, fresh or frozen
Cinnamon
Citric acid
Coconut, fresh or dried (shredded) without any additives
Coconut milk
Coconut oil
Coffee, weak and freshly made, not instant
Collard greens
Colby cheese
Courgette
Coriander, fresh or dried
Cucumber
Dates, fresh or dried without any additives (not soaked in syrup)
Dill, fresh or dried
Duck, fresh or frozen
Edam cheese
Eggplant (aubergine)
Eggs, fresh
Filberts
Fish, fresh or frozen, canned in its juice or oil
Game, fresh or frozen
Garlic
Ghee, home-made
Gin, occasionally
Ginger root, fresh
Goose, fresh or frozen
Gorgonzola cheese
Gouda cheese
Grapefruit
Grapes
Havarti cheese
Hazelnuts
Herbal teas
Herbs, fresh or dried without additives
Honey, natural
fuices freshly pressed from permitted fruit and vegetables
Kale
Kiwi fruit Kumquats
Lamb, fresh or frozen
Lemons
Lentils
Lettuce, all kinds
Lima beans (dried and fresh)
Limburger cheese
Limes
Mangoes
Meats, fresh or frozen
Melons
Monterey (lack) cheese
Muenster cheese
Mushrooms
Mustard seeds, pure powder and gourmet types without any non-allowed
ingredients
Nectarines
Nut flour or ground nuts (usually ground blanched almonds)
Nutmeg
Nuts, all kinds freshly shelled, not roasted, salted or coated
Olive oil, virgin cold-pressed
Olives preserved without sugar or any other non-allowed ingredients
Onions
Oranges
Papayas
Parmesan cheese
Parsley
Peaches
Peanut butter, without additives
Peanuts, fresh or roasted in their shells
Pears
Peas, dried split and fresh green
Pecans
Peppers (green, yellow, red and orange)
Pheasant, fresh or frozen
Pickles, without sugar or any other non-allowed ingredients
Pigeon, fresh or frozen
Pineapples, fresh
Pork, fresh or frozen Port du Salut cheese
Poultry, fresh or frozen
Prunes, dried without any additives or in their own juice
Pumpkin
Quail, fresh or frozen
Raisins
Rhubarb
Roquefort cheese
Romano cheese
Satsumas
Scotch, occasionally
Shellfish, fresh or frozen
Spices, single and pure without any additives
Spinach
Squash (summer and winter)
Stilton cheese
String beans
Swiss cheese
Tangerines
Tea, weak freshly made, not instant
Tomato puree, pure without any additives apart from salt
Tomato juice, without any additives apart from salt
Tomatoes
Turkey, fresh or frozen
TUrnips
Ugly fruit
Uncreamed cottage cheese (dry curd)
Vinegar (cider or white); make sure there is no allergy
Vodka, very occasionally
Walnuts
Watercress
Wine dry: red or white
Yoghurt, home-made
Zucchini Foods to avoid
Acesulphame
Acidophilus milk
Agar-agar
Agave syrup
Algae
Aloe Vera
Amaranth
Apple juice
Arrowroot
Aspartame
Astragalus
Baked beans
Baker's yeast
Baking power and raising agents of all kind
Balsamic vinegar
Barley
Bean flour and sprouts
Bee pollen
Beer
Bhindior okra
Bicarbonate of soda
Bitter Gourd
Black eye beans
Bologna
Bouillon cubes or granules
Brandy
Buckwheat
Bulgur
Burdock root
Butter beans
Buttermilk
Canellini beans
Canned vegetables and fruit
Carob
Carrageenan
Cellulose gum
Cereals, including all breakfast cereals Cheeses, processed and cheese spreads
Chestnut flour
Chevre cheese
Chewing gum
Chickpeas
Chickoryroot
Chocolate
Cocoa powder
Coffee, instant and coffee substitutes
Cooking oils
Cordials
Corn
Cornstarch
Corn syrup
Cottage cheese
Cottonseed
Cous-cous
Cream
Cream of Tartar
Cream cheese
Dextrose
Drinks, soft
Faba beans
Feta cheese
Fish, preserved, smoked, salted, breaded and canned with sauces
Flour, made out of grains
FOS (fructooligosaccharides)
Fructose
Fruit, canned or preserved
Garbanzo beans
Gjetost cheese
Grains, all
Gruyere cheese
Ham
Hot dogs
Ice-cream, commercial
Jams
Jellies
Jerusalem artichoke Ketchup, commercially available
Lactose
Liqueurs
Margarines and butter replacements
Meats, processed, preserved, smoked and salted
Millet
Milk from any animal, soy, rice, canned coconut milk
Milk, dried
Molasses
Mozzarella cheese
Mungbeans
Neufchatel cheese
Nutra-sweet (aspartame)
Nuts, salted, roasted and coated
Oats
Okra
Parsnips
Pasta, of any kind
Pectin
Postum
Potato white
Potato sweet
Primost cheese
Quinoa
Rice
Ricotta cheese
Rye
Saccharin
Sago
Sausages, commercially available
Seaweed
Semolina
Sherry
Soda soft drinks
Sour cream commercial
Soy
Spelt
Starch
Sugar or sucrose of any kind Tapioca
Tea, instant
Triticale
Turkey loaf
Vegetables, canned or preserved
Wheat
Wheat germ
Whey, powder or liquid
Yams
Yoghurt, commercial 3. RECIPES
1. Condiments
Ketchup
Guacamole
Mayonnaise
Salsa
Aubergine dip
Basic liver pate
2. Salads
Beetroot salad
Tuna salad
Salad with cabbage and apple
Salad with tomatoes and cucumber
Russian salad
Carrot salad
3. Soups
How to make a meat stock:
Lamb, pork, beef or game stock
Chicken stock
Fish stock
The basic soup recipe
A spring nettle soup
Russian Borsch
Fish soup
Meatball soup
The beautiful winter squash soup
Meat jelly 4. Fats for cooking
Ghee
Goose or duck fat
Pork, lamb or beef fat
Coconut oil
5. Main dishes
An Italian meat casserole
Stuffed peppers
Meatballs
Meat cutlets
Fish cutlets
Swedish Gravlax - the best way to eat fresh salmon
Baked beans or French Cassoulet
Casserole with turkey legs
Liver pudding
Liver in a clay pot
Quick liver recipe
6. Vegetables
Sauerkraut
A nice way to cook cabbage
Quick vegetable risotto
Cauliflower "potatoes"
Baked vegetables
7. Baking at home
The basic bread/cake/muffin recipe
Pizza
8. Desserts
Baked apples
Creme-caramel
Apple crumble
Apple pie
Winter squash cake
Cake Pinocchio
Peanut butter pie
Russian custard Birthday cake
Ice-cream
Fresh coconut
Coconut sweets
9. Egg-free recipes
Egg-free bread/cake/muffin mixture
Egg-free banana muffins
Egg-free Easter Eggs
Egg-free crackers/biscuits
Egg-free fruit dessert
Egg-free apple pie
Egg-free cookies (biscuits)
10. Beverages
Nut/seed milk
Coconut milk
Ginger tea
Freshly pressed juices
Fruit smoothies
11. Yoghurt and crfeme fraiche
You can find many more recipes in Elaine GottschalTs book "Breaking the
Vicious Cycle" and on the following sites on the Internet:
www.scdiet.org
www.breakingtheviciouscycle.com
www.geocities.com
www.pecanbread.com
www.uclbs.org I. Condiments
Most fresh salads can be dressed with olive oil and fresh lemon juice. When
home-made yoghurt is well tolerated it can also be used as a salad dressing.
Ketchup
2 cups tomato juice
2-3 tablespoons white vinegar
honey to taste
bay leaf (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
Mix all the ingredients except the honey and simmer on the stove until
thick, stirring often to prevent sticking. When almost the desired thickness,
add honey to taste and complete cooking. Ladle into sterilised jars and seal
immediately or place in small containers and freeze.
(Recipe courtesy of Elaine Gottschall)
Guacamole
2 ripe avocados
juice ofi orange
l clove of crushed garlic
small amount of water
In the food processor blend together all the ingredients. Reduce the
amount of garlic, if the guacamole is too hot. Use as a dip for vegetables
and a spread for home-made bread.
Mayonnaise
i whole egg
i cup olive oil or slightly more
i tablespoon


 spends time in an
average hospital, the sense of dependence, loss of autonomy and privacy will make the prospects
look even bleaker. The patient becomes a passive sufferer, with no say in what is being done to
him or her. In the telling phrase of the brilliant thinker and author, the late Ivan Illich, “Modern
medicine turns the patient into a limp and mystified voyeur in the grip of bio-engineers.”3
 These observations apply to cancer patients diagnosed and treated in a conventional medical
framework. But as almost all patients come to the Gerson Therapy after that system had failed
them, it is important to recognize their depressed or scared state and do something about it at once.
Copyright © Charlotte Gerson, 2007.  All rights reserved.
This material may not be reproduced in any medium, print or electronic without prior written permission from the author.Page 167Healing the Gerson Way—Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases
www.thegersonway.comOrdinary human empathy and caring demand that we try to dispel their fear and hopelessness.
Just as importantly, in the light of PNI’s findings there are sound medical reasons for urgently
relieving the patients from their huge emotional burden and steer their negative orientation
towards a positive outlook. “No attempt should be made to cure the body without the soul,” wrote
the Greek philosopher Plato nearly 2,400 years ago—a powerful endorsement of the body-mind
link in healing from an unimaginably remote past.
 If something deep down in the patient’s inner world does not want to live, even the tried
and tested Gerson program cannot do its best. That something may have nothing to do with the
cancer diagnosis. It could be an almost forgotten early emotional wound, a severe loss, a deep
resentment, or some unfinished business with a loved or hated person. Or else we may be dealing
with someone who conforms to the so-called ‘cancer-prone personality,’ as defined by Lawrence
LeShan4, pioneer researcher of the body-mind link in malignant disease. LeShan, also known as
‘the father of psycho-oncology,’ has observed over several decades that certain personality traits
seemed to pre-dispose some people to cancer. These traits include low self-esteem, difficulty
in expressing anger or aggression, an urge to please others and ignore their own feelings and
needs, and inhibited emotions. The true self of such people has been banished behind a false self,
probably developed quite early in life to ensure parental approval, and maintained in adulthood,
too, when it was no longer necessary.
 Of course this personality profile does not apply to all cancer patients, although in my work
with sufferers I have often come across similar character traits. Together or separately they suggest
a dispiritingly negative outlook on life, which a cancer diagnosis can turn into black despair, and
PNI tells us what that means in terms of reduced immune competence.
 It has been observed that cancer often appears 18 months or two years after some adverse life
event, such as divorce, bereavement, financial crisis, loss of a job or of an important relationship,
and so on. Experience with clients has shown me that those events only represented for them
the last straw; that they had long existed in an impossible existential situation that apparently
could neither be borne nor changed. LeShan and Carl Simonton, M.D.5 call this setup a life trap,
which they describe in detail. My case material bears out its power, and the fact that those who
feel unable to break free eventually reach a stage when they don’t care whether they live or die.
As many of them put it, “Something snapped inside me.” I suspect it was the last strand of their
frayed will to live.
The Role of Stress
 I am often asked whether stress can cause cancer. I don’t think it can, certainly not by itself.
But it can be the ultimate extra burden that pushes an already weakened, barely functioning
immune system over the edge, so that it can no longer dispose of the irregular maverick cells that
every healthy organism produces in vast numbers every day. Yet without the eternal vigilance of
Copyright © Charlotte Gerson, 2007.  All rights reserved.
This material may not be reproduced in any medium, print or electronic without prior written permission from the author.Page 168Healing the Gerson Way—Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases
www.thegersonway.coma well functioning immune system there is nothing to stop a few of those irregular cells to initiate
a malignant process.
 What we are dealing with here is the mysterious interaction of biochemistry and emotions,
which we have only begun to explore and understand. But there is already enough orthodox
clinical—as opposed to anecdotal—evidence to prove that inner attitudes can make a big
difference to survival. For example, British researcher Stephen Greer 6 interviewed a group of
women three months after they had undergone mastectomies, to find out how they were coping.
He found four distinct types among them who showed respectively fighting spirit, denial, stoic
acceptance and hopelessness. After 5 and 10 years, 80% of the fighters, but only 20% of the
hopeless had survived. These rates had nothing to do with medical prognoses.
 In the U.S., David Spiegel, M.D.,7 invited 36 women with metastasized breast cancer to
attend weekly meetings for a year, where they could share worries and sorrows, encourage each
other, and make their mental attitude positive. A control group of 50 women attended no such
meetings. Spiegel only wanted to discover whether the group meetings enhanced the members’
quality of life, which it certainly did. But he was amazed to find that they also lived twice as long
as the members of the control group.
 Another interesting insight comes from US oncologist Bernie Siegel, M.D.8, author of several
best-selling books that have helped to extend public understanding of the body-mind link in
health and sickness. He claims that 15-20% of cancer patients consciously or unconsciously want
to die, no doubt to escape a difficult life trap. 60-70% wish to get well, but are passive and expect
the doctor to do all the work. 15-20%, however, are exceptional: they refuse to be victims, they
research their disease, don’t obey the doctor automatically but ask questions, demand control and
make informed choices. In Dr. Siegel’s words, “Difficult or uncooperative patients are most likely
to get well.” Apparently they have a more warlike immune system than docile patients.
First Aid for the Mind

