My involvement with holistic medicine did not result from any particular incident.  It is the result of a growing sense of purpose.  The mystery, though, is less about where my sense of purpose came from, and more about the lack of purpose and the distorted forms of purpose in our society. 

            From my consideration of health in a holistic way (one that examines both physical and metaphysical levels), I have concluded that purpose is an aspect of health.  A lack of purpose goes hand in hand with a lack of health. 

            A major cause of purposelessness is materialism.  That our culture is largely materialistic is evidenced by the excessive amount of useless and wasteful products that are being constantly advertised and consumed.  The problem of materialism is so severe that it has given rise to preposterous economical imbalances.  If we examine the production of food, for instance, we find that farmers (particularly small family farmers) are making a minimal amount of money while corporations that process food make unfathomable sums.  The job of the farmer is given little value, while processing (which more often than not turns wholesome food into unhealthy food) is considered quite valuable. 

This connection between processed food and materialism may be obscure.  My point is that food is turned into a commercial product, which has occurred with the rise of many other material products.  We have an abundance of plastic toys, tools, decorations, collectibles and fancy clothing.  The basic pattern of the farmer and corporate processor can be seen in all these things.  We have gone beyond the necessary to the excessive. 

            The real value in food is that it can sustain us while we create health and happiness and make our dreams come true.  It deeply saddens me to see people gain so much pleasure from unnatural food, for the pleasure received is generally shallow and transient.  Proof of this is that the food is often unhealthy and, therefore, eventually results in suffering, and that it is highly addicting.  It is so addicting that consumers become blind with greed and insist on wasting our limited natural resources to change natural food into unnatural products.  This unnecessary and imbalanced treatment of food and resources goes on while some people go hungry (even starve), ecosystems are destroyed and consumers’ own health is undermined.

            I have discovered that natural food is actually tastier than processed food.  The taste of natural food is deep and wholesome, while processed food gives us only superficially intense flavors.  With processed food, stimulation is taken to the extreme (whether it is sweet, salty, spicy, oily or whatever), as though we were given tongues in order to see to what extreme we could bombard our sense of taste with.  It is a serious error to subject our sense of taste to such abuse, for it is really a wonderful gift that holds the power to guide us to the food that is most appropriate for creating a state of health.

Healthy eating creates physical ability and mental clarity.  By choosing healthy food produced by sustainable agriculture, people can steer the direction of their lives, families, communities and society.  Every action, or non-action, is an act of power.

The choices we make everyday form our many levels of health.  Dieting is often associated with restriction.  Done properly, though, food changes lead to optimum health.  What could be more freeing than creating health and happiness through utilizing choice?

If people don’t try unfamiliar foods they can end up just as restricted as some people are on diets, as they become slaves to familiar patterns and a limited experience of taste.  It is a shame that people become cut off from healthy, natural food by becoming overly accustomed to the flavors of refined, processed, artificial and chemically altered food.  Natural food does not inherently taste bad, but can taste strange or bland because of the conditioning taste buds undergo when subjected to unnatural food.

            The way food is treated in our society (processed, advertised, consumed and wasted as a vain sensual product) is a direct expression of selfishness and arrogance.  The consumption of processed, “pleasure” food represents the fundamental unconscious drive toward unhealthy personal pleasure (indulgence).  This drive is the unconscious compensation for a feeling of separation and loss. 

            Overly processed food naturally results in a lack of health.  Not only is health directly dependent on food quality and the condition of the environment, but also health includes a sense of unity and connectedness.  If there is a sense of inequality or separation, there is a lack of health.

            Separation is, perhaps, the biggest disease of all and the source of all other disease.  It allows people to take advantage of, and even kill, others.  It is the most fundamental source of pain.  Separation from our natural sense of taste and judgment leads to diseases from unhealthy food and accidents.  Separation from other people leads to emotional and mental disorders.  Separation allows us to do other than God’s will.

            Separation also relates to the problem, the shadow side, of purpose.  Purpose assumes an antagonistic relationship.  If there is a good cause, there is a bad circumstance that defines what is good.  So, purpose relies on a sense of separation.  Any purpose worthy of praise cannot create or encourage antagonisms.  Purpose, however, tends to have a shadow and cannot live up to such a requirement.  This quality is automatic when something exists in a world of duality.  Healthy purpose, therefore, must lead toward unity.  It should also be selfless and automatic, radiating from one’s being rather than being carefully weighed and measured by the intellect or the result of temporary emotion.

            Purpose is carried out through awareness, self-discipline and love.  One must first of all be aware of an area that is in need of attention.  Secondly, one needs the self-discipline to act appropriately.  With the ability to live according to ideals, there is no need to judge or blame others.  When there is no need to judge or blame, one can act with love and acceptance.  Awareness, teaching and sharing can spread naturally in an environment of love. 

            Power rests in every individual’s ability to live his or her spiritually inspired ideal.  Not only are criticism, blame and punishment obviously negative interactions, they are also overall ineffectual.  The most powerful way to communicate something is to live it, to express it through positive, creative and spontaneous action. 

