. He is
genuinely concerned about the happiness of those around him, and
because of his openness, it’s easy for him to involve himself with the
needs and desires of friends, family, and even strangers.
Hector is both imaginative and articulate and has a passion for
contact throug h touch and conversation. He is a good orator and
teacher becau se of his love of speech. Through his capacity for
communication, he reaches out to people and makes friends easily.
Hector lives just below the surface. His thoughts and feelings are
readily exposed: he wears his heart on his sleeve and has a rich
inner life that is easily aected by other people. He has ready access
to his intuition  and is often considered by his friends to be a mind
reader because  he knows what’s happening without being told. He
scans his world with antennalike intelligence, receiving and
integrating a plethora of information and impressions.Constantly responding to stimuli, he may appear to quiver like a
hummingbird, simultaneousl y motionless and vibrating.  He has a
rosy, almost ushed complexion and shining, darting eyes. Glowing
with warmth and energy, Hector easily attracts the attention of
others around him. Imbued with the hot, bright, magnetic quality of
Fire, he can be awesome and seductive as a performer or leader.
Like the power of Fire to iname and transform, through his
charisma Hector stirs our yearning for transcendence.
Playful and demonstrative,  Hector showers his family with
feelings and attention when he is around them. However, he is often
not at home when there is something more engaging  going on
elsewhere. Hector needs plenty of interaction to satisfy his
requirements for recognition, stimulation, and contact. Since Hector
thrives on intimacy and pleasure, and relishes the gamut of
experiences and sensations, he may seem like an insatiable hedonist.
But Hector is not selsh with his pleasure; in freely exhibiting his
own delight, he shares it with others.
Because Hector has trouble insulating himself from the constant
barrage of external inuences, his powers of discrimination and
discernment can be overloaded, resulting in anxiety and confusion.
Sometimes he cannot separa te his own thoughts and feelings from
those around him. His confusion can develop into a sense of dread if
he feels bombarded by unwa nted and unpredictable events. He may
come to loathe surprises, which frighten rather than please him.
Under stress, Hector can become hyperactive, nervous, and have
diculty focusing his attenti on. His hands become warm and moist,
and he perspires freely when he is excited or busy. Hector likes
things hot: spicy food, warm weather, and emotional fervor feed his
naturally heightened awareness, and he can “burn” with unbridled
intensity.
But when Fire is blazing too ercely, it can burn out its own
source, turning into cold ashes. Overexcited or overexten ded, he is
unable to slow himself down or pull himself together. This can
result in an inability to rest, sleep, and replenish his resources.
When he reaches the limit of his capacity, his heart could suer
arrhythmia, cramps, and enlargement due to the exhaustingdemands made  upon it. Shou ld his Fire burn itself out, Hector’s glow
will turn to pallor, and his warmth and intimacy will turn to
isolation and melancholy. In order for Fire to generate joy and
fulllment, it must remain within bounds. The re in a furnace
warms a house, whereas in the forest, out of control, it wastes and
destroys the land. Hector must contain his power or be consumed by
it.
Hector gives and demands a lot. His friends, family, and
associates may feel that they become fuel for his needs and desires.
Because of his charm, it is easy for people to become caught up in
Hector’s exhilarating world— they are attrac ted to his brigh tness like
moths to a ame. And when Hector “burns out,” he may leave a
trail of empty and exhausted people who have given him their all.
Peacefulness of spirit and tranquillity of mind are the hallmarks of
the harmoniou s working of the Heart. When  the Heart  is disturbed
by confusion and sudden shifts of reality, it becomes unable to
maintain calmness and clarity. Anxiety, agitation, and fearfulness
ensue. Lucidity and security become turbidity and dread.
Compassion becomes sentim entality, and speech and expression
become exaggerated, losing meaning and relevance. Senseless
babbling and disjointed thoughts are the outcome of this
disorientation and homelessness of the Spirit.
Whereas the dissembling of the Water  type takes the form of a
shrinking of the self through isolation and diminution, the
dissembling of the Fire type takes the form of dissolution of the self
through mergi ng between the inner and outer world. There is a loss
of identity and the faculty to discriminate between self and other.
When Fire is vigorous and contained, Hector is able to weather the
stress of success or failure, gains or loss, with relative equanimity,
maintaining individuality and relationship.
HOW WE RECOGNIZE  HECTOR  AS A FIRE TYPE
Hector reveals the true nature as well as the exaggerated  and
collapsed  features of the Fire type. He is aectionate,  open,expansive, generous, intuitive, warm, and bright. When Hector is
overdriven by his own tendencies, he is disposed toward heat,
fervor, dryness, redness, and excitability.
Unrestrained Heart Qi generates Heat and agitation, which can
produce mania, delusional behavior, and bizarre exper iences like
hallucinations, nightmares, and rushes of physical sensation.
Hector’s whole body becomes ushed and feverish as he tries to rid
himself of excess metabolic heat through profuse sweating and
intense thermal radiation from the head, hands, and feet.
Impassioned by the thrill of imagined pleasures, Hector feeds on
fantasy, sometimes generating unrealistic expect ations of
fulllment. The momentum  created by unanchored exhilaration
results in disappointment when actual life does not match dreams.
When this happens, it can be dicult for Hector to recover his
buoyancy—he feels as if his spirit has been lost, like a high-ying
kite that a swift wind has ripped away. Hector’s emotional
pendulum swings between the ination of euphoria and the
deation of anguished discouragement—he can be alternately
frenzied or melancholic, gregarious or isolated, talkative or passive,
seductive or timid.
When his Qi is exhausted, Hector becomes pale, subject to cold,
easily frightened and confused. Sensitivity turns to vulnerability,
and intuition becomes veiled with darkness and doubt. Withdrawn
and morose, he dwells on tales of unrequited longing and vivid
morbid images of suering. Hector is an incurable romantic whose
life can assume the maudlin qualities of a television melodrama.
Whether exaggerated  or collapsed, Hector’s boundaries—his sense
of himself—are soft. They easily expand or shrink under emotional
stress; Hector merges, becoming everyone, or dissipates, becoming
no one. He is undone by his penchant for relinquishin g his self-
possession, his own self-sen se. His challenge is to maintain his
mooring, a clear, discrete identity without sacricing his sensitivity
and openness. His virtue is his compassion, the capacity to know,
feel, and understand what others experience.THE EVOLUTION OF  DISTORTED  PATTERNS OF  FIRE
For the Fire type the key relationships are between the Heart  and
Lung (Fire restrains Metal ) and between the Heart  and Kidney  (Water
inhibits Fire).
When excessively strong, the Qi of the Heart  can attack the Lung.
The Qi becom es too dispersed, leaving the envelope of the skin open
and loose, unable to guard the body and contain the Essence  and
Spirit. When Fire overcomes Metal  there is an excess  of Dryness  and
Heat, which  leads to problems such as dry cough, thirst, night
sweats, and sores in the nose and throat. Emotionally this person
becomes restless and sensitive—easily moved from laughter to tears
and prone toward melancholy and anxiety. Conict heightens
between the desire for expression and eusion (Heart ) and the need
to preserve boundaries, set limits, and maintain defenses (Lung). It
then becomes  dicult for the Fire type to make distinctions,
besieged by a fugue of intense feelings of pleasure and pain, grief
and happiness, which may overwhelm him and over which he has
little control.
Dominated by the Heart, the Lung cannot adequately nurture the
Kidney. The Kidney  becomes weak, and Water  cannot properly
restrain Fire. When  this happens, the Heat generated by the Heart
Yang can damage the Yin of the Kidney, resulting in painful scantyurine, soreness of the back, and disturbances of libido and potency.
Uninhibited Fire disturbs attention, expression, and sensation. Weak
Water  (depleted Kidney Essence  and Moisture ) disposes a