 There are simple ways to dispel the newly diagnosed patient’s sense of hopelessness and
isolation. The first step is to de-mystify the disease, discuss it openly, in a natural voice, without
avoiding the dreaded word ‘cancer.’ One of the very first advantages which the intending Gerson
patient experiences is the calm assurance with which his or her problem is approached, with the
clear message that yes, it is possible to be healed, not just put into remission (which is the best
orthodox medicine has to offer.)
 What the patient needs is a safe space in which to release stormy emotions, and to be listened
to with total unhurried non-judgmental attention, something that time-starved doctors and nurses
cannot give. It is a mistake to try to comfort and console too soon or offer cheerful assurances.
To do that would simply stop the patient from expressing his or her true feelings. They must be
Copyright © Charlotte Gerson, 2007.  All rights reserved.
This material may not be reproduced in any medium, print or electronic without prior written permission from the author.Page 169Healing the Gerson Way—Defeating Cancer and Other Chronic Diseases
www.thegersonway.comgiven free flow. But once that has happened, I ask a vital question: “Do you want to live?” If the
answer is yes, I ask: “Do you want to live unconditionally?” Another firm “yes” settles the matter,
while a hesitant “Yes, but…” reply hints at an undecided individual, possibly stuck in a life trap.
If I ask what the rest of the sentence might be, I often get something like “if things go on as
before, I’m not sure I want to live.” That “but” needs careful exploration to make sure that it will
not undermine the healing work. The 18-24 months of the patient’s life prior to the diagnosis can
yield valuable clues. Did some major stress or trauma drive the patient to drink, drugs, or other
destructive habits, which caused significant liver damage? Gentle questioning often allows us to
identify some life trap. The next task is to show that there is a way out, other than dying.
 It helps to build a therapeutic partnership with the patient, in which he or she has an important
role to play. This is easy with the Gerson Therapy, which cannot succeed without the patient’s
active cooperation. If a patient tells us that 85% of people with his or her condition die within
three years, we suggest joining the 15% who don’t. (I recall with admiration the fragile little
woman riddled with cancer who, when told that she had six months to live, brightly replied, “Oh
good, I have six months to get well!” And get well she did, on the Gerson program.)
 I like the way LeShan4 approaches the task of shifting the mood from negative to positive.
His basic questions are, “What’s right with you? What are your special ways of being,


ism has largely been eliminated in the Western world. Although we don’t see cretinism,
iodine deficiency is still occurring throughout the U.S. It is my premise that iodine deficiency is occurring at epidemic rates in the
U.S. and other Western countries.
As previously mentioned I, along with my partners, have tested over 6,000 patients and found iodine deficiency present in
over 96% of those tested. You read those numbers correctly–over 96% tested low, with most testing moderately to severely low.
This testing was done via urine, blood, and saliva screening. Over the years, urine testing has been the predominant modality
used. The urine testing was done with spot tests as well 24-hour iodine loading tests. The results that I have seen leave no doubt:
Iodine deficiency is still occurring at epidemic rates.
In fact, recent reports from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2005-2008) found that nearly 60% of
women of childbearing age are deficient in iodine.
1
 Iodine levels have declined over 50% over the last 40 years.
2
 Although many
health care experts claim that iodine deficiency is a problem of the past, I can assure you of one thing; these health experts are
wrong. Unfortunately, iodine deficiency is not an old story—it is still present in America and many other Western countries today.
What are the Consequences of Iodine Deficiency in Pregnancy?
1. Lowered Childhood IQ
As I previously mentioned, one of the main consequences of iodine deficiency in pregnant women is a lowered IQ in their
children. I have been lecturing to doctors for over a decade about how important it is to ensure that women of child-bearing age
are iodine sufficient before they become pregnant.
Both the brain and neurological system are formed during the first trimester. The fetus is dependent on the mother supplying
enough iodine to stimulate normal neurological formation. Inadequate maternal iodine can leave the child with permanent
neurological damage and a lowered IQ. It is unclear if iodine supplementation after birth will reverse the neurological problems
obtained from the lack of iodine during pregnancy.
In the latest NHANES (2009-2010) data, the median urine iodine levels for U.S. pregnant women are low at 134μg/L.
3
According to the World Health Organization, this median level would supply insufficient iodine to the fetus.
4
 Keep in mind, mild
maternal iodine deficiency can cause thyroid dysfunction and neurological deterioration. A meta-analysis of 18 studies of children
and adolescents found iodine deficiency was associated with a 13.5 point lower IQ score in children and adolescents.
5
The importance of early iodine supplementation in pregnancy was illustrated when researchers studied three groups of
pregnant women.
6
 All three groups were supplemented with potassium iodide (KI) at 200μg/day. Keep in mind, the RDA for
iodine in pregnancy is 220μg/day. In this study the women were divided into three groups:
Group 1: Supplemented with KI 200μg/day at 4-6 weeks of gestation
Group 2: Supplemented with KI 200μg/day at 12-14 weeks of gestation
Group 3: Supplemented with KI 200μg/day after delivery
All of the children born to these mothers were given a neurocognitive evaluation at 18 months of age and reported these
results as the developmental quotient (DQ). The DQ, similar to the IQ measurement, is used to compare a child’s functioning as
compared to a normative group. For both the IQ and the DQ, the average score is 100. The researchers found a significant
difference in the DQ between the three groups. As seen in
Figure 17
 (next page), the children in group 1, who were
supplemented with iodine in the first trimester had the highest average DQ score of 102. Group 2, supplemented with iodine at
the beginning of the second trimester had a DQ of 92 while Group 3 had a DQ of 87.
 Figure 17: Iodine Supplementation and IQ

The authors of this study reported that there was delayed neurobehavioral performance observed in 36% of the children in
group 3, 25% of the children in group 2 and none of the children in group 1. They summarized this study by stating, “A delay in
6-10 weeks of iodine supplementation…at the beginning of pregnancy increases the risk of neurodevelopmental delay in the
progeny.”
2. Decrease in Educational Ability
Scientists hypothesized that, as compared to children born to mothers with adequate iodine levels, children born to mothers
with mild iodine deficiency would have poorer educational outcomes. Nine years later, the children of the mothers who had mild
iodine deficiency–urinary iodine <150μg/L–were compared to the children from mothers without iodine deficiency. As compared
to the children born to mothers with adequate iodine levels, nine years later in grade 3, the children of the iodine-
deficient mothers
had a 10% reduction in writing, 8% reduction in grammar and a 6% reduction in English literacy.
7
IT IS IMPORTANT TO ENSURE ADEQUATE IODINE LEVELS BEFORE PREGNANCY
It is important to ensure adequate iodine levels in young women before they become pregnant. In order for the fetus to
develop normally, adequate amounts of iodine are required by the mother. In-utero iodine deficiency has been associated with a
host of ailments in children including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, cretinism, dwarfism, and mental
retardation. Iodine deficiency has also been associated with poor height and bone maturation of children.
8

9
 Furthermore, there is
a decreased neonatal survival rate in iodine-deficient areas. In fact, neonatal mortality has been shown to decline over 50% when
iodine deficiency is rectified.
10
 Unfortunately, in the twenty-first century, iodine levels are continuing to fall for the vast majority of
Americans.
Chapter 13
 will provide more information about iodine dosing during pregnancy.
IODINE, GROWTH HORMONE, AND THYROID HORMONE
Growth hormone deficiency is a condition in children and adults whereby the pituitary gland fails to produce adequate
amounts of human growth hormone. Growth hormone deficiency
in children is not uncommon. Estimates are that from 1 in 4,000
to 1 in 10,000 children suffer from human growth hormone deficiency.
11
 The incidence of human growth hormone deficiency in
children appears to be increasing.
Why would the incidence of human growth hormone deficiency be so prevalent? Low iodine levels may provide the
explanation for this. Researchers have hypothesized that, “…improved growth in iodine-deficient children receiving iodine is likely
due to improved thyroid function {as} both thyroid hormone and {human} growth hormone are essential for normal growth and
development.”
12
 These same researchers reported on a study of severely iodine-deficient children who were given iodine. The
authors reported that there was a significant increase in thyroid function, human growth hormone, and somatic growth in the
treated group versus the untreated group.
Researchers studied three groups of children to determine whether iodine repletion improves growth hormone levels and
somatic growth in iodine-deficient children. The studies were double blinded, prospective studies from three areas of the world–
Morocco, Albania, and South Africa. In all three studies, iodine supplementation increased urinary iodine levels and resulted in
elevated growth hormone levels (increased IGF-1 levels.) In two of the three sites, iodine repletion resulted in increased thyroid
hormone levels as well as weight-for-age scores
and height-for-age scores.
13
Both thyroid hormone and human growth hormone are essential for normal growth and development.
14

15
 In children (or an
individual not fully grown), human growth hormone stimulates growth in length. In adults, human growth hormone does not
stimulate growth in length but has a whole host of beneficial effects in the body including stimulating muscle growth, fat
metabolism, and energy production. For more information on human growth hormone in adults, I refer the reader to my book,
The Miracle of Natural Hormones, 3
rd
 Edition.
IODINE LEVELS FALLING IN WOMEN OF CHILDBEARING AGEResearchers have reported on the falling iodine levels in women of childbearing age and pregnant women for over 40 years.
Recall (
Chapter 2
) that the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) has found that over the last 40 years
(from 1970-2010), iodine levels have fallen in the United States over 50 percent. In fact, the most recent NHANES data found
that nearly 60% of U.S. women of childbearing age were iodine deficient.
16
 I believe this decline in iodine intake has significantly
contributed to (or perhaps caused) the epidemic of behavioral (ADHD) and emotional (depression) problems affecting
our
children. Furthermore, it is fueling the epidemic of thyroid problems seen in our young people.

