
These	hearty	root	vegetables	contain	muscle-relaxing	potassium	and	are	a	whole,
complex	carbohydrate.	Try	baking	some	sweet	potatoes	and	eating	them	at
dinner	with	a	big	salad.
EVENING	REPLENISHING	ELIXIR
This	elixir	contains	nourishing	essential	beauty	fats	and	spices	known	to	help	soothe	inflammation
and	your	nervous	system.
Mugful	of	hemp	milk
½	teaspoon	powdered	turmeric
½	teaspoon	powdered	cardamom
¼	teaspoon	powdered	cloves
Raw,	organic	honey	or	raw	coconut	nectar,	to	taste
Heat	the	hemp	milk	to	just	under	a	boil,	and	stir	in	the	turmeric,	cardamom,	and	cloves.	Remove
from	the	heat,	add	the	raw	honey,	and	enjoy	hot.
CHERRIES
This	bright,	beautiful	summer	fruit	is	one	of	the	few	foods	that	naturallycontain	melatonin.	A	study	found	that	drinking	tart	cherry	juice	offers	some
slight	improvements	to	the	duration	and	quality	of	sleep	in	those	with	chronic
insomnia.
11
CHIA	PUDDING
This	snack,	made	by	soaking	chia	seeds	in	a	liquid	base,	has	a	great	mix	of
complex	carbs,
omega-3
fatty
acids,	and	amino	acids	to	help	you	feel	satiated
but	not	overly	stuffed	and	enjoy	a	great	night’s
sleep.
The
Worst	Foods	for	Sleep
Just	as	there	are	excellent	foods	for	sleep,	there	are	foods	that	are	not	so	great
for	promoting	sleep.	Review	this	list	and	avoid	these	foods	in	the	evening	to
best	support	your	Peak	Beauty	Sleep.
HEAVY
PROTEIN	MEALS
Meals	that	are	high	in	concentrated	proteins	should	be	avoided	late	at	night.
They	take	a	great	deal	of	digestive	energy	to	break	down	and	can	keep	you	up	by
overactivating	digestion.	If	you	are	going	to	have	a	heavy	dinner,	try	to	eat	it
early.	If	circumstances	force	a	late	dinner,	choose	a	lighter,	plant-based	meal.
HIGH	FAT	MEALS
Fat	stimulates	the	production	of	acid	in	the	stomach	while	encouraging	the
loosening	of	the	esophageal	sphincter.	This	can	cause	food	to	spill	up	into	your
esophagus,	creating	heartburn.	Lying	down	to	go	to	sleep	after	eating	heavy,
fatty	foods	makes	it	even	easier	for	acid	to	get	in	all	the	wrong	places.	This	is	a
super	uncomfortable	beauty	sleep	no-no.
CHOCOLATE
While	a	little	piece	of	dark	chocolate	might	quell	your	sweet	craving,	do	not
overindulge	in	chocolate	late	in	night.	Remember	that	it	does	contain
caffeine
as	well	as	theobromine,	another	stimulating	compound	that	can	adversely	affect
your	beauty	sleep.
SPICY	FOODS
These	can	be	overstimulating	and	actually	keep	you	up	at	night.	A	study	out	of
Australia	found	that	on	nights	the	subjects	ate	spicy	meals,	there	were	adverse
changes	in	their	sleep	patterns.
12
	The	researchers	also	found	that	subjects	hadelevated	body	temperatures	during	their	first	sleep	cycles,	which	has	been	shown
in	other	studies	to	be	linked	to	poor	sleep	quality.
13
CAFFEINE
Even	if	you	feel	you	are	used	to	caffeine,	it	still	keeps	your	body	working.
Research	published	in	the
Journal	of	Clinical	Sleep	Medicine
	found	that	caffeine
ingested	as	early	as	6	hours	before	bedtime	could	negatively	affect	sleep
patterns.
14
	In	a	practical	sense,	this	means	you	should	stop	drinking	coffee	(if
you	drink	it	at	all),	green	tea,	or	yerba	maté	by	the	afternoon.	By	the	way,	the
tradition	of	drinking	coffee	after	dinner	is	one	you	should	abandon.	Make	your
own	tradition	with	herbal	tea	if	you’d	like	to	sip	on	something	hot,	and	your
beauty	will	surely	benefit.
NICOTINE
If	you
smoke,	you	should	stop	for	many	health	and	beauty	reasons!	We	are	sure
you	know	this,	and	hopefully	you	are	working	on	eliminating	that	habit	long-
term.	But	in	the	very	short-term	while	transitioning	completely,	be	sure	to
refrain	from	indulging	in	any	nicotine	products	too	close	to	bedtime.	Nicotine
can	be	stimulating,	which	is	not	conducive	to	your	beauty	sleep.
ALCOHOL
This	is	a	tough	one,	because	if	you	do	want	to	have	some	drinks,	you	likely
won’t	have	them	in	the	middle	of	the	day	or	in	the	morning	unless	it’s	a	very
rare	special	occasion,	such	as	a	tailgate	or	a	celebratory	brunch.	The	problem	is
that	even	though	the	alcohol	(especially
wine)	may	feel	as	if	it’s	inducing	sleep,
alcohol	actually	interferes	with	the	restorative	functions	of	sleep.
15
	This	means
that	although	it	may	feel	relaxing,	after	a	few	hours	it	may	encourage	you	to
wake	up	during	the	night,	decreasing	the	quality	of	your	overall	sleep.
SUPPLEMENT	YOUR	SLEEP	WITH	VITAMIN	B
12
This	important	water-soluble	vitamin	is	used	for	many	functions	of	the	body,
including	maintaining	energy	and	preventing	fatigue.
Vitamin	B
12
	promotes	healthy
brain	and	cardiac	function	and	helps	us	sleep	better,	as	it	has	a	critical	role	in	the
formation	of	melatonin.	It	also	supports	the	optimal
metabolism	of	fats	and
carbohydrates,	promotes	healthy	cell	growth	and	repair,	and	activates	the	vitamin
folate	in	the	body.	While	it	can	be	stored	in	your	liver	for	some	time,	you	can	get	a
blood	test	to	see	if	your	body	currently	has	the	proper	amount.
Vegans	and	vegetarians	are	definitely	encouraged	to	supplement	with	B
12
because	it	is	found	mostly	in	animal	products,	but	if	you	do	eat	meat,	that	does	not
necessarily	mean	that	you	have	optimal	levels	of	Vitamin	B
12
.	Absorption	andutilization	of	B
12
	might	still	be	compromised	even	if	you	consume	foods	that	contain
it	(such	as	animal	protein,	fortified	cereals,	and	nutritional	yeast).	For	instance,	if
you	are	low	in	hydrochloric	acid,	which	releases	B
12
	from	food,	your	body	may	have
issues	absorbing	B
12
.	Your	stomach	lining	could	also	be	lacking	in	its	ability	to
produce	intrinsic	factor,	a	protein	that	must	bind	to	B
12
	in	the	small	intestine	so	the
body	can	absorb	it.
Check	with	your	doctor	if	you	are	unsure	of	how	much	Vitamin	B
12
	your	body
needs,	but	500	to	1,000	micrograms	(mcg)	is	generally	considered	a	g


from it while it is happening. This means suspending for a few
moments your anger and frustra tion at the situation, and shifti ng to a
different attitude: “All right, I created this mess for myself somehow,
even though I don’t quite understand how. What can I learn from it
now?” This exercise takes you off what is missing or what is wrong,
and puts you back on purpose.
If you are in Stage Two, and you are looking for the lesson in it as it is
unfolding, then see if you can play the entire thing out in your mind,
actually seeing the consequenc es in thought, and then working at
eliminating the need to play them out in form, where suffering is
bound to take place. Simply stop the trauma in its tracks with your
powerful mind, and then follow your instincts as to how to let it go,
since you have already seen what the results are going to be if you
continue, and you know within your heart that you do not need  to go
there anymore.
If you are in Stage Three, and you are able to bypass those traumas, or
at least minimiz e them by actua lly getting out in front of them in your
mind, then by all means help those around you to do the same. Share
your gift with others, and let them see the beauty of someone who is
transformed.
Work to rid yourself of the idea that invisible connectors are not real. I
have shown you many such connectors that you use every day of your
life. Once you know that thoughts can connect form as well asthoughts, and that everything without exception in our universe is
energy vibrating, then you will be able to grasp how everything is
synchronized and perfect. With this internal insight, you can begin to
work at creating synchronistic events and happenings for yourself. You
can use the great power of your mind to focus on your healing, to
strengthen your relationships to others, and to bring a sense of balance
and harm ony within. It is all accomplished by focusing on what you
want to create, and the belief that you can co-create, along with the
intelligence that supports your form, whatever you want for yourself
without restrictions. But first you must know that your ability  to be
thought is the vehicle for bringi ng about this transformative process in
your life. Through thought and thought alone you accomplish the
miracles that may so far be eluding you.
Practice trusting  your intuition or “that feeling” inside yoursel f. That
very intuitive process is your higher consciousness in action,  and if
you ignore it, you are reverting to responding out of habit and to what
you have been told for a lifetime. If you feel it within, and know  this is
the way to go, remember, this is the same process as if you wait it out,
analyze it to death, and then go with the most logical choice.
   An intuitive inner feeling is a thought. It is divine. It is you and you
are it. Trust it—it is your basic human/divine early-alert system
working. If you are afraid of it, or you want to hear from someo ne else
first, then you are actually inhibiting that system from functioning, and
you are teaching  yourself to ignore it. Before long, out of disuse and
mistrust, that early-alert system of thought or intuition will stop
kicking in, and you will be responding to life according to the wishes
and demands of others.
   While you are playing a tennis match, you do not stop to think
through and analyze each response. You allow your form to respond
simultaneously with your thoug hts. The more you allow this, the more
it works effectively for you. Respond automatically with your
intuition, trustin g the synchronicity of this perfect universe to flow
through you.
