Priya108

Surya - I adore Thee

2012-02-23T04:28:00.001-05:00

The sun illumines my eyes and heart,

I stand in awe -- my legs apart.

My face bathed in the richness of gold,

My heart embraced by seasons of old.

I love thy Surya -- the divine orb,

You colour my day, my blessed Lord.

You are the one -- who dissipates the night,

The one above all -- the guiding light.

I praise Thee daily -- I honour your love,

You are God's eye -- looking down from above.

How sad that others -- fail to see,

Your beauty, compassion and divinity.

I beg your pardon -- for lifetimes of decay,

Or those days I turned my head away.

In ignorance I groped in Maya's shadows,

Scrambling, toiling -- a suffering mellow.

Oh how blessed I am -- to know you now,

To remember your grace -- to that I bow.

A love forgotten for so many lives,

A story so sad -- it makes me cry.

I wish I did not waste in chore,

I wish I knew -- all this before.

But alas, it was not meant to be,

But now I stand in the light -- happily.

- Priya108

The Power of the Plate

2012-02-14T02:16:00.000-05:00

Excerpt from

FOOD YOGA - Nourishing the Soul

by Priya Vrata (the "Food Yogi")

The destiny of nations depends on the mannerin which they feed themselves. - Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin[1]

If you've been keeping tabs on all the news surrounding the denaturing of fruits and vegetables, you probably know a little about the dangers of genetically modified foods (GM). Companies like Monsanto are at the forefront of this push to change the way Mother Nature intended things to be, and as this article points out, they are getting a lot of help from the government.

Sadly, with mothersall over the world have ceding control of the dinner table to scientists, foodmarketers and governments, a terrible thing has happened -- tradition and commonsense have gone out the window. Michael Pollan notes in his book (In Defence of Food), “Thirty years ofnutritional advice have left us fatter, sicker, and more poorly nourished.Which is why we find ourselves in the predicament we do: in need of a whole newway to think about eating.”

Don't be fooled into thinking your government or these corporation actually care about your well-being. They don't. Their principle agenda is the share price of company stock. You need to take back control of your dinner table now! How?

Start acting according to your conscience rather thanyour wallet. Ask yourself: is it really worthwhile to save a few dollars buyinggenetically modified foods, when the ultimate purpose of food is to improvehealth? By purchasing locally grown organic produce, you not only invest in yourhealth but also support a small group of conscious farmers who are standing upand making a positive difference in this world.

By saying no to companies likeMonsanto, you are sending a message that you will not be denied the very bestfor you and your children. You are also sending the message to Mother Naturethat you care and respect her for all she has done for you. We simply cannotafford to ignore this matter; we must take positive action to deny thecontinual exploitation, bullying and diabolical practices of these GMOcompanies. Our planet and our children are depending on us to initiate change toensure their future health and wellbeing, and it all begins at our plate.

If you can't grow your own food or have no access to local organic farmers, then do your best to buy veganic. But what if you can’t afford topurchase organic (non-GMO) produce all the time? The good news is that thereare some conventional fruits and vegetables that are ok to buy non-organic,based on their level of pesticide residue: including, asparagus, avocado, cabbage,cauliflower, coconut, kiwi, mango, papaya, peas, pineapple, watermelon, and cantaloupe.Usually anything with a thick skin is somewhat safe.

The Dirty Dozen

Fruits and vegetables are anessential part of any healthy diet, however, many conventional varietiescontain extreme amounts of pesticide residue. You might think you can washthis residue off. Wrong. Numerous tests have shown that some fruits andvegetables, even after extensive scrubbing and peeling can still have apesticide residue. Peeling a fruit or vegetable also strips away manybeneficial nutrients.

The good news is that you canreduce your exposure to pesticides by as much as 80% if you avoid the “Dirty Dozen.” The bad news is that youmay have to pay extra money for the organic variety.

The Environmental Working Group(EWG), a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1993 uses the power ofpublic information to protect public health and the environment. EWGspecializes in providing useful resources like the EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides™ to consumers whilesimultaneously pushing for national policy change. The EWG’s “Dirty Dozen”[2]list of foods most likely to have high pesticide residues has been regularlyupdated since 1995.

According to their latestresearch, apples take the number one spot while kale drops to number 12.

1. Apples

Conventional apples are typically grownusing as many as 42 pesticides, including the reproductive toxin Thiabendazole[3].Can't find organic? Safer alternatives include watermelon, bananas, andtangerines.

2. Celery

Because celery has no protective skin, itis almost impossible to wash off the more than 60 chemicals used in theirproduction, including Spinosad, that is lethal to honey bees, and Permethrin, aneurotoxin, that according to a study[4] byJ.R. Bloomquist et al., 2002, may have links to Parkinson’s disease. This isone vegetable you really should buy organic, or choose an alternative for yoursalad.

