Raw Foods and Kundalini

The Kundalini/Raw Foods connection is based on Prana, the natural Life Force substance we need to perfect our beings during our life on Earth. To live, we extract Prana from our environment. The Chinese word for Prana is Chi; the closest English equivalent for this substance is Life Force Energy. If we don't get enough Prana, our bodies begin to degenerate prematurely. Very simply, to reach our potential, our bodies need to ingest only the purest elements — pure food, pure water, pure air.

Diet, not pills, may still be the best bet for brain power

Prana exists in all living elements. Due to social conditioning, however, most people know very little about Prana, Chi, or Life Force Energy, and still less about how to extract it from the environment. Does Prana really exist, you may wonder? Perhaps, you aren't aware that people who were weighed just before dying actually lose about six ounces when weighed again the moment after they die. What accounts for this weight loss? Researchers believe it reflects the loss of our vital Life Force Energy, leaving the body at the instant of death.

Extracting Prana

And, as Einstein proved, Energy, whether it's derived from a light socket or a nuclear reactor, is Matter, and matter is measurable. Our "vibrational essence," our Prana is measurable. In effect, human beings are energy intensive mechanisms; we extract it, we store it, and we use it up. The object is not to squander it uselessly. So how do we extract Prana from our surroundings in its purest form?

Raw Foods contain Prana. So eating Raw Foods is a great way to obtain substantial quantities of it. Why Raw Foods? Raw Foods contain living enzymes and are highly alkaline in content and nature. If, like many in modern life, you can't be 100% raw, you can still consume a mostly alkaline diet. Why doctors don't test for pH levels at the same time the nurse takes your temperature and blood pressure is beyond me? It's the easiest way of determining chemical imbalance, and maintaining overall health. Acid foods lead to a stressful lifestyle; alkaline foods are full of Pranic energy that fight stress.

People Lining up in front of Paula Deen's Savannah, GA Restaurant

Even more Prana exists in pure air. The problem is we lack the correct breathing techniques for extracting it. Diaphragmatic Deep Breathing (DDB) — and its key technique, the backward-flowing method — is an acknowledged alchemical process for distilling Prana from the air we breathe. Unfortunately, information about the backward-flowing method is harder to get than information about Raw Foods. Not only has there been an information blackout, the whole idea of meditation is counter-intuitive. "Sit quietly in a room, contemplating my navel? Fat chance! Especially when all my buddies are at the gym building up their Abs. I don’t care how much it costs; I need to get into the gym!" Sorry, that’s not the way health, or longevity, works.

Kundalini Meditation (GFM) is the most powerful exercise on the planet and the backward-flowing method is its most powerful technique. The goal of the backward-flowing method is the permanent activation of the Kundalini~Life Force. The basis of GFM is the backward-flowing method. Taoists refer to this process as the microcosmic orbit. The guiding intention of these techniques is action through non-action, or less is more. This is also counter-intuitive, that an action based on stillness and deep breathing could actually be more powerful than the strenuous efforts undertaken in the noisy, energy-depleting atmosphere of your local gym.

But even the most powerful mechanisms are vulnerable from within. Yes, you can be well on your way to activating Kundalini, and yet, for lack of proper diet, fall short. Why? Quite simply, you may be slowly poisoning yourself with the wrong foods. It happened to me. Even after I'd activated my Kundalini, I began to have trouble with digestion as I grew older. I wondered why? Why was I constipated? Why did I need supplements and colonics? One day I heard about Raw Foods and instinctively knew it was the answer. Even when I can't eat 100% raw, I'm always alkaline-conscious, making sure I keep a high alkaline pH. When I started eating Raw Foods, it kicked my Kundalini into high gear. I felt light on my feet once again. Raw Foods and Kundalini — perfect partners for distilling Prana!

If you do nothing else, keep tabs on how you use your energy. As The Secret of the Golden Flower reminds us:

"An ancient adept said: ‘Formerly, every school knew this jewel, only fools did not know it wholly.’ If we reflect on this, we see that the ancients attained long life by the help of the seed energy present in their own bodies, and did not lengthen their years by swallowing this or that type of elixir. But the worldly people lost the roots and clung to the treetops."

As Long as we Inhabit Bodies...