Remember that “analysis” is a violent intellectual act, one which
breaks up thought and carves up the universe. When you have to breaksomething up and look ever more closely at each component part, you
are literally using your mind to break up wholes. It is an act of
violence in that it keeps you from seeing the whole, and it keeps you
focused on the breaking-up process. You are doing yourself a large
disservice metap hysically by carving up yourself, your relatio nships,
your very life activities, and trying to find the hidden meaning in each
individual piece of behavior.
Remember that “synthesis” is the opposite of “analysis.” You can shift
from analyzing to synthesizing and at the same time shift from
intellectual violence to intellectual harmony. To synthesize means to
bring it all together, to see how it fits with the whole. You can see your
behavior and that of everyone else in terms of how it relates to your
entire universe. You can look for ways to bring yourself into a more
centered whole, and concomitantly, bring yourself into harmony with
all of those who make up the Human Being. It is almost second nature
in our Western culture to analyze, to think only of ourselves and forget
about others, and even to break ourselves up into more and more parts
—into our personality, emotions, thoughts, form, athleticism, cultural
heritage, and so on. To transcend this intellectual violence which
inhibits us from seeing the perfect synchronized whole, we can shift to
the process of synthesizing, seeing ourselves as connected to all and a
connector as well. We can stop thinking of how everything affects only
ourselves. Instead, we can shift the perspective to serving others.
I look for how we all fit togethe r in virtually everything that I read, see,
and do. I refuse to see myself as anyone’ s enemy, regardless of what the
current crop of politicians may say. I think globally in all of my intellectual
pursuits. I know that a world which spends $25 million a minute on
weapons and allows forty child ren on our planet to die of starv ation every
minute is one which spends too much intellectual energy on carving up the
planet and focusing on how different we all are. I know that I can resist my
temptation to believe that anyo ne anywhere on our planet is separate and
distinct from me. Every time I see other human beings, of any color or
persuasion, regardless of where they come from, I know I share somethingwith them: my everyday experience of humanness. They know what it is
like to be human, to be hungr y, to love children, to digest food, to feel
stomach cramps, to think. We all share that with each other. The more we
think in synthesizing rather than exclusively analytical ways, the more
likely we are to bring it all together. And the more likely we will be to stop
the terminal emphasis on what separates us.
Remember each day as you look out at your world and see milli ons upon
millions of flowers opening up that God does it all without using any force.
It is all done with synthesized perfection.
And speaking of flowers, I’ve recently been told a story about a bouquet
that turned out to be far more special than its donors knew.
A New Jersey couple had a big greenhouse attached to their home, and
they kept it filled with flowers —including nasturtiums, rarely grown in a
greenhouse.
One snowy January evening the husband and wife went off to a rehearsal
of an amateur orchestra in a nearby town where they had once  lived. They
decided to take a large bouquet of nasturtiums to give away at the rehearsal,
for they felt that the sunny colors—orange, yellow, red—would warm up
that cold night.
As they got to the town, the husband turned off onto a bywa y by the
river. The snow was falling, the area was deserted, but a little old lady was
walking all alone. They recognized her as the mother of their former next-
door neighbor and stopped to ask whether they could give her a ride. She
seemed confused  but finally told them where she was going, and they drove
her there. As they left her, they of fered her the bouquet of flowers.
Three days later, they received a note from her, thanking them for the
ride and the flowers and telling them what their gesture had meant to her.
She had been a practical nurse her whole working life, but had realized that
day that she was too old and infirm to continue her work. She didn’ t want to
be a burden to her family, and so she had made up her mind to throw herself
in the river—unless God gave her a sign that he didn’ t want her to. That
bouquet had literally saved her life.
How many “chances” were involved in this one incident? If that couple
had not decided  to take flowers to a rehearsal, if the husband had not taken
a byroad, if they had not arrived at the river just as the old woman was
approaching it, if she had not recognized their gift as a sign, she would havelost the last several years of her life, and her family would have been
deprived of their happiness in caring for her.
Let me end this chapter with one final story. It happened to me in
February 1959, when I was nineteen years of age.
On a particularly  cold evening I was hitchhiking home to Michigan from
Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Lexington Park, Maryland. My oldest
brother would be visiting too, and I would be seeing him for the first time in
two


 Manav. Mutra. I went through it carefully
and began the treatment from 1-5-60. For one month I did the
rubbing and also kept two days• fast on urine only. The result was
the most satisfactory. Ten months have passed since then. My STOMACH DISEASES : 123
weight has increased to 170 lb. No medicine was taken thereafter.
Now I take 40 ounces of urine every day in three doses and feel
quite fit. If there is any trouble, it is instantaneously controlled with
a day•s fast on urine.
"It has resulted in financial savings also. I was in the habit of
smoking and chewing betels which I heve given up. It has saved me
nearly Rs. 250/-a year. In addition, Rs. 400/-were also saved which
were otherwise spent on medicine. The time spent on doctor•s visits
has also been saved.
"My wife· got 12 tumours on her neck. The doctor gave
prescription of medicines worth Rs. 100/-I began giving her urine
treatment and only in four days she was normal.
"Recently a gentleman was attacked by leprosy. He started this
experiment and the pain was checked. Besides that other troubles of
the body, i.e. cold, constipation, indigestion, etc. have also been
totally removed.
12. Dropsy : Shri lshwarlal N. Desai of Bilimora has
experimented with urine therapy on his 2 112 years old son. The
report of its good result is as follows:
"My son satish aged 2 112 years suffered from recurrence sickenss
since birth. Dysentery, vomiting and fever were the usual symptoms.
He got fever on 28-6-60 which generally went up to 105° and did
not subside at once. After that, on 15-11-60, he got inflammation on
the whole body which continued for six days. Only then the doctor
could diagnose that it was dropsy. At last medicines were stopped
but a new trouble arose. The child got blood and pus in urine along
with dysentery.
"The urine treatment was then started from 5-12-60. The boy
was given to dirink fresh urine. Besides that it was rubbed on his
whole body. In diet he was given rice and lentil soup. Thus fever
which could not be controlled for 4 112 months, was checked
within 6 days of this treament. Next week, he began to move about
on his knees. In the third week he stood up and began to totter. 124 : AUTO-URINE THERAPY
The treatment was continued up to 3-2-61. Even after that drinking
of urine was continued twice or thrice a day. Thus the child.got a
new life and health with this treatment, atatime when the days of
his life were numbered."
AFTERMATH OF CASES
1. Shri Pravinchandra Chunilal, aged thirty-six, is a businessman
of Bombay (11 0/111, Swadeshi Market, Bombay-2). He had
constant Constipation for years together and weighed only 90 lb.
He was not able to jnsure himself only because of his underweight.
He undertook urine treatment methodically and not only could cure
his old constipation but could increase his weight up to 125 lb.
2. Shri Amrital Trivedi (C/o Kapurchand Private Ltd., A.T.Road,
Gauhati, Assam) writest that his friend Shri Hanumanbhai could
reduce his fat and got rid a tumour by urine treatment and another
friend got rid of his pain on the elbow which was fractured before.
3. Shri Ratibhai M. Desai (Malad, Bombay) could cure his 3 years
old dysentery by this treatment.
4. Shri Chandulal H. Shah got rid of his years old gas-trouble by
urine therapy. ·
5. Shri Bhavasukhlal B. Mehta (Village Saras, Taluka Olpad, Dist.
Surat) could cure his own hyperacidity, piles and other ailments at a
time by auto-urine.
6. 5hri V. S. Nimbarkar (The janata Cloth Market, Tulsi Pipe
Road, Dadar, Bombay) could free himself ar:td his friends from
diseases l.i.ke loss of hunger, pain in the st.QmacA, and other ailrn~nts
by vrine therapy. ·
'i. Hemraj Manaji.Chavada (Raipur, M.P.) could get ri.d of his
gas-tr'()uble by auto-urine by following the treatment m.ethodically.
8. Shri L. N. Tandel (Colombo, Ceylon) could not only cure pain
.in the stomach hut ~lso a few turnot~rs on his penis by urine
tre.atment.
9..Shri Triloknathsinh from Bombay writes that he got rid of his
stomch:trouble, old cough & cold by regular treatment of urine
therapy.
Shri Kantilal S. Shah cured his old gas-trouble by auto-urine.
,.,,''l<•• CHAPTER XI
DISORDERS OF THE INTESTINES
1. Appendicitis : 1. Appendicitis is a common trouble these days.
The small intestine has a ::..~.dll appendix. The excretary refuse
sometimes accumulates there. As the days pass, the excreta ferments
and it dries and polutes the entire intestine. Finally as it generally
happens a doctor is consulted for diagnosis and treatment. The latter
readily advises the excision of the loose appendix as the only Vjay
out of the grievous pain and consequent danger which may prove
fatal.
It hardly seems possible that the appendix has no purpose to
serve. Anatomists assign to it the place of an air-valve in an engine.
The patient of appendicitis is therefore strongly advised to. observe
fast for four or five days. If urine is taken during the fast, it being an
anti-septic, removes inflammation, loosens the coats of excreta and
brings about relief from excessive pain. Thus urine-dringking and
douche with urine are of an invaluable help during fast. This simple
treatment for four-five days will relieve the patient of his trouble.
Following is an account of a patient from Dabhoi (Vadodara)
declared to be suffering from appendicitis by doctors. The patient
Shri Kaiidas Shankarbhai writes :
"I am 45 years old. For the last four years I was suffering from
appendicitis. I got myself operated in the famous Duffrin Hospital of
Vadodara. Even after the operation there was no relief. Then I was
examined by a mumber of doctros. All these doctors advised a
second operation as the only remedy. Dr. D. N. examined the report
carefully and declared that there was nothing wrong with intestines
or the earlier operation. So he discharged me from his ward.,.
