social difficulties

There's no doubt that the social side of practicing certain diet things is the very hardest thing. As a family man, I find myself making compromises all the time now. I'm coming to the point where I don't know where I can go with this anymore. From fasting while I was working some months back, to going back to raw veganism with some cooked or processed products, I find myself focusing more and more on the true reasons behind things, rather than concerning myself over what I have eaten, or not eaten. The deep Spirit of things has always been my motivation, and it does not abandon me if I eat. My ideal would be to be in a situation where I can practice again some forms of deep fasting and contemplation, but perhaps that time is not now. I know that my inner senses increase in clarity hugely when I fast or eat very little.

For the time being, I continue to be vegan - something I won't go back on, in the same way that I became veggie many years ago - with an emphasis on raw food. I don't think that I'll add to this blog much, until I do a proper fast again. On the other hand, I understand also the necessity of silence in certain things and practices, and while this blog has been useful to get out certain tensions in my psyche, I also truly believe that not speaking about certain things is really quite important. All I can say again, is that this food thing, and the elimination of foods, unleashes many things that lie buried in the psyche, which is probably why most of us choose not to go without certain foods, etc. I see some characters who've adapted to a food-free lifestyle very easily, and they say it's really quite easy, but I also see that they've put their work in, perhaps not even in this life.

an emotional ride

Recently I was looking at cooked food and thinking to myself how horrible it seemed. I'd been on mostly raw stuff for quite  a while - and so cooked food just seemed really weird to me and I felt like I didn't want any part of it. Distorted energy.

But then I hit some emotional things in my life, where I lost my equanimity. Suddenly, I started to really feel hungry for cooked stuff. I realised that it wasn't for physical reasons, but entirely emotional. However, I went with the flow, and so have had a fair bit of bread and a cooked meal.

I've noticed how much easier it is to be entertained by nonsense when on cooked food. This might seem like a strange thing to say. But with the senses slightly dulled, it's easier (in some ways life is easier!) to just go around doing stuff in an unconscious fashion. Being on raw food is a big thing really. For me personally, I've found any form of entertainment to be an uninteresting thing when I'm not on cooked food. We humans like to be entertained, we like distraction from our internal sense of unease. But while fasting, or eating raw, the emotions have less space to manoeuvre. It's strange how society is  based around entertainment and distraction. Food obviously plays a huge part in that.

I don't find it difficult to just sit in a chair and contemplate, maybe look out of the window for a long time. That might seem weird. On the other hand, a part of me after a while wishes that I had a warm feeling toward entertainment, but I don't find it interesting really - apart from comedy in TV and film I suppose! Well, I do find it interesting, but I have to be pumped up on cooked food to find it interesting! A bit like someone who has to be drunk to enjoy something he knows he won't enjoy - perhaps a rubbish film his friends are dragging him along to. This guy then has a few drinks at the bar before commiting himself to something he wouldn't usually enjoy. Maybe most parties are based around this - get by by getting drunk!

So anyway, this testing process goes on. It's an emotional ride.

sickness

Recently I got a stomach bug from my son (he got it from school). He was sick. I was sick. My sickness however went on longer than his, many hours of vomitting. My stomach has reacted like this before to things like alcohol and rich food - as if the signals from inside me, through my body, are trying to tell me something - my body is wanting to rid itself of everything. After that, didn't feel like eating. Felt that I should though, as if it was the 'sensible' thing to do, and had a cooked meal on the evening of the day I recovered, because I lost about half a stone from being sick and so on. Didn't go down well. Now in a situation where I'm meant to be eating as normal again (i.e. not just raw), but finding that it makes me depressed. I can feel such a gathering of light, and changeover in my body, but socially I guess I'm in a situation where only I'm experiencing this fact, which isn't easy at all.

adventures in food

Real progressions going on. Dwindling muesli intake at breakfast, doing mostly fruits. Lunch, salad, nuts and fruits. If I look back, the idea of not having an evening meal seems quite strange. I've noticed that feelings of hunger can  be replaced with a sort of bubbling up feeling in the stomach (not wind!), a sort of energy, that travels up the chest. I've noticed that stress and negative emotions reduces weight. There are so many things going on inside my body, I'm only partly aware of all that is happening. But that this is all true and real is amazing, really.

finding a way forward

A new vision of self arising. Being able to exist and operate without all of the motivations that motivated me in the past. This is linking in with this deep fix I've always had, about the reason for things and motivations. Such bodily changes are truly meaningful - unlike, say, a mental excitement induced from a story or a piece of art. This new way of being is empty of past motivations, and there's a real joy in not being bound by this need to be always doing or being something. More to do with being in harmony with all things, and realising that really all anyone really wants in this world, is love.