Figure 18: Iodine Levels Over Time

The World Health Organization has declared that a urinary iodine concentration (spot urine check) of less than 50μg/L is a
sign of moderate to severe iodine deficiency. Urinary iodine concentrations less than 20μg/L are considered severe iod


	an	old	birthday,	you	can	call	it
“my”	thought,	but	you	feel	no	personal	connection	to	synapses	and	dendrites
or	the	firestorm	of	signals	passing	over	them.	Brain	cells	work	by	totally
predictable	means	involving	exchanges	of	electrical	charges	between	sodium
and	potassium	atoms
and
	simple	oscillations	between	positive	and	negative
electrical	impulses.	Somehow	that	mechanical	stability	produces	free,
creative,	unpredictable	thought	forms.
The	rishis	asserted	the	same	about	Karma.	It	is	infinitely	flexible	and
infinitely	inflexible	depending	on	how	you	look	at	it.	Unknown	forces	are	freeto	reshape	you	without	your	knowledge.	They	do	it	all	the	time,	since	none	of
us	has	the	slightest	awareness	of	how	our	brains	move	from	thought	A	to
thought	B.	Neurology	is	witness	to	the	event,	but	that’s	far	from	knowing	the
how	or	why.	Two	people	can	say	the	word	“apple,”	and	their	brains	will
exhibit	the	same	pattern	of	activity.	This	pattern,	however	perfectly	mapped,
has	no	predictive	value	in	telling	us	the	next	word	each	person	will	speak—
event	B	could	be	any	word,	sound,	or	gesture,	perhaps	just	silence.
This	opens	the	question	of	how	much	choice	we	exercise	over	our	next
lifetime.	It’s	not	useful	simply	to	say	that	Karma	is	flexible	and	inflexible	at
the	same	time.	In	fact,	the	coexistence	of	opposites	is	a	paradox,	and	unless
we	solve	it	we	have	no	control	over	the	afterlife;	we	are	just	caught	in	the
meshes	of	a	machine	that	can	produce	any	outcome	according	to	its	own
whims.
From	This	Lifetime	to	the	Next
We	aren’t	in	control	of	the	afterlife	for	the	same	reason	that	we	aren’t	in
control	of	this	life.	We	don’t	yet	have	enough	consciousness.	The	gaps	of
ignorance	of	our	full	potential	are	too	large,	and	whatever	the	gap	claims	turns
into	the	unconscious.	In	Tibetan	Buddhism	one	lifetime	is	firmly	connected	to
another.	When	a	lama	dies,	it’s	expected	that	his	reincarnation	will	be	found.
Signs	are	left	behind	that	link	the	two	incarnations.	On	his	return,	the	baby
will	recognize	his	old	toys,	for	example,	and	the	adults	around	him	can
determine	beyond	doubt	that	the	chain	of	identity	hasn’t	been	broken.
This	is	the	same	as	saying	that	Tibetans	don’t	fall	into	the	gap	when	they
die.	Continuity	is	preserved.	The	famous	Tibetan	Book	of	the	Dead	elaborates
every	detail	of	conscious	dying,	in	the	belief	that	a	dying	person	should
remain	as	connected	as	possible	to	the	uninterrupted	flow	of	awareness.	To	a
Western	reader	the	book	is	baffling;	it	describes	so	many	gradations	of
awareness,	so	many	possible	destinations	in	the	Bardo	that	it	would	take	a
lifetime	of	Buddhist	practice	to	absorb	all	the	possibilities.	This	is	precisely
the	point,	for	Tibetans	don’t	want	to	wander	outside	their	belief	system;	it
upholds	who	they	are	and	where	they	are	going	on	the	path	to	liberation.
That’s	one	example	of	tightly	patterned	choice,	compared	to	which	a
Westerner	is	a	reckless	gambler.	We	do	not	typically	try	to	hold	on	to
unbroken	consciousness,	and	although	we	may	harbor	a	wish	to	come	back	to
a	lifetime	closely	resembling	the	one	we	left,	it’s	just	as	likely	that	we	may
yearn	for	something	completely	new.	In	any	event,	we	don’t	usually	assume
that	our	wishes	matter.	The	business	of	heaven	and	hell	will	take	care	of	itself,
which	means,	ironically,	that	Westerners	are	more	resigned	about	Karma	than
most	people	in	the	East,	who	always	keep	in	the	back	of	their	minds	some
notion	that	Karma	follows	a	person	from	lifetime	to	lifetime.	For	them,	everyaction	in	this	life	reverberates	into	the	next,	and	apparently	random	events	in
the	present	have	their	roots	in	decisions	made	in	the	past.
What	this	implies	is	that	there	are	many	ways	to	relate	to	Karma.	You	can
choose	to	be	as	aware	as	you	like,	or	as	unaware.	Karma	glues	events
together,	but	that	isn’t	the	same	as	being	fatalistic.	In	the	East	this	point	is
often	missed,	and	people	commonly	assume	that	bad	actions	are	like	crimes
with	set	punishments	while	good	actions	earn	fixed	rewards.	Logical	as	that
sounds,	it	denies	freedom	of	choice.
“I	used	to	think	that	karma	turned	me	into	a	kind	of	puppet,”	a	friend	of
mine	once	remarked.	“Having	made	millions	of	choices	in
the
	past,	each	one
with	its	own	consequence,	how	could	I	be	free	of	them?	Each	bad	choice	jerks
me	one	way,	each	good	choice	another.	Fate	holds	the	strings.”
“How	did	you	break	free	from	that	way	of	thinking?”	I	asked.
“I	couldn’t,”	he	said.	“But	then	one	day	it	hit	me.	What	does	it	matter	if
I’m	a	puppet?	I	can’t	feel	the	strings.	I	can’t	see	anybody	manipulating	them.
For	all	I	know,	every	decision	I	make	is	mine	and	mine	alone.	I	may	still	be
fate’s	puppet,	but	what	does	it	matter	if	I	can’t	tell	the	difference?”
It’s	hard	to	argue	with	such	pragmatism.	Only	afterward	did	I	think	about
its	flaws.	If	Karma	is	akin	to	the	invisible	working	of	the	brain,	we	can’t
ignore	it	just	because	it’s	unseen.	Our	brains	produce	all	kinds	of	disturbing
and	distorted	thoughts.	They	can	become	imbalanced	and	throw	us	into
depression	or	outright	madness.	They	are	subject	to	false	perceptions	and
hallucinations,	not	to	mention	crippling	disease,	which	may	be	treatable.
More	basically,	what	we	say	and	do	changes	the	brain.	The	hard	wiring	of
neurons	is	altered	by	experience,	so	that	the	brain	of	someone	who	has
suffered	a	terrible	calamity,	for	example,	becomes	different	from	someone
who	hasn’t.	Positive	and	negative	experiences	condition	the	mind	to	see	the
world	in	a	particular	way,	and	the	brain	then	adapts.
Let’s	apply	this	to	reincarnation.	At	death	the	visible	and	invisible	aspects
of	karma	mesh.	The	standard	version	recounted	in	India	goes	like	this:	When
you	die	you	leave	your	body	but	remain	aware	of	who	you	are.	You	may
continue	to	see	the	room	you	died	in;	you	retain	the	sensations	of	possessing	a
physical	body	for	a	time	(traditionally,	bodies	remain	untouched	immediately
after	death	in	the	belief	that	the	deceased	would	continue	to	feel	anything
done	to	them).
Next,	like	a	drowning	man	seeing	his	life	pass	before	his	eyes,	one’s
karma	unravels	like	thread	coming	off	a	spool,	and	the	events	of	this	lifetime
march	in	review	across	the	screen	of	the	mind.	You
re-experience
	all	your
significant	moments	since	birth,	only	this	time	with