3. Strawberries

Because of their delicate nature andcloseness to the ground, strawberries are vulnerable to a host of pests andtherefore have a long history of pesticide residue. To my knowledge, they havebeen on this list since 1995. If you buy them out of season, you can be surethat they’ve been imported from countries that have far less-stringentregulations for pesticide use. Up to 59 pesticides have been detected inresidue on strawberries, including Captan[5],which has been linked to cancer in the past, and only recently listed as “notlikely” by the EPA. If you can’t find organic, try substituting with the farsafer kiwi fruit.

4. Peaches

These delicate stone fruits area favorite for lots of pests and so over 60 pesticides are regularly applied tothem in conventional orchards, including (in over 30% of cases) the neurotoxinPhosmet[6].

Mark Purdey has made thecontroversial suggestion that Phosmet may have played a key role in theepidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)[7].If you cannot find organic, safer alternatives include tangerines or mangoes.

5. Spinach

First appearing on the list in 2010,conventional spinach has been known to be sprayed with as many as 48 differentpesticides, including Permitherin trans, like celery in 50% of plants tested.

6. Nectarines (imported)

As many as 33 different types ofpesticides have been found on conventional nectarines imported from overseas,including the neurotoxin Formetanate hydrochloride which is listed as anextremely hazardous substances in Section 302 of the U.S. Emergency Planningand Community Right-to-Know Act[8].Safer alternatives include papaya and mango.

7. Grapes (imported)

The first thing wrong with conventionalgrapes is that most are “seedless”, and therefore unnatural. The importedvarieties present a greater risk to health than those grown domestically.Grapes grown on conventional vineyards can be sprayed with pesticidesthroughout the entire life cycle and because of the grape’s thin skin no amountof washing or peeling will ever completely eliminate this contamination. Somewines can harbor as many as 34 different pesticides.

8. Bell peppers

Just like grapes, sweet peppers(capsicums) have thin skins that don’t offer much of a barrier to pesticides.Tests have found as many as 49 different pesticides used on the sweet varietyof peppers including Methamidophos, classified by WHO as Toxicity Class (1b),or highly hazardous[9].

9. Potatoes

The potato has been on and off the “Dirty Dozen” list for years. Thispopular vegetable can be laced with as many as 37 different pesticides. If youcan’t find organic varieties, try sweet potato, eggplant, or earthy mushrooms.

10. Blueberries (domestic)

Despite their reputation as a great sourceof anti-oxidants, blueberries are heavily treated with pesticides (sometimes asmany as 52) including small quantities of the neurotoxin Phosmet as well as thehormone disrupter Iprodione. A much safer and healthier alternative is gojiberries.

11. Lettuce

Lettuce has been known to have over 50pesticides including many reproductive toxins like DDE[10],o-Phenylphenol and Diazinon.

12. Kale/Collard Greens

Kale has had a reputation foryears as a hardy vegetable that rarely suffers from pests and disease, but intests in 2010 and again in 2011 it was found to have high amounts of pesticideresidue. A safer alternative includes cabbage, asparagus, and broccoli.

[1] From ThePhysiology of Taste (1825)

[2] See: http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/summary/

[3] In tests on animals, high doses of Thiabendazole have caused liverand intestine disorder, as well as reproductive disorders. Effects on humansfrom use as drug includes nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, diarrhea, dizziness,drowsiness, or headache.

[4] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12428726

[5] Captan belongs to thephthalimide class of fungicides and is often added as a component of otherpesticide mixtures. It is used to control diseases on a number of fruits andvegetables. It also improves the outward appearance of many fruits, making thembrighter and healthier-looking.

[6] Phosmet is on the USEmergency Planning List of Extremely Hazardous Substances. It is highly toxicto bees. See: http://extoxnet.orst.edu/pips/phosmet.htm

[7] http://www.medical-hypotheses.com/article/S0306-9877(98)90194-3/abstract

[8] (42 U.S.C. 11002). The list can be found as an appendix to 40C.F.R. 355

[9] Due to its toxicity, the use of pesticides that containmethamidophos is currently being phased out in Brazil.

[10] Dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE) is a chemical compoundformed by the loss of hydrogen chloride (dehydrohalogenation) from DDT, ofwhich it is one of the more common breakdown products. DDE is fat soluble whichtends to build up in the fat of animals. Due to its stability in fat, DDE israrely excreted from the body, and body levels tend to increase throughoutlife. The major exception is the excretion of DDE in breast milk, whichdelivers a substantial portion of the mother's DDE burden to the young animalor child.

