Since the earliest of recollections, happiness is the most sought after thing in our lives. So, where do we find “true” happiness?
Most of us can relate to the childhood experience of our parents telling us not to give money to the raggedy looking street person because, “They’ll only use it to buy alcohol”.
These days we could substitute drugs for alcohol, in some cases, but the point is the same. We may naturally feel the inclination to do good for someone, but doing good for them doesn’t necessarily mean that we should give them whatever they want.
We need to know what is actually good for them and ourselves, and what it is that they and we actually need in order to be truly happy and satisfied.
Yes, the person wanting alcohol or drugs may experience a temporary and superficial type of happiness, but most of us know that it is not the real deal. If it were we would not only be giving them money so that they could purchase lots of alcohol or drugs and be so-called “happy”, we would also be drinking and drugging ourselves without restraint so we could also be ‘happy”.
Yes, there are many who do this but they are not generally considered to be very intelligent and any happiness they do experience is artificial, inferior and short-lived.
In this way, it is not difficult to appreciate that there are all kinds of varieties of happiness available to us, and that some are higher and some are lower.
One teaching that often masquerades as a spiritual one is that we should just pick whatever turns us on and just “go for it”. This approach may sound like the liberal and enlightened way to go, but if we consider it for a moment, especially in light of the alcohol and drug examples, we can easily see that it is not the enlightened way to go at all.
The real solution? Knowledge! We need knowledge so that we may choose our path and our approach to life wisely.
Yoga or spiritual knowledge informs us that there are many levels and kinds of happiness, but spiritual knowledge is the greatest. We may not be fully aware of this, but it is what we all secretly long for and what we really need.
This simple message has spanned all kinds of cultures and has been taught by all kinds of great saints since time immemorial. It is the one ever-fresh constant in a world, which is changing so quickly that we can hardly keep up.
Many of us don’t even bother to try and keep up, not seriously at least, because we have firsthand experience of an old cliché. That being, ‘that for all the great technological advances of the modern age and all the previously unimagined material opulence, which is now available to us as a result of those advances, people in general are not actually happier, satisfied, peaceful, or more relaxed and at ease with themselves and their place in the world, than they previously were’.
They sense that perhaps a serious dose of simple living and high thinking is the real answer to the chaos, quarrel and confusion, which seems to be everywhere, both within and without all of us.
Once a person can learn of his true essence, true position and true function, in the spiritual sense, then and only then can he experience true inner peace and be relatively unaffected by the world around him.
The goal? Be in the world but not of the world!
This is easier than it sounds. There is a simple breathing meditation technique that works well. It is called, Gore – ra – un –ga (spelled phonetically) Breathing. Here’s how it works: Sitting or lying comfortably, begin to take slow deep breaths. As you breathe in, say Gore–ra–un–ga in your mind for the duration of your inhalation, like Gorrrrrr- raaaaaaa –unnnnnn–gaaaaaaaaaaaa.
As you exhale say, Gore-ra-un–ga softly for the duration of the exhalation. Repeat this for 5 or 10 minutes and you will notice that stress is gone and you will be extremely relaxed. This can be done anywhere at anytime. Gauranga means The One With The Golden Effulgence.
Like happiness, everyone is looking for true love. The greatest happiness a person can experience is to love someone and to be loved by them in return. But looking and finding are two different things and at times the finding is found in the most unlikely place. The perfect lover and beloved and therefore the perfection of love are to be found in a harmonious loving relationship with the Supreme Person.
This, then raises a question: If perfect love is to be found in my relationship with the Supreme Person, can I have real love for other living beings? The answer is, yes! You can love another living entity and loving the Supreme Person can bring out real love in you.
When we find spiritual happiness within ourselves and our relationship with the Supreme Person, we will be able to actually experience caring for and loving others. If we love the Supreme Person our love will simultaneously expand to others because everyone is part and parcel of Him. In other words, every living being is His child. As such, loving Him will cause us to love others and to desire their happiness.
In the same way that watering the root of a tree spreads nourishment to every leaf of the tree, by cultivating our love for the Supreme Person, we will begin to love others more. This is the essence of spiritual life.
As our spiritual love grows, we develop greater insight and clarity of vision. We are able to see others for who they really are. Instead of just seeing that person’s body, we see the real person, the eternal spirit soul. We then realize that the body is merely a shirt, if you will, with different labels like male, female, black, white, Jewish, Catholic, American, Hawaiian, etc.