 use the situation for
growth, you relax and allow the energy to push the blockage up. You don’t
have to do anyth ing except not interfere with the process. Shakti will do her
job of pushing up—you have to do your job of letting go.
To reme mber to do this in the moment, establish the practice of
recalling your intention every morning: “The purpose of my day is letting
go of my blockages and evolving spiritually.” Then every evening,
remember: “The  purpose of my day was to let go of my blockages andevolve spiritually.” Never complain about what happened—just inwardly
release the events of the day so they don’t leave samskaras. Don’ t let
anything remain stuck in there. Once you get good at this, you will learn to
do it throughout the day. Do your best with each interaction, then let it go.
Always rememb er what’ s going on: you’re in there, and something is
happening that’s causing the energy to shift inside. Your tendenc y is to push
it away if you don’t like it or grab onto it if you do. It’s as if you have hands
in there,  and you use them to try to control the inner experience. Surrender
means—don’ t do that. That’ s all it means. It means you’re ready, willing,
and able to sit in the seat of consciousness when the energy shifts and just
let it go.
Your interaction with the energy is similar to when you decide to stop
smoking or break any other habit. You’re going to feel the tendency to
resume the habit. It feels like a magnetic pull on you to go in that direction.
The same thing happens when a blockage gets hit. It has attractive power
that draws you into it. You need to see that. You need to notice that it keeps
pulling on you, and sometimes  it won’ t leave you alone. That’ s not bad,
that’s good. Just relax more. It’s all about relaxing. If you’re using your will
to relax,  you can’t use your inner hands to push energy away or grab onto it.
Someday, you’re going to remember this discussion. Something is
going to wake up inside, and you’ll know just what we’ve been talking
about. You’ll observe the energy pulling on you, and you will try to let go.
For the first time you’ll realize what is actually happening—you are
struggling with yourself. You are both sides of the struggle. Part of you
wants to let go but part still wants to give in to the pull of the energy. Once
you sincerely want to let go of the old habitual energy flows, you will
realize that you have all the power you need inside. You’re the only one
living in there. You just need to deeply relax and stop fighting with yourself.
At that point something amazing  is going to happen: All the energy that was
pulling you down and out changes direction. It begins to lift you in and up.
This is the transmutation of the energy, and it is real. As liberat ion becomes
the meaning of your life, this inner process will step up signifi cantly. Once
you learn that your center of intent is stronger than any of the habitual
energy flows caused by your samskaras, you will sit quietly within, in the
seat of consciousness, and allow the process of purification to take place.
Every day, every moment, you have the opportunity to explore the greatness
of your being.Letting go like this is not a struggle or an act of control. It is much
subtler than that. Perhaps this analogy will help. Imagine you’re in a game
of tug-o f-war. You are alone on one end of the rope, and an entire NFL
football team is on the other end. You’re in big trouble. The force pulling
you in the team’ s direction is very strong. You’ve studied all the latest
techniques for how to dig in your heels, how to best use your bodyweight,
and anything else the experts could teach about standing your ground in a
tug-of-war. You’re doing all the techniques, but they’re not working.
Suddenly, Yoda, the great sage from Star Wars shows up to help (he
thinks everyone’ s name is Luke).
Yoda: Luke, you know not how to do this. Let go. Let go, Luke.
Luke: What do you mean, let go? If I let go, they will pull me
through the mud, headfirst.
Yoda: Let go, you must.
Luke: I don’ t get it. How do I just let go when this great force is
pulling on me?
Yoda: Relax hands, Luke. Relax your hands.
Luke: No, not hands—feet, legs, and body position. That’ s how to
end this tug-of-war.
Yoda: Over it will be, Luke, if you relax your hands.
Turns out, it’s true. If you relax your hands during a tug-of-w ar, the
struggle will immediately be over. No more rope. No more pull. No matter
how strong the pull is, if you relax your hands, you can go home and have
lunch. That’ s all you really wanted to begin with. Who said you had to take
the whole football team home with you? Just relax and let go, and the whole
struggle will be over. That’ s exactly what it’s like to surrender. You’re in
there, and the energy is pulling  you into it. Please don’t fight it. Just relax
your inner hands and let go. If this sounds very Zen, good, because it is. Y ou
don’t need to be strong; you need to be wise. The blocked energy can’t take
you anywhere if you simply relax and let go.
Over time, you will find there is a place inside you that is behind the
commotion of the storm. You can simply relax and fall back into that place.This is the place  from which you are noticing the inner commotion, and this
place is still, quiet, and there are never any storms. That is the seat of Self.
You don’ t find your way back to Self—you simply cease to leave.  If you work
on this, you will come to a beautiful state within that is alwa ys there for
you. It is a place of refuge, and all you ever need to do is keep letting go.
That is the life of surrender.Chapter 38.
Exploring the Higher States
Once you are no longer drowning inside, a whole other life becomes
possible for you. We can now begin to discuss who you are, and what it can
be like in there. As the blockage s release, the energy is freed from having to
go aroun d them.  You start to feel happier. You start to feel higher. You start
to feel like you used to feel when you had a really good day or a particularly
great experience. But this time, nothing special is happening. You’re just
feeling an uplift ing energy going on inside of you that keeps getting higher
and higher. You start feeling love simply because the sky is blue. It used to
take a special moment in a relationship to blow you away like that.
Everything that is happening comes in, and you feel it all at a richer, deeper
level. This is because you are more open, more receptive. You don’t have
the need s and problems that you were trying to solve. Because you don’t
have all that commotion inside, and you’re feeling more whole and
complete, there’ s nothing you need from the outside. You start to look at
needs in a completely dif ferent light.
You used to make satisfying needs your priority. Most of our modern
needs are psychological, not physiological. Psychological needs are actually
unnatural, as they indicate that something is missing or wrong. If you are
feeling whole and complete inside yourself, there are no psychological
needs. Psychological needs come from your blockages. When the energy is
freed, what you feel is love, joy, and enthusiasm, which are just different
words for uplifting energy. In the purest sense, this upward-flowing energy
is quite different from emotions.  An emotion emanates out of your heart and
pulls you into its vibration. Enthusiasm is something that wells up inside. It
is a system-wide, spontaneous, uplifting flow of energy. It is, in fact, freed
shakti.When your energies are liberated, you don’t need energy from anybody
else. You have so much energy inside you it’s incomprehensible. Surely you
have experienced from time to time that if something you really like
happens, there can be a sudden  burst of inner energy. How long does that
take? A billionth of a second. Imagine you’re feeling depres sed and not
doing well. Suddenly, something  happens. Perhaps you receive a phone call
that gets you talking and smiling—it makes your energy flow. The energy
was always there, but you opened up because the phone call matched
something you liked. A blockag e temporarily got out of the way, and all this
energy flowed up. Truth is, if that blockage had not been in the way, you
would not have needed the phone call to open you. This is why you do the
inner work of releasing blockages.
As the blockages release, the energy takes you to higher and higher
states. You alrea dy know what the


 that the Fall didn’t occur to Adam and Eve; rather, it
happened to children as they  lost their innocence. The Fa ll was a
repeated experience generation after generation.
What Blake saw in innocenc e was a fresh, simple, lyrical, and
joyous p erspective on the world. The tone is set in one of the most
famous songs of innocence, “The Lamb,” where you can read
infant  for lamb :
Little Lamb who made thee
Dost thou know who made thee
Gave thee life & bid thee feed,
By the stream & o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice.
In c ontrast to this vision of  a childhood Eden, the son gs of
experience are  bitter and dar k, reflecting the hardship Blake knew
firsthand and saw all around him in eighteenth-century London.
One fam ous poem, “A Poison Tree,” reimagines the tale of original
sin as the dark side of hum an nature, in verse that cou ld be a
nursery rhyme:
I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I watered it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole,
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
Even without the benefit of Blake’s vision, we have all
experienced th e transformati on from innocence to experience. All
it took was time. Nothing else was necessary as we learned the
standard interpretation of the world everyone around us accepted.
A baby is never bored. He lo oks on the world with wond er. The
hours don’t hang heavy; deadlines don’t make a baby rush through
his day s. He has no hunger for distraction so that he can  escape
from himself.
Being a visionary, Blake saw the possibility of liberation from
the fallen state, which he c alled “organized innocence.” It’s a
brilliant phrase, because it im plies that a person’s experience can
be as original, authentic, and untainted as a baby’s while retaining
the org anized mind, a mind we must have to perform higher
functions as adults (which includes taking care of babies).
Returning to innocence means embracing values like love and
creativity, which become more valued as we reach maturity. Yet
the years of m aturity make it more and more difficult to  journeyback to innocence. For all the countless people who yearn for what
it felt like to first fall in love, few find a way back.
The culprit isn’t experience, because experience can still be
joyful and authentic at any tim e of life. The culprit is hidden in the
texture of our lives—it is time. I said above that be coming
embedded in the interpreted world (i.e., the spell/dream/illusion)
only needed time, nothing el se. By the same token, esca ping the
grip of time is the only way out. Far from being a mystica l notion,
you can be timeless right this minute—in fact, that’s the only way.
For most people, the two words timeless  and eternal  seem
roughly the same. For religious believers in the Christian and
Muslim traditions, Heaven is  eternal, a place where time goes on
forever. For the nonreligious, time ends with physical death. In
both cases, however, ordinary clock time has ceased. But there are
problems with all these concepts, and if we go deeply into the
subject, time is very different from what we casually accept.
Physics has had a lot to say about time, thanks to Eins tein’s
revolutionary concept that time isn’t constant but varies according
to the situation at hand. Traveling near the speed of light or
drawing near the massive gravitational pull of a black hole will
have a drastic impact on how  time passes. But let’s set r elativity
aside fo r a moment to consider how time works in human terms,
here and now. Each of us normally experiences three states of
time: ti me ticking on the clock when we are awake, time a s part of
the illus ion of having a dream, and the absence of time wh en we’re
asleep b ut not dreaming. Thi s tells us that time is tied to our state
of consciousness.
We take it for granted that one kind of time—the one measured
by clock s—is real time, but th at’s not true. All three relationships
with time—wak ing, dreaming, and sleeping—are knowable only as
personal experiences. Time doesn’t exist outside human
awareness. Th ere is no absolute clock time “out there” in the
universe. Many  cosmologists would argue that time, as we know it
in our waking  state, entered the universe only at the big bang.
What ca me bef ore the big ban g is probably inconceivable,  because
“before the big bang” has no meaning if time were born at the
instant the cosmos was born. If you go to the finest level of Nature,
to the vacuum  state from wh ich the quantum field emerged, thequalities of everyday existence, such as sight, sound, taste, touch,
and sm ell, no longer exist, and there is also a vanishing point
where three-dimensionality vanishes, along with time itself.
What lies beyond the quant um horizon is purely a matt er of
conjecture. The precreated state of the universe can be modeled
almost any way you choose, as being multidimensional, infinitely
dimensional, or nondimensional. So it must be accepted that time
came out of the timeless and not just at the big bang. Everything
in the physical  universe winks in and out of existence at a rapid
rate of excitation here and now. The timeless is with us at every
second of our lives.
Yet something looks fishy in that sentence, because the timeless
can’t be measured using a cl ock, so it makes no sense to say that
the timeless is with us “at ev ery second.” Instead, the timeless is
with us, period. This world is timeless. There is no need to wait for
death or Heaven to prove that eternity is real.
Once you acknowledge that t he timeless is with us, a question
naturally arise s: How is the timeless related to clock tim e? The
answer is that the two aren’t related. The timeless is absolute, and
since it can’t be measured by  clocks, it has no relative ex istence.
How strange. The timeless is with us, yet we can’t relate to it. So of
what good is the timeless?
To answ er this  question, we have to back up a bit. Clock  time
has no privileg ed position in reality. There is no reason  why it
should be elevated above dream time or the absence of  time in
dreamless sleep. Clock time is just a quality of daily life, like other
qualities we know as colors, tastes, smells, and so on. Without
human beings to experience these qualities, they don’t exist.
Photons, the particles of lig ht, have no brightness without our
perception of brightness; p hotons are invisible and colorless.
Likewise, time is an artifact of human experience. Outside our
perception, we cannot know anything about time. This seems to
contradict the cornerstone of  science, which holds that “of course”
there was a physical universe before human life evolved on Earth,
which m eans that “of course” there was time as well, billions of
years of time.Here w e come  to a fork in th e road, because either you a ccept
that tim e, as registered by th e human brain, is real on its own or
you arg ue that, being dependent on the human brain, time is
created in consciousness. The second position is by far the
stronger one, even though fewer people believe it. In our
awareness we constantly convert the timeless into the experience
of time—ther e is no getting around this. Since such a
transformation cannot happen “in” time, something else must be
going on. To get a handle on t his “something else,” let’s look at the
present moment, the now, the immediate present.
All e xperience happens in the  now. Even to remember the  past
or antic ipate the future is a present-moment event. Brain cells,
which physically process the conversion of the timeless into time,
function only in the present. They have no other choice, since the
electrical signals and chemical reactions that run brain cells occur
only here and now. If the present moment is the only real time we
can know in th e waking state, why is it so elusive? You can use a
clock as fine-tuned as an atomic clock to predict when the next
second, millisecond, or trillionth of a second will arrive, but that’s
not the same a s predicting the now. The present momen t, as an
experience, is totally unpredi ctable. If it could be predicted, you’d
know your next thought in advance, which is impossible.
As we touched