"Finally, when I was fed up with the malady and its allopathic
treatment, I read your Manav Mutra by chance. I started taking
auto-urine thrice a day without fast. Within two days I felt some
U. T.-11
125,, 126 : AUTO-URINE THERAPY
relief. But on the third night there was severe pain. Using common
sense, I rubbed urine on the aching spot and within ten minutes I
fell asleep. Next day I took urine the whole day and had a urine
massage at night. Repetition of this treatment for six days completely
relieved me of the pain which did not recur uptill now. The
experiment was continued for the past five weeks. There is no pain
at all and I feel fine. Diet which I mostly had given up has been
resumed in full. A number of patients in Dabhoi have taken this
treatment and they report relieffrom their ailments.11
2. Dr. Maganlal Salaria is a qualifed doctor as well as a Vaidya of
Ahmedabad. He operates according to Ayurvedic system of surgery.
His dispensary is located on the crossing of Saraspur and it has an
accommodation for out-door patients. He has deep faith in urine
therapy. Now he is 65. He is health and thinks auto-urine to be a
harmless drink for one1s health. To prove the fact that urine is a
perfect safeguard against disease-pervaded atmosphere, he took
auto-urine for four months and during the interval he took digestible
light diet once a day only. Within three months, he gatherd great
strenght and vigour in his body and his skin became lustrous due
to increased blood circulation. Wrinkles due to old age also
disappeared and there was an increase of 14 lb. in his weight. He
has no trouble whatsoever and works hard for 12 to 15 hours a day
and does not feel tired. ·
Dr. Salaria has treated with success


	basis	in	organic
chemicals.	It	is	up	to	each	reader	to	decide	if	Vedanta,	whose	own	all-
inclusive	theory	begins	with	consciousness	instead	of	chemicals,	stands	up	to
modern	skepticism	as	I	have	claimed.
The	discussion	of	the	five	Koshas	is	my	own	synthesis	of	traditional	Vedic
ideas.	Those	ideas	are	easy	to	explore	online	at	Web	sites	such	as
http://swamij.com/koshas.htm
.
Chapter	11:	Guides	and	Messengers
The	literature	on	angels	is	vast,	but	I	found	that	what	I	wanted	to	say	did	not
involve	the	many	historical	surveys	describing	how	angels	appear	in	various
world	religions.	However,	there	are	many	fascinating	accounts	from	people
who	have	learned	to	cooperate	with	the	devas,
creative
	agents	that	are	the
Indian	parallel	of	angels.	These	are	all	New	Age	books	that	center	on
Findhorn,	a	famous	Scottish	community	that	claimed	to	use	devas	to	growcrops	on	barren	soil,	among	other	remarkable	things.	See	Dorothy	MacLean,
To	Hear	the	Angels	Sing:	An	Odyssey	of	Co-Creation	with	the	Devic	Kingdom
(Lindisfarne	Books,	1994)	and	Machaelle	Small	Wright,
Behaving	As	if	the
God	in	All	Life	Mattered
	(Perelandra,	1997)	for	two	sympathetic	stories	of
women	who	suddenly	found	that	they	could	talk	to	devas	and	use	them	to
manifest	desires.	Both	are	at	polar	opposites	to	skepticism	and	materialism.
Chapter	12:	The	Dream	Continues
The	literature	on	reincarnation	is	quite	unwieldy	since	it	spans	every	religion
and	spiritual	movement.	The	main	source	of	popular	belief	in	reincarnation	is
probably	Theosophy,	a	movement	that	grew	out	of	nineteenth-century
spiritualism	but	also	incorporated	a	broad	range	of	ideas	from	India.	See
James	S.	Perkins,
Experiencing	Reincarnation
	(Theosophical	Publishing
House,	1977),	for	a	readable	introduction.	For	me	personally,	it	was
fascinating	to	discover	how	many	spiritual	notions	I	absorbed	as	a	child	at
home	have	been	adopted	by	the	Theosophists,	and	the	New	Age	in	general.
For	the	scientific	proof	of	reincarnation,	I	am	indebted	to	an	excellent
survey	article,	“Death,	Rebirth,	and	Everything	in	Between:	A	Scientific	and
Philosophical	Exploration,”	by	Carter	Phipps,	in	the	journal
What	Is
Enlightenment?
	(Issue	32,	March-May	2006,	pp.	60–90).	The	Web	address	is
http://www.wie.org/
,	where	subscribers	can	read	the	entire	article.
This	led	me	to	the	important	research	by	the	University	of	Virginia
psychiatrist	Ian	Stevenson	on	children	who	claim	to	remember	past	lives.	His
Web	site	is
http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/
.
On	the	same	topic	an	invaluable	book	is	Carol	Bowman,
Children’s	Past
Lives:	How	Past	Life	Memories	Affect	Your	Child
	(Bantam,	1998),
in
	which	a
mother	finds	that	her	children’s	irrational	fears	of	loud	noises	and	house	fires
is	cured	by	past-life	regression,	leading	her	to	explore	the	field	in	depth.	A
Web	site	devoted	to	regressing	children	to	their	past	lives	is
http://www.childpastlives.org/
.
T
EXT	NOTES:
pp.	173–74
	I	first	became	aware	of	the	boy	who	remembered	dying	in	a	World
War	II	air	battle	from	an	ABC	News	report:
http://www.reversespins.com/proofofreincarnation.html
.
pp.	174–76
	et	passim	The	anecdotes	of	children	who	remember	their	past
lives,	mostly	derived	from	Ian	Stevenson’s	database,	are	recounted	in
Phipps,	pp.	63–70	(see	above).
p.	175
	The	quotes	from	children	reported	by	their	parents	is	from	Ian
Stevenson’s	 Web	 site,http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/personalitystudies/
.
p.	176
	The	source	of	out-of-body	research	at	the	Monroe	Institute	can	be
browsed	at
http://www.monroeinstitute.org/
.	Another	good	article,	linking
out-of-body	experiences	and	NDEs,	can	be	found	online	at
http://www.paradigm-sys.com/cttart/sci-docs/ctt97-ssooo.html
.
Chapter	13:	Is	Akasha	Real?
I	had	already	started	writing	about	Akasha	before	discovering	Ervin	Laszlo’s
Science	and	the	Akashic	Field:	An	Integral	Theory	of	Everything
	(Inner
Traditions,	2004),	the	most	wide-ranging	argument	for	incorporating
consciousness	and	science.	Since	my	topic	was	the	afterlife,	I	wasn’t	able	to
include	the	dozen	or	more	mysteries,	ranging	from	advanced	quantum	theory,
cosmology,	biology,	and	neuroscience,	that	according	to	Laszlo	will	never	be
solved	until	consciousness	is	taken	into	account.	Readers	who	want	to
investigate	these	prevailing	enigmas	should	start	here.
Laszlo	discusses	the	Zero	Point	Field,	but	there	is	a	complete	and	very
readable	book	devoted	to	it—see	Lynne	McTaggart,
The	Field:	The	Quest	for
the	Secret	Force	of	the	Universe
	(Harper	Perennial,	2002),	which	describes
many	experiments	and	gives	detailed	anecdotes	of	various	discoveries,	in
contrast	to	Laszlo’s	method,	which	is	to	outline	and	survey	prevailing	theories
with	a	minimum	of	narrative.
T
EXT	NOTES:
pp.	202–204
	Helmut	Schmidt’s	experiments,	followed	by	the	Jahn	team	at
Princeton,	are	recounted	in	McTaggart,
The	Field
,	pp.101–16.
p.	204
	“On	the	most	profound	level	…”	quoted	from	McTaggart,
The	Field
,	p.
122.
p.	209
	An	easily	accessible	presentation	of	the	paradox	known	as
Schrödinger’s	cat	can	be	found	online—see
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci341236,00.html
Chapter	14:	Thinking	Outside	the	Brain
Current	speculations	about	“extended	mind”—the	possibility	of	intelligence
outside	the	brain—cover	a	wide	range	of	science.	A	good	overview	is
provided	in	Part	2	of	McTaggart’s
The	Field
,	pp.	99–179,	told	largely	from
the	perspective	of	field	theory	in	physics.	For	firsthand	research	and	in-depth
thinking,	the	best	source	is	Rupert	Sheldrake,	who	made	a	first	impression
with	his	impressive	book	on	evolution,
The	Presence	of	the	Past:	MorphicResonance	and	the	Habits	of	Nature
	(Park	Street	Press,	1995),	in	which	he
brilliantly	speculates	on	how	life	could	have	evolved,	and	continues	to	evolve,
through	its	own	self-interacting	intelligence.
Undaunted	by	the	outrage	his	nonmaterialistic	theory	causes	among
Darwinians,	Sheldrake	has	challenged	them	to	replicate	his	own	experiments.
His	research	into	the	telepathic	parrot	and	other
psychic
	pets	is	contained	in
The	Sense	of	Being	Stared	At:	And	Other	Unexplained	Powers	of	the	Human


hta –
Dasamoolarishtam – used in treating cold, cough, anemia, after delivery care
of mother, female infertility, etc.
Draksharishtam – used in cold, cough, asthma, throat infection, intestinal
disorders.
Saraswatarishtam – used to improve memory, concentration, immunity. Also
acts as cardiac tonic.
Amritarista – used in treating fever
Arjunarishta – used in cardiac disorders, cold, cough etc.
Ashokarishta – used in heavy periods, fever, bleeding disorders, bleeding
hemorrhoids etc.
Manufacturing of Asava –
Usually, herbs are mixed with required amount of water. is is taken in place
of Kashayam (here, kashayam is not prepared, but there are a few exceptions).
Rest of the procedure is same as above.
Examples of Asava –Lohasavam – used in anaemia, malabsorption syndrome, IBS, anorexia etc.
Ushirasav – used in bleeding disorders, anemia, Urinary tract disorders,
intestinal worms etc
Are ese Medicines, Containing Alcohol Safe?
ese medicines contain self generated alcohol, which dissolves active
principles of herbs and spices in it. H ence it is quite safe to use in therapeutics.
Without any hesitation, since 5000 years, these medicines are used in
Ayurvedic treatments.
Dose of Asava and Arishta –
Whenever safety of a medicine is discussed, it is always in relation with the
dose. Hence administration in proper dosage is very essential. Classical dose of
Asava and Arishta are – 48–96 ml. Approximately 50–100 ml, in divided dose,
per day.
In very weak patients, it can be diluted with equal amount of water, before
administration.