	the	consciousness	level	of	mankind	stood	at	190,	and	then,	rather
suddenly,	it	jumped	to	the	level	of	207.
The	power	of	the	teachings	of	the	original	avatars	then	influences	and
contextualizes	the	significance	of	the	life	of	mankind	through	centuries	and
even	thousands	of	years.	It	is	very	informative,	however,	to	calibrate	the	level
of	consciousness	of	a	great	teacher	and	then	calibrate	the	level	of
institutionalized	teachings	that	are	then	brought	down	through	the	centuries.
Some	teachings	have	survived	almost	totally	unscathed	while	others	have
seriously	deteriorated.	Some	have	even	fallen	to	such	low	levels	that	they
calibrate	below	the	critical	level	of	Truth	altogether,	resulting	in	negative	cults
and	becoming	sources	of	conflict	and	negativity	in	the	world.	It	is	well	to
remember	that	popularity	is	not	a	sign	of	truth.	It	is	not	surprising	then	that
the	great	majority	of	the	population	of	mankind	falls	below	the	level	of	200,
and	that	multimillions	are	following	‘religions’	that	are	basically	negative.
What	Is	Spiritual?
It	is	common	for	people	to	confuse	‘spiritual’	with	‘religious,’	and	even
with	the	supernatural,	or	‘astral’	domains.	They	are,	in	fact,	quite	different,
and	this	confusion	often	results	in	social	strife	and	uncertainty.
In	the	United	States	Declaration	of	Independence,	for	instance,	it	was
stated	with	great	clarity	by	the	originators	that	the	rights	of	man	stem	from	the
divinity	of	their	creation,	and	thus	was	established	the	principle	of	spirituality.
However,	they	differentiated	this	from	religion	by	saying	that	citizens	are	to
be	free	from	the	establishment	of	any	religion.	The	founders	were	aware	that
religion	divides	and	is	based	on	secular	power,	whereas,	spirituality	unites
and	has	no	worldly	organization.	The	Declaration	of	Independence	(which
calibrates	at	705)	spells	out	that	this	is	a	nation	whose	government	derives	its
authority	from	the	spiritual	principles	of	the	Creator,	and	that	it	is	to	be
guided	by	spiritual	principles	that	see	everyone	as	equal,	with	justice	andfreedom	for	all.	This	obvious	position	has	great	power	and	needs	no	defense.
Religion,	on	the	other	hand,	can	be	sectarian	and	divide	people	into
conflicting	groups,	often	with	dire	consequences	to	civilization	and	to	life
itself,	as	history	reveals.	The	sole	power	of	truly	spiritual	groups	originates
only	from	the	truth	of	their	teachings,	and	they	have	no	significant	earthly
power,	edifices,	wealth,	or	reigning	officers.	Generally	in	spirituality,	the
central	ideas	that	hold	the	group	together	are	commonly	those	of	love,
forgiveness,	peace,	gratitude,	thankfulness,	kindness,	nonmateriality,	and
nonjudgmentalism.	Usually,	religion,	in	essence,	originally	has	a	core	of
spirituality	that,	however,	becomes	submerged	and	often	lost	from	sight.
Otherwise,	war,	for	example,	would	have	little	chance	to	even	occur.	Spiritual
truth,	then,	is	universally	true	and	without	variation	through	time	or	place.	It
always	brings	peace,	harmony,	accord,	love,	compassion,	and	mercy.	Truth
can	be	identified	by	these	qualities.	All	else	is	the	invention	of	the	ego.CHAPTER	4
The	Basics
Religion	As	A	Source	of	Spiritual	Error
There	are	two	sources	of	error	stemming	from	traditional	‘true’	religions.	The
first	is	simply	misunderstanding	or	misinterpretation	of	the	specific	teachings
of	the	original	great	teacher.	Because	the	followers,	were	not	themselves
enlightened,	the	original	teachings	were	contaminated	by	their	egos.	This	then
became	magnified	by	subsequent	translators	and	scribes	down	toriginal
listeners,	or	hrough	the	generations.	The	warp	often	is	due	to	the	fact	that	the
ego	has	a	tendency	to	be	literal	in	its	hearing	of	the	word	rather	than	the	spirit
or	essence	of	a	teaching.	Any	translation	that	teaches	anything	other	than
peace	or	love	is	in	error.	This	is	a	basic	rule	and	easy	to	spot.
The	second	and	more	prevalent	gross	distortions	are	spiritual	teachings
that	arise	from	what	is	usually	referred	to	as	‘church	doctrine.’	These
regulations,	often	in	the	form	of	guilt-provoking	prohibitions,	were	actually
totally	made	up	by	church	officials	and	supposed	authorities	who,	in	reality,
had	no	claim	to	authority	at	all	but	instead	had	acquired	political	power	in	the
structure	of	the	institutions	at	the	time.
There	is	no	authentic	or	plausible	reason	to	modify	the	precise	teaching	of
an	original	great	teacher	for	some	ostensible	gain.	As	obvious	as	it	may	seem,
it	has	not	been	clear	through	the	centuries	that	to	be	a	Christian,	for	example,
means	simply	to	exactly	follow	Christ’s	teachings.
All	the	great	teachers	teach	nonviolence,	noncondemnation,	and
unconditional	love.	It	is	hard	to	see	how	any	alleged	ecclesiastical	authority
could	violate	these	basic	truisms	supposedly	for	‘the	good	of	the	faith’,	or	‘the
good	of	the	church’,	or	the	‘elimination	of	infidelities,’	or	‘just’	wars.
There	are	many	subjects	not	addressed	in	original	spiritual	teachings,	thus
creating	the	opportunity	for	fallacious	religious	elaborations.	All	kinds	of
‘sins’	have	been	invented	over	the	centuries,	with	elaborate	explanations	and
rationalizations	that	can	only	be	described	clinically	as	rather	sick
manipulations	of	natural	human	affairs.	The	harm	that	resulted	was	not	only
spiritual	error	but	also	psychological	cruelty	and	the	blanket	guilt	of
humanity.	This	focus	on	guilt	and	sin	further	condemns	human	consciousness
by	reinforcing	the	dilemma	of	the	opposites	and	the	duality	of	perception.This	latter	destructive	effect	on	human	consciousness	takes	man	farther	away
from	God	and	creates	a	barrier	that	is	transcended	only	by	the	very	few	who
have	to	be	almost	spiritual	geniuses	in	order	to	succeed	in	escaping	the
coercive	trap	of	elaborate	fallacies.
A	further	destructive	effect	of	the	promulgations	of	some	religious
doctrine	is	that	it	creates	the	very	basis	for	terrible	wars	and	persecutions.
These	are	always	based	on	religious	differences	that	are	exaggerated	in
importance	in	order	to	justify	religiously	sanctioned	mayhem.	These
misinterpretations	and	deviations	are	especially	notable	in	the	murky	religious
meddlings	with	sexuality,	procreation,	child	rearing,	diet,	details	of	daily
living,	customs,	dress,	and	political	power.
Wearing	different	kinds	of	clothing,	hats,	or	facial	hair	is	enough	to	fuel
religious	persecution	or	war.	Circumcision,	not	eating	meat	on	Fridays,	saying
grace	before	meals,	and	dates	and	details	of	religious	holidays	all	become
ammunition.	Whether	the	Sabbath	is	Saturday	or	Sunday	becomes	more
important	than	the	truth.	Whether	wearing	a	hat	or	no	hat	shows	respect	for
God	becomes	a	hoary


 of embar rassment, wegain courage. Instead of limitation, we e xperience fr eedom.
If left unopened, the shadow is a P andora’s bo x ﬁlled with
secrets that we fear will destr oy everything we love and
care about. But if we open the bo x, we discover that what’s
inside has the power to radically and positively  alter our
lives. Then we will step out of the illusion that our darkness
will overtak e us and instead we will see the world in a new
light. The compassion we discover for ourselves will ignite
our conﬁdence and courage as we open our hearts to those
around us. The power we unearth will help us tackle the fear
that has been holding us back and will ur ge us to move
powerfully towar d our highest potential. F ar from
frightening, embracing the shadow allows us to be whole, to
be real, to tak e back our power, to unleash our passion, and
to realize our dr eams.
This book was bor n out of a desir e to illuminate the many
life-altering gif ts of the shadow. In the following pages, each
of us will appr oach the subject fr om our own unique
perspective as teachers. Our intention is to pr ovide a
compr ehensive, multi-lens understanding of how the
shadow was bor n within us, how it functions in our lives, and
most important, what we can do to discover the gif ts of our
true natur e. We promise that af ter reading this book you will
never think of your shadow self in the same way again.
In Part I, Deepak Chopra gives us a compr ehensive
overview of our dualistic natur e and oﬀers a pr escription to
return us to wholeness. A mind/body pioneer, Chopra has
transfor med millions of lives with his teachings. His holistic
approach to the divisive natur e of the shadow is both
grounding and illuminating.
In Part II, I draw upon nearly ﬁf teen years of teaching and
leading The Shadow P rocess ar ound the world to oﬀer an
accessible yet in-depth e xamination of the birth of the
shadow, the r ole of the shadow in our everyday lives, and
how we can r eclaim the power and brilliance of our
authentic natur e.In Part III, Marianne W illiamson touches our hearts and
minds with a pr ovocative e xploration of the connection
between the shadow and the soul. A r enowned inter national
spiritual teacher, Marianne tak es our hand and guides us
through the bumpy ter rain of the battle between love and
fear.
Each of us comes with years of e xperience and a sincer e
hope that we can illuminate the shadow once and for all. F or
if we do not counter the for ce of the shadow and integrate
its wisdom, it has the potential to continue to wr eak havoc
on our lives and our world. When we fail to admit to our
vulnerabilities and r ecognize our bad behaviors, we will
inevitably sabotage ourselves when we ar e on the ver ge of
some personal or pr ofessional br eakthr ough. Then the
shadow wins. When we act out of dispr oportionate anger in
speaking to our childr en, the shadow wins. When we
deceive our loved ones, the shadow wins. When we r efuse
to accept our true natur e, the shadow wins. If we do not
bring the light of our highest self to the darkness of our
human impulses, the shadow wins. Until we accept all of
who we ar e, the shadow eﬀect will have the power to
impede our happiness. If lef t unacknowledged, the shadow
will stop us fr om being whole, pr event us fr om achieving our
best-laid plans, and leave us living half a life. It is our hope
in writing this book that we will bring the shadow into the
light. Ther e has never been a better time to cr eate a new
lexicon, to illuminate the shadow, and to ﬁnally understand
what’s been so diﬃcult to see and har d to e xplain.
Shadow work, as described in this book, is mor e than a
psychological pr ocess or an intellectual banter. It is a
prescriptive solution to pr oblems unsolved. It is a life-
altering jour ney that goes beyond any psychological theory
because it deems the dark side as a human issue, a spiritual
issue that all of us must r esolve in this lifetime if we ar e to
live a fully self -expressed life. W e will ﬁnally understand why
we ar e no better and no worse than anyone else r egardlessof our color, our backgr ound, our se xual orientation, our
genetic mak eup, or our past. Ther e is no one in the world
who doesn’t have a shadow, and when tak en seriously and
understood, the shadow can birth a new r eality that will
alter the way we feel about ourselves, the way we par ent
our childr en, the way we tr eat our partners, the way we
interact with our community members, and the way we
engage with other nations.
I believe that the shadow is one of the gr eatest gif ts
available to us. Carl Jung called it a “spar ring partner ” it is
the opponent within us that e xposes our ﬂaws and sharpens
our skills. It is the teacher, the trainer, and the guide that
supports us in uncovering our true magniﬁcence. The
shadow is not a pr oblem to be solved or an enemy to be
conquer ed but a fertile ﬁeld to be cultivated. When we dig
our hands into its rich soil, we will discover the potent seeds
of the people we most desir e to be. It is our sincer e hope
that you tak e this jour ney, for we know what’s waiting
inside.
Debbie F ord
OceanofPDF.comPART I
OceanofPDF.comThe Shadow
DEEP AK CHOPRA
Once people hear about the shadow, the dark side of human
natur e, almost no one denies that it e xists. Every life has
been touched by anger and fear. The evening news e xposes
human natur e at its worst, week af ter week, without letup. If
we ar e honest with ourselves, dark impulses ar e free to
roam our minds at will, and the price we pay for being a
good person—something we all aspir e to—is that the bad
person who might ruin everything must be k ept under
wraps.
Having a shadow side seems to call for some kind of
intervention, maybe therapy or a pill, maybe a trip to the
confessional or a midnight soul confr ontation. As soon as
people acknowledge that they have it, they want to be rid of
it. Ther e are many aspects of life in which a can-do, let’s-ﬁx-
it attitude works. Unfortunately, the shadow isn’t one of
them. The r eason that the shadow hasn’t been ﬁx ed for
thousands of years—the whole time that human beings
have been conscious of their dark side—is totally
mysterious. It only mak es sense to unravel the mystery
befor e asking how to deal with it. Ther efore, I’ve divided
Part I into thr ee sections, in which I fall back on a physician’s
instinct to ﬁnd a diagnosis, oﬀer a cur e, and then honestly
tell patients their pr ognosis for the futur e:
The F og of Illusion
The W ay Out
A New R eality, a New P owerThe ﬁrst section (the diagnosis) describes how the shadow
came to be. I diﬀer fr om some in believing that the shadow
is a human cr eation, not a cosmic for ce or a universal curse.
The second section (the cur e) deals with how you can
diminish the shadow’s hidden power over you in everyday
life. The thir d section (the pr ognosis) unfolds a futur e in
which the shadow has been dismantled, not only for certain
individuals, but for all of us. T ogether we cr eated the
shadow that now haunts us. Despite our fear and r eluctance
to face this fact, it tur ns out to be the k ey to transfor mation.
If you and I wer en’t part of the pr oblem, we would have no
hope of being part of the solution.
THE FOG OF ILL USION
If you cannot see your own shadow, you must go in sear ch
of it. The shadow hides in shame in the dark alleys, secr et
passages, and ghost-ﬁlled attics of your consciousness. T o
have a shadow is not to be ﬂawed, but to be complete.
That’s a har d truth to confr ont. (Haven’t you tried to tell
people a candid truth about themselves, only to have them
snap back, “ Don’t psychoanalyze me,” or something of the
sort? The unconscious r ealm feels as