“Patriotism is the fond memory of food eaten in childhood.”
~ Lin Yu T’ang

This statement is very profound. Extended to its logical conclusion it means that our national identities — as symbolized by national flags — could actually be represented thusly:

• American - The Hot Dog
• French - The Baguette
• German - Sauerkraut
• Philippines - Chicken Adobo
• Spain - Paella
• Morocco - Couscous

and so on...

You don't have to agree with Lin Yu T'ang's statement, but you must admire his logic. He's saying that the foodstuffs we grew up with and cherish are really unifying cultural elements. They unite us — send us out as a group to do battle against the "other." They are the things that really bind us together. He's hinting it would actually be more honest to send us out under the banner of The Hot Dog or The Cheeseburger or The BLT than any arrangement of abstract symbols of stars, crescents, stripes in assorted colors.

We identify with our cravings; we form societies around them and, as long as we inhabit bodies, we never quite get over them, to the point where the images of our favorite foods are always foremost in our minds at times of stress, boredom, or respite.

For example, in the service and required to walk a 4-hour guard duty shift on shipboard or on land late at night, what did my thoughts eventually turn to? Not — was someone going to jump out of a tree or mow me down. I kept my eyes and ears open on duty; I was vigilant, but at the end of a long shift, I always seemed to conjure up the image of a bowl of cornflakes, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or a cheeseburger. I asked others what they thought about during their tour on guard duty. Always the same refrain: food fantasies, some special dish. We might not — each one of us — crave the exact same dish, but the choice always came from a common taste pool: the dishes Americans identify with.

That's why it's so difficult to be a traitor; most people cannot renounce the foods they grew up with. Think about the things that tie you to your roots and food comes up big. For most people, it's in first, second, and third place. Not only do we identify with foods, we become adept at justifying their consumption, in spite of the danger inherent in many of our favorites.

Over 40 years ago my awakened Kundalini displaced my exploratory relationship to drugs with something much more powerful, but it never completely purged my affection for the foods I loved as a child. For many and most, food is the final addiction.

Today, I eat completely differently. 90% raw. I haven't eaten a cheeseburger in 20 years; I couldn't digest one. Same goes for most of the foods I used to pine for on those long, lonely tours on guard duty. I no longer think about them, but I understand how dangerous they are and I do understand their attraction.

Each one of us inhabits a different body, with different tastes and different cravings. Imagine if we were bodiless beings of pure spirit. All of these cravings, all our longings would disappear. They will disappear as soon as we become pure spirit, which inevitably we will.

How do I know this? My Kundalini awakening revealed it to me. It's our evolutionary path. Without bodies there are no needs, no cravings, no addictions, no negative emotions. Today, we cannot envisage such an existence. That's fine. Before we traveled to the moon, many thought it impossible, or never thought about it at all.

Is it reasonable to believe our evolution is at an end, that no further evolutionary developments can ever occur, that the form our bodies take today will be the same in 10,000 years? And if we do evolve in form, will our immaterial and metaphysical aspects not evolve as well? 

So what form will future bodies assume? A second head, another arm? Or will future evolution concern mostly the brain and the up-to-now mostly esoteric capabilities associated with Kundalini. Given the current runaway interest in kundalini, I'd be surprised if kundalini didn't hold some surprises as to our future evolutionary development. 

Bodiless beings are not for next week or next month. We must survive centuries of challenges to our physical forms, but eventually we will shed those elements that bind us to our earthly limitations. Our bodies being one of them. The first step can be taken now.

“I didn’t arrive at my understanding of the fundamental laws of the universe through my rational mind.”
~ Albert Einstein

Finally, if it’s any consolation, are not the growth and acceptance of ethnic foods already changing the visions we conjure up when famished. Fifty years ago when I walked guard duty, I had only standard American fare to excite my imagination. Today’s soldier has a panoply of ethnic cravings to draw from. As we begin to accept foods from other cultures — the cooking shows on TV offer an endless array of ethnic shows — will our interest in other cultures not increase? And, as a result, gradually allay the feelings of otherness we reserve for foreigners?

Will we still be doing battle under the banner of the Hot Dog in 2518? Or will Pizza or Moo Goo Gai Pan replace it?