Safety of Usage of Asavam and Arishtam in Children –
In proper dose, if the disease requires it, then these medicines can be used even
in an year old kid. Usually, Aravaindasava, Drakshasava and Pippalyasavam are
quite commonly used in paediatric conditions.
As per Dr. MS. Krishnamurthy,
For an infant of 6 months upto 1 year of age – just 2–3 ml, after diluting
with equal/double quantities of water.
For one year old kid, dose is usually 4–5 m l, after diluting with equal/double
quantities of water.
For kids of 5–6 years, dose is 10 ml, with dilutionA.
B.So, with proper judgement and in proper dose, even Asava and Arishta
medicines can be used in children.
Probable Side Eﬀects of Asav and Arisht in Children –
Children are very tender, many of the organs are not developed and functional
to full strength. Hence, in some individuals, usage of these type of Ayurvedic
medicine might cause some irrita tion and side eﬀects.
Gastric irritation and increased warmth, feeling feverish are the two
common side eﬀects, if administered in a high dose.
Hence in children, it is best to give a test dose rst. After conrming absence
of any side eﬀects, medicines can be continued.
Apart from consideration of dose, strength of medicine should also be
considered before prescribing. For example, Kutajarishta used in treating
diarrhoea associated with fever, may cause constipation in some children. In
such circumstances, it makes sense to choose Mustakarishta, which is milder
in action, though both have same disease indications.
Advantanges of Asava and Arishta Medicines –
Shelf life – Shelf life of Asava and Arishta is upto 10 years. (related –
expiry dates of Ayurvedic medicines) While other Ayurvedic medicine
forms like Kashayam, tablets etc cannot be stored for very long, Asava and
Arishta have considerably very high shelf life.
(Sharangdhara Samhita Purvakhanda )
Often this verse is confused as – older the Asava/Arishta, the better. e
potency increases with age. But it is not true. Potency is retained at
maximum levels, till a long period of time.
Best Taste – Asava and Arishta are the best tasting Ayurvedic medicines.
Avalehas (herbal jams like chyawanaprash) are also equally good to taste.C.
D.But dose xation is quite diﬃcult in case of Avalehas, compared with Asava
and Arishta.
Transportation – If they are prepared properly, they do not get
spoilt/contaminated during transportation. Such as spoilage may happen
in case of Kashayam (water decoction), Churna (herbal powders) etc.
Appreciation – Because of colour, consistency, aroma and taste, they are
highly appreciated by the patients.
Disadvantages of Asava and Arishta –
In children, we cannot use it in higher dose and much precautions are
required.
Some women patients might not like these medicines because of alcohol
content. Especially, in menopausal age, with use of Asava and Arishta, some
women may feel increase in hot ashes, perspiration,
Some elder patients may also feel increased warmth in the body, gastric
irritation, hair fall, constipation etc.
Manufacturing Precautions to Be Taken –
Some use yeast to induce fermentation and some use steel containers as
fermentation vessel. is is not as per Ayurvedic principle. Ayurveda has
explained Madhuka/Dhataki owers as fermenting agent. Ayurveda
recommends usage of chemically inert containers such as earthen pots, wooden
vessels, porcelain jars, etc for the purpose of fermentation.
Can Asava and Arishta Be Called as Herbal Wines?
For example, Drakshasava/Draksharishta – which is prepared with dry grapes,
cannot be equated to grape wine. e method of preparation, purpose are
quite diﬀerent.
With Asava and Arishta – they are prepared with many herbal ingredients,
some of them are used for preparing kashaya and some are used as Prakshepa(spices), which act as bio – enhancers.
Unlike in wine preparation, here, fermentation initiators like yeast, or
fermentation inhibitors (added at the end), are not used in Asava and Arishtas.
e spices added themselves act as fermentation moderators. So, commercial
alcohol preparations cannot be compared with Asava and Arishta.
Example
Draksharishta – Prepared with Raisins
Draksharishtam is a liquid Ayurvedic medicine, used mainly in the treatment
of respiratory and intestinal disorders. Draksha refers to Raisin (Dry grapes),
which is the main ingredient of this product. Draksharisht contains 5–10%  of
self generated alcohol in it. is self generated alcohol and the water present in
the product acts as a media to deliver water and alcohol soluble the active
herbal components to the body.
Reference: Bhaishajya Ratnavali 14/73–76, Sharangdhara Samhita Madhyama
Khanda 10/69–72.5.
Draksharishta Ingredients
Dry grapes – 2.4 kg
water for Kashayam – 49.152 liters
Boiled and reduced to 12.288 liters, ltered.
Jaggery – 9.6 kg
Prakshepa –
Twak – Cinnamon – Stem bark – 48 g
Ela – cardamom – 48 g
Patra – (Cinnamomum tamala) – leaf – 48 g
Nagakeshara (Mesua ferrea) – Stamen – 48 gPriyangu – Callicarpa macrophylla, black pepper, long pepper fruit, Vidanga –
False black pepper – Embelia ribes – 48 g rams each.
Method of Preparation –
First Raisins Kashaya is made, ltered. To this, jaggery, cinnamon and the rest
of the ingredients are added. e container is allowed for fermentation for 1
month, ltered.
Traditional Uses
Useful in chest injury, tuberculosis, chronic respiratory diseases, weight loss,
cold, cough, asthma, throat infection/throat disorders, debility, weak digestion,
bloating, bleeding disorders, intestinal worm infestation, skin diseases,
jaundice, eye disorders, anemia, hoarseness of voice, weight loss and fever.
Improves strength, cleanses intestines.79. Other Types of
Sandhana Kalpanas –
Fermented Products
Y
Sidhu Kalpana
Juice of sweet substances fermented without boiling them is known as Sitarasa
Sidhu and if prepared by boiling them, it will be called Pakwarasa Sidhu.
Sura, Prasanna, Kadambari, Jagala, Medaka, Bakkasa
e fermented liquor prepared by using cooked rice, barley etc is Sura. e
clear supernatant uid of Sura is called Prasanna, slightly thicker than it is
Kadambari; next thicker to it is Jagala; still thicker is Medaka. �


 mixture is smooth.)
5 Spoon the ice into 2 glasses, serve with a spoon, and enjoy!
Per serving: Calories 326 (From Fat 214); Fat 24g (Saturated 15g); Cholesterol 51mg; Sodium 63mg;
Carbohydrate 25g; Dietary Fiber 2g; Protein 5g.Granite
The word granite gives you an indication of the texture of these
iced treats. Similar to the chipped or shaved ice drizzled with
ﬂavored syrup and served in paper cones or cups you may have
enjoyed at amusement parks when you were a kid, granite are
the simplest of all frozen desserts.
The dessert version of this chilled treat is made from fruit and
sugar that is cooked or puréed, spread into shallow pans,
frozen, and stirred frequently to keep it from freezing into a
solid block of ice. When ice forming in the fruit-sugar mixture is
stirred, it gets broken into smaller pieces that ultimately cause
the granita’s texture to resemble sand or granite. The more
sugar used, the easier it is to keep the granita from forming a
solid frozen brick.
My blended versions use the same fruit and sugar
combinations, but the addition of ice to the blender makes them
ready to consume instantly.
 The singular form of granite is granita.
Easy frozen granite
For an easy method of achieving the Italian ices popul ar on the streets of
Italian (and some North American) cities in the summer, doubl e the
amount of liquid, fruit, and sugar in either of the recipes in this section.
Omit the ice and use fresh fruit instead of frozen fruit. Blend until smooth,
pour the mixture into one or two ice-cube trays, and freeze  for at least
three hours and up to two days in advance.
Note: Place the ice-cube tray in the coldest part of the freeze r. In a ches t
freezer, the coldest place is the ﬂoor, while in an upright freeze r, that spotis usually at the top of the freezer. Allow some space around the trays for
cold air to circulate — this will help the mixture to freeze  quicker.
Unmold the cubes into the blender cont ainer and secur e the lid. Starting
on a low speed and gradually easing toward high, blend the ingredients
for 45 seconds or until smooth and there are no visible pieces  of fruit in
the mixture. If you have a tamping stick, use it to move the cubes  around;
otherwise, you may need to stop and stir the mixture, freeing the frozen
purée around the blades, and resume blendi ng. (If you’re using a blender
with a pulse button, pulse the blades on and off just until the cubes  are
chopped and the mixture is smooth.)
Granite made this way will be stronger  in taste becaus e the ice, which
tends to dilute the taste, has not been added to them.
L e m o n  G r a n i t a
Prep time: About 2 min • Blending time: 1 min • Yield: 2 servings
Ingr edients
1 tablespoon lemon rind
1 lemon
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 to 1 cup sugar, to taste
1 cup ice cubes
Dir ections
1 Grate the 1 tablespoon of lemon rind into the blender container.
2 Peel the lemon, break into sections, and remove the seeds.3 Combine the orange juice, lemon juice, and sugar in the blender
container. Taste and add more sugar if needed. Add lemon,
lemon rind, and ice.
4 Secure the lid on the container.
5 Starting on a low speed and gradually easing toward high, blend
the ingredients for 45 seconds or until smooth and there are no
visible pieces of fruit in the mixture. If you have a tamping stick,
use it to move the ice around; otherwise, you may need to stop
and stir the mixture, freeing the fruit and ice around the blades,
and resume blending. (If you’re using a blender with a pulse
button, pulse the blades on and off until the ice is chopped and
the mixture is smooth.)
6 Spoon the granita into 2 martini or wine glasses, serve with a
spoon, and enjoy!
Per serving: Calories 244 (From Fat 1); Fat 0g (Saturated 0g); Cholesterol 0mg; Sodium 4mg;
Carbohydrate 64g; Dietary Fiber 1g; Protein 1g.
Vary It! To make this drink icier, pour the mixture into a shallow
pan and freeze for up to 40 minutes. Scrape the ice into 2 glasses,
and serve with a spoon.