[11] In Defense of Food, Michael Pollen p 81

To learn more, check out my new book FOOD YOGA - Nourishing the Soul

Living with our decisions

2012-01-27T05:09:00.002-05:00

Throughout our lives we meet all kinds of people -- some leave a bad taste in our mouths; some very sweet, while others can quite literally turn our lives upside down -- their impact is so powerful that we sometimes make decisions and take actions that are in many ways irrational or foreign to our normal way of behaving. This has now happened to me more than once and I am getting tired of it.

So how do we avoid these kinds of things happening? Well, for one thing, we have to take the time to learn from those earlier experiences. This may take the form of journalling or blogging, as I am doing now, or it may require sharing these experiences with your close friends and family to get their feedback and/or clarification on the subtleties of those experience. Because, sometimes, we get so wrapped up in our head, that we "cannot see the forest for the trees."

I have come to realise the importance of patience. It is too easy to jump to conclusions and assume things are as we expect them to be, even with very limited information and perspective. I guess this tendency comes from the need to feel in control of our lives, or to just feel like we have things all sorted out. Unfortunately, this is hardly ever the case. Even for a person with lots of experience, life's unexpected lessons can be a bitch. It is always better to wait and see. In other words, to just sit on something for a while, chew it over, and allow things to play out or mature before taking any major action or drawing and concrete conclusions. Sure, there will be times, when this attitude may cause us to "miss the boat" of opportunity, but I can assure you that those sorts of divine and serendipitous moments are few and far between. History confirms that to act in haste can sometimes lead to the greatest waste of time and resources.

So how do we recognise those divine moment -- the ones that really are "Opportunity" knocking at our door, from those other times when, "Opportunity" is really just a Will-o'-the-wisp nicely dressed to distract us from more important things? Certainly, with time comes the wisdom to know the difference, however, a good rule of thumb for discerning reality from illusion is to pause or reflect whenever there is any tinge of uncertainty. "Opportunity" may not give you the time you need to consult friends and family and cultivate the full faith and confidence you need to take confident action. So in these cases, just pause. Take a moment and be silent. Put your feet in the river or ocean, let your hair down, breathe deeply and pause. Carefully play the scenario out in your mind's eye and then see how you feel about it. Live the opportunity out as much as you can in your mind first.

Secondly, ask the question, "What if?" and see how you feel about the answer. Next, ask for divine guidance and sleep on it. At all costs, do not allow lust to dictate your decision.

Now, if you've already done that and you feel confident that the "Opportunity" is the real deal, then act with full conviction and enjoy every moment of the consequences. And if things don't pan out the way you imagined, then at least you can say that you tried.

My Birthday Wish

2011-11-04T03:48:00.002-04:00

Cooking Australian bread "pockets" using scrap wood

Feeling very blessed today from all the love coming from so many distant friends. Thank you so much!

Just as nature evolves according to the fibonacci sequence, we also evolve by taking a lesson from the past and applying it into our future step forward. The important thing to remember throughout this evolutionary process is to not remain too long in the past, but rather to look back just enough to get perspective, just as one would do when looking into the rear vision mirror while driving.

Similarly, we should not reject the past, but rather burn it in the fire of life experience and wisdom. In other words, the old and used energy becomes the "fuel" for the torch that lights our path; the "fuel" to warm our body; and the "fuel" to create something new.

We are a product of the decisions, mistakes and lessons from the past and today I can honestly say that I am happy with my past and feel stronger than ever to become the best person I can possibly be. We are interdependent beings, and so my personal journey is filled with the mercy and guidance of so many great souls. Some of them came in the guise of ascetics, while many others appeared as ordinary people, animals and insects. Of course, no one is truly "ordinary". We are all sparks of a Divine Godhead, only covered in various layers of mental conditioning and karma.

Thank you to my spiritual teachers who blessed me from the start of my journey and who continue to pray for my success despite my shortcomings.

Thank you to all my spiritual brothers, sisters, uncles, aunties, partners and so-called "enemies", both inside and outside the Vaisnava tradition. You are many and so it will be impossible to thank you all by name. My body may be bound by the limits of this physical frequency, however, in spirit, my loving arms are wrapped around you, or my head is at your feet in absolute appreciation for the love and kindness you have shown me. Thank you. Every one of you who have helped me in some way or another to evolve.

If I have a benediction on this day, then let it be this: May all of you be blessed with peace, prosperity and the love of someone else.

We are never alone...just forgetful

2011-10-15T05:06:00.000-04:00

One of the things that I keep reminding myself of is that I am never alone. It may seem at times that we are so disconnected from the world; no one understands us, or that we are not loved. It happens to all of us from time to time. I can only assume that this is all part of the grand illusion of this world to keep us fearful and bound to this physical frequency. Because essentially these concerns are fundamentally body-consciousness.