 in bed, unconscious, out of your body
—yet still attach ed to it. How does all of this stupendous manifestation take
place, in a way known only to itself?
There are some things taking place while you slumber that might give you
pause. One-third of your life is lived in a reality that offers you clues as to
what is possible for you when you are in your dreams awake. You can get a
glimmer of how the one universal subconscious mind works if you can look
back, from a waking state, and examine what is taking place during the
sleeping third of your life.
In your dream state, you are able to create anything that you desire simply
by using your powers of though t to make it happen. You don’t have to get
out of bed, get dressed, set a goal and then an intention, go to a car
dealership to test-drive the car you love, write a check, and drive away with
your new purchase. All you need do is place the idea into your sleepy
imagination, feel it in your body (your heart rate goes up, your breathing
increases, you are feeling the joy in your smile), and voilà!  There it is—you
are drivi ng in your new car. It is all very real, and all you had to do was
have the though t, live from the end, and feel it. Your subconscious mind,
now fully connected to the one subconscious mind, has allowed you to
participate in the true art of manifestation. And as long as you stay in your
dream state, unconscious in your slumber, “then He opens the ears of men,
and seals their instructions,” as it is revealed in the book of Job.
In Anita Moorjani’ s NDE report quoted earlier, she speaks about the
absence of time, and the sensation that everything seemed to be happening
at once. No time experience, only now. And so it is in your dream state as
well. You can be five years old and fifty years old all at the same time inyour dream. You can be with the same person simultaneousl y alive and
dead in your dream.
Albert Einstein’ s study of quantum physics was devoted to the simple
message that we live in a compl eted universe, and that time is an invention
of man and essentially an illusion. Anita’ s NDE uncons cious state
reinforces Einste in’s idea of no time. Anita said that past lives did not exist
in those momen ts. Everything was happening now. The only way she could
describe it was that what we call past lives appeared to be parallel  lives,
and that everyth ing was simply all one. In your unconscious sleep state, you
can be anything and everything; you can be yourself and someone else or
something else—even an animal—simultaneously. Linearity  seems to
disappear. Anyth ing that you can imagine is yours. Nothing is impossible.
Want to fly? Then imagine it and feel it, and of f you go.
While asleep and dreaming, you’re not restricted to cause and effect. In
your dreaming body you can come and go as you please. Things do not
have to follow the same rules that seem to apply to your waking world. If
you imagine and feel it as a present-moment fact, it is there for you
instantaneously. Everything you need for the dream is created  by you in
harmony with your subconsciou s mind. You don’t have to do anything but
allow your thoughts to create what they desire and to feel it in your sleeping
body.
Think about all of the things that take place in the one-third of your life
while you sleep. There is no time, no cause and effect—eve rything you
experience is created by your imagination. The people and events are all
illusions, simply figments of your imagination. There is no beginning and
no end, no linea r progression, and it all seems to make perfect sense as long
as you’re in the dream state.
I’m reminded of Henry David Thoreau’ s observation that “Our truest life
is when we are in dreams awake.” It seems only logical to me that if during
one-third of our life on planet Earth, we are capable of manifesting anything
that we place our attention on—without having to expend any physical
effort, only by allowing ourselves to transcend time and space—then why
not in the other two-thirds of our life? This is what I believe Thoreau is
suggesting when he urges us to be true to our authentic self by being a
waking dreamer.As you look back at it from your “awakened” state, the time while you are
in deep slumber provides you clues as to what is possible when you begin
to awaken from this dream as well. You have experienced oneness,
timelessness, miracle-making, and having your wishes fulfilled
instantaneously for one-third of your life. Become a waking dreamer and
begin to apply this same awareness to the entirety of your life. All of the
things I have written throughout this book, you are capable of achieving
while asleep. Make them your personal reality in all of your waking hours
as well.
Remember, the only way you can be sure you were dreaming is to
awaken. If you never awakened, it would all be the unlimited reality of your
dream state. And so it is with the two-thirds of your life as well. The only
way you will ever know you were dreaming is to revive while you are still
alive, and look back at your dream from this awakened perspective. Remind
yourself that you can indeed do as Thoreau suggests and find your truest
self by being in your dreams awake.
Neville of fers you these words on what takes place while you sleep:
Sleep is the door through which the consci ous, waking mind passes to be creatively joined
to the subconscious. Sleep conceals the creative act while the objective world reveals it. In
sleep man impresses the subconscious with his conception of himself.44
Each night as I drift off to sleep, I adamantly refuse to use this precious
time to review anything that I do not want to be reinforced in the hours of
being immersed in my subconscious mind. I choose to impre ss upon my
subconscious mind, and therefore the mind of God to which I am eternally
joined, my conc eption of myself as a Divine creator in alignment with the
one mind. I groggily reiterate  my I ams, which I have  placed in my
imagination, and I remember that my slumber will be dominated  by my last
waking concept of myself. I am peaceful, I am content, I am love, I am
writing, I am the governing power of the universe, and I attract only to
myself those who ar e in alignment with my highest ideals of myself.
This is my nightly ritual, always eschewing any temptation to go over any
fear of unpleasa ntness that my ego might be asking me to review. I assume
the feeling in my body of those I am statements already fulfilled, and I enter
my sleep inviting the instructio n that my subconscious mind welcomes. I
know that I’m allowing myself to be programmed while asleep, for the nextday I rise knowing that I am a free agent. I understand that every  action and
event of the day is essentially predetermined by my feelings as I prepared
for sleep, and while I was in that place of warmth and trust in the arms of
the one universal subconscious mind.
Waking Up
It is my intentio n to live in my dreams awake, as much as is humanly and
spiritually conce ivable. I look back upon my dream state, and I realize that
everything that I needed for my dream I was able to create with my
subconscious mind—without effort, and with no need for involving my
physical body at all. And so I know that manifesting the person I wish to be
while awake also involves effortless perfection and that I have my
imagination—or my intentions, my attention, and my feelings—to use
while awake as well. My sleep  time fully embedded in my subconscious
mind is providin g clues for me to put those mental activities into practice
when I leave my slumber.
I further  look back at my dream  time from a place of wakefulness, and I
see that everything and everyone that was in my dream was created by me
with my imagination. I keep this in mind as I gaze at who and what I have
created in my awake dream. I look back from my wakeful perspective and
realize that I lived in a world where time is an illusion, where  nothing is
unavailable to me, where cause and effect are total illusions, where all
obstacles are turned into either opportunities or revealed as illusions, where
there is no beginning and no end, and where my body experien ces feelings
even though the thoughts that resulted in those feelings are all illusions and
were totally devoid of judgments by my dreaming self.
And finally, I look back and realize that the only way I know for certain
that I was dreaming was to awaken. I remind you here as well that you do
have within you these amazing powers of manifestation, and you use them
on a regular basis every night and for one-third of your entire time in this
incarnation. I suggest that while you are awake, you view this two-thirds
portion of your life as a dream as well, and realize that the only way you’ll
know you are dreaming is to awaken.