M a n g o  G r a n i t a
Prep time: About 2 min • Blending time: 1 min • Yield: 2 servings
Ingr edients
3 mangoes
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/2 cup fresh apricot nectar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 to 1 cup sugar, to taste1 cup ice cubes
Dir ections
1 Peel the mangoes, cut them in half, and remove the ﬂat stone.
2 Combine the orange juice, apricot nectar, lemon juice, and
sugar in the blender container.
3 Secure the lid on the container.
4 Starting on a low speed and gradually easing toward high, blend
the ingredients for 15 seconds or until sugar is dissolved into
juice. Taste and add more sugar if needed.
5 Add mangoes and ice. Start blending on a low speed and
increase to high. Blend for 30 seconds or until smooth. If you
have a tamping stick, use it to move the ice around; otherwise,
you may need to stop and stir the mixture, freeing the fruit and
ice around the blades, and resume blending. (If you’re using a
blender with a pulse button, pulse the blades on and off until
the ice is chopped and the mixture is smooth.)
6 Spoon the granita into 2 martini or wine glasses, serve with a
spoon, and enjoy!
Per serving: Calories 460 (From Fat 9); Fat 1g (Saturated 0g); Cholesterol 0mg; Sodium 9mg;
Carbohydrate 119g; Dietary Fiber 6g; Protein 2g.
Vary It! You can use grapefruit juice or orange juice in place of
the apricot nectar.
Vary It! To make this drink icier, pour the mixture into a shallow
pan and freeze for up to 40 minutes. Scrape the ice into 2 glasses,
and serve with a spoon.
SherbetIn Harvest of the Cold Months, Elizabeth David says, “All around
the Mediterranean, snow from the mountain ranges was carried
to the ice stores of the cities. The Mamluk kings of Egypt had
snow shipped from Lebanon to Cairo in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries.” And we know that sweet juices and
syrups were poured over the precious snow and served to
nobility, clergy, and royalty.
Derived from sharbât, the Arabic word for fruit syrup, our
modern sherbet is descended from those refreshing luxuries of
fruit syrup or condensed juices drizzled over snow. What most
likely began as an indulgent treat exclusively for royalty has
become a favorite of many Westerners.
Somewhere in the long journey from the deserts of the Middle
East to Europe and subsequently to North America, sherbets
became infused with dairy —sometimes milk only, sometimes
milk and eggs — to the point where an actual deﬁnition is
difﬁcult to achieve. In simpliﬁed terms, our modern sherbet is a
mixture of milk or cream, sugar, and some ﬂavoring.
To confuse the issue further, what used to be called “ice milk” in
the United States, was actually a milk sherbet. Today, due to
regulatory changes by the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA), that product is called “low-fat ice cream.”
Sorbet is a non-dairy frozen product that contains only fruit,
sugar, and some ﬂavoring along with gelatin for stabilizing the
frozen product.
Both sherbets and sorbet are best when eaten soft and served
in small bowls, martini glasses, or ice cream sundae cups. Often
served between courses, sherbet or sorbet serves to cleanse
the palate for the next course.
R a s p b e r r y  S h e r b e tPrep time: About 2 min • Blending time: 1 min • Yield: 2 servings
Ingr edients
1 cup low-fat milk
1/4 cup pomegranate or grape juice
1 to 4 tablespoons honey, to taste
2 cups frozen raspberries
1 cup ice cubes
Dir ections
1 Combine the milk, juice, honey, raspberries, and ice in the
blender container.
2 Secure the lid on the container.
3 Starting on a low speed and gradually easing toward high, blend
the ingredients for 45 seconds or until smooth and there are no
visible pieces of fruit in the mixture. If you have a tamping stick,
use it to move the ice around; otherwise, you may need to stop
and stir the mixture, freeing the fruit and ice around the blades,
and resume blending.
4 Spoon the sherbet into 2 glasses


iosis with
these viruses.
Luckily, the phages' omnipresence has flown below the radar of prevailing
medical viral research-otherwise there would probably be regulations against
bathing in the sea without full-body condoms or epidemic -protection suits, and only
under the condition that we first take prophylactic antiviral medications. Or, why
not try to disinfect large surfaces of seawater. We are already well on the way to this
kind of thinking, since phages are already being presented as super villains that
''work using wily tricks."121 But there is no real proof here either.
We'd be wise to remember times in which the ruling dogma of viral killers was
(freely and openly) sharply attacked and dismissed as pure "belief."122 Indeed, there
were many prominent microbiologists who insisted that bacteriophages just aren't
viruses, but rather products "endog enously" produced, i.e. by bacteria.123 Robert
Doerr, editor of the Handbook of Virology, published by Springer in 1938, even held
the idea that not only phages, but also other "viruses" were the product of cells.124
Let's look at one of their arguments : bacteriophages cannot be living entities that
become active independe ntly, since phages themselves cannot be destroyed by
temperatures as high as 120 degrees.125 "And it would probably be of use to recall
the history of this decade-long dispute," says Dutch microbiologist Ton van Helvoort,
"for controv ersies and finding consensus are at the heart of scientific research." 126
48 Cha pter 2
The Micr obe Hunters Seize Power
"The doctor of the futur e will give no medicine, but will interest his
patient s in the care of the human frame, in diet, and in the cause
and prevention of disease. "1
Thomas Edison (1847 -1931)
One of the greatest inventors of history
"The conclusion is unavoidable: Pasteur deliberatel y deceived the
publi c, includin g especiall y those scientists most familiar with his
published work. "2
Gerald Geison
Medical historian
"[Modern virus detection methods like PCR] tell little or nothin g
about how a virus multiplies, which animals carry it, [or] how it
mak es people sick. [It is] like trying to say whether someb ody has
bad breath by looking at his finger print. "3
An appeal from 14 top virologists of the "old guard" to the new
biomedical research generation
Science, 6 July 2001
Pasteur and Koch: Two of Man y Scien tific Cheats
The elevated status Louis Pasteur enjoyed during his lifetime is made clear by a
quotation from physician Auguste Lutaud in 1887 (eight years before Pasteur's
death): "In France, one can be an anarchist, a communist or a nihilist, but not an
anti-Pasteurian."4 In truth, however, Pasteur was no paragon with a divinely pure
clean slate, but rather a researcher addicted to fame acting on false assumptions and
"he misled the world and his fellow scientists about the research behind two of his
most famous experiments," as the journal The Lancet stated in 2004.5
In his downright fanatical hate of microbes, Pasteur actually came from the
ludicrous equation that healthy (tissue) equals a sterile (germ-free) envir onment.6
He believed in all earnestness that bacteria could not be found in a healthy body/
and that microbes flying through the air on dust particles were responsible for all
49 -
Chapter 2
possible diseases.8 At 45 years of age, he "was basking in his fame," as bacteriologist
Paul de Kruif writes in his book Microbe Hunters, "and trumpeted his hopes out into
the world: 'it must lie within human power to eliminate all diseases caused by
parasites [microbes] from the face of the earth."'9
Flaws in Pasteur's theories were shown long ago in the first half of the 20'h
century by experiments in which animals were kept completely germ-free. Their
birth even took place by Cesarean section; after that, they were locked in microbe
free cages and given sterile food and water-after a few days, all the animals were
dead. This made it apparent that "contamination" by exogenous bacteria is abolutely
essential to their lives.10
In the early 1960s, scientists succeeded for the first time in keeping germ-free
mice alive for more than a fews days, namely for several weeks. Seminal research on
these germ-free rodents was performed by Morris Pollard in Notre-Dame, Indiana.n
However, this does not undermine the fact that germs are essential for life. Not
only do mice under natural conditions have a life span of three years, which is much
longer than the average life span of these germ-free lab animalsY The ability to
keep germ-free animals such as mice or rats alive for a longer time requires highly
artifical lab conditions in which the animals are synthetically fed with vitamin
supplements and extra calories, conditions that have nothing to do with nature.
These specially designed liquid diets are needed because under normal rearing
conditions, animals harbor populations of microorganisms in the digestive tract.13
These microorganisms generate various organic constituents as products or by
products of metabolism, including various water-soluble vitamins and amino acids.
In the rat and mouse, most of the microbial activity is in the colon, and many of the
microbially produced nutrients are not available in germ-free animals. This alters
microbial nutrient synthesis and, thereby, influence dietary requirements.
Adjustments in nutrient concentrations, the kinds of ingredients, and methods of
preparation must be considered when formulating diets for laboratory animals
reared in germ-free environments or environments free of specific microbes. 14 15
One important target by administering these artificial diets is to avoid the
accumulation of metabolic pruducts in the large intestine. However, it has been
observed that already after a short time the appendix or cecum of these germ-fTee
reared rodents increased in weight and eventually became abnormally enlarged,
filled with mucus which would normally have been broken down by microbes.16
Furthermore, in germ-free conditions rodents typically die of kidney failure17-a sign
that the kidneys are overworked in their function as an excretion organ if the large
intestine has been artificially crippled. In any case, it shows that germ-free mice
would not be able to survive and reproduce while staying healthy in realistic
conditions, which can never be duplicated by researchers, not even approximately.
50 The Microbe Hunters Seize Power
Apart from this, it is not clear that these germ-free animals have been truly 100%
germ-free. Obviously not all tissues and certainly not every single cell could have
been checked for germs. Nobody can know that these animals are absolutely germ
free, especially if one keeps in mind that germs such as the Chlamydia trachomatis
may "hide" so deeply in the cells that they persist there even after treatment with
penicillin. 18
Furthermore, even if the specimens of so-called germ-free animals are maintained
under optimum conditions-assumed to be perfectly sterile-their tissues do,
nevertheless, decay after a time, forming "spontaneous" bacteria. But how do we
explain these "spontaneous" bacteria? They cannot come from nothing, so logic
allows only one conclusion: the bacteria must have already been present in the so
called "germ-free" mice (in any case, mice said to be bacteria-free are apparently not
virus-free; this was demonstrated in 1964 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine by
Etienne de Harven who observed, by electron microscop y, typical so-called retroviral
particles in the thymus of germ-free Swiss and C3H mice;19 of course, these viruses
may be endogenous retroviruses which sometimes are expressed as particles-but of
endogenous origin).