Remember, every person belongs to and is loved by the Supreme Person and needs to love Him to experience real inner peace, satisfaction, happiness and security. When you begin relating in this way, it brings about a change in the relationship.
The development of pure, all-expansive love within the heart satisfies one’s spiritual hunger. Being fully satisfied you no longer “need” another person to fulfill you. So, instead of having a relationship based upon lust where you are thinking: “What can I get from this person”? Your relationship is based upon love where you desire the other person’s happiness. This leads to the true connection with another living being.
Lust can be transformed back into its natural condition of spiritual love through the process of Bhakti yoga – the linking up with the Supreme Person through devotional service to Him.
What would be the initial process to begin some sort of service to Him? Offering things out of love like food and flowers that have a fragrance. Here’s how:
In the ancient Vedic scriptures God tells us to eat only plant-based foods. So, before we eat grains, fruits and vegetables in any form we offer it to Him first. Why? Every action has a reaction. When we partake of plant based foods and we eat the remnants of what was picked, we basically are a part of the killing of those plants. That action creates a karmic reaction. But, by offering those foods to Him first, He will remove the karma from the death of those plants allowing us to eat purified and karma free foods, thereby softening our hearts and redirecting our consciousness to Him first. The ripple effect is unbelievable.
Think about the karmic chain of eating flesh foods. Since He will not accept them, anyone that partakes of them undertakes the acceptance of that karmic chain.
Through this process, our hearts and minds are gradually cleansed of self-centeredness, allowing our real nature as a spark of love to glow brightly letting us taste the spiritual love we are longing for. And as this lust is transformed into true love we not only taste this sweet flavor of love, but also its handmaidens like kindness, patience, forgiveness, tolerance, humility, etc. Tasting these qualities finally allows us to taste real happiness as well.
Namaste!
Sources:
www.brainyquote.com
www.anewmode.com
www.tinybuddha.com
Just to put things in perspective, after I graduated from Weequahic High School and before going to Seton Hall University, I had a part-time job working for a butcher. I was the delivery guy and occasionally had to go to the slaughterhouse to pick up products for the store. Needless to say, I had no consciousness nor awareness, as change never came then despite the horrors I witnessed on an almost daily basis.
After graduating with a degree in accounting from Seton Hall, I eventually got married and moved to a town called Livingston. Livingston was basically a yuppie community where everyone was judged by the neighborhood they lived in and their income. To say it was a “plastic” community would be an understatement.
Livingston and the shallowness finally got to me. I told my wife I was fed up and wanted to move. She made it clear she had to be near her friends and New York City. I finally got my act together and split for Colorado.
I was living with a lady in Aspen at the end of 1974, when one day she said, ” let’s become vegetarians”. I have no idea what possessed me to say it, but I said, “okay”! At that point I went to the freezer and took out about $ 100 worth of frozen, dead body parts and gave them to a welfare mother who lived behind us. Well, everything was great for about a week or so, and then the chick split with another guy.
So here I was, a vegetarian for a couple weeks, not really knowing what to do, how to cook, or basically how to prepare anything. For about a month, I was getting by on carrot sticks, celery sticks, and yogurt. Fortunately, when I went vegan in 1990, it was a simple and natural progression. Anyway, as I walked around Aspen town, I noticed a little vegetarian restaurant called, “The Little Kitchen”.
Let me back up just a little bit. It was April of 1975, the snow was melting and the runoff of Ajax Mountain filled the streets full of knee-deep mud. Now, Aspen was great to ski in, but was a bummer to walk in when the snow was melting.
I was ready to call it quits and I needed a warmer place. I’ll elaborate on that in a minute.
But right now, back to “The Little Kitchen”. Knowing that I was going to leave Aspen and basically a new vegetarian, I needed help. So, I cruised into the restaurant and told them my plight and asked them if they would teach me how to cook. I told them in return I would wash dishes and empty their trash. They then asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was an accountant.
The owner said to me, “Let’s make a deal. You do our tax return and we’ll feed you as well”. So for the next couple of weeks I was doing their tax return, washing their dishes, emptying the trash, and learning as much as I could.
But, like I said, the mud was getting to me. So I picked up a travel book written by a guy named Foder. The name of the book was, “Hawaii”. Looking through the book I noticed that in Lahaina, on Maui, there was a little vegetarian restaurant called,” Mr. Natural’s”. I decided right then and there that I would go to Lahaina and work at “Mr. Natural’s.” To make a long story short, that’s exactly what happened.