Physically: training going on well, muscle toning, runs. More muscle seems to keep weight up. No evening meals again. Have decided to really break from any bread stuff. All these different things slowly dropping off. Breakfast  too becoming less (oats, rice milk, fruit, no more processed muesli). Lunch, still salad, fruit, nuts and so on, but tiring of the processed humous. This will probably go too soon.

Inner resolve increasing, with regards to the awkwardnesses induced by social occasions.

It's strange how I feel this need to explore in different ways what my body can do. It's as if it's being tested or put into shape from different angles. For example, I would go through a day without eating in the past, while working etc, but now it seems I'm more about doing this in a comprehensive way, whereby I eat something to know it and discard it, or something like that. All I can say is that it's as if different angles are being covered. It's a subtle game to gently find a way forward so that automatic thought-forms related to food drop off easily.

building of light

There's been a real building of light and intent going on.

Yet, I had to have a cooked meal the other evening, as it would have been too weird for the other person for them to eat on their own in front of me (they traveled some distance to visit). So I had a stir-fry. I had to make a quick run for the loo later, explosive guts, as my body really didn't want it. Two days later, had to have more cooked again in the evening and felt heavy this time, and my guts didn't want to turn everything out. Funny how the body gets used to whatever its given and instructed.

Understanding far more the necessity of deep intent, free of other people's opinion.

This thing about food, it really just comes down to freedom. I don't want to theorize on energies or anything like that anymore. Though I probably will again from force of habit, at some point.

Freedom, and feeling love unencumbered by heaviness (of food) is the reason for all of this.

Spiritual progression and the regulation of heat

Many things have been coming to mind recently, as related to the changes going on in me. And I suppose the main topic of this blog post has to do with the regulation of internal heat - and how our existence is very much dependent on creating heat.

This subject of heat/cold is highly relevant because it's quite normal to feel cold when refining food intake. Eating generates its own internal heat, and so heats the body up. This is well observed by hunters in the Arctic, who need to snack frequently to generate internal heat to keep warm. So it seems, there is a close correlation between the generation of internal heat, cold, and the subject of inedia.

Generally also, regulation of ones internal heat governs ones ability to override ones passions and appetites. In some Buddhist texts there is a close correlation between appetite for food and sexual appetite.

It's curious that we humans derive heat from foods that have been pre-cooked. Let's say, an oatcake, has been processed and cooked. In some way, the heat, or energy, from a pre-cooked food is taken advantage of by the body, if it requires food as its source of sustenance. The energy of fire/heat has been transfered to the cooked oats, and then drawn into the body. This is perhaps why becoming a raw foodist is a giant leap. It pre-supposes an ability to drawn energy from other sources than just the raw food. Typically, raw-foodists look somewhat bad in health studies, though I wonder how many of these are also spiritually open and inspired. Maybe some of these raw foodists are the same as some militant vegans, who are wholly identified by their dietary choice, rather than having a rounded approach to existence. I'm surprised by some vegans I have met, who seem ignorant of the reality of the spiritual side of life, and fly their vegan banner for its own sake. In these cases, it wouldn't surprise me if a similar approach to raw-foodism would lead to health difficulties.

My circulation has been bad lately. A run will sort it out, but so will generally meditation. I prefer meditation to help circulate the energies. However, I'm finding it really hard to sort out my circulation lately. This circulation problem was there even  before I became vegan - in fact, even as a teenager I went through periods of rotten circulation. But then it would subside again. It has to do with certain blocks and resistances within me, which come and go. But this problem is definitely even more present now I eat more raw than anything else.

In a sense it takes my journey to the nub of the issue - the regulation of internal  heat. I'm not able to really agree or disagree with intricate explanations of chakras and energy etc etc, it seems all a bit too specific - it's possible to explain anything by anything really, but it's entertainment rather than anything else.How does anything ultimately work?

At least I know if something is hot, or cold, or whether I feel hunger or not, but that's just me.

Aww, need to sort this cold nose out again.

Another ramble :-)