If we exist in a limited dual world our love and awareness are limited.  If we desire to know complete unity, we must expand our limits so that our love and awareness become limitless, as that of God. 

God has always existed as a state of unity.  To return to unity, one has always had to leave the fragmented world, which is created by fragmented minds.  For, it is through shallow desires, pleasures, wishes, fears and beliefs that we can remain in a world isolated from God.  With God, these shallow and selfish aspects of human life are transformed into deep and meaningful purposes.   

            It is through the renunciation of everything that is useless, selfish and wasteful, and the embrace of everything that altruistically serves to benefit all, that true happiness can be obtained and unnecessary suffering can be relieved.

            Altruism can be initiated and practiced through natural food.  The foods we choose address all problems at a foundational level.  Through properly balancing our own diets, we balance the whole world.  By becoming healthy, we become tools for the good of all.  Through the guidance of our natural sense of taste, we serve God’s purpose.

            Obviously, the ideal purpose behind any action is altruistic.  Actions motivated by selfishness are vain and destructive.  We are forced to wonder why our society can be so motivated by personal gain and superficial pleasure, and why people partake in activities that are so blatantly detrimental to their state of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health.

            If a person becomes unhealthy, those around him or her also suffer.  In the same way, a healthy person benefits those around him or her and ultimately all of society.  This is a wonderful truth, particularly because health and happiness do not result from financial or material wealth, but are free for all.  Even if we are not happy and healthy, the path that leads us there is joyful.  The first step towards making beauty from ugliness, pleasure from pain, health from sickness or happiness from misery can fill a person with wonderful energy.

            There seems to be a tendency for people to avoid difficulties.  We are afraid to make mistakes and are quick to hide from challenges.  However, true happiness is not secured through avoiding difficulties but is discovered through overcoming them.  Mistakes are the best teachers.

            All of the true virtues of mankind (honesty, compassion, kindness, purpose, wisdom and love) are not as dependent on life circumstances as we tend to think.  These virtues are inherent qualities of every human being.  The key to world peace, harmonious personal relationships, intimacy and self-acceptance lies in each individual. 

            Because we are all aspects of one universe, one person cannot gain while forsaking another.  Any belief that a person can is based on illusion- the false experience of isolation and separation.  Furthermore, the reality of a connected universe indicates that as long as one being suffers, the whole world suffers.

            This understanding of unity and interconnectedness has changed my understanding of pain and disease.  Suffering has become a reminder that there is work to be done, that God is not finished with me yet and I must keep on moving.  (A curious support for this idea is that one of the surest ways to maintain and regain health is through exercise.  We are designed to move.  Through movement we live and can be productive.)

            Suffering is not the necessary result of injury, disease or death.  Suffering, rather, is a state of mind that can be changed into joy in spite of disease and hardship.  Pain, injury, disease, conflict and the rest of the spectrum of problems we experience do not arise in order to create suffering.  Suffering is one of many possible reactions.  There are countless instances that prove this.  Sometimes people laugh instead of crying.  Sometimes traumatic events lead to more mature and wholesome ways of understanding.  Often when sickness demands diet and lifestyle changes people discover a world that they never knew existed and are filled with gratitude.  All these instances show that suffering is not the only possible reaction to the infinite possibilities of hardship. 

            If we did not experience and overcome difficulty, we could not grow.  Sickness builds the immune system.  Physical challenges strengthen and tone the body.  Mental and emotional stumbling blocks increase our capabilities.  Difficulties give us purpose.

            Holistic medicine embraces this understanding, for it does not seek to kill germs or remove diseased organs, but encourages the body, mind and spirit to overcome difficulties through innate abilities.  Physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health is formed naturally through life experiences.  If imbalance is created, it is dissolved through adjusting aspects of daily life, such as diet, activity and ways of thinking.

            The essence of holistic medicine is often difficult to understand, for we are so used to taking medications.  Even when herbs are used, they are often used as medications.  The ideal use of an herb, though, is as a food.

            Everyday our appetites drive us to seek out food, which is a very fundamental means of survival.  The core of herbalism is actually based on this relationship between food and life.  When people lived much closer to the environment, without cars and refrigerators, they naturally came to know their environment, with its plethora of botanicals, through direct experience.  This is the source of herbalism.  The plants were understood through taste, as well as the other senses, and herbs were used as a natural extension of diet.  Today’s herbal pills, in contrast, are often attempts at using plants as medication.  The users usually do not understand the plants and have no natural appetite for them.

            For the last few years I have experimented quite thoroughly with local wild edible and medicinal plants.  This experience is that on which I base my speculation of ancient verses modern use of herbs.  In just a few years of learning to identify, gather and prepare wild plants as foods and medicines, I have built a profound relationship with plants and my sense of taste.  Herbs, to me, are foods.  I crave them when I need them because I know how they taste and feel.  I am very excited to explore this relationship further and am quite confident that my discovery will benefit human lives.