The more we can remember our true essence as eternal spiritual beings, characterised by the magnificence of godliness in all it's variety, that much more we will avoid the pitfall of loneliness.

Every day we have to make the effort to refocus our consciousness on the higher frequency of spirit and cleanse the mind of the hankering and lamentations pertaining to the body. The fact is: we are not these bodies. That image looking back at you in the mirror is just a reflection of a temporary shell that is binding you to this dense frequency of matter.

What stops this realisation from becoming fixed in our consciousness is a poorly trained mind that for countless lifetimes has been allowed to recklessly pursue the whims of this grand illusion we call physical life. Matter is just compressed energy and energy is constantly changing shape. Nothing remains the same. All things must change at every moment. There is no such thing as an absolute static state. Life is characterised by motion, in infinite cycles of birth and death.

At some point in time, we throw our hands up and say, "what is going on here?" "Who am I?" What is the purpose of my life?" These are all valid questions that have bugged the greatest minds since the beginning of time. And there has never been a shortage of answers to those questions. However, ultimately, YOU are supposed to answer that question. YOU are responsible for your actions and reactions. YOU are the one that determines where you go from here.

It is so easy to just point the finger at God or others as the cause of our mistakes and suffering. However, if we are honest, we will admit that we have always had a choice as to how we react to every situations we found ourselves in. Our God or gods are always there to guide us if we wish, but at no point in time do they interfere with free will. To do so would go against the very nature of love and happiness. Both of which can never be forced. They are both constitutionally, individual expressions unbound by time, place, circumstance and the actions of others. Love and happiness are our nature as souls, and so these qualities spring from our very core. It is for this reason that we are able to have dynamic, loving, unconditional relationships in the first place.

We are all looking for love and happiness, but unfortunately we look for them in this illusory physical frequency that constantly changes shape. What we need to do is focus this noble pursuit exclusively on the domain that these qualities emanate from -- the frequency of spirit. When we start seeing each and every human, animal, insect and plant as a spiritual being, we connect with the world at the deepest level. Then and then only can genuine love and happiness mature.

Amy Dolby Gallery

The more we do just that, the less we will feel lonely and disconnected. On the contrary, we will bathe in an ocean of connectedness, love and gratitude. It is only then, that we can begin to appreciate God's love and our incredible potential as spirit souls. At this stage, life will cease to be a random and chaotic series of rollercoaster rides, but will morph into a divine play where the joy and wonder of life will inspire us at every moment.

Near Death Experience - What did I learn?

2011-08-04T06:18:00.009-04:00

On Monday, July 25 around 3pm, I nearly died in China. Seriously. I was about 30 seconds from death. The hotel I was booking into in Guangzhou had just fumigated the rooms with some ultra toxic mosquito repellent that caused my lungs to collapse. At first it was just a tickle in the throat, but it became annoying to breath and I had to cover my nose with my shirt. I assumed that as soon as I got into my room all would be ok. I mean, even the lady at the desk was not bothered, but something felt wrong.

When I entered my room on the 5th floor, however, within seconds I began gasping and my body began heaving trying to expell whatever it was from my lungs. The heaving got more and more intense to the point where my lungs were not interested in taking air in, only getting air out! The room was a toxic minefield. With whatever air I had left, I said, "We have to get out, I can't breath". Then my lungs fully collapsed. I raced into the bathroom to splash water in my face to shock my lungs into working again. It enabled me a few more breaths. I then stumbled into the elevator. I was now wondering if I would make it out in time. I tried to calm myself down. I couldn't talk but tried to communicate with my eyes to my friends, "Please help me relax so that my lungs can take in air". I managed to squueze out "Krishna" with my last remaning air. One of my friends hugged me and rubbed my back...I started to relax.

We reached the bottom and I ran out of the elevator red faced, coughing, crying and my nose flowing with mucus. I just had to get as far away as possible. I raced up the street and sat down to recover.

I remember thinking while in the elevator, "this is not how I want to go." But you never know, do you?

Reflections
Looking back at that event, I am happy to know that at a time of great stress and confusion I remembered Krishna. I hope that this will be true every time I am tested like that. For as Krishna states in the Gita, one who remembers Him is guaranteed success. In fact, remembrance of Krishna is considered the principle instruction of all the Vedas.