If nature wanted us bacteria-free, nature would have created us bacteria-free.
Germ-free animals, which apparently aren't really germ-free, can only exist under
artificial lab conditions, not in nature. The ecosystems of animals living under
natural conditions-be it rodents or be it human beings-depend heavily upon the
activities of bacteria, and this arrangement must have a purpose.
But back to "Tricky Louis"20 who deliberately lied, even in his vaccination
experiments, which provided him a seat on the Mount Olympus of research gods. In
1881, Pasteur asserted that he had successfully vaccinated sheep against anthrax.
But not only does nobody know how Pasteur's open land tests outside the Paris gates
really proceeded, but the national hero of Ia grande Nation, as he would later be
called, had in fact clandestinely lifted the vaccine mixture from fellow researcher
Jean-Joseph Toussaint,21 whose career he had earlier ruined through public verbal
attacks.22 And what about Pasteur's purporte dly highly successful experiments with
a rabies vaccine in 1885? Only much later did the research community learn that
they did not satisfy scientific standards at all, and were thus unfit to back up the
chorus of praise for his vaccine-mixture. Pasteur's super-vaccine "might have caused
rather than prevented rab


 three months Craig lost 27 pounds,
brought his A1C number down from 12 to 6.5, brought his fasting glucose
level below 100, no longer needed his insulin injections, was able to stop
taking one oral medication and cut the other dose in half, reduced his total
cholesterol from 269 to 196, and cut his LDL  cholesterol from 189 to 1 11.
Craig is no longer sick and tired. Craig is healthy and happy—as a
moose!
Carol Jocelyn, 66
Director of a House of Prayer
I live in rural Iowa, one of the beef- and pork-eating capitals of
America, so some people think I’m nuts. But the nice thing is that
even people who live in remote places like me can make it work if
they want. I travel to health food stores whenever I’m away. And I’mhelping to integrate more healthy foods into our regular grocery store.
Today my ener gy is at a wonderful peak, my body feels clean, I feel
alive, and I’ve lost eighteen pounds. I’ve gone from a size twelve to a
size eight.
OBESITY
Our country is in terrible shape—physically, that is. We are fat. Dr.
Richard Carmona, the former United States sur geon general, refers to the
nation’ s current obesity epidemic as “the terror within.”
If you are obese (like more than 30 percent of all Americans), you’re
essentially stepping onto an escalator taking you directly into a roomful of
killer diseases: heart disease, stroke, cancer, hypertension, and diabetes.
Once inside this room, you’ll realize the absolute horror that lies within, but
the door will close and won’ t let you leave until you pick one or more
diseases as a departing prize.
On every shift at the station we see the results of the obesity epidemic in
full swing. Sometimes we get a call for what’ s known as lifting assistance;
this type of help is for people so morbidly obese that they have lost their
mobility. Lifting and moving people who weigh between 400 and 600
pounds requires a team ef fort, as well as a great deal of resourcefulness.
First, we gather the required man/woman power (usually six to eight
people) and two bed sheets. Next, we help the person roll onto his or her
side, and slide the two sheets up against the body. Then we have the person
roll back onto his or her back and then to the other side so we can pull the
sheet past and under, giving us a makeshift gurney.
Now comes the exciting part: Positioned all around the sheet, each
person rolls up his or her section to get a solid grip. On the count of three,
we then slide the patient over to one side of the bed and prepare to lift him
or her onto the stretcher or straight into an ambulance. Considering that we
often have to navigate our way around furniture, through doorways, and
down multiple staircases, this task can be pretty dif ficult.
AMERICANS SEEM TO FEEL  it is their birthright to eat rich, fatty, meaty, and
obesity-promoting foods. This mind-set begs for a paradigm shift. Obesity
is not caused by a fat gene passed down the family line; its roots lie in badeating habits and poor nutrition. These habits are the colossal tragedy being
passed from one generation to the next.
There is a solution, and it doesn’ t involve portion control, exercise, or
lifting weights. It requires one thing and one thing only: You need to
become plant-strong! Indulge in the luxuriance of eating plants and
discover the wide variety of foods that await you.
Here are some basic truths about gaining (far too much) weight.
First, you will gain weight only if you consume more calories than you
burn. Stop eating high-calorie second- and third-class foods such as meat,
cheese, milk, eggs, oils, and refined sugars and replace them with first-
class, opulent, plant-based foods, then watch the pounds disappear.
Second, people around the world whose diets are plant-based tend to be
thinner than those whose aren’ t. Their cuisine is rich in complex
carbohydrates such as whole grains, potatoes, millet, rice, and corn, and
they supplement these healthful starches with fruits, vegetables, and beans.
It works for them, and it will work for you.
TO UNDERST AND WHY  THIS IS THE CASE,  here’ s a quick lesson on how calories
work, and the basics of how the body processes the three types of
macronutrients found in all foods: protein, carbohydrates, and fats.
A gram of each contains a dif ferent number of calories:
1 gram of carbohydrate equals 4 calories.
1 gram of protein equals 4 calories.
1 gram of fat equals 9 calories.
Carbohydrates, the body’ s main source of fuel, are stored in the form of
glucose in the blood and glycogen in the muscles and liver. Just in the
process of converting and storing these carbs, the body burns of f 25 percent
of the calories you consume.
The body cannot store protein, however. Excess protein is either
eliminated in the feces or urine, or stored as fat. If protein were stored as
muscle, 90 percent of Americans would be walking around resembling
body-building champions. Look around, and you will quickly see that this is
far from the case.Meanwhile, the human body requires only a minuscule percentage of its
daily calories from fat—roughly 3 to 5 percent. Yet most Americans are
choking down upwards of 40 percent of their daily calories in the form of
fat, a lar ge portion of which is unhealthy saturated fat.
The body has evolved to store extra fat in a very ef ficient manner. Only a
measly 2 percent of fat calories are burned up when fat is stored. This is
why the fat you eat is the fat you wear, as Dr. John McDougall has said.
Most animal-based foods contain between 20 to 60 percent fat, whereas
most plant-based foods contain less than 10 percent fat. And animal
products contain no fiber, while the naturally occurring fiber in plant-based
foods allows you to become full without having to pile in so many calories.
There is nothing in an animal-product-based diet that you cannot find in
a healthier, safer, and better form in a plant-based diet.
Why? Because plant foods contain all of the essential amino acids found
in protein, both of the essential fatty acids (linoleic and alpha-linolenic), all
of the thirteen vitamins, and all of the seven major and nine minor minerals.
And they can supply these nourishing macro- and micronutrients without
subjecting you to any of the toxic side ef fects of animal products—namely,
premature disease and death.
As previously discussed, the only vitamin plants don’ t provide is vitamin
B12. The microor ganisms in the soil that once supplied our diets with B12
naturally have been stripped away by current farming methods, so plant
eaters must add this vitamin to their diet.
The current recommendation is for 500 micrograms per day, but if you
consume milk substitutes and cereals, you are already eating products
fortified with B12 and are more than likely getting enough. If not, consider
taking a supplement.
LET ME REPEA T: THE ANSWER to putting out a fire is water. The answer to
stamping out obesity is a plant-based diet. We all need to grab buckets of
plant-based foods and work as a team to douse the obesity crisis.
Losing weight is not rocket science and it’ s not magic. It’ s just the
simple law of eating only constructive foods and omitting destructive ones.
With the Engine 2 Diet, you’ll need only four weeks to lay a foundation that
can last a lifetime.ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE/DEMENTIA
Alzheimer ’s disease and dementia currently af fect twenty million people
worldwide, and are predicted to increase fivefold by 2050. They af fect 6 to
8 percent of people older than sixty-five, and close to 50 percent of people
older than eighty.
The two diseases present themselves in similar ways, but the
mechanisms that create them dif fer.
Dementia (cognitive impairment) is the result of many tiny strokes
called TIAs, which we talked about earlier. They’re also called silent
strokes because victims rarely realize anything has happened to them. After
a TIA, you typically suf fer a mild level of mental impairment lasting an
hour or two, and then return to normal. TIAs often occur while you are
sleeping, eating, or going about normal activities.
The human brain rebounds quickly because it has such an amazing
reserve capacity. It isn’ t until we’ve had multiple TIA attacks that our brain
starts losing the battle, and a swift downward slide to mental oblivion
follows.
Alzheimer ’s disease, on the other hand, seems to result from plaque
formation. However, instead of sticking to the artery walls leading to your
heart, brain, pelvis, or legs, these plaques develop in the pockets between
your brain cells.
Such plaques are composed of a rogue protein called beta-amyloid.
Numerous studies have shown a direct correlation between the amount of
cholesterol and fat in the diet and the amount of beta-amyloid protein
buildup in the body.
I recently


 cleaned up, the bacteria do not come back to the heart
(after one last zapping). If they do, go back to the dentist!PUSHING BACK AGE
319Killing these three invaders (heartworm, Loa loa, Staphylo-
coccus  aureus ) should cure an irregular heart  beat immediately
(within a day).
If the elderly person is on a heart -slowing drug, check the
pulse twice a day after zapping to make sure it doesn't drop too
low. They may need to be off their heart medicine. Nobody will
notice the relief of going off this medicine as much as you. The
sunshine breaks out! Your loved one can smile again at little
things! Even interest in sex  returns so watch out! Life is nor-
malized when drugs, especially beta blockers  are gone. (Other
heart medicines, such as Digitoxin,TM don't have this depressive
effect. They are used to make the heart beat stronger, not to af fect
the rate of beating.)
The pulse should be around 70 beats per minute and perfectly
regular.
If it isn't, there is still something wrong. Get rid of toxic body
products and house pollutants. Test your air for gas leak s
frequently. Gas heat, gas stoves and gas water heater s are noto-
riously leaky. Weather changes, namely temperature changes
make pipes expand or shrink—leaving cracks! The gas is toxic
and a small amount can't be smelled. What a predicament! De-
livering poisonous house gas to our homes in pipes that are not
fail-safe is an archaic practice. Especially when the blood test
shows a high “total CO 2" level, near the upper limit, search for
an air pollutant like house gas or auto fumes. And read the sec-
tions in this book on pulse (page 289) and brain problems (page
278) very closely for more things to check.