.	Chemicals	found	in	everyday	personal	products	such	as	perfume,	cologne,
shaving	cream,	skin	lotions,	aftershave,	toothpaste,	soaps,	shampoos,
deodorants,	nail	polish,	all	types	of	household	cleansers	and	so	forth,	can	be
absorbed	quickly	and	produce	effects	that	are	toxic	or	even	carcinogenic,
especially	when	these	toxic	substances	are	combined.
When	I	was	suffering	from	severe	chemical	sensitivities,	I	found,	much	to	my
surprise,	that	the	brands	of	toothpaste,	shampoo,	deodorant	and	skin	lotion	that	I
was	using	were	all	quite	toxic.	Products	such	as	lotions,	conditioners	and
makeup,	especially	when	left	on	the	skin	for	long	periods	of	time,	expose	you	to
significant	amounts	of	toxins,	which	can	bioaccumulate,	poison	your	cells	and
cause	disease.	Most	common	products	sold	to	preserve	and	protect	the	skin	in
fact	actually	contain	chemicals	capable	of	damaging	the	skin.
Virtually	all	commonly	available	cosmetic	and	personal	care	products	contain
ingredients	(such	as	preservatives	and	colors)	that	are	known	to	present
problems.	Many	preservatives	contain	or	release	formaldehyde,	a	known	toxin
and	carcinogen.	Various	parabens	(a	specific	class	of	preservatives)	have	been
shown	to	damage	deep	layers	of	the	skin	worse	than	severe	sunburn,	which
causes	the	skin	to	age	prematurely	and	even	can	cause	cancer.	Artificial	colors
have	been	shown	to	be	carcinogenic,	not	only	when	ingested	but	also	when
applied	to	the	skin.	Yet	people	voluntarily	put	these	personal	care	products	on
their	skin	daily,	unaware	that	these	products	contain	toxic	and	potentially
carcinogenic	ingredients.
By	using	products	such	as	sunscreen	and	lotion,	people
are	putting	cancer-causing	chemicals	on	their	skin,	then	wondering	why	they
developed	skin	cancer	or	why	their	skin	is	aging	so	fast.
Choosing	safe	personal	care	and	cosmetic	products	means	reading	labels
carefully	and	learning	about	the	health	consequences	of	ingredients.	Effective
products	are	on	the	market	that	are	high	in	quality	and	safety.	The	overwhelming
majority,	however,	contain	a	variety	of	toxins	that	should	be	avoided.	Some	of
the	common	toxins	to	look	for	and	avoid	include	artificial	fragrances,	colors	and
flavors,	formaldehyde,	phenol,	trichlorethylene,	BHT/BHA,	EDTA,	cresol,
detergents,	glycols,	parabens,	sodium	lauryl	sulfate	and	nitrates/	nitrosamines.Perfumes	and	other	fragrances	also	cause	problems.	Traditionally,	these
products	were	made	from	flowers	and	herbs.	But	since	World	War	II,	most
fragrances	and	perfumes	have	been	made	from	synthetic	petrochemicals,	many
of	which	are	officially	designated	as	hazardous	materials.	In	fact,	about	95
percent	are	synthetic,	and	more	than	80	percent	of	the	ingredients	used	in
fragrances	have	never	been	tested	for	human	safety.	When	they	have	been	tested,
many	are	found	to	be	neuro-toxic	and	even	carcinogenic.	(Meanwhile,	because
of	“trade	secrets,”	manufacturers	are	not	required	to	list	any	of	these	toxic
ingredients	on	their	product	labels.)	Worse,	these	fragrances	are	not	just	in
perfumes,	but	in	everything	from	kitty	litter	to	shampoos,	soaps,	lotions,	shaving
creams,	household	cleaners,	laundry	detergents	and	numerous	other	products.
Fragrances	now	pollute	our	homes,	schools,	workplaces,	stores,	churches	and
other	public	places.	People	who	regularly	use	synthetic	perfumes	are	putting	a
heavy	toxic	burden	on	their	bodies.	The	solution	is	to	use	essential	oils	made
from	natural	ingredients	such	as	flowers	and	herbs,	if	tolerable,	and	to	avoid
household	and	personal	products	made	with	synthetic	fragrances.
I	have	spent	years	researching	the	toxic	effects	of	chemicals	used	to	make
products	that	people	consume	on	a	daily	basis.	I	discovered	that	regular
toothpaste,	for	example,	contains	numerous	toxins,	such	as	fluoride,	artificial
colors,	flavors,	sweeteners	and	synthetic	detergents,	all	of	which	can
bioaccumulate	in	the	body	and	lead	to	toxic	overload.	Toothpaste	is	especially
important	because	the	mucous	membranes	in	your	mouth	are	very	permeable,	so
if	you	expose	yourself	to	toxic	toothpaste	several	times	a	day,	you	subject
yourself	to	a	lot	of	toxins.	I	eventually	selected	a	toothpaste	for	my	personal	use
that	was	both	safe	and	effective	(see	appendix	C),	but	it	took	eighteen	months	of
research	to	find	it.
Toxic	chemicals,	used	for	detergent	and	foam-generating	properties,	are
present	in	most	toothpastes,	as	well	as	in	many	other	personal	care	and
household	products.	When	these	toxins—	sodium	lauryl	sulfate,	sodium	cetyl
sulfate	and	sodium	laureth	sulfate—are	placed	on	the	surface	of	the	body,	they
can	cause	eye	irritations,	skin	rashes,	hair	loss,	scalp	flaking	similar	to	dandruff
and	allergic	reactions.	These	chemicals	are	known	to	be	irritating	to	the	skin	and
are	used	to	irritate	the	skin	in	laboratory	experiments!	Think	about	what	happens
when	your	highly	sensitive	gum	tissue	comes	into	contact	with	a	known	irritant,
like	sodium	lauryl	sulfate,	in	your	toothpaste.	Could	this	factor	be	contributing	to
our	epidemic	of	gum	disease?
These	man-made	detergents	pass	through	the	skin	and	mucous	membranes
and	bioaccumulate	in	fatty	tissue—eye	tissue,	for	example.	Is	there	a	possibleconnection	between	the	sodium	lauryl	sulfate	found	in	toothpaste	and	our
epidemic	of	macular	degeneration—a	disease	in	which	cells	in	the	central	part	of
the	retina	degenerate,	and	the	leading	cause	of	blindness	in	people	over	age	fifty-
five?
The	focus	of	manufacturers	is	always	on	marketability,	so	they	often	try	to
disguise	these	synthetic	and	toxic	ingredients	by	making	them	seem	“natural.”
Labels	will	often	state	something	like,	“sodium	lauryl	sulfate—derived	from
coconut.”	Regardless	of	derivation	they	are	toxic	and	can	accumulate	easily	in
your	tissues	to	levels	that	cause	cellular	malfunction	and	disease.
People	choose	antibacterial	soaps	thinking	they	will	protect	them	from	germs,
but	the	germicide	in	the	soap	goes	right	through	the	skin	and	bioaccumulates	in
tissue.	In	fact,	these	toxic	chemicals,	designed	to	kill	cells,	are	now	showing	up
in	alarming	amounts	in	human	breast	milk,	and	infants	are	much	more
susceptible	to	toxins.	As	always,	the	solution	is	to	choose	safe,	natural	products,
usually	available	at	health	food	and	specialty	stores.	There	are	high-quality,
certified	organic,	hair	and	skin	care	products	available	and	I	recommend	you	use