Another interesting observation was that the people I was with, although my friends, were ultimately helpless to do anything for me. Death is something we all have to face alone, for we are the only ones standing at the doorway. In any case, the hotel was so saturated from the mosquito fogging that they too were coughing and struggling to breathe. Only in my case, my lungs completely gave out. The moment that I rushed into the bathroom to splash my face probably gave me an extra minute of time. As soon as I splashed I was able to take in extra air, just enough to get me downstairs. I remembered this technique from an earlier experience when I was living in an ashram in Sydney in 1984. One morning my friend (Nimai Pandit) awoke from sleep, gagging because his throat had become overloaded with mucus. His face went red and he had no idea what to do. In a panic he was jumping up and down trying to awaken us. One of the other monks (Jagannath) immediately rushed into the kitchen and splashed cold water on Nimai's face. The shock enabled Nimai to break his panicked state and clear his throat. That happened nearly 30 years ago, but the memory stayed with me all these years to help me at a critical time in my own life. There are so many things we forget, and we often wonder why we remember particular incidents and forget others. I now know why I remembered that one incident and have pretty much forgoten all others from that time.

The most obvious lesson to take away from this experience is that we have to appreciate every moment we have in life, for you never truly know when the last one will come. More importantly, these near death experiences help us to understand the importance of preparation and to be conscious at every moment. The highest state of consciousness is to be aware of your higher SELF and the omnipresence of God. Material bodies are temporary portals for us souls to express ourSELF for a predetermined number of breaths, according to our karma. We the "witness" of these life events live on and on until such time that we do NOT require another material form to carry us further. This can only come to pass if our consciousness is sufficiently purified of attachment to this material matrix and is fully aligned with (or vibrating at the same resonance as) the higher spiritual dimension. At this time, a material body made of earth, water, fire, air and ether becomes unnecessary.

The challenge for all of us is relearning the TRUTH of our higher existence. We do not belong here in this material energy, explains Krishna in the Gita, but are sourced from a higher spiritual energy. This whole material creation is a response to our desire to enjoy and control independently of Krishna. As soon as we awaken to our "sanatana dharma" or eternal nature of loving service, this material world and the elements that build it will literally dissolve before our eyes.

Every time we are forced out of a body at death, for at least a split moment we become aware of our divinity. However, due to attachment and lust we are forced once more to accept another material body. The solution therefore is to cultivate detachment from matter over your lifetime so that at the time of death you CAN let go. This will only be possible with a pure heart fixed on the divine, because unless we are able to replace our attachment for material things with attachment for the divine there is no question of detachment.

Every learned man knows very well that attachment for the material is the greatest entanglement of the spirit soul. But that same attachment, when applied to the self-realized devotees, opens the door of liberation. (SB 3.25.20)

This is exactly why the path of voidism is so flawed. A transcendentalists may be able to break out of this material matrix through renunciation and sense control, but eventually, because the soul's nature is to enjoy, they eventually come back to this material dimension to satisfy the enjoying tendency.

Krishna instructing Arjuna

Merely renouncing all activities yet not engaging in the devotional service of the Lord cannot make one happy. But a thoughtful person engaged in devotional service can achieve the Supreme without delay. (BG 5.6)

The path of bhakti, however, teaches the aspirant to learn to enjoy in service to the Supreme which is expressed in 5 principle rasas (tastes): neutrality, servitude, friendship, parental, and conjugal. Everything that we experience in this realm is a perverted reflection of a pure expression of that experience in the spiritual dimension. In other words, enjoying is not the problem; the problems start when we attempt to enjoy through matter and independently of the Supreme Enjoyer, Krishna.

These concepts of divine rasa may seem unattainable or unrealistic because of a conditioning that God is a vindictive and impatient patriarch. However, the Vedas declare that God by definition, is that person that is a supreme expression of all things great and wonderful in this world. Therefore, just as we are persons and can love another person in a variety of ways, similarly, we can have a loving relationship with a Supreme Personality of Godhead. Our relationship with God is uniquely personal.

You may recall in a previous posting on the sacred geometry of food, I shared the idea that we resonate to Phi or "fiveness" -- five fingers, toes, senses, etc, and here we see that even in spiritual relationships there are 5 primary tastes!

At this stage in my own spiritual evolution, I may not be aware of my eternal rasa with God, but some things I do know for certain:

I am NOT the supreme enjoyer, but God, by definition must be;
I am NOT the supreme controller of my destiny, but God, by definition must be;
God (HE/SHE) is my best friend!

In conclusion: I am so glad that I have been given another opportunity to cultivate purity and express my love and appreciation for all the blessings in my life. I apparently was not ready to go on that day, but hopefully when my predetermined number of breaths does run out, I will be fully ready to embrace the eternal reality and not come back here again for another round.

What it means to be a Food Yogi

2011-07-15T10:22:00.003-04:00

Over the last 5 weeks I have been developing a Food Yoga workshop based on my new book, FOOD YOGA - Nourishing the Soul (formerly: The YOGA of EATING).

The response has been positive thus far and I am encouraged to think that with a little tweaking I will have a very effective presentation on the art and science of being a Food Yogi.