 bor n again is to let the past go, and look
without condemnation upon the pr esent.” The world of time
is not the r eal world, and the world of eter nity is our r eal
home. W e are on our way ther e. We are pregnant with
possibilities.
3. RESURRECTION
“Your resurrection is your awak ening.”
The purpose of our lives is to give birth to the best which is
within us.
The Christ comes as a little child because the symbol of
the newbor n infant is the symbol of someone whoseinnocence is unmar red by past history or guilt. The Christ
child within us has no history. It is the symbol of a person
who is given the chance to begin again. The only way to
heal the wounds of the past, ultimately, is to for give them
and let them go. The miracle work er sees that his purpose in
life is to be used in the service of the for giveness of
mankind—to awak en us fr om our collective sleep.
The Course tells us: “The Bible says that a deep sleep fell
upon A dam, and nowher e is ther e reference to his waking
up.” So far, ther e has been no “compr ehensive r eawak ening
or rebirth.” W e can all contribute to a global r ebirth to the
extent that we allow ourselves to be awak ened fr om our
own personal dr eam of separation and guilt, to r elease our
own past and accept a new life in the pr esent. It is only
through our own personal awak ening that the world can be
awak ened. W e cannot give what we don’t have.
We’re all assigned a piece of the gar den, a cor ner of the
universe that is ours to transfor m. Our cor ner of the
universe is our own life—our r elationships, our homes, our
work, our cur rent cir cumstances—e xactly as they are. Every
situation we ﬁnd ourselves in is an opportunity, perfectly
planned by the Holy Spirit, to teach love instead of fear.
Whatever ener gy system we ﬁnd ourselves a part of, it’s our
job to heal it—to purif y the thought for ms by purif ying our
own. It’s never r eally a cir cumstance that needs to change—
it’s we who need to change. The prayer isn’t for God to
change our lives, but rather for Him to change us.
That’s the gr eatest miracle, and ultimately the only one:
that you awak en from the dr eam of separation and become
a diﬀer ent kind of person. P eople ar e constantly concer ning
themselves with what they do: have I achieved enough,
written the gr eatest scr eenplay, for med the most powerful
company? But the world will not be saved by another gr eatnovel, gr eat movie, or gr eat business ventur e. It will only be
saved by the appearance of gr eat people.
A glass vase is meant to hold water. If mor e water is
poured into the vase than its volume can contain, then the
vase will shatter. So it is with our personalities. The power of
God, particularly at this time, is pouring into us at rapid
pace and high velocity. If our vessel, our vehicle—our
human channel—is not pr epared pr operly thr ough devotion
and deep r everence for life, then the very power that is
meant to save us begins to destr oy us. Our cr eativity, rather
than making us personally powerful, then mak es us
hysterical. That is why cr eative power—God within us—is
experienced as a double-edged swor d: if r eceived with
grace, it blesses us; if r eceived without grace, it drives us
insane. This is one of the r easons why so many cr eative
people have tur ned to a destructive use of drugs: to actually
dull the e xperience of the r eception of God’s power rather
than enhance it. God’s power coming into us, in a cultur e
that had no name for that power or acknowledgment of
genuine spiritual e xperience, so frightened us that we ran to
drugs or alcohol to avoid feeling what was r eally happening.
It was only when we wer e stoned that we had the courage
to claim our own e xperience.
“Miracles ar e everyone’s right,” says A Course in
Miracles, “but puriﬁcation is necessary ﬁrst.” Impurities—
mental or chemical—pollute the system and desecrate the
altar within. Our vehicle then can’t handle the e xperience of
God. The waters of spirit rush into us, but the vase begins to
crack. It’s not the ﬂow of power we have to work on—God’s
love is alr eady pouring in as fast as we can handle it—but
the pr eparedness with which we r eceive it.
A Course in Miracles  likens us to people in a very bright
room who have their ﬁngers in fr ont of their eyes,complaining that it’s dark in her e. The light has come but
we don’t see it. W e don’t r ealize that the pr esent is always a
chance to begin again, a light-ﬁlled moment. W e respond to
light as if it wer e darkness, and so the light tur ns to dark.
Sometimes it is only in r etrospect that we can see that we
were given another chance at life, a new r elationship or
whatever, but because we were too busy r eacting to the
past, we missed the opportunity at something radically new.
When we’r e truly honest with ourselves, our pr oblem is
not that opportunities for success haven’t appear ed. God is
always e xpanding our possibilities. W e are given plenty of
opportunities, but we tend to under mine them. Our
conﬂicted ener gies sabotage everything. T o ask for another
relationship, or another job, is not particularly helpful if
we’re going to show up in the new situation e xactly as we
showed up in the last one. Until we’r e healed of our inter nal
demons, our fearful mental habits, we will tur n every
situation into the same painful drama as the one befor e.
Everything we do is infused with the ener gy with which we
do it. If we’r e frantic, life will be frantic. If we’r e peaceful, life
will be peaceful. And so our goal in any situation becomes
inner peace. Our inter nal state deter mines our e xperience of
our lives; our e xperiences do not deter mine our inter nal
state.
The ter m cruciﬁxion means the ener gy patter n of fear. It
represents the limited, negative thinking of the ego, and
how it always seeks to limit, contradict or invalidate love.
The ter m resurrection means the ener gy patter n of love,
which transcends fear by r eplacing it. A miracle work er’s
function is for giveness. In perfor ming our function, we
become channels for r esurrection.
God and man ar e the ultimate cr eative team. God is lik e
electricity. A house can be wir ed for it, but if ther e aren’t anylight ﬁxtur es, what good does that do? If God is seen as
electricity, then we ar e His lamps. It doesn’t matter the size
of the lamp, or its shape, or design. All that matters is that it
gets plugged in. It doesn’t matter who we ar e, or what our
gifts are. All that matters is that we ar e willing to be used in
His service. Our willingness, our conviction, give us a
miraculous power. The servants of God bear the imprint of
their Master.
Lamps without electricity cast no light, and electricity
without lamps casts no light either. Together, however, they
cast out all darkness.
4. COSMIC ADUL THOOD
“Child of God, you wer e created to cr eate the
good, the beautiful and the holy.”
As we become pur er channels for God’s light, we develop an
appetite for the sweetness that is possible in this world. A
miracle work er is not gear ed towar d ﬁghting the world that
is, but towar d creating the world that could be.
Just tr eating the symptom of a pr oblem isn’t r eally
treating it. T ake nuclear bombs, for e xample. If we all work
hard, sign enough petitions and elect new oﬃcials, then we
can ban the bomb. But if we don’t get rid of the hatr ed in
our hearts, what good will that do, ultimately? Our childr en
or our childr en’s childr en will manufactur e a destructive
force mor e powerful than the bomb, if they ar e still car rying
within them enough fear and conﬂict.
Everything in the physical universe becomes part of the
journey into fear, or the jour ney back to love, depending on


Title Page
Authors’ Disclaimer
Dedication
About the Authors
Preface
INTRODUCTION
Part One  - HOW THE  GERSON  THERAPY  WORKS
Chapter One  - HOW NUTRITION HEALS
Chapter T wo - A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF DR. MAX GERSON
Chapter Three - THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF THE GERSON
THERAPY
Chapter Four  - THE CORE OF THE GERSON THERAPY
Chapter Five  - REMISSION—HOW IT HAPPENS
Part T wo - THE GERSON  THERAPY  IN ACTION
Chapter Six - HEALING MELANOMA WITH THE GERSON
THERAPY
Chapter Seven  - SUCCESS WITH OTHER DISEASES  Chapter Eight  - FOODS ON THE GERSON DIET PLAN
Chapter Nine  - THIR TEEN GLASSES
Chapter T en - THE GERSON SAL TLESS DIET
Chapter Eleven  - NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS ON THE
DIET
Chapter Twelve  - LIVER DET OXIFICA TION WITH COFFEE
ENEMA
Chapter Thirteen  - COFFEE ENE MA AND HOW TO TAKE
THEM
Part Thr ee - ADAPTING THE  THERAPY FOR  VARIOUS  DISEASES
Chapter Fourteen  - STANDARD GERSON THE RAPY FOR
MOST CANCERS
Chapter Fifteen  - MODIFIED THERAPY DURING
CHEMOTHERAPY
Chapter Sixteen  - MODIFIED THERAPY FOR SEVEREL Y
WEAKENED CANCER P ATIENTS
Chapter Seventeen  - MODIFIED THERAPY FOR NONCANCER
PATIENTS
Part Four  - USING THE  GERSON  APPROACH
Chapter Eighteen  - PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROA CHES OF THE
GERSON THERAPY  Chapter Nineteen  - HOW TO FOLLOW THE GERSON
THERAPY ON YOUR OWN
Chapter T wenty  - GERSON LAB TESTS EXPLAINED
Chapter T wenty-One  - SUCCESS ST ORIES BY P ATIENTS
Chapter T wenty-T wo - RECIPES
APPENDIXES
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Copyright Page
Notes
OceanofPDF.comAbout the Authors
Charlotte Gerson, the youngest daughter of Max Gerson, M.D., whom he
lovingly addressed as “Lotte,” was an assistant for her father in his work on
an almost continuous basis. In the first edition of his book A Cancer
Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases, Dr. Gerson thanked her for giving help
“wherever she could with great interest and understanding encouragement.”
Charlotte Gerson was born in Germany and underwent her early
schooling there.  When her famil y fled from Germany to Austria  as a means
of escaping what became the holocaust, Lotte attended school in a suburb of
Vienna. Later, upon her father ’s moving the Gerson family to France, which
he consi dered safer, she studied French and continued high school under the
French educatio nal system. Dr. Gerson practiced medicine in France for
only a short period under the licensure of another physician.
Next, the Gersons emigrated to England to escape domination by the
French Vichy government. Lotte continued school for a short time in
London, where she started to learn English. She received her high school
diploma in New York City, where the Gerson family finally felt safe and
could settle down. Eventually Dr. Gerson established his medical practice
on Park Avenue in Manhattan and at a clinic in Nanuet, a small town
located between Suf fern and Nyack in upstate New Y ork.
The young woman attended Smith College. She is literate in Spanish,
which stands her in good stead since the Gerson Therapy was for close to
twenty-five years primarily administered in Tijuana, Mexico, just across the
border from San Diego, California.
Charlotte Gerson visits patients who are currently receiving medically
supervised Gers on Therapy at the Gerson Therapy Hospital. She consults
with these patients’ doctors, studies their progress toward health, answers
many questions  from the patients and their companions, lectures on the
intricacies of the Gerson Therapy, and of fers everyone encouragement.
This charitable and humanitaria n effort is natural for Charlotte Gerson,
for she was alwa ys interested in her father ’s work. Even as a young womanher greatest joy involved readin g medical literature. She spent much of her
free time assisting Dr. Gerson by translating and writing his papers. She
listened to and critiqued his lectures to health professionals and medical
consumers. Often Charlotte made hospital rounds with her father and acted
as one of the medical assistants at his Oakland Manor Cancer Clinic in
Nanuet, New Y ork.
In fact, to beco me a more valuable aide, Charlotte enrolle d in and
completed a formal course for medical assistants, which qualified her to
help in patient nursing work at the Gerson clinic. When Dr. Gerson was
absent lecturing, consulting, or on vacation, she carried out his telephoned
instructions regarding the clinic’ s patients.
After the young  woman married and became Charlotte Gerson Straus,
she spent a number of years in her husband’ s import/export  enterprise,
which caused her to become familiar with many business techniques.
However, the marriage eventually ended in divorce.
When Dr. Gerson died in 1959, Charlotte carried on by publicizing his
last, classic book, A Cancer Therapy: Results of Fifty Cases.  From public
demand and the need to dispose of three thousand copies, she proceeded to
lecture on the Gerson Therapy. Such lecturing, locally at first and later
nationally, was what gained initial broad distribution for the Gerson title
and its healing program.
As a result, Charlotte Gerson has been invited to speak on the Gerson
Therapy at several hundred organizations involved with aspects of health. A
few of them include:
• The Cancer Control Society—every year for twenty-five years —in two
California locations, Pasadena and Los Angeles
• The National Health Federation—eighteen locations around the United
States.
• The Alternative and Complementary Therapies Conve ntion in
Arlington, Virginia, put on by the clinical journal publishing house Mary
Ann Liebert, Inc., of Larchmont, New Y ork
• International Association of Cancer V ictors and Friends—ten cities
• Consumer Health Or ganization of Canada—T oronto, Ontario, Canada
• Australian Health Groups-Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and the Gold
Coast
• “Fit fuers Leben” (Fit for Life)—W aldthausen Verlag, Munich and
Bonn• The Municipal Hospital—Graz, Austria
• The Gerson Support Group—London, England
• Wirral Health Clinic—Manchester, England
• Gerso n Practitioners Training groups—San Diego, California, and
Sedona, Arizona
Moreover, Char lotte Gerson gives numerous seminars at conventions
organized by the Gerson Institu te that are held periodically in many of the
important cities around the United States and Canada, including Honolulu,
Hawaii; and Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Victoria, and
Vancouver, Canada.
The Gerson Therapy message has been carried to people on numerous
television shows, including twice on Oprah Winfrey’ s programs in
Baltimore and Chicago, before Oprah joined her national TV network.
Charlotte Gerson has appeared on Christian Broadcasting, Trinity
Broadcasting, PBS, cable stations, and national radio. For example, she is
interviewed frequently by Gary Null, on WBAI, by the synd icated radio
columnist Dr. James W iner, and for magazine articles.
With an associate in 1977, she supervised the establishment of the first
Gerson Therapy hospital in Tijuana, Mexico. Her specific goal then, as it is
now, was applying and teaching  the Gerson Therapy to everyon e interested
in surviving life-threatening diseases.
To accomplish her task, she helps to train physicians, nurses, kitchen
staff, and patien ts, and others so that they learn the elements of nutritional
treatment. Some one hundred holistic physicians in the United States and
many more located around the world have been trained by Charlotte Gerson
and the Gerson Institute to practice the Gerson Therapy as the health
professionals’ medical tool to reverse degenerative diseases.
This woman, who seems to have  no shortage of energy, teaches,  coaches,
and trains the Mexican hosp ital nursing staff, the kitchen staff, the
receptionists who respond to potential patients’ questions, and even the
hospital’ s passenger van drivers. For the past five years she has written
most of the news articles for the bimonthly Gerson Healing Newsletter ,
and she has created many articles for publication in health magazines.
Her stamina and capacity to perform are not Charlotte Gerson’ s only
amazing charac teristics. At age seventy-nine, she looks like a much
younger woman. By faithfully following the Gerson Therapy program for
prevention, Charlotte never needed to wear eyeglasses or contact lenses, hasall of her own teeth, exhibits absolutely no liver spots (age spots), suffers
from no arthritis or osteopor osis, and shows a smooth, unblemished
complexion. Because she refuses to use hair dye or any other kind of
cosmetic