 defects in bulldog pups
than any other breed.
    There are few if any problems connected with modern degeneration on which so much light is
thrown as that supplied by recent investigations on the problems of paternal responsibility for
defects in the offspring. There are several reasons for this. Because the mother has the sole
responsibility for the nourishment of the fetus during the formative period and she alone provides
the handicaps incident to the process of birth, it is very natural that defects are practically all
interpreted as being associated with these processes. This unfortunately, has been embarrassed
further by the fact that since distortions in behavior do not appear until sometime after birth,
normality was largely assumed to be present up to the time of their appearance, and therefore of
necessity would be contributions from the child's environment. As such they would be subject
naturally to treatment by applying influences to change the mental environment. Hence the entire
problem of the role of the sex cells through controlling the architecture of the body including the
brain has been largely overlooked. Very important light is thrown on this problem in the data
provided on the pup shown in Fig. 120. This shows a dachshund pup with cleft palate and a very
severe spinal deformity. This is not unlike deformities frequently seen, or unlike that of the pup
shown in Fig. 119. The highly significant circumstance is the fact that these same deformities not
only appeared also in another pup of this same litter but in one pup in each of three other litters
about the same time. While four mothers were involved these four litters were all sired by one
father. The paternal responsibility is clearly established.7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 206/250FIG. 120. This pup had cleft palate, as seen above, and
grossly deformed spine, as shown below. It was one of two
pups born in the same litter with the same defects and one of
five pups born in four litters with these same defects. Five
different mother dogs were involved but all pups were from
the same father dog.
    At the right in Fig. 119 a lamb is shown with club feet and two lambs without eyeballs. I am told
that in some of the sheep raising states quite a number of deformities occur in lambs at birth. One
writer states:
    These deformities may maintain themselves in any number of ways. We have them two-
headed, 5 and 6 legs, 2 tails, born without eyes, hermaphrodites, born with ribs on one side and
any number of such deformities. A common deformity in sheep is under-shot and over-shot
jaws. This simply means that the upper jaw extends farther to the front that the under jaw and
the front teeth do not meet. This is called over-shot and the reverse is called under-shot.
    It will be noted that a common deformity in sheep relates to an under-development of either the
upper or lower jaw which is one of the most common expressions of disturbed development in
humans.
    Some illustrations of the deformities that may occur in domestic animals are shown in Fig. 121.
Above are seen two cows each with an extra foreleg attached to the shoulder; below, to the left is
shown a double-faced calf which also had a cleft palate; to the right a cat with deformed legs.7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 207/250FIG. 121. Typical deformities in domestic animals. Above,
two cows with an extra foreleg hanging from the shoulder.
Below, left, double faced calf. Right, cat with deformed legs.
    In corresponding with Professor Hale, I inquired whether they had information as to the effect of
vitamin A deficiency on the sire. He replied, "If we reduceed the vitamin A content of the body of
the sire, he would become sterile and, therefore, we could not try this procedure." The question
arises as to what the effect would be of a less severe depletion of vitamin A of both parents.
    It is a very easy matter to place the full responsibility on the mother, when defects develop in the
children. These data indicate that either parent may contribute directly to certain of the defects of
the children, due to defects in the germ plasm.
    A practical case from my field studies includes a full-blooded Eskimo woman who was married
twice, the second time to a white man, by whom she had several children. She had insisted on
selecting and preparing the native foods for herself, though she prepared the white man's imported
foods for him. With a total of twenty-six pregnancies she did not have any tooth decay. He had
rampant tooth decay, and a marked abnormality in the development of face and of the dental
arches. Several of the children had incomplete development of the face and of the dental arches.
One of the girls who was married had very narrow dental arches and nostrils and a typical boyish
type of body build. Unlike her mother, this girl had a very severe experience in the birth of her only
child and insisted that she would not take the risk of having another. Several daughters have
narrow arches. The question arises whether the deficient nutrition of the father may have been the
contributing factor in the injury of their children.
    New light is being thrown on human problems by animal investigations. One study that is
particularly instructive has been conducted by McKenzie and Berliner of the University of
Missouri. (Bulletin No. 265.) The experimental animals used were sheep. Their studies indicated to
them that they could predict the level of fertility of the sire by studies made on the seminal fluid.
They found that the percentage of abnormal spermatozoa increased to 84 per cent under
unfavorable conditions and reduced to less than 15 per cent under favorable conditions. When the
unfavorable conditions characterized by these abnormal spermatozoa prevailed the females did not
conceive. High temperature proved to be an important controlling factor as indicated by variation
in percentage of abnormal sperm. In one breed the average variation was from 2.5 per cent in
January to 22 per cent defective in August; in another breed from 18 per cent in January to 73 per
cent defective in August. They also found that the same result could be produced in the winter by
keeping the sires in heated rooms or by applying heat externally. They further found that when the7/29/13 Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html#toc 208/250percentage of abnormal sperm was high a condition of sterility was apparently established. In a
personal communication from Professor McKenzie he states that their inference is that with a high
percentage of abnormal sperm the ova either are not fertilized or that fertilization takes place and
that prenatal death occurs in a certain number of the cases, and that there is an appreciable
prenatal death loss in sheep, horses, cattle, and swine. I have referred to the data presented by
Mall indicating that 15 per cent of human conceptions in England are expelled as deformities in the
second and third month of gestation. McKenzie also presents data relating to swine in which a sire
that showed a high percentage of abnormal sperm was bred to two groups of sows of similar
breed. One was maintained in a barn without access to pasture, the other received similar rations
plus access to pasture. The group without pasture produced a high percentage of mummies, small
litters, and abnormal pigs (open abdominal walls with viscera protruding and exposed spine in the
region of the lumbar vertebrae). The second group on the same food with the addition of pasturage
produced normally large-size litters without mummies. The following year this experiment was
repeated reversing the groups of sows and using a similar high percentage of defective sperm in the
same sire. The same results occurred, with the group maintained without access to pasture. This
emphasizes the need for the vitamins and minerals that are provided in natural foods, particularly
vitamin A and seems to relate to the studies of Hale in which the absence of vitamin A produced
gross defects. These studies on domestic animals strongly emphasize the necessity that both
parents shall have adequate nutrition before conception occurs and subsequently for the mother.
    Until very recently there has been exceedingly little literature dealing with the factors contributing
to the abnormal development of fetuses in either domestic animals or humans. Williams, who is one
of the few students of this problem as it relates to domestic animals, in referring to this phase has
commented that there is no treatise in the English language on teratology (development of
monsters) in domestic animals. (16) He emphasizes that these defects are growing in numbers and
economic importance. He refers to Burki's studies in Switzerland indicating that this difficulty has
constantly and enormously increased in his territory. This veterinary has asked "Are our cows
degenerating?" It is of interest that a type of deformity commonly recognized among veterinaries as
a distortion of the head presenting a lack of development of the bones of the middle part of the
face including the upper jaw is commonly called "bull-dog calf." This is particularly important in
connection with the frequent human deficiency of lack of development in the middle third of the
face. Williams emphasizes the common knowledge that Boston bull-dogs are not prolific and
because of the difficulty of giving birth to their young, some veterinarians resort routinely to
caesarian


 would rather have you do a
short massage than none at all. The most important parts of the body to
cover are the head and feet. They can be worked while you sit on the edge
of the tub for a minute in the morning. This mini-massage takes  only about
two tablespoons of oil.
Take one tablespoon of warm oil and rub it into your scalp, using the
same small, circular motions described above. Use the flat of your hand,
and your fingertips.
Massage the forehead from side to side with your palm.
Gently massage your temples, using circular motions, then gently rub the
outside of the ears.
Massage the back and front of your neck.
Taking the second tablespoon of oil, massage both feet using the flat of
your hand. Work oil around your toes with your fingertips. Vigorously
massage the soles of the feet with brisk back-and-forth motions of your
palms. Sit quietly for a few seconds to relax and soak in the oil, then bathe
normally.
LUNCH: NOON–1 P.M.To catch  the Pitta time of day at its height, it is best to eat lunch early, at
noon or just before. Pitta stokes agni, the digestive fire, to its bright est at
this hour; therefore, Ayurveda recommends that lunch be the biggest meal
of the day. Since most people do not perform heavy physical labor, lunch
does not have to be huge and hearty. Simply eat what you norm ally would
for dinner.
To avoid becoming drowsy in the afternoon, do not drink alcohol at
noon; warm water is the beverag e that best promotes good diges tion. In any
event, minimize  iced tea, ice water, or very cold soft drinks. All of these put
out agni and make it harder to digest the meal.
Two other steps  will remind the body of its daily rhythm. The first is to
sit quietly for five minutes at the table after you finish eating, preferably in
silence. The second is to take a short walk outside or to lie down for five
minutes after the meal. Both stabilize the system and help start the process
of digestion.
DINNER: 6–7 P.M.
Just after you come home from work is the time for afternoon meditation.
You can prepare for it with a set of yoga positions and five minutes of
balanced breathing, just as in the morning. Lying down for a few minutes
beforehand also removes the jagged edge of a long workday and makes the
meditation much deeper.
As with lunch, dinner comes early in order to catch a good time in the
daily cycle. In this case, six o’clock is the beginning of a Kapha period,
when the body wants to settle down. It is not a good idea to put too much
fuel into your system at this time, since Pitta will not be along to digest
your dinner until ten at night, when you are in bed. Your greatest digestive
power is in the afternoon, which also allows ample time for complete
digestion. Ayurveda is very strong on making sure that digestion is
complete, since half-digested food is what creates ama.Dinner should be a smaller meal than lunch. For many people, a bowl of
hot soup  with toast, herb tea, and fresh fruit are adequate. You are probably
not used to eatin g lighter at dinner than lunch, but try it for a change. You’ll
be pleasantly surprised at how settled and comfortable your body feels
when it doesn’ t have to diges t full rations at night. Ayurveda cautions
against fermented foods such as cheese, sour cream, and yogurt at night; red
meat is best avoided since it is harder to digest.
Warm water or herb tea is the beverage of choice at dinner. Ayurveda
makes no bones about considering alcohol a toxin that has no place in a
healthy life, but I recognize that many people drink liquor after work. The
basic rule is not to drink alcohol by itself, and don’t have it ice cold. It is
best to eliminate the cocktail hour altogether and eat an earlier dinner.
Alcohol consum ption with your meal should be light—a glass of wine, for
example, or one beer.
A short walk after dinner helps promote digestion and prepares the
system for a quiet evening spent reading, listening to music, or talking with
friends and family. Avoid action-packed movies and TV late at night, since
you don’ t want too much stimulation before bedtime.
BEDTIME: 9:30–10:30 P.M.
In order to get up at dawn, your bedtime has to be early. Attuned to the
Kapha cycle that ends the eveni ng, Kapha types already favor going to bed
around ten; this is the Ayurved ic ideal for everyone. It allows  the body’ s
rhythms to slow down naturally, gives a deeper, more relaxing sleep, and
provides time for the body to generate new tissue, which happens mostly at
night. (I have already mentioned that getting a full night’ s sleep has been
correlated with longevity.)
If you wait much  past ten o’cloc k, the ensuing Pitta period will make you
want to be active again—that  is why people feel drowsy early in the
evening, only to get a surge of energy around midnight, the absolute height
of the Pitta period. Going to bed early is basically an all-or -nothingproposition, as far as your body rhythms are concerned. Therefore, I
encourage you to try to get to bed at the Ayurvedic time. A week of self-
discipline can be a revelation in terms of how good you feel the next day.
To experience a day in perfect rhythm, you need a night of perfect sleep.
OceanofPDF.comCHAPTER 12
DIET—EA TING FOR PERFECT  BALANCE
In Ayurveda, a balanced diet does not revolve around fats, carbohydrates,
and proteins. Nor are calories, vitamins, and minerals given direct attention.
We know these nutrients intellectually, not through direct experience. You
cannot detect the vitamin C in your orange juice, much less the difference
between it and vitamin A. For the most part, Western nutrition comes out of
laboratory analysis. Ayurvedic nutrition comes directly from nature. When
your taste buds greet a bite of food, an enormous amount of useful
information is delivered to the doshas. Working solely with this information,
Ayurveda allow s us to eat a balanced diet naturally, guided by our own
instincts, without turning nutrition into an intellectual headache.
When food talks  to your doshas,  it says many things, because the different
gunas—heavy and light, dry and oily, hot and cold—are present in it. But the
primary information is containe d in its taste. Ayurveda recognizes six tastes,
or rasas: sweet, sour, salty, and bitter are the four we already know, plus two
others, pungent and astringent. All spicy food is pungent. Astringent is the
taste that puckers your mouth. The tannin in tea is astringent, as is the dry,
mealy taste of beans.
In Ayurveda a balanced diet must contain all six rasas at every meal. The
following dinner menu would be balanced:
Bibb lettuce salad (Bitter, Astringent)
Barbecued chicken with steamed rice (Salty, Sour, Pungent, Sweet)
Vanilla ice cr eam (Sweet)
Even if you eliminate the ice cream for dessert, this meal will remain in
balance, since it still has all six tastes. If the barbecued chicken was replacedby bake d chick en, the rasas of pungent and sour would be missing; they
could be made up by adding a few slices of tomato (sweet and sour) and
radish (pungent) to the salad.
It is not necessary to overload a meal with each taste. Just a hint of herbs
and spices will add pungent and bitter to a meal. Nor is it good to let the
same tastes dominate day after day. The basic rule is simply to give the body
all six rasas at each meal so that it can respond to food completely.
SATISFYING THE DOSHAS
Taste can also be used to balance an aggravated dosha, since each dosha is
on the lookout for the tastes that bring it into balance.
Vata is balanced by salt, sour, and sweet.
Pitta is balanced by bitter, sweet, and astringent.
Kapha is balanced by pungent, bitter, and astringent.
(The italicized taste has the strongest ef fect in decreasing a dosha.)
This basic information opens the door for a wealth of knowledge about
what your body  type should eat. In the following sections, we will expand
upon this immense field. Our discussion covers the following subjects:BODY -TYPE DIETS
The most basic guide to what you should eat is your body type. If you are
a Vata, this dosh a wants to be balanced with tastes different from those of
either a Pitta or a Kapha. Let’s say that two people are eating lunch at an
outdoor cafe and both order a chef salad, iced tea, and lemon sherbet. If one
person is a Pitta, this is an excellent lunch, for the sweet tastes and coolness
of the food help balance Pitta dosha. But if the other person is a Vata, this
meal is not good at all. Raw greens, particularly if