Essentially, what I am presenting in these classes is the ancient culture of spiritual hospitality combined with the lifestyle of a perfect prasadarian. A Prasadarian is someone that only consumes the most pure food, devoid of all suffering, toxins, and negativity. Prasadam is a Sanskrit word that means mercy, and specifically refers to food that has been prepared with loving intention and then offered in love to God. Naturally, such a gift of love must be physically and emotionally pure.

Because food is the most basic necessity of life it behooves us to honor the blessing of having food on our table, and even more importantly making sure that everyone else has food as well. This can only happen when we genuinely feel compassion and respect for all living beings and it is this universal respect that is fundamental to a Food Yogi lifestyle. A Food Yogi sees with equal vision, a dog, elephant, poor man, rich man, woman, child, bird, or insect, knowing well that all are equal in spiritual quality, although appearing externally different. The wisdom of equal vision is most naturally expressed in the sharing of food, simply because eating food is something we all have in common and no one should be denied.

Another pillar of the Vedic culture of spiritual hospitality is the policy of Atithi Narayan or the attitude of treating an unexpected guest like God. Atithi is a Sanskrit word meaning unscheduled, and Narayana is a name of Visnu (God). The purport of this policy is obvious: If you are supposed to treat the unexpected guest like God, how much more should we respect those that we invite to our homes!? You can just imagine how wonderful the world would be if this policy was common law.

Probably the most important lesson from the Food Yogi workshop is the idea that when we make an effort to be fully conscious of our food choices, preparations and eating—incredible and transformative things can happen to us.

When you are living consciously, beginning with conscious eating, you will do so in all your thoughts and actions. Your life will be consistent and in harmony with your environment. In other words, you will complement your environment and not disturb it. Rather than being a “spoke in the wheel” of Nature, you will be a welcome participant in the garden of unlimited possibility.

Food's only purpose is to nourish the body, mind and soul. Food, therefore, should give us life, cleanse our body and uplift our spirit. Eating food should never be just about fueling the physical body, it should always be viewed as an expression of consciousness.

Einstein was a vegetarian!

The journey of spiritual awakening begins with and ends with the tongue. Never underestimate the power of the plate or the power of the spoken word. What you put on your plate is as much a political statement as it is a mirror of who you really are. You can tell much about a person by what comes out of his mouth when he speaks and what he consumes as food. Food for Life founder Swami Prabhupada often gave the example of a dog on a throne. “If you throw a shoe, then the dog will leave his throne to chew the shoe,” he chuckled. Similarly, although an individual may claim to be enlightened or a great moralist, actions speak louder than words, and soon enough those actions will always reveal their true nature.

The Bible says: “The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.”
The tongue will always lead the other senses either to purity and thus liberation, or to debauchery and thus perpetual entanglement in sin.

To be a Food Yogi is to walk in truth.

-------------------------------------------------

ABOUT THE FOOD YOGI WORKSHOP

Food Yogi Workshop is an introduction to the culture of spiritual hospitality and the importance of food on our spiritual journey. Students will learn how to achieve optimum health by practicing the Food Yogi diet and lifestyle, which includes, what to eat, when to eat, water therapy, food meditations and conscious eating.

• The meaning of Food Yoga
• Metaphysics of food
• Nature Meditation
• Food Alchemy
• Sacred Food and Super foods
• The importance of water
• Thoughts are energy
• Food Politics
• Spiritual Hospitality
• Food Offering Meditation
• Conscious Eating

To book your Food Yogi Workshop contact Priya at FFL.ORG

The Phi of the Maha Mantra

2011-06-28T09:41:00.018-04:00

Energy In -- Energy Out,

"Forbidden fruit" is what it's all about,

Cloaked in a Torus -- it reveals its heart,

When cut horizontally and two sides set apart.

The apple's seeds -- form a perfect Pent,

Proportionate to Phi or the Golden Measurement,

The signature expression of nature and time,

Efficiency of form for the spirit sublime.

Starting as a "Torus" -- we evolve in Phi,

Then express ourselves physically through the number 5,

Five senses, five fingers, and five toes you see,

Our heart resonates to "fiveness" in numerology.

We are "Phi energetics" trapped within a "core",

A physical prison where karma is the law,

The secret to escape is to resonate once more,

With the magic of Phi within a transcendental score.

Of the five elements: earth, water, fire, air, and sky,

It is sky from where sound makes its entrance into Phi,

That creative force -- embalmed in pure sound,

Is essentially what makes the world go round.

And it is this cyclic metaphor that I introduce the Name,

The most transcendental sound of infinite fame,

A garland of beads -- a rosary if you will,

Holds the secret to emancipation and ultimate free will.