 scraper (see resource s for buying information), working back to
front six or seven times. Feel your breath freshen instantly. According to
vaidyas, this scraping action also ignites the body’ s engine, so to speak,
preparing it to perform its daily job of respiration, circulation, digestion,
and elimination more ef ficiently.
Irrigate Y our Body
Drink a full of glass of warm water. This will get your kidneys and
bowels ready for evacuation. If a rushed routine has you accustomed to an
irregular bowel movement, don’t try to get it back to regularity  in a hurry.
Reestablishing the morning rhythm will take time. Five minutes after you
drink warm water, try to have a bowel movement. If it does not happen,
don’t worry; within the next few days, you will probably be able to
regularize this vital part of your healthy routine.
Rub Y our Body A wake
Early morning being vata time, your skin tends to be dry. Give it
moisture and suppleness by massaging in a good-quality Ayurvedic oil;
cold-pressed, chemical-free, organic sesame oil works best. If you are new
to self-m assage, you only have to try it once to understand its benefits. Iknow of no other therapy that can so quickly both fill you with energy and
make you feel totally rested. Massage accomplishes this by boosting your
circulation while simultaneously calming your nervous system.
Ayurvedic healers have prepared a step-by-step massage technique,
designed to give you the maxim um benefit from this morning routine. You
will find this complete technique in chapter 10.
Make T ime to T ake a W alk
Long before exercise became a modern mantra, Ayurveda’ s founding
father, Sage Charaka, was singing generous praises of it. He lauded its
capacity to burn ama, restore “flow” to the body’ s essential channels,
strengthen the mind, and even delay aging. Daily exercise has, therefore,
always been a vital part of the ideal A yurvedic routine.
But, vaidyas caution, there is such a thing as too much exercise. People
who fight too hard to be fit defy one of the most basic Ayurvedic rules:
moderation in everything. The result? Instead of feeling energized, they feel
exhausted. And by stretching their muscles too far, they disturb their overall
balance instead of restoring it.
So let your rule of thumb be to spend only half of your available  energy
reserve at one time. There is no calculator or monitor that can tell you when
you’ve used up 50 percent of your reserve, but your body will give you
signals. If you can keep up conv ersation while walking, feel light and lively
after your workout, and enjoy your game of tennis, your body is happy. But
if you’re sweating profusely, breathing through your mouth, and starting to
feel exhausted, it is time to stop. It’ s really that simple.
Before breakfas t is the ideal time to get your morning exercise. Some
forms of exercise, such as a brisk twenty-minute walk and simple yoga
asanas, balance all three doshas and are considered ideal.
Be Good to Y ourself – Eat Br eakfast
“Never leave home on an empty  stomach.” Grandmothers in India have
said this for so many generation s that it has taken on the status  of folklore.
When you read about Ayurveda, you come to understand the reason for the
Indian grandmothers’ insistence on breakfast.After it has been awakened and cleansed, the human body needs to be
nourished. If you deprive it of that nutrition, it will produce acid and make
you feel uncomfortable. Come noon, the digestive fire will rise, adding to
the acid levels and making you feel uncomfortable. In addition, missing out
on breakfast disturbs sadhaka pitta, the subdosha that looks after emotions
— particularly the feelings of comfort and contentment. If you miss
breakfast regula rly, you will eventually disturb the balance of all three
doshas.
But the good news is that you can restore that lost balance quite easily if
you work your way back to a good morning meal. As with everything else,
go slowly in breaking the no-breakfast habit. Start with a fresh fruit or
vegetable juice and gradually get your stomach accustomed to such foods as
almonds or raisins soaked overnight in water, warm bread with honey,
cooked cereal, and fresh juicy fruit of your choice.
Most of us don’t think twice about following up a bowl of cereal or a
cup of coffee with a glass of juice. The Ayurvedic practice, however, is to
not combine milk with acidic foods such as sour fruit, yogurt, or cheese.
The acidic properties of these foods, it is believed, curdle the milk in the
stomach. This can result in disturbed digestion. Moreover — and this might
come as a surpr ise — drinking orange juice first thing in the morning is a
kind of acid assault on the stoma ch; it is better to drink it later in the day. A
nourishing alternative is to start your day with a stewed apple or pear. In
chapter 9, I will describe the method of preparing stewed fruit.
About coffee: vaidyas advise avoiding caffeinated beverages altogether,
but if you find that impossible to do, then at least limit your intake to two
cups a day. If you take milk in your coffee, boil it first; doing this is
believed to reduce the side ef fects of caf feine to some extent.
Wash your hands before and after eating. Clean your teeth and tongue
after every meal. If possible, get some gentle exercise after eating, such as a
brief stroll, to aid digestion. Apply a soothing Ayurvedic perfume, made
from essential oils. Dress with care; the color and texture of your clothes
should reflect the harmony within you. These things may sound obvious —
even trivial — but it is surprising how many of us neglect to do them the
way they should be done.Eat Lunch Like a King
Lunch deserves to be your largest meal of the day because afternoon is
when two powerful forces are at their peak: the energy of the sun, and the
“fire” of your digestion. Even if you work in an office, you need n’t be stuck
with choosing between a sandwich and, well, a sandwich. With a little
planning, you can treat yoursel f to a hot, fresh meal at work by using a
slow-cooker. Just put fresh vegetables and the grains of your choice into the
cooker in the morning, and by lunchtime you will have a healthful soup
ready.
Here are some general guidelines on lunch: Ayurvedic philosophy says
that the ideal quantity of food for a single meal is the amount that can be
scooped up with both hands. Don’ t gobble; chew. Be aware of the food you
are eatin g; conc entrate on it. If possible, eat in silence withou t talking or
laughing — and certainly without arguing. You’ll help your metabolic
process.
The often-asked question is: to drink or not to drink water with your
meal? Vaidyas say it is okay to sip a cup of room-temperatu re or warm
water during your meal. If your meal is too dry, you can drink  more than
that. If you are drinking soup or lentils with lunch, then keep it to one cup.
Drinking water about forty-five  minutes after lunch is also good because it
gives digestion a boost. Generally, drinking water at regular intervals
through the day will work wonders for you.
Snacking betwe en meals can lead to an erratic appetite, but as long as
your last meal is fully digested before you snack, it won’ t harm you. When
the urge to snack attacks, quickly think back to your last meal; if you ate it
less than four hours ago, skip the snack.
Have an Early Dinner
Eating by about 7:00 P.M. is ideal, and allows time for your dinner to be
properly digested before going to bed. Keep this meal light: soups, one-pot
vegetable stews, quick-cooking grains like buckwheat, and sautéed
vegetables make nourishing yet non-heavy dinners. Whenever possible, go
for a gentle walk (around thirty minutes) before retiring.Make Bedtime the Stuff of Dr eams
Relax with light music, or lie in bed and breathe deeply, until you feel
calm and mentally settled. Read ing a book before bedtime can sometimes
stimulate the mind instead of settling it, thus interfering with good sleep.
Ideally, lights should be out at 10:00. The best sleeping position  is on your
side with knees slightly bent. A void sleeping on your stomach.
your ayurvedic day
There! You now have a pleasant, nurturing routine, as opposed to the
“routine” routine you had been following. Isn’t it surprising how much
more you can squeeze into your day and still depressurize your life instead
of cramming it with stress?
In betw een these essentials, you would, of course, fit in your work-
related appointments. Pepper the margins of your planner with interesting
tips, reminders, and positive af firmations. A sampling:
•   Refreshing Reminder: drink two extra glasses of water tomorrow.
•   Note  to Myself: Today I am a symphony of health and joy. I’m
tuning the strings of my violin.