With the heart  regular again, it will be much stronger, too,
since it doesn't have to work against itself. This strength is nec-
essary to push the blood into the farthest “corners” of the body,
especially the hands and feet, and warm them up! If your lovedTHE CURE FOR ALL DISEASES
320one constantly has cold hands or feet, try to improve circulation.
Dissolve phosphate  crystals  with the kidney herb recipe. Give
niacin  (page 279). Give cayenne  capsules (one with each meal).
Blood thinning drugs to improve circulation are dangerous—use
only if the doctor insists. Monitor blood clotting  time if your
loved one is on a thinner.
Heart/Kidney Relationship
A strong heart  is necessary, too, to push the blood through the
kidneys. Often a kidney problem is linked to the heart disor der.
Kidneys are made of tubes that get finer and finer. It takes
pressure, namely strength, to push the blood through them so
wastes and extra water can be let down the kidney tube. Think of
the kidneys as a colander full of tiny holes of various sizes that
let certain things through them but not bigger things. These holes
are constantly being adjusted by the adrenals which sit right on
top of the kidneys and “supervise”.
If the elderly person is not producing four cups of urine in a
day (24 hours), it is not enough. The body cannot get enough
cleansing action from less than four cups. More liquid must be
consumed. If most of the urine is passed in the night this reflects
on unhealthy kidneys. Use the kidney  herb recipe—but  only half
a dose (so it will take six weeks instead of three to see good
effects). As the tiny “colander” holes open up there is freer flow
and many more trips to the bathroom result. The urine loses its
awful odor (no ammonia, acetone  and bacteria!) and gets a clear
look that shows no sediment. Now that water and wastes (urea
and uric acid  and other acids) can leave the body quickly through
more holes, it takes less pressure from the heart  to get blood
pushed through the kidneys. This brings relief to the heart
because its work is easier. The heart and kidneys work together.
Like horse and wagon the heart provides the power and the kid-
neys follow.PUSHING BACK AGE
321This is why heart  medicine and diuretics are commonly given
together. Diuresis  (urine flow) helps the heart and a stronger
heart helps the kidneys. Similarly, they fail together. In the old
days this was called dropsy. Urine that should have left the body
is backed up in the tissues. Sometimes it shows up in pockets that
hang like giant oranges from the skin.
Even (especially) when the strongest diuretics (MaxzideTM,
LasixTM) fail to work, even when coupled with strong heart
medicine (DigitoxinTM), the kidney herb recipe can bail you out
of the emergency.
The secret is in the varied  actions of different  herbs. This
makes them work together. Be very careful to keep the herb tea
sterile by reheating every fourth day. Freeze unused larger
amounts. If too much is drunk at once, especially on the first day,
a stomach ache can develop and a pressure felt in the blad der
that is most uncomfortable. Go extra slow on the first few days,
even though you find it quite tasty, so there is no discom fort (only
lots of bathroom visits).
Diuretics
As soon as urine is flowing better, blood pressure  may drop.
Keep track of this twice a day with a modern electronic finger
device (not an arm  cuff that itself can break blood vessel s). Cut
down on drug  diuretics gradually, using only ¾ dose the first day,
then ½ dose, then ¼ dose. The amount of urine produced or the
weight of the person can be used to assess how effective your
method is. Your goal is to not need any drug diuretics.  Again,
mood  will improve dramatically when diuretic  drugs are
removed for your loved one. The sense of humor comes back:THE CURE FOR ALL DISEASES
322be prepared for some new jokes and new laughter. Give yourself
good grades for this accomplishment.
Don't throw out the drug  diuretics. After being off them for a
while, they become more potent again. So if an emergency
(sudden edema ) should arise they could again be useful.
With a parasite and pollution-free heart  and a low-resistance,
freely flowing kidney, some reserve strength will soon be built
up. Weak spells are gone and forgotten. Your loved one is
walking better, needing less sleep, and a “golden age” finally
arrives. It is free of pain, free of medicine, free of shots and
doctor visits, free of dementia, free of the dreadful weakness  that
demands so much help. They are free to enjoy family and friends
again. Seeing themselves gain strength and be able to do more for
themselves gives the elderly a sense of pride.
Give them the credit for improving their health. When they
balk at having to take herbs or vegetable juice, remind them of
the days they were on a handful of pills and still had heart  fail-
ure, pain and kidney disease.
Feeling Comfortable
If all this improvement doesn't warm up their feet or hands
(feel them yourself) put extra socks on. Warming up their feet
might have the effect of warming up hands, too. But if it doesn't,
raise the room temperature.
Being forced to feel cold is an undeserved misery of the
aged.
Others  must accommodate to the elderly's need for body
warmth. The thermometer does not tell all. Comfort is para mount
for each of us. Younger persons can undress for comfort. The
elderly can't make changes for themselves. Usually, by the time
they are complaining of cold, they have suffered a longPUSHING BACK AGE
323time, feeling too guilty to request a temperature hike. Ask your
loved one. They will appreciate it. A shawl, a lap-blanket,
woolen sweater, long underwear and fleecy thermal outerwear
help a lot. But if your hand still senses cold feet, the thermostat
must still go higher. Cold body temperature is an invitation for
fungus and viruses to multiply. Viruses escape into the body
daily. Don't give them the advantage.
But unless all these things are tried, don't  raise the tempera-
ture. It is much healthier to be warmly dressed and breathe cool
air than to be lightly dressed in an 80°F room. The heart, espe-
cially, benefits by the cooler air temperature.
For this reason, it is important to have air conditioning dur ing
the hot season. Keep your elderly person warmly dressed, away
from air conditioner  or fan drafts, but keep it cool. As cool as
their body temperature and comfort will allow. Don't seat an
elderly person under a fan in restaurants. The blowing air notDo you find it warm in here? That’s OK, Mom, I don’t mind.
Fig. 39 Too hot and too cold.THE CURE FOR ALL DISEASES
324only chills them, but brings filth in dust that blows in the air
currents. Bacteria and viruses are soon to follow.
Being comfortable, knowing you are there to care for them,
brings out the


ise the reality of their infinite worth.
They have failed at love and ar e too tir ed to try again.
When you are faced with a losing enterprise, it’s only natural to give up
eventually. When we were younger all of us could pursue love with a
certain amount of hope and optim ism, backed by energy, and it takes energy
to carry out any passion. For some people the energy has run out. They say
they have no time for love. They feel they do not need it in their lives. What
they are actually experiencing is lack of energy, the loss of enthusiasm that
follows repeated failure.
But energy is a self-renewing commodity. Like water from a spring, its
flow isn’t diminished by how much you take away. People who cannot live
their love stories have not found a way to renew their energy, to tap into
their source of passion.
These various factors don’ t all apply to any one person. Some of them apply
in some  degree to all of us. But we can certainly perceive some commonunderlying causes at work—ignorance of the path to love, how to enter it,
how to walk it, even what it is.
Our materialistic worldview has reduced love to a haphazard flow of
hormones coupl ed to psychological fantasies. The spiritual truth is very
different. Once the walls fall down we discover that our real problem is that
there is too much  love around us, not too little. Love is eternal and
unbounded; it is only we who take tiny sips from its infinite ocean. Rumi
states this most natural and yet most secret of mysteries  with utter
simplicity:
I look in your inmost self and see the universe not yet created.
The mystery of love hasn’ t changed across the centuries, we have only
fallen short of it. Whenever a person’ s heart dries up, it may appear that
love has dried up. In fact, that person has built a boundary to shut out a
force that is always at flood tide. To exist within love’ s full, unbridled
power is terrify ing unless you have walked the path to love in complete
devotion to the very end.
OceanofPDF.comLOVING  PRACTICE
Purifying the Heart
YOU ARE NOT going to follow  a path that doesn’ t feel natural for very long,
nor will it bring the growth you need, however well intentioned you are.
There is a center in the body where love and spirit are joined, and that
center is the heart. It is your heart that aches or swells with love, that feels
compassion and trust, that seem s empty or full. Within the heart is a subtler
center that experiences spirit, but spirit is not felt as an emotion or physical
sensation. How, then, can you contact it? According to spiritual masters,
spirit is experienced first as the absence of what is not spirit.
In India this is described as Netti, netti,  which means, “Not this, not that.”
Spirit is not caused; it is not bound by time and space; it is not a sensation
that can be seen, touched, heard, tasted, or smelled. This may seem like a
baffling way to define somethin g, but imagine that you had never seen the
color white, that the whole world consisted of red, green, blue, and all the
other hues. Then one day a master came to you with a black shirt and said,
“If you wash this enough times, you will see that it is white.” If you ask to
see white before you wash the shirt, what you ask is impossible. Black is
the sum of all colors, and only if you wash them all away will white appear.
In the same way your present life is one of sensations, not just colors but
all the stimulus  that comes through the senses. Some of these sensations
may be very pleasurable, but none of them is adequate to tell you what
spirit is. Spirit lies beneath the layers of sensations. To experience it you
must go to the heart and medi tate upon it until everything that obscures
spirit is cleansed.
The purpose of the following exercise is to give you the experience of
making your heart pure enough to witness spirit. Pure here doesn’ t mean
good and virtuous; it means free from impurity, with no value judgmentintended. In the words of William Blake, we are cleansing the doors of
perception.
MEDIT ATING ON THE  HEART
Sit comfortably in a quiet room by yourself, choosing a time when you feel
settled and unhu rried. Early morning is best, since your mind will be alert
and fresh; try to avoid late evening, when your awareness is preparing for
sleep. Close your eyes and focus your attention on the middle of your chest,
where your heart is. (The fact that the physical heart is off to the left is
irrelevant here—the spiritual heart center lies directly behind your
breastbone.)