So, I’m working at “Mr. Natural’s” and learning everything I can about my new dietary lifestyle – it was great. Every afternoon we would close for lunch at about 1 PM and go to the Sheraton Hotel in Ka’anapali and play volleyball, while somebody stayed behind to prepare dinner.
Since I was the new guy, and didn’t really know how to cook, I never thought that I would be asked to stay behind to cook dinner. Well, one afternoon, that’s exactly what happened; it was my turn. That posed a problem for me because I was at the point where I finally knew how to boil water.
I was desperate, clueless and basically up the creek without a paddle. Fortunately, there was a friend of mine sitting in the gazebo at the restaurant and I asked him if he knew how to cook. He said the only thing he knew how to cook was enchiladas. He said that his enchiladas were bean-less and dairy-less. I told him that I had no idea what an enchilada was or what he was talking about, but I needed him to show me because it was my turn to do the evening meal.
Well, the guys came back from playing volleyball and I’m asked what was for dinner. I told them enchiladas; the owner wasn’t thrilled. I told him that mine were bean-less and dairy-less. When he tried the enchilada he said it was incredible. Being the humble guy that I was, I smiled and said, “You expected anything less”? It apparently was so good that it was the only item on the menu that we served twice a week. In fact, after about a week, we were selling five dozen every night we had them on the menu and people would walk around Lahaina broadcasting, ‘enchilada’s at “Natural’s” tonight’. I never had to cook anything else.
A year later the restaurant closed, and somehow I gravitated to a little health food store in Wailuku. I never told anyone I was an accountant and basically relegated myself to being the truck driver. The guys who were running the health food store had friends in similar businesses and farms on many of the islands. I told them that if they could organize and form one company they could probably lock in the State. That’s when they found out I was an accountant and “Down to Earth” was born. “Down to Earth” became the largest natural food store chain in the islands, and I was their Chief Financial Officer and co-manager of their biggest store for 13 years.
In 1981, I started to do a weekly radio show to try and expose people to a vegetarian diet and get them away from killing innocent creatures. I still do that show today. I pay for my own airtime and have no sponsors to not compromise my honesty. One bit of a hassle was the fact that I was forced to get a Masters Degree in Nutrition to shut up all the MD’s that would call in asking for my credentials.
My doing this radio show enabled me, through endless research, to see the corruption that existed within the big food industries, the big pharmaceutical companies, the biotech industries and the government agencies. This information, unconscionable as it is, enabled me to realize how broken our health system is. This will be covered more in depth in the Introduction and throughout the book and when you finish the book you will see this clearly and it will hopefully inspire you to make changes.
I left Down to Earth in 1989, got nationally certified as a sports injury massage therapist and started traveling the world with a bunch of guys that were making a martial arts movie. After doing that for about four years I finally made it back to Honolulu and got a job as a massage therapist at the Honolulu Club, one of Hawaii’s premier fitness clubs. It was there I met the love of my life who I have been with since 1998. She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. She said,” If you want to be with me you’ve got to stop working on naked women”. So, I went back into accounting and was the Chief Financial Officer of a large construction company for many years.
Going back to my Newark days when I was an infant, I had no idea what a “chicken” or “egg” or “fish” or “pig” or “cow” was. My dietary blueprint was thrust upon me by my parents as theirs was thrust upon them by their parents. It was by the grace of God that I was able to put things in their proper perspective and improve my health and elevate my consciousness.
The road that I started walking down in 1975 has finally led me to the point of writing my book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Hopefully, the information contained herein will be enlightening, motivating, and inspiring to encourage you to make different choices. Doing what we do out of conditioning is not always the best course to follow. I am hoping that by the grace of the many friends and personalities I have encountered along my path, you will have a better perspective of what road is the best road for you to travel on, not only for your health but your consciousness as well.
Last but not least: after being vaccinated as a kid I developed asthma, which plagued me all of my life. In 2007 I got exposed to the organic sulfur crystals, which got rid of my asthma in 3 days and has not come back in over 10 years. That, being the tip of the iceberg, has helped people reverse stage 4 cancers, autism, joint pain, blood pressure problems, migraine headaches, erectile dysfunction, gingivitis, and more. Also, because of the detoxification effects by the release of oxygen that permeates and heals all the cells in the body, it removes parasites, radiation, fluoride, free radicals, and all the other crap that is thrust upon us in the environment by Big Business.
For more, please view www.healthtalkhawaii.com and www.asanediet.com.
Namaste!