 as also symbolically the birth of this new being.
There is pre-natal growt h in the seclusion of the closed
room or retreat, the womb, before the new being emerges
from darkness to light, from dependence to indepe ndence,
into the life of the spirit. A modern Taoist Master called
this foetus ‘an incorporeal manifestation of the union of
spirit with vitality,’ and a Japanese professor, visiting the
Taoist White Cloud monastery in the 1940s, found the
ancient values still alive:
Little signiﬁcance was attached to the artiﬁcial, so-
called cultur al, activities. Taking pride in gathering
scraps of knowledge, conducting surveys, doing
research—those may be eﬀorts to ﬁnd some
satisfaction or self-understanding in the society of
men, but they end, as does life, like the ﬂaring out ofa candle. It is better to be embraced in the vastness
of Nature, to melt into it. Then there is no wasted
resistance to life, no useless conﬂagration. When
one's breath ing is in harmony with nature, one
becomes identical with its very life-ﬂow.
Alchemists of both East and West state categorically that
Nature is their guide and exemplar, that they are working
with her and following her laws. In alchemy they may be
hastening some of her processes, but never working
against her. As a science alchemy aimed at the
understanding of the properties and formations of mineral
substances; as a spiritual art or philosophy it was
concerned with the mysteries of life and the cosmos. It had
a cosm ological relationship with every aspect  of life,
human, anim al, plant and mineral. One could not go wrong
in following Nature. As the Golden Tract says: ‘Nature
seeks and demands the gradual attainment of perfection,
and a general approximation to the highest standard of
purity and excellence.’
The cult of longevity was not considered to be going
against living  in accord with Nature since she had long-
lived creatur es whose life span greatly outdid that of the
human being ; in any case, it would be Nature herself who
provided the life-giving plants and substances; the
individual had only to ﬁnd and use them. Moreover, the
aim of a long life for the true alchemist was a spiritual one,
the gaining of time in the body for the development of the
spirit.
Eliade writes that ‘Alchemy represents the projection of
a drama, at once cosmic and spiritual, in laboratory terms.
The aim of the opus magnum  was at once the freeing of
the human soul and the healing of the cosmos.’ In ancient
India the Master Nagarg una made it clear that the work
was a spiritual technique when he said: ‘The mercurial
system must not be looked upon as a simple eulogy ofmetal, for it is our means... of attaining the supreme
goal, which is deliverance;’ and in an ancient Chinese text
he is also reported as answering the question: ‘It is
believed that it is possible to make gold from stones; is
that not absurd?’ by saying ‘It is perfectly possible in the
spiritual sense.’
The whole work of alchemy is summed up in the phrase
‘To make of the body a spirit and of the spirit a body;’ or,
variously expressed, it is ‘the spiritualization of the body
and the embodiment of the spirit;’ or, again, it is ‘to
spiritualize matter and materialize spirit.’ In the hermetic
tradition this is enunciated as ‘We receive not only a new
soul with this regeneration but also a new body... it is
more spiritual than the air, akin to the rays of the Sun
which penetrates all bodies, and as diﬀerent from  the old
body as the resplendent Sun is from the dark earth.’
The goal of the Taoist alchemist-mystic  was
transformation, or perhaps more correctly, transﬁ guration
of the whole  body until it ceases to ‘be’ and is absorbed
into and becomes the Tao. The alchemist becomes the
True Man, returning to the Source—the Taoist phrase for
universal Oneness.
OceanofPDF.comNOTES
Chapter One:
1. Autobiography, tr. J. R. W are.
Chapter T wo:
1. Concerning the Nature of Things.
2. From a Rosicrucian Manual, Kompass der W eisen
(1782).
Chapter Six:
1. From the Ts'n T'ung Ch'i  of W ei Po-yang, tr. Wu and
Davis, Isis. Vol. XVIII (1932).
2. Speculum Alkionia Minus.
3. Opus Major.
Chapter Seven:
1. Ko Hung, Pao P'u Tzu.  XVI.
2. Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. V.
3. Ko Hung, Pao P'u Tzu.
Chapter Nine:
1. From the Ts'an T'ung Ch'i.
OceanofPDF.comB I B L I O G R A P H Y
Blofeld, John. The Secret and the Sublime  (Allen and
Unwin, 1973).
Burckhardt, Titus. Alchemy  (Stuart and W atkins, 1967).
———, ‘Insight into Alchemy,’ Studies in Comparative
Religion  (Autumn 1979).
Chevalier, Jean (ed.). Dictionnaire des Symbols  (Paris,
1973).
Chkashige, Masumi. Oriental Alchemy  (Weiser, New
York, 1974 [1936]).
Chung-yuan Chang. Creativity as Process in T aoism
(Eranos Jahrbuch, Zurich, 1956).
Da Liu. The T ao and Chinese Culture  (RKP, 1981).
Dubs, H. H. ‘The Beginnings of Alchemy,’ Isis, Vol. 38
(1947-8).
Eliade, Mircea. Yoga, Immortality and Freedom
(Pantheon Books, 1958).
———, The F orge and the Crucible  (Rider, 1962).
Fung yu-lan. The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy  (RKP,
1947).
Gettings, F. Dictionary of Occult, Hermetic and
Experimental Sigils  (RKP, 1981).
Giles, Lionel. A Gallery of Chinese Immortals  (John
Murray, 1948).
de Groot, J. J. M. The Religious Systems of China
(Leyden, 1892-1907).Harrison, R. The Measure of Life  (Stanley Nott, 1936).
Holmyard, E. J. Alchemy  (Pelican, 1957, 1968).
Hopkins, A. J. Alchemy, Child of Greek Philosophy  (New
York, 1967).
Johnson, O. S. Gold. A Study of Chinese Alchemy  (New
York, 1974).
Jung, C. J. Psychology and Alchemy  (RKP, 1953).
Legeza, Lazzlo. Tao Magic  (Pantheon, 1975).
Lu-ch'iang W u & Davis, T. L. ‘The T s'an T'ung Ch'i of
Wei Po-yang,’ Isis, Vol. 18 (1932).
Needham, Joseph. Science and Civilization in China
(CUP ; 1954).
Read, John. ‘ Alchemy and Alchemists,’ Folklore, Vol.
XLIII (1933).
Redgrave, H. S. Alchemy: Ancient and Modern  (E. P.
Publishing Co., 1917, 1973).
Shigeru Nakayama. ‘Characteristics of Chinese
Astrology,’ Isis, Vol. 57 (1966).
Silberer, Herbert. Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and
the Occult Arts  (Dover, 1971).
Sivin, Nathan. Chinese Alchemy: Preliminary Studies
(Harvard UP, 1968).
Spooner, R. C. & W ang, C. H. ‘The Divine Nine Turn T an
Sha Method: A Chinese Alchemical Recipe,’ Isis, Vol.
38 (1947-8).
Taylor, F. S. The Alchemists  (Heinemann, 1951).
Thorndike, L ynn. History of Magic and Experimental
Science, Vol. l (Macmillan, 1923).Valois, Nicholas (compiled by Bernard Roger). Les Cinq
Livres, ou la clef du secret des secrets  (Paris, 1975).
Ware, J. R. (tr.) Alchemy, Medicine, Religion in the China
of AD 320 (The Nei P'ien  of Ko Hung [P ao Pu Tzu])
(MIT Press, 1966).
Warner, E. T. C. Myths and Legends of China  (Harrap,
1922).
Welch, H. and Seidel, A. (ed.) Facets of T aoism  (Yale
University Press, 1979).
Wing-tsit Chan. A Source Book of Chinese Philosophy
(Princeton University Press, 1963).
OceanofPDF.comI N D


 tooth material so that the microbes can absorb it. The microbes are thus
"eating" our teeth. But when good fresh foods are eaten the body obtains the necessary substances to render our saliva toxic to microbes, so that tooth decay is
prevented.
   In most people a whitish mineral deposit known as dental tartar or calculus forms
around the bases of the teeth which has to be  scraped off by the dentist. It was a
surprise to find in my research that on the fresh food diet this material forms very
little if any at all and the teeth remain clean and white with no attention other than ordinary brushing.

13. PHYSICAL STRENGTH AND RESISTANCE TO INJURY
   Sir Edmund Hillary has recently reported from his travels in the mountains of
primitive Nepal that he found young native women acting as baggage carriers in that
roadless country who regularly carried 80 pounds fifteen miles a day, and these girls
only weighed 85 or 90 pounds themselves. Our forefathers had the strength to reap great fields of grain with hand scythes, and to hand saw timber twelve hours a day.
What modern industrial population in the western world could do these things?
   Nowadays it is common for young men to die from trivial athletic injuries, for
people to suffer broken bones and torn ligaments from minor falls, and for employers
to be sued for huge damages by workers suffering serious disabilities caused by trivial
accidents. Throughout the western industrialized world labor is becoming steadily less
productive, and we are being left behind in competition by eastern countries where bread and other stale foods  are not used as much. We have come to be a sickly, frail,
and fragile people, with thin weak bones and flabby muscles.
   This is deterioration due to food, not degeneration of our bloodlines. It is a part of
the awful penalty we are paying for eating stale deteriorated food.
   Properly fed people have the strength and energy to enjoy and take an interest in a
good day's work, and not be forever feeling miserable and put upon by their
employer. Their bodies are tough and resilient, so that they can spring up from a fall
with a laugh rather than suffering broken bones, and when they do get hurt they have
a better chance to rapidly recover. Fresh food builds the tireless bodies and quick
brains required to increase production and reduce costs.