Be awar e of your heart as a space. Don’ t try to hear your heartbeat or any
other sound you think a heart makes as it pumps blood. The heart center
you want to find is a point of awareness where feelings enter. In its pure
form it is empty, pervaded by weightlessness, absence of care, peace, and a
subtle light. This light may appear as white, gold, pale pink, or blue. But
again, don’t strain to find a light of any kind. You are not trying to sense the
purity of the heart center right now; all you need to feel is whatever is there.
Letting your attention rest easily there, breathe gently and sense your
breath going into your heart center. Here you may want to visualize a soft
pastel light, or a coolness pervading the chest. Let the breath go in and out,
and as it does, ask your heart to speak to you. Don’ t phrase this as an order;
just have the faint intention that you want your heart to express itself.
For the next five or ten minutes, sit and listen. Your heart will begin to
release emotions, memories, wishes, fears, and dreams long stored there,
and as it does, you will find yourself paying attention.
You may almost immediately get a flash of strong emotion, positive or
negative, or a forgotten memory. Your breathing might change. You might
gasp or sigh. Let the experience be what it will be. If you daydream or drift
off into sleep, don’t worry. Just bring your attention back to your heart
center. Whether it speaks to you in sadness or fear, delight or pleasure, its
message is equally beneficial.
Paying attention to your heart is the object of this meditation.You will notice as you contin ue this exercise that three things are
naturally coming together: meditation, purification, and attention. You are
learning to be with your heart in order to heed its spiritual meaning—this is
meditation. You are letting repressed material come up to be released—this
is purif ication. You are listening to your heart without judgment or
manipulation—this is attention.
Because this process is like washing a shirt to reveal its whiten ess, don’t
be disturbed if strong negative emotions or even physical discomfort starts
to appear. Tell yourself that these sensations are leaving; just bid them to go
easily and comfortably. If voice s of fear, anger, or doubt start to speak, bid
them to leave as easily as they want to. (In the case of persisten t chest pain,
particularly if heart disease is present in your family, you should naturally
consult your physician.)
ADVANCED  MEDIT ATION
After some days or weeks of practicing this meditation, you will know
whether you want to make it a permanent part of your daily routine. I
believe that putting attention on the heart is valuable as an addition to any
spiritual program; to live from the center of spirit is a consta nt goal for
anyone on the path.
As you progress in the practice, you will begin to notice that sensations,
thoughts, memories, daydreams, and random physical manifes tations start
to decre ase. The heart center will slowly reveal itself as it really is: silence,
peace, a warm glow, or subtle light. Even if these glimpses are only
fleeting, you will find that things are starting to change for you outside
meditation. You will start to walk with a more buoyant step. At unexpected
moments you will feel a swellin g sensation in your chest; you may want to
take deep, satisfying breaths. Flashes of elation and well-being may sweep
over you at odd times.
All these are signs that the contraction most people hold around their
heart center is releasing its grip. The heart center is meant to feel open and
relaxed. Before you can receive any profound spiritual insights, this
openness must exist. Contract ion, fear, tightness all keep spirit from
entering you. In truth, spirit doesn’ t enter, since it is always there. Butmaking contact with it is like being penetrated with light and insight; this is
what we call the flow of love.
Love and spirit are forming a connection every time you meditate on the
heart, starting with the first time. Advanced meditation deepens this
experience and makes it more conscious. As you continue this practice, you
will find it easier and easier to go to your heart for counsel and wisdom, or
simply to feel that you are loved. You do not have to speak to your heart in
words;


 universe,
As is the human mind, so is the cosmic mind.
In other words, you cannot stand anywhere in the universe that is
outside yourself. As Schrödinger said, “You are a part of an innite,
eternal being.… Thus you can throw yourself at on the ground,
stretched out upon Mother Earth, with the certain conviction that
you are one with her and she with you. You are as rmly
established, as invulnerable as she,—indeed, a thous and times
rmer and more invulnerabl e.” This armation was not made out
of mystical reverence. Schrödinger took seriously the proposition
that the feeling of self, of “I am,” must be primary in the universe. It
is more invulnerable than the earth because the earth endures only
by being a lump of matter, which time continually wears away. I, on
the other hand, wake up with a refreshed sense of life every day,
grounded in the certainty that I exist.
How did this feeling of “I am” come about? Apparently it exists in
the very nature  of life. Curre ntly, most people are not able to accept
that there is actually life in everything “out there.” This blindness
sets our culture apart from the main tradition of humankind. The
same stream of life once owed through the whole world,emanating from the gods or God. That unimaginable force created
galaxies and at the same time preserved the most fragile mountain
ower. All around us life gushed forth and met itself coming back,
curving in joy onto itself and leaping in jubilation at its own innite
strength. We were part of this stream too. We issued from it, and
our destiny was riding its crest.
Now all that has become very vague and quizzical. We equate life
with DNA molecules, ignoring the fact that a person’s DNA is just as
intact the second after he dies as the second before. Sometimes after
a hard November frost I walk in the tall grass near my home and
nd a grassho pper lifelessly clinging to a withered stalk. I pick up
the cold shell, examine it, and think, “Something once lived in this.
Now it has gone, I don’t know where. I am holding on to a husk,
and very soon its molecules  will also disappear, returning back to
earth. What made them alive once and then took their life away?”
In my puzzlement, I cannot help but see myself as the best judge
of what life is. I have questio ns and an unlooked-for gift, a summer
in the grass, in which to ask them. So time exists, as far as I am
concerned, for me to race against time. I already forese e that my
molecules will return to the earth, too. But unlike the grasshopper, I
may be able to consciously defeat this threat, by knowi ng how to
get beyond it. In its broade st and deepest sense, that is what the
“meaning of life” is—the sum total of what each person has learned
about his own life, and the chance to keep it. Other ages may have
known the answers to this mystery, or people then may have simply
settled for a ready-made answer, dictated by faith.
The nal, “hard” proof that mind exists in nature is not anything I
am waiting for. The proof may never come, since it is our mind
conducting the search, and the mind is notorious for changing the
rules. Meaning  is where you see it, and how. You can look under a
microscope at the ashing dots on a color television screen and see
them as random scintillations  in a phosphorescent chemical base, or
you can back away and see that the same scintillations form a
picture. One perspective detects orderliness and meaning, the
product of mind; the other does not. The dierence between the two
resides solely in the perspective, not the thing itself.If you glance outside your window and recognize the trees, sky,
and clouds as part of yourself, your perception is not automatically
true or false. Perhaps you are having a schizophrenic hallucination;
perhaps you are experiencing the deepest insight of the ancient
Indian sages, Aham Brahmasmi —I am Brahman, the all in all. The
gamut of meaning contained  in such an experience runs from the
absurd to the sacred. The point is that the same mind-stu contains
all meanings. When we touch a new level of consciousness, a new
world is created.
To nd oneself living in an age of doubt is not such a curse. There
is a kind of reverence in undertaking the quest for truth, even before
the rst scrap has been found. “Desire for wisdom!” Albert
Schweitzer once wrote. “Explore everything around you, penetrate
to the furthes t limits of human knowledge, and always you will
come up with something inexplicable in the end. It is called life.”
The inexplicab le thing that escaped out of the grasshopper’s shell
is repea ted in my own life, and if I look at the data collected from
the edge of the universe, I still read the same mystery there. What
this means is that my search for truth is just life looking for itself.
Nature is a mirror; the seer is the seen. That may be the very clue
that brings the mystery to an end. I once heard about a spiritual
exercise that an Indian master asked his disciples to perform:
“Hold up your thumb and forenger together. Do you feel that the
thumb is touching the nger,  or is the nger touching the thumb? It
can be either way, can’t it? In one case the thumb is the experiencer,
in the other it is the experienced.
“Now ask yourself, ‘Who is it that switches from experiencer to
experienced?’ Being in contro l of the operation, you must be beyond
it. You are larger than the experiencer, larger than any set of
experiences. Whatever you are, you will only nd yours elf beyond
the things you now know.”
Perhaps not everyone will nd this lesson as earth shattering as I
do. It tells me that my indivi dual mind and body, which place such
obvious limitat ions upon me today, cannot be the whole story. What
is the mind but the experiencer, the knower? What is the body but
the experienced, the known?  If I can switch my attention from oneto the other, then there must be a “me” that is not trapped in the
dualism of mind or body. This “me” is not to be discovered by
simple means. I cannot look at it, because it is in my eye; I cannot
hear it, because it is in my ear; I cannot touch it, because it is in my
nger. So what is left? Only the voice inside that whispers, “Go
beyond.” By following that whisper I may lose myself in unknown
country. On the other hand, I may step outside the boundary of time
itself. Then I will discover, once and for all, whether time is my real
home, or eternity.
OceanofPDF.comPart Two
Beyond Boundaries
OceanofPDF.com5
A Mirage of Molecules
As a boy growing up in New Delhi, I wondered at the wild
contrast between my two grandfathers. One was a man of action, a
soldier who was born the son of a small-scale rajah in the dry hills
of the Northwest Territory. “Rajah,” or prince, is rathe r a grand
title, too high-own to capture those ercely independent tribal
chieftains, whose people were the most warlike in India. When
British soldiers were sent to force his allegiance to the Crown, my
great-grandfather rashly decided to re on them. His tiny forces
were quickly defeated.
Our family legends hold that the rebellious village had only a
single antiqua ted cannon to ght with. The old gun futilely
thundered away, and when the foreigners nally marched in, the
dead were sprawled beside it, my great-grandfather among them.
The sins of the father were not visited upon the son. The British
graciously presented my grandfather with the pension that would
have been oered to the rajah, along with a life commission as a
sergeant in the British army.
This was a signal honor at the time. Grandfather relished
regimental life, and it molded every detail of his character. He
greeted my birth by climbin g onto the roof of his villa in Lahore,
ring a smart volley of rie shots into the air, and blowing a
triumphant blast on his bugle. Having satisfactorily alerted (and
terried) the neighbors, he descended to calmly resume his
breakfast.My other grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a man of peace.
His life had been molded by foreign inuence, too, but in an
entirely dierent way. When the Singer sewing machine was
introduced to India at the turn of the century, he became the
company’s sales representative, traveling throughout the country to
tout this miraculous machi ne that could do the work of three