Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina, 'Raw Food Diet - Day 19' This experiment has raised my awareness of something else as well. There’s a part of me that’s questioning whether I’m taking the notion of optimizing my diet too far. Health is obviously more than just food intake, and I’m concerned I’m giving too much of my power to something outside myself. Is it possible I’m somehow creating a more and more restrictive diet for myself as part of a process of discovering a more important lesson? That would be congruent with the subjective reality interpretation of this experiment. One way to grow is to honor your expectations, which is basically what I’m doing with this experiment. But another way to grow is to change your expectations. When it comes to diet, I’ve always used the former approach, but I’m starting to get curious about what would happen if I began testing the latter approach.
I can’t recall the source, but I remember reading an eye-witness story about a yogi (at least I think it was a yogi) who swallowed a whole bunch of mind-altering pills that would have normally been fatal — or at least caused a severe reaction — and they apparently had no effect on him whatsoever. He did it intentionally too, probably as a demonstration that he was in control of the effect of whatever he ingested. I don’t know if that story is true, but the very notion is a challenging one to consider. Is it possible that the best way of eating is to stop assuming that food has any power over us except that which we give it via our beliefs? |
Fascinating that you should mention that!
I too have asked myself similar questions while trying to optimise my vegan diet. I see that lots of people have certain opinions on what we should eat, what we shouldn't eat, etc. And then there are people who seem to do great on what, to me, doesn't seem like an "optimal" diet. Some people get very different results from different diets, and while you can put it down to a lot of things, I really wonder if there's more to it then meets the eye, much like I'm finding is the case with the rest of reality.
I can look at what people eat and say, "You seem healthy, but from what I know about diet, you shouldn't be. Perhaps you'll have issues later on in life", but it didn't take me long to catch myself out there and notice that particular line of thinking was more about me trying to justify my notion of "what is healthy" and not about health itself and actual real world evidence. It's very easy to get caught up trying to justify your thinking such that you completely overlook real-world results, which is basically a form of ego identification and loss of awareness.
Eckhart Tolle suggests that you should eat what your body feels drawn to -- what your body says "yes" to in a state of present moment awareness. Abraham (of Abraham-Hicks) says that you should not worry about what people say you should eat, but the beliefs you have about food, and eat what feels good to you (using your emotional guidance). If everything is energy anyway, it makes sense that being in alignment with your inner being/higher self is probably more important then the specific food you eat. (I could quote sources, but I really don't want to find them.
I'm really meticulous with being accurate and detailed -- as you no doubt know by now -- so suffice to say you can trust me.)
Interestingly, I often use you, Steve, to fall back on when it comes to diet. I often think, "Steve's obviously done a lot of research, and he reports great results, so whatever he's doing must work on some level", and I go about optimising my results from there.
But too often I think I get caught up in the specifics and I don't really consider all of the consequences. I've found that being too trusting of an info source can be detrimental. Not necessarily because the info you're reading is wrong (ie. the author is lying or misleading you), but because you don't have the big picture. What people write about is often only a snap shot of their experience, and they leave a lot of details out -- details that may be very important.
Another things I've noticed is a pattern with a lot of your blog posts. A lot of what you write about simply doesn't work for me, but it seems to work great for you. It makes me wonder how much of what "you've found and discovered" works for you is more so about what you've created/manifested and it being a vibrational match for you.
I see this often with other people as well. They claim certain things work for them, but then I try them and they don't work for me, and I wonder why there isn't some sort of universally applicable "thing that works". It would make sense, right? Sure, there are factors to consider, such as preferences, strengths, weaknesses, etc, but then I wonder how much of it is subjective -- how much of what people do "works" for them because (A) they believe it will, and (B) they've attracted that particular "tool" that works for them into their life via the LoA, etc? I tried to do this with career-type personal dev work, and I always come back to following my intuition, not going with what my intellect (and other people) tell me is intelligent.
I've noticed that a lot of what you blog about is just the specifics of you playing around with certain beliefs you've had, etc. It took me a long time to correlate this info, but eventually I saw that at certain times (ie. certain months) you said you were experimenting with certain beliefs, and you got certain results because of it -- things that "worked" for you -- and then you reported the specifics without necessarily mentioning the "higher level" belief-orientated work you did (or at least, you didn't go into much detail about it, which is merely the issue of "blogging is good, but doesn't beat books when it comes to being holistic" coming up again).
I have to question, did your experiments work because you believed they would? Do you get the results you do, not because specific, objective actions and methods, but because of your beliefs and what you are creating? If that's the case, it's more intelligent for me to "manifest" my own creations rather then try use yours to come into alignment with my desires, since that could very well be exactly what you're doing.
I certainly don't have the answers here, but it sure is interesting territory. I've tried exploring it a bit, but I find I lack certain abilities (ie. ability to change beliefs efficiently -- I need to learn how still), and interestingly, while this all sounds good intellectually, my emotional guidance is telling me that it really isn't, and I should stick on the path I'm on. It's as if the question "to what degree do beliefs create reality?" seems to stem from an even deeper desire, such as maybe a desire for clarity, or a certain type of life experience, and my inner being/higher self is guiding me towards the more direct realisation of that, instead of me trying to go about it using "action" to compensate for vibration and the point of attraction I'm emanating.
But then I have to wonder to what degree my experience of "I should follow my intuition" comes from my beliefs! I'm very much putting a lot of thought/attention on that type of mindset/beliefs right now, so perhaps I'm creating the results in alignment with my beliefs -- even when it comes to the notion of questioning if my beliefs create my experience!
All very interesting stuff. Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.