14. FATTY RUBBISH AND FILTH IN FLOUR
   Scientists connected with the flour industry have for many years been publishing
articles in trade journals not seen by the general public which describe in detail the
deteriorated fatty materials and filth found in flour. According to these articles, the
wheat grain from which flour is made has a deep fold or groove on one side going more than half way through the grain. This fold contains dirt, filth and microbes in
such a secluded position that the grain cannot be thoroughly cleaned. Additionally, by
the time grain reaches the mills, it is vermin infested and contains insects, and droppings urine and hair from rats and mice. Many insects, grubs and their droppings are inside the wheat grains, so cannot be separated out easily. The mills do what they can to clean the grain, but flour is such a cheap and competitive product that they
cannot afford to do very much and some of the filth goes on through the mill with the
grain and is ground up into the flour. The flour experts have written that microscopic
examination of flour commonly reveals ground up fragments of insects and rat hair,
and traces of rat dung and urine. Bacteriological tests of flour have indicated an extremely high content of microbes. Flour is thus by the reports of the industry's own
experts a highly contaminated filthy material, the like of which is not to be found in the whole food industry.
   The experts have also described in gr eat detail how wheat grain contains 3% or
more of oily fatty materials, including sitosterol which is closely similar to cholesterol, and how it is desirable that the resulting fatty content of the flour be in an
oxidized, hardened and dried out form so that the bread will rise higher and make
more loaves per sack of flour. They call this the "baking quality" of the flour, but it
does not improve the eating quality, only cheapening the bread. Long ago, drying out
of the flour oil was done by storing the flour to "age" it before baking, but nowadays the mills add oxidizing chemicals called "maturing" or "improving" agents to the flour so this hardening of the oils is accomplished rapidly by artificial means. Flour is usually made from cheap run-of-the-trade wheat, often wheat which has been stored
for many years as crop surplus, and consequently is very stale.
   I have found that these hardened oils and other similar hardened materials in flour
are the worst source of the fatty rubbish  which causes arteriosclerosis, and this
rubbish is further hardened by the baking process like baked enamel paint, so it remains lodged in our arteries after we eat bread and other flour products. The
condition that makes fatty rubbish from flour so much more dangerous than any other
food is its finely ground form, so fine that it can slip through the walls of our
intestines with the food stream and get into our blood very easily, whereas if it were coarser most of it would pass on out of the body with little harm.
   The most recent findings for this sixth edition have shown that even coarse flour, home-made flour,
stone-ground flour, whole wheat flour, oatmeal, farina, grits, cornmeal, even rice, processed grains of any and every kind, contain considerable fatty rubbish and cause choked arteries in varying degree.
Some people have been using their own home mills to grind their own flour, and say they have had
some improvement, however where a person is trying to reduce very high blood pressure or avoid a surgical operation for choked arteries, the best thing to do is completely avoid flour and meal of any
and every kind, even homemade. Potatoes are a good s ubstitute for bread, and it has been found there is
no real problem in getting used to doing without bread.
    Since some people have notions about bread and flour being the indispensable "Staff of life" and so
forth, we should look at the true facts. Bread and flour as we know them were developed in the Middle
East only a few thousand years ago, and have become popular mostly in the industrialized nations.
(Ref. "Flour for Man's Bread" by Storck & Teague, pub. 1952 by Univ. of Minn.) However, bread was
not adopted everywhere, for even today there are many parts of the world where the use of bread is mostly limited to the cities, notably in the Far East, tropical Africa and South America. Since there are
millions of happy well-fed people living today who do not eat flour or bread, it is very clear that it is
not necessary.

   Ready-to-eat cereals are made of finely ground flour and various other grains, so
must be considered stale food.

15. BRAN IN FLOUR AND CEREALS
   Bran is the brown outer coating of the wheat grain, and is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde
material. On the one hand it contains some worthwhile vitamins and protective
materials, but on the other it contains toxic substances which irritate the intestines,
produce stomach pains and diarrhea and have even been known to kill young children and baby animals. Bran occurs to some degree even in white flour as fine particles,
and gives whole wheat flour the brown color.
   Wheat grains can lie buried in the soil for several years and finally sprout, showing
the extremely durable and toxic properties of the bran coating in warding off soil
microbes. Bran is extremely durable and resistant to breakdown by organic action. For
this reason it can in finely ground form fall in the same class as fatty rubbish and play
a minor role in forming arteriosclerotic deposits. There are indications that yellow brown pigments from bran form accumulations in the body and have some bearing on
skin blemishes and the discoloration of old age.

16. QUALITY OF MEAT AND EGGS
   The flavor and health-giving power of these products and milk as well depend
greatly on how the producing livestock were cared for and fed. One can no more get
strength and health by eating products from run-down vitamin-deficient livestock than
borrow money from a pauper, for if the animal's body does not contain the necessary substances required to be healthy, it can not possibly give them to the human
consumer. It has been known for centuries that humans living on the products of poorly fed animals become weak and sickly.
   The eating quality of animal products due to feed alone can vary over a great range,
and the nutritional merits and freedom from fatty rubbish go hand in hand with the
eating quality. This is not surprising, for after all it is hardly possible to build a high quality product with shoddy materials.
   Nowadays most beef cattle, hogs, and chickens are fattened under confinement
feeding practices in which they are shut up in lots, pens, or cages and fed entirely upon stale stored feeds such as finely ground and pelletized grains, industrial by-
products, hay, and silage. These stale feeds contain large quantities of fatty rubbish
and the high quality health giving nutrients are mostly unavailable. Animals fed in
this way grow fast and become fat, but their disease resistance is low, and a great
many would sicken and die except for the anti-biotics and other drugs put in the feeds. In this way, animals can


ﬂood of new knowledge about how the brain works, none of
this fascinating data comes close to solving the hard
problem—the mind remains as elusive as ever. There isn’t
even a basic explanation for where thoughts come from.
The deﬁnition of life oﬀered in this chapter, “intelligence
wrapped up in chemicals,” puts the dilemma in a nutshell.
How did intelligence ever get associated with inert physical
lumps built from atoms, molecules, and subatomic
particles?
I’ve put the whole state of mismatch in simple terms, but
I haven’t distorted it. Biology, genetics, physics, and
medicine are at once roaring successes and under threat of
reaching a dead end. The successes get a lot of publicity,
the dead end almost none. Most people will shrug oﬀ the
news that despite decade s of deep thinking and billions of
dollars spent  on high-speed particle accelerators, physics is
no closer to a Theory of Everything and may actually have
moved backward. The discovery of so-calle d dark energy
and matter (“dark” means both invisible and outside the
parameters of accepted natural laws) has shaken physics to
the core.
The public can also shrug oﬀ the frustratingly slow
progress of genetic medicine, although on the medical front
there is increasing awareness that highly touted drugs
either don’t  work well or fail to produce any of the
advertised results (a recent example being the revelation
that statin drugs, widely prescribed to lower cholesterol, in
fact don’t reduce the risk of having a heart attack).
To actually grasp the devastating mismatch between
theory and application, you have to stand far, far back.
Every single scientiﬁc fact has its source in the emergence
of matter and energy, space and time, from a hidden state
in the quantum domain. This is where  reality comes from. A
gene, a molecule of serotonin, the World Series, a rose, theAndromeda galaxy, and your next thought all arise from a
pre-created state. So-called quantum foam is the bubbling
up of the universe from a source that gives rise to space
and time without being in space and time. It serves as the
womb for matter and energy without itself being material
or exhibiting the traits of the four forces that “glue” the
universe together (gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak
and strong forces).
Standing this far back, close to the source, all mysteries
converge. But the one mystery that would impact every
person’s life, the riddle that cannot be shrugged oﬀ as an
arcane scientiﬁc quest, is the hard problem. We must
discover whether mind or matter comes ﬁrst in creation.
The other mysteries will all be answered once this one is
answered. Here is what’s at stake, depending on whether
“mind ﬁrst” or “matter ﬁrst” is correct.
If mind  is primary and matter is secondary, then we live
in an intelligent universe. All the aspects of human
intelligence are invisibly wrapped up in every atom. We are
creative because the universe is creative. Our lives have
purpose and meaning because we emerged in a meaningful
cosmos. Matter arises, then, because cosmic intelligence
needed a way to express itself. Nothing abou t the unfolding
universe from  the instant of the Big Bang has been  random,
then. Randomness is a mere appearance, like the stirring of
water and ﬂour when a baker kneads his dough. Flour and
water molecules whirl around with no discernible order as
the kneading proceeds, yet we know that a completely
purposeful outcome—a loaf of bread—is being produced.
On the other hand, if matter is primary in creation, then
mind arrived much later, after billions of years of random
interactions between atoms and molecules. There is no
underlying purpose or meaning to the emergence of mind.
It just happened that the ﬁrst three atoms that coalesced
after the Big Bang—hydro gen, helium, and lithium —starteda journey on the way to becoming interstellar dust. The
dust randomly formed stars; some of these stars exploded
as supernov as, and the heavy atoms of iron and other
metals went on to gather into planets.
On one planet, Earth, the same random process
continued to produce the chemicals necessary for life.
From these primitive organic molecules DNA eventually
formed, and if we jump ahead three billion years, living
cells created a nervous system that evolved into the human
brain. Only at the end of this incredibly complex but always
random chain of events did mind emerge.
I’ve skewed the choices in favor of the ﬁrst one, “mind
ﬁrst.” The second narrative, “matter ﬁrst,” seem s
unbelievable to me. The chance that human DNA evolved
from random processes over ten billion years is like the
chance that a hurricane can blow through a junkyard and
create a Boeing 747, to use a famous metaphor from the
British physicist Fred Hoyle. But by backing the “mind
ﬁrst” explanation, Quantum Healing  ange red as many
people as it inspired, because “matter ﬁrst” is the basis of
every natural science. Since science continues to produce
newer and better technologies (Quantum Healing  was
written in a world without iPhones, tablets,  Google,
Wikipedia, etc.), how dare anyone suggest that science is
headed for a dead end?
Time has proved the skeptics and defenders of the status
quo wrong. Across the spectrum of science new thinking
arose to close the gap between theory and application by
returning to the fundamental mystery of the mind and
where it came from. The hard problem has led, directly or
indirectly, to new ﬁelds like quantum biology, undreamed of
thirty years ago. Consciousness has become an area of
serious scien tiﬁc inquiry where it was arrogantly dismissed
when I was writing the book—consciousness was simply a
given, like the air we breathe. You can build a car withoutknowing how respiration works. You can’t explain the
cosmos, life, the brain, or evolution without unde rstanding
consciousness. This realization overturned the applecart.
The apples are still scattered. Angry divisions exist
between total materialist s at one end of the spectrum and
proponents of panpsychi sm (the notion that everything in
existence is conscious) at the other end. Religion has been
hauled into the discuss ion, usually by militant atheists,
because claiming that intelligence is woven into the
universe implies a cosmic  mind. A cosm ic mind sounds a lot
like God, and God raises  the unholy specter of Intelligent
Design. People are now wrapping  their minds around how
design and intelligence can both exist without a Creator
God. (The dilemm a is less painful in the East, since the
philosophies derived from ancient India  didn’t
automatically connect cosmic mind with a God in human
form. India has always been comfortable with abstractions,
especially when it comes to higher consciousness.)
It’s poignant to look around at a scene so ﬁlled with
confusion, divisiveness, and ill will. But the waters aren’t
actually muddy. The hard problem has forced amazing
creativity to emerge. Especially among the younger
generation, “mind ﬁrst” is being seen as the only viable
option.
When Quantum Healing  was written, you risked your
scientiﬁc reputation to say that mind creates matter (even
though the brain performs this act of transformation every
time a thought creates a shift in the chemistry inside a
neuron). According to the prevailing worldview back then,
the body is a machine, the brain a “computer made of
meat,” the mind a second ary eﬀect, like the heat given oﬀ
by a bonﬁre. Now the tide has turned. None of those beliefs
hold water, even if they stick around as tenets of rigid
materialism. The reality, that we are thoughts that learnedto create a body, is far more miraculous, and it’s also the
truth.
OceanofPDF.comNo one will ever see the quantum mechanical body. For
many people, this will be a problem. Not just scientists but
all of us are comfortable with things we can see and touch.
The history of modern medicine consists largely of tracking
down solid objects that cause disease, although almost all
of them dwell in the realm  of the invisible, beyond anything
the naked eye can perceive.
A canny observer in fourteenth-century Europe  might
have conjectured that a rat in the house portended the
danger of bubonic plague (in actuality, rats were so
common that the connection was never made); spotting a
ﬂea on the rat’s pelt gets one closer to the actual cause, but
only when you investigate the rat’s blood under a
microscope and ﬁnd the bacterium Pasteurella pestis  have
you actually solved the riddle of the Black Death, a nemesis
of mankind so ancient that it is credited with decimating
the Persian army when it marched against Greece in the
ﬁfth century B.C.
Without a microscope, what would a bacterium be?
Something invisible to the eye and yet as big as the world,since it reaches every locale on Earth, even the poles. It
would come and go like smoke, penetrating the tightest
sealed doors and windows—if you believed only in your
senses, the ability of


