Conscious Eating

What does it mean to be healthy? It's more than just following a theory of what we should eat.
When I know myself as a soul, then I realise life is about energy. I now put attention to my thinking energy. I want the best life journey possible. How I treat the body and the natural world, reveals a lot about how I think. Life is all about relationships. What is your relationship with food? Do you recognise the calming effect a kind diet has on the mind?

Transcript

I'm Shanti and welcome to Soul to Soul.

This is Rose from Rama Kumaris in Glasgow and tonight it's a really precious and wonderful subject we're going to talk about.

It's called conscious eating.

What does it mean to be healthy?

Health is so important to us.

Without health we can feel not very happy and this is more than just following a theory of what we should eat.

When I know myself as a soul and then I can realize that life is all about energy and as we've been hearing again and again,

I the soul am energy.

I am the energy that drives this body but the soul and the body are separate and I can energize the soul by becoming peaceful.

This also helps to improve the performance of the body but I have to look after the body and the health of the body and the body requires nourishment,

The physical nourishment of nutrients that come from our food.

But now if I put attention to my thinking energy I will want the best life journey that is possible because now it's over to me to look after my outcome really.

How I treat the body and the natural world can reveal a lot about how I think and so life is all about relationships.

So what is our relationship with food because this is what we're going to look at.

Is it possible to recognize the calming effect that a good diet has on the mind?

That's interesting.

If I eat a lot of things that are harmful to the body my mind will get very upset,

My body will become very agitated,

I will feel very disturbed and eventually I won't feel well.

I was thinking that if I was to know that certain things,

We'll use a strong word here,

We're poison,

Would I sit down and tuck into a plate of poison?

No,

That would be foolish.

So if I understand that some things are not good for the physical body would I continue to keep using these and feeding these to my physical body?

But if I was to educate myself to the fact that certain foods are very very restorative to the health of the body and it goes beyond taste sometimes we'll say oh there's got no taste.

It's because I've been used to the very strong tastes of food that are camouflaged actually with a lot of false flavours etc that if we were to really investigate you might be surprised where they're all coming from.

Billions of animals suffer for human consumption so are we aware,

Caring and loving?

And you know how we do love our pets,

I mean what happens when we see these fluffy little dogs and cats and it's just like wow look at that we love we wouldn't want to harm or hurt in any way and we'd get so wanting to defend them if anyone was to hurt them.

So we love them and we play with them but we stay blind to the suffering of other animals and I think now we're getting more and more seeing it.

We're becoming educated,

Some of us might not be looking at it at all but we should,

Because it takes courage to step away from the things we're used to and we think are normal and we love the taste and we love this.

So it takes courage to step out of the norm and to eat our food to bring peace of mind to ourselves,

Not just peace of mind but peace to the whole energy pattern of the body.

Energy is life,

Health is freshness.

Do we want to become more fresh or do we want to become less fresh?

Do we want to age quicker or do we want to age more slowly?

It all comes into it when we start to eat very very pure food we find that our whole body becomes refreshed,

Becomes clearer,

Fresher and we might not even realise it because this doesn't happen in a second but it does happen and I think people who don't know you or who know you and didn't see you for some time they would go gosh you look really well or else they'll say gosh you're feeling okay because you wouldn't be looking so well.

So we're talking here tonight about having a look,

We're all looking at vegan eating and there's,

Oh I think the whole world is beginning to convert to becoming vegan but we're taking a step forward and saying to look at a whole food plant-based diet and this actually helps to restore areas of the body,

Helps us to stay more calm,

Positive and energised and as we clean up our diets we also clear up our karma.

Actions have consequences and so these are good consequences.

I'll feel so much relief,

I'll feel so much better and with daily meditation and a peaceful diet really really I guaranteed from my own experience we can experience peace of mind and light-hearted feelings and feelings of hope for ourselves and it gives us the power to lift ourselves up when we start to feel a little bit down because something good is happening inside us and the fuel that we're using for our energy to move through life is cleaner and fresher and purer fuel.

So again a whole food plant-based diet and you can find out a lot about this,

You can educate yourself in this as to what it actually means.

There is someone that we really trust and we look at all the things that this one researches,

His name is Michael Gregor and you can find out about his website,

I think it will be put up for you and he does what he calls the daily dozen,

All the things that will keep you very very healthy and balanced and if you could add into that soul consciousness then you'd be on your way to feeling like a better version of yourself all together.

And so he looks at and we look at general health,

Exercise and simplicity,

Consciousness in the kitchen making food feel special.

We learn to be very clean,

Cleanliness and care and to have a high vibration when cooking or involved with food,

Staying as lighthearted as possible.

Keep away from cooking or anything if you feel a bit agitated because the vibrations affect your food,

So you would keep away from it,

You'd hopefully not be feeling like that.

Drishti which is looking at food with a good consciousness,

A high consciousness,

Gives good vibes to your food and a quiet environment where you're cooking and dealing with food,

Not chattering away about all the troubles of the world whilst you're in a kitchen.

We try to keep the kitchen like a place of good vibes and you would enjoy that,

So create a quiet environment and become enthusiastic.

Also good company,

Be in good company if possible and if not well think of good company,

See yourself as good company and we can also think of one above is very good company to think of if I've got no one else to think about.

So research all these areas,

Research them and think about all the possibilities of a whole food plant-based diet.

And this encourages kindness.

