Here’s a huge irony to me.
Today, a prospective client did not want to work with me because I drink wine occasionally. She said she is a spiritual person and did not want to work with anyone who drinks alcohol.
Meanwhile, a good friend told me the story today of how he/she had recently paid $500 to attend a one-day seminar with a world-famous “health expert” who asked that all the participants smoke marijuana and tobacco and imbibe san pedro, a hallucinogenic drug, at the beginning of the day in order to have a “spiritual experience.”
I kid you not.
I know my friend extremely well.
Had anybody else told me the story, I would have assumed they were slandering this so-called guru, or making the story up to pull my leg.
I asked my friend if it said on the brochure that he/she would be encouraged to get high in order to participate, and he/she said no.
So I thought this might be a good time to talk about the perceived connection between food, drugs and spirituality.
Many people make a big connection in their own minds between what they do and do not eat or drink and their spirituality.
The second lesson in the workbook for A Course in Miracles states:
I have given everything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] all the meaning that it has for me.
Let’s just cut to the chase and realize here and now that the problem is what you are holding in your mind, not the substance or the lack of substance in and of itself.
In yoga, we call the physical body the manomayakosha, or body of food.
We call the spiritual body the anandamayakosha, or body of bliss.
Just by the name alone, we recognize that what you eat or drink builds or detracts from the state of your physical body.
While meat and potatoes, junk food, alcohol or chemical additives may affect your physical body, what feeds your soul or detracts from your spiritual well being may be something else entirely – prayer, meditation, reading spiritually uplifting books, being with loved ones or making a difference in the world may feed your soul while living an unconscious life, being a narcissist or never learning how to forgive others may weigh rather heavily.
I loved hearing the story years ago about Carolyn Myss, the famous medical intuitive, who was asked what kind of food helps make a person an intuitive. She was tempted to say, “Burger King.” She gets it – what you eat and how you are as a spiritually conscious person actually have nothing to do with each other.
Dr. David Hawkins, M.D., a person who is acknowledged to be an enlightened person, wrote a brilliant article on this subject. Wearing hats on Sunday, eating fish on Friday, not eating meat – all these are mistakenly believed to make a person more spiritual, depending on what tradition you grew up in.
I remember once visiting an ashram where I was practicing yoga and all the most supposedly spiritually developed yogis were wearing orange.
I told my yoga students that I never want to be so important that I am required to wear orange day in and day out!
My friend who told me the story about his/her so-called “health expert” experience had never before done illegal drugs, not even in high school or college. He/she wanted to know what I thought.
Marijuana actually scrambles your brain waves. Over time, smoking pot can harden your brain, which is supposed to be soft like jello. Marijuana may be fun but it makes you stupid, even if only temporarily.
Although all sorts of drugs can give you a high, the energetic residue can remain in your aura forever unless a highly trained healer like myself removes it.
I have had clients who smoked pot, snorted cocaine and experimented with a wide variety of drugs. Twenty years later, I could still detect these drugs in their energy field. Because the energy residue blocks the upper chakras, these clients may be experiencing depression due to an inability to connect to God/Source.
We all grow up with a degree of programming, and that is just part of our experience being human.
Depending on what religious tradition you grew up in, you may have been programmed to believe that certain dietary or lifestyle approaches would make you a more spiritual person.
I remember being in my 20s when a friend who was also single decided to stop associating with me when she heard that I sometimes went out dancing.
In the church where she grew up, dancing was a sin.
In the church where I grew up, being judgmental was supposed to be left to God.
Another client, years ago, was fasting for weeks at a time while trying to run a charity for children.
“Why don’t you eat something,” I recommended. “You might actually have more energy to help people and you might be able to think more clearly while you are actually feeding your brain.”
At the end of the day, when we examine our beliefs about food, drugs and spirituality, we have to ask ourselves, “Is that true?”
Will drinking wine make you a less spiritual person?
Will taking illegal drugs make you a more spiritual person?
Or is what you are holding in mind what is actually affecting you?