 say about your issue, noting which approaches feel
comfortable for you and which feel uncomfortable.
Information Reshuffling and Information Analysis
As y ou gather in formation, your mind will digest what you are  learning,
formatting the information in ways that are useful to you. This process of
information r eshuffling takes place on both conscious  and subconscious
levels. The data is analyzed looking for patterns that can provide clues to a
new understanding of the issue.
Incubation
The fourth step is incubation. In incubation, you allow your awareness to
settle in to a more expanded state of consciousness through meditation.
Incubation is the stage of surren der. Having formed your intention, gathered
and resh uf fled t he information you obtained, the next step is to go beyond
the r ational mind and access a deeper domain of awareness to  orchestrate
the fulfillment of your intentio n. Use the So Hum meditatio n technique
described in Chapter 3 to quiet and expand your mind. Review your
intention for a few moments before you begin meditation and then let go.
Letting go allows for something entirely new to arise in your awareness—
something that you had not conceived of before.Insight
When th e condit ions are right, y ou will experience the fifth step, which is
insight. Insight results from the rearranging of the previous relationships
and meanings into an entirely  new context, which then allows for an
entirely new interpretation. Insight is the creative leap— your perception
and interpretation of the issue c ompletely shifts. This new inner vision is
the esse nce of the creative re sponse. It precipitates from a domain of
awareness that is nonlocal. The  process of meditation allows y ou to enter
into this nonlocal domain that exists for eternity in the gaps between your
thoughts. When  you are able to go beyond your ideas about how things
should be, gaining access to thi s deeper domain, something unprecedented
emer ges. This is insight.
Inspiration
When th e insight occurs, it spontaneously generates inspiration. The
level of enthusia sm that wells u p when insight dawns is a good barometer
that the insight is a real creative leap. When you really see things in a new
light, yo ur entire mind/body becomes ener gized. Y ou know in your mind
that your insight is true and you  feel in your body that the insi ght is right.
Passion, exhilaration, excitement, joy, and enthusiasm are all si gns that the
insight that arose while you were incubating will solve your problem and
fulfill your intention.
Implementation, Integration, Incarnation
It is now  your task to translate th e insight into action. Now that you know
what is necessar y to fulfill your intention, do it. Make the change, take the
step, and implement the a ction to actualize the creat ive response. Integrate
the c hange into your life. As yo u integrate and implement the insight into
your thin king and behavior, you incarnate it in your body. It becomes a par t
of you, and as a result you are a new person. Y ou have taken a creative leap
and have become a new body/mind.Ar chimedes, the Ar chetypal Cr eative Response
Archimedes was the greatest mathematician of his time. A third-century
B.C. native of S yracuse, Sicily, he was asked by King Hiero to determine if
the crow n that was made for him was of pure gold (Intention). Archimedes
knew th at if he c ould calculate the density of the crown he would be able to
determine if any other metals had been added (Information gathering). He
knew that density was weight ( mass) divided by volume. He could weigh
the crown on a scale, but due to its irregular shape, he did not know how to
find its precise volume. After considering this problem conti nuously for
days (Information r eshuffling), he was convinced by his servant to let the
puzzle g o for a little while and take a warm bath (Incubation). As he was
lowering himsel f into the tub, he noticed that his body displaced an amount
of water  equal to his volume. This led to the idea (Insight) that he could
calculate the density of the cr own by determining how much water it
displaced. He was so exuberant about his discovery (Inspiration) that
legend has it he ran through the streets of Syracuse shouting  “Eureka!,”
which in Greek means “I’ve fou nd it!” As it turned out, the metalsmith had
diluted the gold with silver.
As a n e xample of how this might work on a personal level, consider a
woman who is in constant turmoil because her spouse is not meeting her
expectations. In  her mind, he spends too much time alone or on the phone
with friends and colleagues. As a result of her distress and anxiety she has
been eating more, gaining weight, and losing her self-esteem.
She dec ides to apply this nine-s tep creative process by first formulating
her i ntention, which is to feel se cure, appreciated, and loved. She makes the
commitment to read several pop ular books on relationships and is exposed
to a num ber of new perspectives. She learns meditation, which  she begins
practicing regularly. During a particularly deep sitting, she has the insight
that she has really been m issing her friends, and her resentment stems fr om
her husband’ s experiencing som ething that she would like for herself. She
becomes inspire d by the idea and makes plans to visit an old college
roommate in another town. Sh e so enjoys the few days that her entireattitude about her life complete ly shifts. She begins exercising and eating
better and all her relationships, including her marriage, improve.
By s etting up the conditions th at allowed her to experience a  creative
quantum leap, she was able to access life ener gy that was  previously
unavailable to her. This ability to experience new creative solu tions to old
problems is the essence of flexibility and a key component of re versing the
aging process.
OPPOR TUNITIES FOR CREA TIVITY
Use the nine-step process every  time you perceive a problem or challenge
in yo ur l ife. See  every challenge as an opportunity for creativity. When you
see ever y problem as an opportunity to practice the creative responses, you
will look forward to and be excited by the challenges in your life.
Help ot hers to solve their pr oblems by teaching them the creative
response. T each and use the creative response at work and in your home
life. T ea ch your children how to  perceive their challenges as opportunities
for crea tivity. Flexibility and creativity are the keys to e volutionary
progress. Even in Darwinian te rms, those who are able to adapt survive.
Adaptation first requires flexi bility, then creativity. Every evolutionary
jump is a quantum leap in creativity. When you cultivate fle xibility and
practice the creative response you will notice how much younger, more
flexible, and more adaptable you become.
Every day in every way,
I am incr easing my mental and physical capacity.
My Biostat is set at a healthy ____ years of age.
I look and feel a healthy ____ years old.

I am r eversing my biological age:By changing my per ception of my body, its aging and time;
Thr ough two kinds of deep r est—r estful awar eness and  r estful sleep;
By nurturing my body thr ough healthy foods;
By using nutritional complements wisely;
By enhancing mind/body integration;
Thr ough exer cise;
By eliminating toxins fr om my life; and
By cultivating flexibility and cr eativity in consciousness.
1 0
Y ou Can Reverse Y our Biological
Age Through Love

ACTION STEP # 9
I am r eversing my biological age by making love the most  important thing
in my life.
I put this into practice by:
Listening attentively and without interruption.
Expr essing my appr eciation to at least one person every day in an
honest and sincer e manner.
Consciously engaging in loving touch with those close to me, and
becoming awar e of my sexual ener gy in all its differ ent  expr essions.
Love heals.
Love r enews.
Love makes you feel safe.
Love brings you closer to God.
Love conquers all fear.Love makes you young.
Love r everses the aging pr ocess.

Y ou can reverse your biological age through love. Love is the essence of
life. For human beings, love is as essential as food and water, and without
it, we cannot su rvive. Love is not just a psychological experience; love
transforms biology. Mammalian babies from bunnies to chimpa nzees fail to
develop normally if they are de prived of their mother ’ s love. A lthough we
are not usually accustomed to considering love in scientific terms, over the
past twenty-fiv e years, scientific studies have provided indisputable
evidence that the experience of love has profound life-supporting ef fects on
our physiology.
Scientific studie s show that by  merely observing acts of com passion,
your immunity is enhanced. David McClelland of Harvard University found
that college students increase their production of salivary antibodies when
watching a film of