Reconnecting our hearts to the source of bliss,

An experience so divine we don't want to miss,

Of all the divine sounds -- the great mantra blooms as a rose,

In its purity, potency, and mathematical prose.

32 syllables of 3 Names -- Krishna, Rama and Hare,

108 beads forming one complete "rosary",

The multiplication of which generates a number of Phi,

3,456 transforms all like a butterfly.

Dividing C by 16 rosaries we get a harmonic of the speed of sound,

forming a perfect Phi harmony with 16 completed "rounds,"

And so now we know why -- Srila Prabhupada emphatically decreed:

"Chanting Hare Krishna -- is validated scientifically."

Phi relationship of light to sound to mantra?

The relationship of 108 to Phi was first discovered by Jain 108. For more information on the mysteries of 108 go to The Book of Phi - 108 Codes

"The theory of special relativity explores the consequences of this invariance of C (Speed of Light) with the ASSUMPTION that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial frames of reference."

"It is generally ASSUMED that fundamental constants such as C have the same value throughout spacetime, meaning that they do not depend on location and do not vary with time. HOWEVER, it has been suggested in various theories that the speed of light MAY have changed over time." - Wikipedia

Assumed Speed of light = 186282 miles per sec

Syllables in one 108 bead rosary of the maha mantra = 3456

Syllables in 16 rosaries of the maha mantra = 55296

Speed of light 186282 / 55296 = 3.36881510416 (rounded to 3.37)

Speed of sound in higher atmosphere is given as 0.18694.

When divided by 55296 (16 rounds) = 3.38071, (rounded to 3.38)

However, since there is still some doubt as to actual speed of light, let's assume that C is a multiple of (108) or 186624 (which is very close to the assumed speed of 186282). If we divide this number (186624) by 55296 (syllables in 16 rounds of the maha mantra) we get a very similar number = 3.375 (which could round to 3.37 or 3.38)

Interestingly, the speed of sound varies according to the environment, but is fastest in the higher atmosphere.

Since there is no real certainty for the speed of light throughout all of spacetime and the Universe functions harmonically, we propose that the actual C (speed of light) could be 186624 miles per second and as a consequence, the optimum speed for sound must be 0.186624 miles per second.

In any case, even without using the 108 multiple number for the C, the current estimated speed for light and sound still form a nice harmonic when related to the total number of syllables within 16 rosaries (55296) of the maha mantra:

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

* The key point to understand here is that 108 is related to Phi as discovered by my dear friend Jain 108

Taichung, Taiwan, June 27, 2011

Comments welcome...

Sacred Geometry of Whole Foods

2011-06-17T07:17:00.008-04:00

Excerpt from:

FOOD YOGA - Nourishing the Soul

A new book by Priya Vrata

Who would have ever thought that an apple could hold the key to the secrets of the universe and our existence?

Vedic Mathematician and Sacred Geometrician, Jain 108 explains: “Our energetic body is a Torus; planet Earth is energetically a Torus, and the apple is a Torus.”

Jain proposes that the secret to this understanding begins with the fetus in the womb. “Before any of the limbs have developed, the human form is essentially shaped like a tube torus donut, illustrating clearly that the human body is based on the principle of energy in – energy out. The tube torus donut is the ultimate geometrical shape – expressing perfection in balance and efficiency,” he explains.

Like all spiritual traditions, Jain suggests that complete knowledge can only be obtained by turning inwards to access our core, as illustrated by the turning in of the apple. “Since ancient times the apple has symbolized the science of immortality, ‘Les pomme bleue’. In French the word ‘pomme’ comes from ‘Op Om,’ or Sun Ball. The word ‘Apple’ also denotes ‘Eye’, ‘Stone’ or anything round. The phrase: ‘You are the apple of my eye,’ therefore, has deep meaning, suggesting that in the center of our energetic torus is the self (eye).”

Sacred Geometrician and health researcher, Don Tolman, offers that if we could reduce all the knowledge of our body and the world around us, it would be: “Everything is a tube.” Our body and everything in it is basically tube-like. “Sickness is a result of blockages within ‘tubes.’” He says. It is this “tube” concept that also reveals the mystery of the apple.

Slicing the “tube-torus donut-like” apple in half reveals a pentagonal arrangement of seeds. This 5-pointed pentagonal formation is not exclusive to the apple, but is also found in a host of other fruits like the papaya, and in the flowers of all edible fruits. Tolman explains that the “pulsating rhythm of living growth follows the pattern of pentagonal symmetry,” and is most perfectly expressed in the golden measure or the divine proportion (phi) — a relationship between a small part and a large part of any whole, and mathematically expressed as the irrational number 1.618033… into infinity. In the simplest terms, the small part of a divine proportion is a scale model of the large part, which is a scale model of the whole.

