Conscious Eating
Whether you are eating to lose weight, gain weight, for an illness or to achieve optimal health on your path to enlightenment there are some correlations to what you choose to eat and how that makes you feel. While many trendy diets come and go, there are time tested ways to improve your health and wellness through food. Conscious eating is about being aware of our food choices and understanding how that affects our bodies and our minds. Everything we put inside our bodies is going to interact and cause a response in some way. Food may seem like a minor part of a healthy life but it is the thing that we do most often besides sleeping and as such has one of the biggest impacts in our lives both short-term and long-term. There really is nothing more important than an appropriate diet for wellness, especially in our toxic and hectic western lifestyle, and one of the easiest things we can do to take control of our mind-body health.
From ancient texts to modern science we can see that some diets are of immense benefit to the body for healing and proper mental functioning. Ayurveda is a 3000 plus year old system of mind-body health that focuses on the individual needs of a person and uses herbs and foods as medicine as well as nutrition. 'Conscious Eating' by Gabriel Cousens is a modern text for contemporary western readers that is considered one of the best sources of information both science and spiritual for transforming the way you eat into a practice that encourages optimal health of the body and mind.
Conscious Eating by Dr. Cousens MD
Goodreads.com has this to say about Dr. Cousens book:
Conscious Eating has been referred to as the "Bible of Vegetarians," for both beginners and advanced students of health. This classic work in the field of live-food nutrition is an inspirational journey and a manual for life. Included is new information on enzymes, vegetarian nutrition for pregnancy, and an innovative international 14-day menu of gourmet, Kosher, vegetarian, live-food cuisine, plus 150 recipes.
a quote from Conscious Eating:
“If our heart and mind are focused on experiencing food as a love note from God, eating becomes not only a way to nourish and love ourselves, but each meal becomes a time for enhanced spiritual awareness and gratitude to God. It becomes a way to directly experience a meaning of “give us this day our daily bread.” It provides a regular opportunity for the conscious eater to take the time to receive and read God's love note, rather than toss it unconsciously into the garbage can of the stomach. Eating consciously is a way of opening one's heart to God. It is a way to feel the Divine presence.”
AYURVEDA
Thousands of years before modern medicine provided scientific evidence for the mind-body connection, the sages of India developed Ayurveda, which continues to be one of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful mind-body health systems. More than a mere system of treating illness, Ayurveda is a science of life (Ayur = life, Veda = science or knowledge). It offers a body of wisdom designed to help people stay vibrant and healthy while realizing their full human potential.
The two main guiding principles of Ayurveda are 1) the mind and the body are inextricably connected, and 2) nothing has more power to heal and transform the body than the mind. Freedom from illness depends upon expanding our own awareness, bringing it into balance, and then extending that balance to the body. This process isn’t as complicated as it may sound. For example, when you meditate you effortlessly enter a state of expanded awareness and inner quiet that refreshes the mind and restores balance. Since the mind and body are inseparable, the body is naturally balanced through the practice of meditation. In the state of restful awareness created through meditation, your heart rate and breath slow, your body decreases the production of “stress” hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, and you increase the production of neurotransmitters that enhance wellbeing, including serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins.
The Ayurvedic system recommends diets based on 3 body types which can be found by taking a simple quiz that uses both physiological and behavioral attributes. Once you know your 'Dosha' (which is your type) you can then tailor your diet to work best with your unique needs. This system may seem complex at first however it has been used and refined over thousands of years and can be implemented by anyone.
As Ayurveda teaches, good health is dependent upon our capability to fully metabolize the nutritional, emotional, and sensory information that we ingest. When our digestive energy, known as agni (fire), is robust, we create healthy tissues, eliminate waste products efficiently and produce a subtle essence called ojas. Ojas, which may be envisioned as the source of our vitality, is the basis for clarity of perception, physical strength, and immunity. On the other hand, if our agni is weakened, digestion is incomplete and lead to an accumulation of toxic residue known as ama. The buildup of ama in the body mind leads to obstructions in the flow of energy, information, and nourishment, and is the basis of all disease.