	ingredients	and	then
throwing	out	the	water	means	that	the	liquid	in	your	soup	or	stew	will	retain
the	nutrition	of	the	foods.	Make	your	own	vegetable	broth	in	big	batches	or
buy	an	organic	variety	from	the	market.	When	you	get	home	or	when	you	want
an	easy	meal,	heat	the	vegetable	broth	on	the	stove	and	throw	in	various
veggies,	lentils,	or	even	beans	(from	cartons	if	you	are	in	a	rush)	for	an	easy,
nutritious,	and	family-friendly	meal.	Try	pureeing	everything	if	you	like	a
smoother	soup.	You	can	even	add	brown	rice	or	quinoa	to	stews,	and	toast	up
some	gluten-free	or
whole-grain	bread	for	extra-hungry	kids	and	teenagers	to
dip	into	their	stew.	Invest	in	a	large,	good-quality	soup	pot,	and	it	will	be	a	great
friend	to	you	for	years	to	come.
TURN	YOUR
FREEZER	INTO	YOUR	LIFE	RAFT
When	you	do	have	time	to	cook,	make	extra	and	freeze	portion	sizes	in
bisphenol	A	(BPA)–free	containers	(a	chemical	believed	to	potentially	cause
hormonal,	developmental,	and	brain	issues,	among	other	health	concerns).	Youcan	freeze	anything	from	gluten-free	lasagna	to	soups,	bananas,	and	even	dark
chocolate.	(Sweet-tooth	emergencies	are	still	emergencies!)	When	you	get	busy,
you	can	rest	assured	that	not	only	won’t	you	starve,	you	also	won’t	have	to
resort	to	Taco	Bell	or	the	equivalent	fast-and-easy	but	incredibly	beauty-busting
option	nearby.	This	is	especially	great	if	you	have	an	erratic	schedule	that
doesn’t	always	allow	for	regular	grocery	shopping.	You	can	grab	something	to
thaw	out	in	the	morning	before	leaving	for	work,	or	stick	the	container	in	a	pot
of	hot	water	when	you	get	home	if	you	forgot.	Either	way,	nutritious	food	that
you	made	yourself	is	on	the	way!
BUY	ITEMS	IN
BULK
If	you	can	find	a	great	local	(and	preferably	organic)	market	with	bins,	try	to
buy	large	amounts	of	quinoa,	lentils,	brown	rice,	steel-cut	oats,	and	whatever
other	dried	staples	you	love.	Quinoa	is	a	great	one	because	it	is	mineral	and
nutrient	dense,	gluten-free,	and	cooks	up	in	about	12	to	14	minutes.	It’s	perfect
for	quick
meals.	Having	these	dried	staples	around	is	great	when	you	are	busy
and	don’t	have	time	to	go	out	and	shop.	It’s	ideal	to	soak	them	overnight	or	at
least	during	the	day	if	you	can	throw	them	in	water	on	the	way	to	work.	But,
hey,	if	you	forgot	or	are	in	a	real	time	crunch	and	the	choice	is	between
unsoaked	quinoa	and	takeout	made	with	questionable	oils	and	ingredients	you
aren’t	completely	sure	of,	the	quinoa	option	is	the	clear	winner.
BE	A	STRATEGIC	VEGGIE	SHOPPER
Food
shopping	can	take	up	a	lot	of	time.	Not	all	of	us	can	do	daily	vegetable
shopping	like	some	lucky	locals	in	the	South	of	France.	If	you	can	only	go
grocery	shopping	once	a	week	or	so,	be	sure	to	get	veggies	that	are	heartier	and
can	last	until	the	end	of	the	week.	Red/purple	cabbage,	onions,	shallots,	garlic,
root	vegetables	such	as	yams	and	spaghetti	squash,	carrots,	and	radishes	are
great	in	this	regard.	Use	up	the	more	perishable	veggies	like	broccoli	or
watercress	earlier	in	the	week.	By	being	strategic	with	your	veggies’	timetables,
you	should	be	able	to	enjoy	a	range	of	veggies	over	the	week.
MAKE	BIGGER	BATCHES
In	addition	to	freezing	spare	portions	of	entrées,	it’s	also	easier	and	more
convenient	to	make	large	portion	sizes	of	kale	chips,	zucchini	hummus,	and
washed	and	chopped	veggies	that	you	can	chomp	on	and	dip	when	you	get
hungry.	Keep	everything	in	airtight	glass	or	BPA-free	containers	in	your	fridge
and	you’ll	have	a	ready	supply	of	beautifying	foods	even	when	you’re	exhausted
or	pressed	for	time.MAKE	A	MASTER	GGS
If	you	are	a
Glowing	Green	Smoothie	(
this	page
)	drinker,	try	making	a	master
batch	on	Sunday	(or	whatever	day	of	the	week	is	the	easiest	for	you),	keeping
some	portions	out	for	the	next	day	or	so,	and	freezing	portion	sizes	that	you
can	thaw	out	later	in	the	week.	This	is	a	great	time-saver	and	ensures	you	are
following	this	all-important	habit	as	much	as	possible.
CHOOSING	ORGANIC
Choosing	organic	food	is	also	a	choice	for	your	beauty.	Organic	produce	contains
superior	nutrition—more	beneficial	vitamins,	minerals,	essential
fatty	acids,	and
antioxidants	to	nourish	your	beauty	than	conventional	produce.	By	definition,
organic	produce	does	not	include	genetically	modified	organisms	(GMO)	and	is
produced	without	the	use	of	artificial	pesticides,	antibiotics,	synthetic	fertilizers,
and	hormones	that	can	tax	and	age	your	body,	cumulatively	destroying	your
beauty	over	time.
Going	organic	is	definitely	worth	the	extra	cost	for	your	health	and	beauty’s	sake.
If	budget	is	an	issue,	check	out	the	latest	list	of	the	“
Dirty	Dozen”	from	the
Environmental	Working	Group	to	determine	which	twelve	produce	items	are	the
most	important	to	buy	organic.	If	you	can	put	your	budget	toward	organic	versions
of	the	crops	that	are	sprayed	most	often	with	pesticides,	you	can	avoid	a	lot	of
pesticide	contamination.	Check	out	local	farmer’s	markets	and	talk	to	local	sources,
which	may	or	may	not	have	organic	certifications	but	still	use	organic	farming
practices.
It’s	especially	important	to	buy	organic	meat,	which	we’ll	discuss	more	in	a
moment.	It’s	important	to	know	that	the	label
free-range
	doesn’t	necessarily	mean
organic	or	that	the	animals	were	fed	a	natural-food	diet.	Always	look	for	the	term
organic
	or
organic	and	free-range
	on	the	label.	According	to	the
National	Organic
Program	under	the	United	States	Department	of	Agriculture	(USDA),	to	be	labeled
organic	meat,	the	animals	must	be
raised	on	certified	organic	land;	fed	organic
feed	without	growth	hormones,	antibiotics,	GM	feed,	or	animal	by-products;	and
can’t	be	grown	using	persistent	pesticides	or	chemical	fertilizers.
1
Don’t	be	fooled	by	the	generic	word
natural
.	Natural	foods	are	not	necessarily
organic.	They	may	contain	some	organic	ingredients—or	they	may	not.	If	you	are
buying	packaged	products,	look	for	the	USDA
certified	organic
	seal,	which	signifies
that	a	product	contains	at	least	95	percent	organically	grown	ingredients.	You	vote
with	your	food	choices!	Choosing	organic	for	the	recipes	in	this	book	and	in	general
will	help	increase	the	demand	for	organic.	This	will	eventually	help	lower	organic
prices,	support	the


constructive processes cannot be evoked. Hence frenzied attempts to induce sleep are futile, not to say foolish. The cu ltivation of
an equable frame of mind in health, the ability to cast aside the cares of the day when one lies down to rest, add to disease -resistive
qualities, and, if illness does occur, prove valuable aids to the efforts nature then proceeds to put into operation for relief. Here also
reading plays its part; not that which necessitates extreme concentration of mind, but that which diverts the mentality, lead ing it
along cheerful, wholesome lines of thought. The expedients suggested are natural abetters of  healthful slumber, and find fitting
time for their exercise after the activities of the day are done.

EXERCISE. --The maintenance of every muscle of the body in proportionate development is regulated by its work as well as by its
supply of pabulum, altho ugh the latter is determined in large part by the necessity for repair or upbuilding occasioned by the
exercise given the particular muscle. Constant use of one portion of the muscular fabric tends to add to its substance at the  expense
of that of neighbor ing parts not equally exercised. Hence the aim of all physical labor should be that of uniformity. Trunk and legs,
arms and neck, all should receive proportioned attention. Normal muscular development also depends upon an unimpeded
circulation of the blood  and upon healthful cell -forming constituents uninterruptedly supplied for the replacement of used tissue.
Constriction of the body in any region restricts free circulation, and only loose garments permit of full growth and proper
development. The tight co llar, the round garter, and the corset, make flabby muscles inevitable, and only a body unrestrained by
the bonds so often prescribed by conventional usage can hope for muscular perfection. The possibilities of hygienic living, c oupled
with judicious exerc ise, are surely worth consideration, if merely for the satisfaction resulting from their effects upon personal
appearance; but their more important consequences in respect to general health and longevity make neglect of these desiderata
most deplorable.

Exercise that is self -imposed is wholesome; but exercise to which one is naturally attracted is the ideal form of labor. Combined
with enthusiasm, physical work is doubly healthful, for enthusiasm in itself is a source of health. And that form of exercise  that
serves a productive purpose and is enthusiastically performed is best of all, whether the effort be physical or mental. Make your
avocation the complement of your vocation. Gladstone and Horace Greeley chopped wood in their moments of relief from ment al
tasks. Conversely he who works with his hands should divert himself by exercising his brain.

During a fast moderate exercise in keeping with daily access of strength is advised, and, after the completion of the period of
abstinence, constant comprehen sive muscular activity is essential to tissue rebuilding and to form -development and maintenance.

CHAPTER XIII
THE ENEMA
DESCRIPTION OF' THE STOMACH AND INTESTINES:
THE FALLACY OF "PURGATIVES":
THE PRINCIPLES AND USE OF THE EDEMA:
NOTES ON GIVING TH E ENEMA TO CHILDREN AND ON AN ENEMA TACTIC

PART FIVE
NATURAL THERAPY

CHAPTER XIV
CHILDREN IN THE FAST

VARIOUS ERRORS CONCERNING THE CARE OF INFANTS: WHY FEED A FEVERISH CHILD?