            If people can regain their natural sense of taste, wondrous changes can take place.  The unnecessary, selfish and destructive consumption of artificial foods for the sake of so-called pleasure can come to a much-needed end.  We can begin to reuse our God given sense of taste for the very reason it exists- the creation of perfect health through daily eating.

Health is the result of living close to God and the order of nature.  We can realize God’s will through all of the natural senses He gave us.  Taste is special because it leads us to build our physical bodies out of food.  Taste related disorders (eating disorders) have surpassed epidemic proportions and can be linked to all other diseases.  This is essentially simple to correct by changing to diets of natural food.

            Life itself is a wonderful journey that is essentially joyful.  Food is a basic aspect of everyday life and should be enjoyable.  The simple food that nature provides is delicious and quite sufficient to sustain us in this world.  In fact, it is precisely because nature provides perfect food that we are able to live.

            The production, marketing and consumption of processed and chemically altered food largely ignores the reality that pleasure is not found in products, but is found in living.  Since life is joyful by nature, it is not necessary to overly process and chemically enhance food (refine sugar and flour, make food coloring and so on) in order to enjoy ourselves.  Furthermore, these practices are generally unhealthy.  They are usually geared toward creating certain unnecessary qualities in food (various textures, colors and tastes) at the expense of healthy natural properties.  This is extremely ironic. 

            Why do intelligent people, who are often working hard to create happiness, health, harmony and peace, undermine their own health and that of their families, community and society through the habit of bad eating?  One possibility is that many people find life less than pleasurable and therefore fall under the belief that pleasure can be found in substances.  (This is a basic aspect of addiction.)  The other possibility is that marketing has created desires in consumers because of selfish motivations (mainly money).  It seems most likely that the current abuse of unhealthy, processed food is the result of the gradual combining of these two factors over time.  In a “chicken-and-egg” way people began seeking out pleasure in substances and other people (eventually growing into companies and corporations) began marketing products with the basic claim that they produce pleasure.

            Both this desire for pleasure in products and this desire for money are due to a separation from life and its Source.  Pleasure is the result of experiencing life fully.  We cannot buy and hoard pleasure.  We can know pleasure, but cannot secure it.  This requires us to remain humble, trusting in the processes of life and being open to change.

            In a sense, purpose is inferior to faith and love.  Purpose must remain flexible.  It must yield to each moment’s inspiration.  The processes of the universe are known only to God, the Creator, and it is through giving ourselves to Him that we may know Him and His purpose.

Purpose is a tool to accomplish things in the fragmented world.  It must be inspired by God, coming from the united world, and not be formed only from rational thinking or human emotion.  If purpose is formed primarily from mere human thinking and sentiment and not directed by the grace of God, it is futile.

            This universe is so vast we cannot possibly know what to do best by relying on reason, emotion and other limited personal experiences alone.  If we try to it is a grand mistake.  We are interconnected with the whole universe, but do not know how to control it.  It must control us.

            If we do not quiet ourselves with prayer, meditation and contemplation of natural order we become cut off from the universal source of direction, God’s will.  In this case we experience pain in order to cultivate awareness and direction.  From suffering we are given purpose in order to regain unity.

            When in touch with universal order, we are guided to act for the benefit of all creation.  It is when we lose touch with this order that selfish and destructive habits kick in.

            Natural food allows us to most easily regain connection with the order of the universe because natural food is a result of this order.  Taste along with our other senses allows us to navigate through this life.  By eating natural foods we remain in touch with our innate judging ability.

            Food is a very practical way to improve lives, for it is a necessary aspect of life.  Everyone must eat.  The biggest obstacle in changing towards healthier eating is cultural tendency.  Natural food is becoming less common as entire countries become accustomed to newer ways of processing and preserving.  Going against these tendencies for the sake of health is sometimes quite a chore. 

            However, it is precisely the cultural patterns that run the deepest and become the most rigid that need to change in order to cure the incurable diseases.  Every disease has a cause.  In some cases the cause is easy to attend to.  Sometimes it takes significant change.  When particular diseases become common among certain cultures it is because of the particular practices of diet and lifestyle.  The most honest and direct way to deal with disease is to correct the dietary and lifestyle causes.

            Any given person’s particular condition is the result of their food, their environment and their relationship to the Spirit.  It is sometimes a challenge to change diet, lifestyle, environmental factors or our relationship with God in order to correct disease.  Life is challenging.  If our purpose is to create happiness and balance, we need to accept the challenges.  True freedom and joy are only experienced through the constant acceptance of the challenges of daily life.  Disease is the result of ignoring purpose, shying away from challenge and falling short of unconditional love, while health is the result of accepting all challenges with wisdom, purpose, faith, gratitude and love.

            We are a product of the order of the universe, an order that stretches far beyond human comprehension.  Nature provides us clues, however, as to how we should live.  By bringing these clues into awareness with gratitude and love, we open to the universal order and can live in harmony with the rest of the natural world.