Here are a few Ayurvedic practices to strengthen your digestive fire:
From ancient texts to modern science we can see that some diets are of immense benefit to the body for healing and proper mental functioning. Ayurveda is a 3000 plus year old system of mind-body health that focuses on the individual needs of a person and uses herbs and foods as medicine as well as nutrition. 'Conscious Eating' by Gabriel Cousens is a modern text for contemporary western readers that is considered one of the best sources of information both science and spiritual for transforming the way you eat into a practice that encourages optimal health of the body and mind.
Conscious Eating by Dr. Cousens MD
Goodreads.com has this to say about Dr. Cousens book:
Conscious Eating has been referred to as the "Bible of Vegetarians," for both beginners and advanced students of health. This classic work in the field of live-food nutrition is an inspirational journey and a manual for life. Included is new information on enzymes, vegetarian nutrition for pregnancy, and an innovative international 14-day menu of gourmet, Kosher, vegetarian, live-food cuisine, plus 150 recipes.
a quote from Conscious Eating:
“If our heart and mind are focused on experiencing food as a love note from God, eating becomes not only a way to nourish and love ourselves, but each meal becomes a time for enhanced spiritual awareness and gratitude to God. It becomes a way to directly experience a meaning of “give us this day our daily bread.” It provides a regular opportunity for the conscious eater to take the time to receive and read God's love note, rather than toss it unconsciously into the garbage can of the stomach. Eating consciously is a way of opening one's heart to God. It is a way to feel the Divine presence.”
AYURVEDA
Thousands of years before modern medicine provided scientific evidence for the mind-body connection, the sages of India developed Ayurveda, which continues to be one of the world’s most sophisticated and powerful mind-body health systems. More than a mere system of treating illness, Ayurveda is a science of life (Ayur = life, Veda = science or knowledge). It offers a body of wisdom designed to help people stay vibrant and healthy while realizing their full human potential.
The two main guiding principles of Ayurveda are 1) the mind and the body are inextricably connected, and 2) nothing has more power to heal and transform the body than the mind. Freedom from illness depends upon expanding our own awareness, bringing it into balance, and then extending that balance to the body. This process isn’t as complicated as it may sound. For example, when you meditate you effortlessly enter a state of expanded awareness and inner quiet that refreshes the mind and restores balance. Since the mind and body are inseparable, the body is naturally balanced through the practice of meditation. In the state of restful awareness created through meditation, your heart rate and breath slow, your body decreases the production of “stress” hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline, and you increase the production of neurotransmitters that enhance wellbeing, including serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins.
The Ayurvedic system recommends diets based on 3 body types which can be found by taking a simple quiz that uses both physiological and behavioral attributes. Once you know your 'Dosha' (which is your type) you can then tailor your diet to work best with your unique needs. This system may seem complex at first however it has been used and refined over thousands of years and can be implemented by anyone.
As Ayurveda teaches, good health is dependent upon our capability to fully metabolize the nutritional, emotional, and sensory information that we ingest. When our digestive energy, known as agni (fire), is robust, we create healthy tissues, eliminate waste products efficiently and produce a subtle essence called ojas. Ojas, which may be envisioned as the source of our vitality, is the basis for clarity of perception, physical strength, and immunity. On the other hand, if our agni is weakened, digestion is incomplete and lead to an accumulation of toxic residue known as ama. The buildup of ama in the body mind leads to obstructions in the flow of energy, information, and nourishment, and is the basis of all disease.
Here are a few Ayurvedic practices to strengthen your digestive fire:
- Always sit down to eat (don’t eat in front of your computer or TV or while you’re driving).
- Eat in a settled atmosphere and not when you’re upset.
- Don’t eat until you’re definitely hungry.
- Dine at a moderate pace. Don’t gulp down your food or eat too slowly.
- Minimize raw foods, which are much harder to digest than cooked ones.
- Include all six tastes at each meal.
- Drink hot water with ginger or lemon throughout the day.
- Practice some form of moderate exercise on a regular basis.
- Perform a daily oil massage with herbalized oil that balances your mind-body type.
- Spend time in the quiet of meditation every day.
- Use detoxifying herbs such as triphala, ashwagandha, guggulu, brahmi, ginger, turmeric and neem.