    WHEN the human child is born into the world, it is equipped with b ut three developed faculties --hunger, thirst, and sleep. The
infant, if capable of expressed desire, would signify its greatest need as sleep, but its rest is naturally punctuated with h unger
periods, and at these times and at no others it should be fed. T o awaken a quietly sleeping child for the purpose of administering
food is most inadvisable, yet nurse and mother, burdened with professional tradition and advice, in over -zealous care rarely permit
a two -hour interval to pass without forcing food upon the  attention of the baby. The child will through habit take the breast or the
bottle and suckle for a while, but its rest has been disturbed, and its small digestive apparatus is never free from labor as  long as
these misguided women can stimulate appetite. Disobedience to natural law brings its penalty, and disease shortly appears to right
the wrong. Overfeeding a child is the greatest cause of infantile disease, and it could not occur if the first hunger instinc t were
permitted to guide the infant from birt h. Actual need alone would then be satisfied, and the artificial sense of appetite that
invariably develops when overfeeding is the rule would never appear.

    Another error in connection with the earliest living moments of the infant is that of haste i n severing the umbilical cord, the
physical bond between the child and its mother, before the cessation of its natural pulsations. Interchange of oxygen and of
nutriment between mother and fetus has taken place through this avenue during the whole period o f gestation, and by this means
the baby frame has been built to the moment of birth. Its final use and its last pulsations insure tissue nourishment suffici ent to
Page 45 of  72 carry the child until food for post -natal growth can be furnished from the breast of the moth er. Haste in cutting the cord starts the
infant badly, and hunger is asserted much earlier than should be the case. In addition, babies thus treated often exhibit ane mic
tendencies because of mother -blood denied at birth, while their metabolism is compelle d to function much too soon, and the
mother herself suffers uterine and placental congestion with possible delay in the expulsion of the latter organ. It may be n oted that
undue retention of the placenta in whole or in part is the cause of death of thousan ds of women at childbirth or shortly thereafter.

    When departure is made from the laws of nature, abnormal physical conditions are produced, and penalties are exacted. The
normal food and the only food that is designed for infant use is mother's milk.  At birth, delay in its appearance is often noted, and
perhaps for two or three days its secretion is absent. Reference to the function performed by the umbilical cord before birth  and at
delivery offers explanation why in this event undue haste need not b e made in attempting artificial feeding. If, as unfortunately is
too often the case in modern life, the mother finds herself incapable of furnishing food for her child, a substitute must be obtained.
The ideal method makes use of the wet -nurse, but, if thi s cannot be done, water -diluted full goat's milk, with sugar of milk or
honey added, sufficient to supply as nearly as possible the constituents of mother's milk, is the nearest and best alternativ e. When
the milk of the goat is unobtainable, top -milk from  a healthy cow may be utilized. Prepared foods are doubtful in efficacy. There
are many kinds on the market and the possibility exists that one or the other of these may agree with the particular infant. Orange
juice and tomato juice are also additions tha t should enter the dietary of the child, supplying as they do vitamins and mineral salts,
elements most essential to body maintenance and growth.

    Whatever physical handicaps the mother may endure, the child in her womb receives from her body the best  in the way of
nourishment that that body is able to give. This is well exemplified in an earlier chapter when illustration was made of preg nant
women, ill and fasting, who yet brought healthy children into the world. And, too, the contention that all dise ase has its origin in
impaired digestive power is more strongly upheld when disturbances occur in the young than when adult organism is affected. I n
the child, unaccustomed to continued abuse of the body and its functions, and with no harmful habits formed, the system resents to
its limit any but natural treatment. And it is especially during this period of early infancy that measures for the preventio n of later
disease should be first in the thought of the natural guardians of the child. Future physical we lfare absolutely depends upon the
running start which can then be given, and every source of information that offers logical guidance in hygiene should be
exhausted, and the knowledge gained should be applied. Herein lies the extreme value that is to be pu t upon the principles
exploited in the text. As against forced feeding, we have the natural instinct of the child, which, when normal, indicates it s food
requirements even to the point of partial selection. If by accident disease occurs, as against suppres sion of the symptom, we have
the assistance offered by the fast and its eliminative aids to purify the system and to eradicate the cause. And this gained
knowledge has the further worth of coming, not by hearsay, but straight from nature itself, by which t oken it is to be the more
cherished and conserved.

    The physical condition of a nursing mother is always reflected in the body of her child, and mental disturbances, temporary o r
permanent, show like effect. Through nervous derangement of functional p ower, induced by disease or by anxiety, grief, or anger,
such changes are occasioned in the milk of the mother as to cause serious illness in the sucking child. It is therefore incum bent
upon this parent so to regulate her physical body through


. What I
didn’t tell him was that the last time I rode I was twelve,
and it was at s ummer camp with an English saddle. He
then di d the most unexpected thing. He handed me the
reins to his ho rse and pointed to an open field. This was
no time or place to be timid. I stuck my sandal into the
stirrup and swung myself int o the saddle, just as though
I kn ew what I was doing. I had always thought it would
be wild to gallop a horse across an open field. Somehow
that dr eam was about to be  realized in the middle of
Mexico where I knew absolutely nobody. I got used to
the hor se while some of the villagers gathered to watch,
and then I rod e like the wind across an expansive field. I
was really flying high, very exhilarated compared to the
strict Zen discipline to which I had been holding myself.
I s pent a few more hours discussing American life with
some very inquisitive villagers and then began to bid
them farewell. I was invited to stay for dinner, but it was
time for my evening practices. I remembered that my
friend h ad told me that the y were not allowed to fish
even th ough they were struggling for food. I went to my
van and pulled out the large  supply of brown rice and
dried b eans I had stored under the backseat. I handed
them all over to the women preparing the food. The
women were so appreciative that it almost made me cry.
This stuff meant nothing to me and so much to them.
This was another one of life’s  lessons I never forgot: the
joy of helping people.Before I drove off, they all surrounded my van to say
good-bye. I had lived in sil ence and solitude with no
human contact for almost a month—now I was a
celebrity. How  did this hap pen? To me there was no
doubt a bout how it happened—I had let go of myself and
something very  special had followed. I was willing to face
loneliness and fear and not gr ab for relief. Yet something
happened on its own, withou t my doing it or even asking
for it. The seeds of a gre at experiment were being
planted. Was it possible that life had more to give us
than we could ever take for ourselves?8.
U n e x p e c t e d  I n s p i r a t i o n
I  had grown a lot through my experiences in Mexico.
Learning to embrace life as it unfolded around me was
new to me, and  the results had been very freeing. By the
time I returned to Gainesvil le my heart and my mind
were m uch mo re at peace. Pr oblem was—I had no place
to live. My last residence had been in the woods by the
lime pit east of town, so I returned to that secluded
setting and lived there in my van. All I needed in my life
was solitude, the discipline of my ever-increasing
practices, and a minimal amount of food.
I realized that the probability of finishing my doctoral
degree was rapidly decreasing. I only had a few courses
left, but  then there were the qualifying exams as well as
the dissertatio n. Nothing was left in me that wanted to
be an economics professor. I wanted to explore inside,
deep inside. The depths of my meditations were all I
cared about.
The chairman of the Department of Economics, Dr.
Goffman, was like a father to  me. I loved and respected
him a great d eal, and he encouraged me to finish my
degree. He thought I was jus t going through a phase in
my you th, and  I would come  out of it soon. He kept me
on my fellows hip and pushed me to at least finish my
coursework. Out of respect for him, I would drive into
town periodically and go to class—but not very often.
I would eventually learn that everything in life has
something to teach you and that it is all for your growth.
But I was not ready to see that yet. To me, there was my
meditation, and then there was everything else. Though Idefinitely wasn ’t seeing my sc hoolwork as relevant to my
inner growth, I had a very illuminating experience
associated with one of my courses.
The professor of the course was a respected economist
and not  at all the liberal typ e. I missed a lot of classes,
and wh en I did show up, I was barefooted and in jeans. I
doubt t hat I was his favorite  student. One day he asked
me if I actually expected to receive a good grade in the
course. He explained that I  had put out just enough
effort to  do well on the exams, but my absences and lack
of p articipation  in class did not provide the basis for a
high gra de. I knew we had a f inal paper left to write, so I
told him  I would put extra effort into that paper, and I’d
appreciate it if he would ba se my grade solely on my
exams and the quality of tha t paper. He said he would
take it into consideration.
The tim e came  to write the final paper for the course. I
knew m y mental state was no t conducive to going to the
library and trying to learn en ough to write a great paper.
I ha d been meditating a lot, and my mind was very still.
No way was I going to spend days researching and
thinking about the topic. I would have to find a different
method if I was going to write this paper.
One evening, I gathered up a bunch of writing pads
and a few pens. After med itation, I lit the kerosene
lantern and sat at the fold-out table in my van. I began
by t elling myself that I really didn’t care what grade I got
in the class sin ce I probably wouldn’t finish my degree
anyway. This removed any mental or emotional pressure.
I t hen told mys elf to just start  writing whatever I thought
about the topic. I had no b ooks to refer to, just the
natural logic of a clear, unp ressured mind. I began to
write an d thoughts began to flow. I did not worry about
what I was wri ting or second-guess my thoughts. It was
very mu ch like meditation. I kept my personal self out of
it completely and just let unbridled inspiration flow.At s ome point in the process, a flash of inspiration
welled u p insid e of me. I went from not knowing what I
was going to do with the paper to knowing exactly what I
was going to w rite. It was as  though a cloud of knowing
instantly form ed back behind the quiet mind. It
happened as fast and pow erful as a flash of lightning. At
first, no thoughts were involved. It was more of a feeling,
just a definitive knowing that I now knew where the
paper was going and how to get there. Then the thoughts
began to form. They came slowly at first, then they
poured into my mind. I still  had to pull them together
into a logical flow, but the seeds were all there. It was an
amazing process to watch.
I wrote and I wrote. Notepad after notepad became
filled with a totally logical pre sentation that began with a
premise, laid out its argument, and ended with a
conclusion. Along the way, there were graphs to present
logical relationships, and there were references to facts I
had previously read or heard in class. These facts would
need to be polished and footnoted later, so I simply left
space fo r them and kept on writing what was created in
my mind. I sto pped for nothing. There was no worrying
or judgment of good or bad; I  just allowed the process to
unfold.
When artists create a work, they first get the
inspiration, an d then they bring it down to the physical
plane. That process is exactly what happened to me that
night alone in my van. The inspiration for the entire
paper c ame all at once, and then my mind digested it and
gave it form. Instead of a sculpture, a painting, or a
symphony, my  work of art was an economic treatise. It
came from where art comes  from, but the medium of
expression wa s logical thinking instead of marble or
paint. I had no idea where that spark of inspiration came
from. I only kn ew that in the flash of a moment, I had all
the material I needed to write a doctoral-level paper.I to ok the nex t few days to clean up the rough draft,
type it, and tu rn it in. The final typed paper was over
thirty pages long. Not only did I receive an A for that
course, but when my professor returned my paper, he
asked me if I would consider doing my dissertation
under him. I was humbled. As evidenced from this
recounting forty years later, the experience that night
had a profound effect on me. I had clearly seen the
difference between creative inspiration and logical
thought. I knew where thoughts came from, but where
did inspiration  come from? It came from a much deeper
place t han where I witnessed the