Another thing to look at is it's a movie called Game Changers.

Again I think we'll maybe put that name up for you.

It's about athletes,

Famous world athletes who are on this whole food plant-based diet and they're so strong and usually they're the champions,

Which is something amazing to think about,

Amazing,

Because your diet does affect your food.

I'll tell you a story,

This is going back a lot of years before we were all looking at whole food plant-based diets.

This was just looking at a very clean-cut vegetarian diet which was lots of vegetables and there was this person who was a doctor,

An Indian person,

Tiny little lady,

She was a doctor,

A research doctor in the American army and I was there when she gave the talk and she said that there was all these huge,

Big,

Tall,

Great,

Big American men because as they are known for being big,

Especially in the army,

She was tiny and they had to do training where they had to run so many miles in a morning and she was up front running away,

Sometimes quicker than them and they were astonished,

They couldn't get over how this tiny little lady was able to be so fit because none of them were,

And these days the word vegetarian was a big word,

It was a big change and she was pure vegetarian diet at that time but we're beyond that now actually because we're saying no animal products at all,

No milk,

Butter,

Cheese,

Anything like that but even within that she was stronger than people who were training and had muscles and were running and were training in the army in America.

So good company and research,

Go into it,

Have a look at this Michael Greger's website because he'll tell you about every health aspect you're ever concerned about,

Every topic you're ever concerned about and he will have researched it.

So on a physical level you do yourself a great benefit by doing this and on a spiritual level remember you're a soul,

The energy that makes you think and make good decisions and that helps the body to function.

Okay,

It's quite a novel idea to make the cooking process peaceful because in the modern world the cooking process is often portrayed as something very noisy and stressful and but like just working life and it's kind of the more busy and noisy and stressful and sweaty it is the more admirable it is but the way you describe it is almost like an art form like a graceful dance.

Well you want to be in control of your own thoughts,

Your wits if you like,

It's not to get carried away by atmosphere and and stress yourself out actually laughing and giggling and carrying on it's to become thoughtful.

You're going to do something that's of great benefit to you and if you're carried away by the crowd I mean we know that we talk about coming together and chatting in a family you're not going to be able to change that but it's separate all on lockdown now and the chance of having a big family around us is something else so it's a chance to have more stillness and more possibility of eating and more in silence and if you're going to share,

Share something like this,

Something that's good for you,

Something that you've discovered like oh I heard that if you do this this is really good for you or here's something that actually is super if you were to cut down sugar which we know if you were to go with without oil and this is really beneficial as well this would actually you know get rid of your cholesterol and your chances of a heart attack and all this kind of thing you could talk about sensible things doesn't mean you have to have a gagging order not able to talk but you could talk in a valuable way that would help the people that were with you and maybe help to save their lives.

It is a service.

Do you stay really focused on the possibilities rather than all the things that you can't eat?

Like adding in all the good things rather than I can't have this I can't have that.

There's wonderful things if you get creative like I want you to know it's so beneficial it's like wow this is so good look at all these lovely vegetables this is just so pure so fresh yeah it's really interesting idea as well about how energy comes through that the soul energy when you concentrate it comes through the eyes naturally yeah and I can look at my food to energize it as well so with that the same go for like if I was gonna take some vitamins or if I had to take some medicine for something or should I look at it first with consciousness yeah anything you're going to put into your body you should give it this that we call Drishti give it good vibes good wishes and think about why you want it what is it to do what's its job if you're taking something to go to a certain area direct it in that area and feel that power give it that power yeah your assistance your your thought power yeah yeah what would be some of your favorite whole food items that you would have on a regular basis for a couple of them porridge porridge Scottish every morning porridge and fruit fresh fruit blueberries are good and whatever you can have at this point of time fresh fruit porridge homemade soup full of vegetables and tofu from time to time burgers that we make with vegetables and lovely burgers you can add lovely flavorings too and yeah these are my favorite foods and I feel so lucky when I sit down to have this kind of food and kale lots of salad lots of greens brussels sprouts all this kind of thing yeah bean sprouts there's another thing that's very inexpensive and if things get difficult and it's difficult to get green things you just get the beans and soak them in water and you can have them every day and they're like fresh sprout your own beans and they're easy all you do is soak them and eat them and and you've got them fresh they're like fresh organic vegetables every day in your own kitchen yeah so good luck and and we'll put some information for you that you can check out and it'll be good to hear your feedback at some point if you do this and you find a benefit because if you do it you will find a benefit if you don't find a benefit then you haven't done it that's all I can say so good luck and I'd look forward to hearing how you get on so now we're going to do some meditation and remembering that the most important thing of all of this which gives us the power to see and understand the benefits is that I am a soul the energy the energy of life and it's my duty as the soul to look after this physical body because I'm the thinker I'm the being I'm the one to support the life in this body and to keep it as healthy and fresh as I'm able to think and so I am the soul I want to do my best for the life and the body that I'm in and for that I find to remind myself every day that I am the being the energy the life and that I am the child of the one above and I can teach myself to feel the support of the one above and whatever I do I can also help others do my best to give that vibration of soul consciousness out into the world over and over throughout the day I am a soul and I live in this physical body and I teach myself and encourage myself to appreciate knowing who I am and what is possible through knowing who I am knowing who I am enables me to have a much more full and rich life experience and it's my duty to share this experience with others sacrifice internment in mind you