The golden spiral is another aspect of phi’s transcendental character and can be seen all throughout nature, including the nautilus shell, ram horn, butterfly wings, tornadoes, whirl pools, ocean waves, spiraled galaxies and in the movements of birds, bees and schools of fish. Thousands of plant species exhibit the golden measure’s proportional spacing in the distribution of their seeds and leaves in what is also known as the Fibonacci[1] sequence. Indeed, even the roots of plants follow the phi ratio and most profoundly it can be seen in the distances between the planets within our solar system.

The human body also perfectly expresses the golden measure. “The body begins it’s existence in the spiral pattern of an embryo and when it has matured the body exhibits the phi proportion in the primary relationship of its parts,” explains Tolman.

Indeed, even our DNA resonates to phi. Our DNA is composed or two 3D spirals. Sacred Geometrician Stephen Skinner explains that, the geometry that governs these spirals can best be seen if you look vertically down them. “What you will see is a structure that is reminiscent of phi (Golden measure), a series of double pentagons that make up the composite axial view of the DNA double helix. Phi is closely related to ‘fiveness’ and it is integral to the construction of the pentagon,” explains Skinner.

It is for these reasons that perfect health is achieved when we satisfy the bodies yearning for balance, as perfectly expressed in phi (fiveness), by eating whole fruits and vegetables that naturally resonate to phi and arranging our lives in such a way that we honor and connect with each one of the five material elements (earth, water, fire, air, and ether).

Perfect health therefore can be as simple as embracing five key activities, that coincidently resonate with each of the 5 gross material elements:

1. Eating whole foods (Earth);

2. Drinking spring water (Water);

3. Greeting the morning sun (Fire);

4. Vitalizing the body with fresh air through stress-less exercise like yoga (Air);

5. Exposure to positive sound vibration (Ether).

[1] Leonardo of Pisa, famous for introducing Arabic numbers to Europe and discovering the Fibonacci series where numbers unfold by adding the previous. Natural growth often conforms to the numbers found in this series.

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A prayer to Little William

2011-04-19T14:02:00.002-04:00

Little William Lionheart

Little William, Little William,

Little man of iron.

Although cloaked as a boy,

Your heart roared like a lion

Your demeanour so cute,

and yet your presence so tall.

One could only wonder,

where you got such balls!?

Challenging anyone,

who came your way.

With a stiff upper lip,

You demanded they pay.

Walking and talking,

like a man of fame;

it made us wonder,

"What was in your name?"

Little William, Little William,

you were a king of boys;

so courageous and bold,

and a bringer of joy.

We’ll miss you dearly,

and yet we know you’re ok --

for the Lord is your shepherd,

on this joyous day.

You’re now free of pain,

so your soul can fly high --

to the heights of divinity,

into the spiritual sky.

Where life is eternal,

full of bliss and wisdom;

a fitting place for a “King,”

without a Kingdom.

Where every word is song,

and every step a dance,

and selfless love,

is the currency of romance.

A place from where,

we all once were,

but somehow forgot,

in this endless blur...

Of bodily games,

in a world of names,

seeking fortune and fame,

in this temporary plane.

Little William, Little William,

your love lives on.

We now understand,

That you’ve not really gone.

You’ll always be with us,

in a loving bond,

that transcends time,

and succeeds beyond…

This mortal frame,

that covers the “soul”,

for our love is eternal,

and you’ve made us whole.

We look forward to that day,

when we’ll meet once more,

and hear your challenge,

and that lion roar.

And get to know "you",

the real William of “soul,”

the little man inside the boys body,

the one that made us whole.

Little William, Little William,

please accept my prayer,

may the Lord bless you always,

for you are a soul so rare!

by Uncle Paul

(Little William Harris passed away on April 17th)

A Mother's Love

2011-04-15T09:42:00.000-04:00

Excerpt from FOOD YOGA - Nourishing the Soul (formerly: The YOGA of EATING)

by Priya Vrata

God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.

- Jewish Proverb

Nothing can compare to a home cooked meal from a loving mother. We’ve already talked about the risk we take with our emotional, physical and spiritual well-being when we eat out. Well, in the ideal home, a mother’s cooking is filled with loving intention and healing energy and is therefore the best source of spiritual and physical nutrition on the planet! (Of course, with modern gender roles so blurred, the same could be said of a loving father.)

The sad truth, however, is that, with mothers all over the world ceding control of the dinner table to scientists, food marketers and governments, a terrible thing happened. Tradition and common sense went out the window, and as Michael Pollen notes, “Thirty years of nutritional advice have left us fatter, sicker, and more poorly nourished. Which is why we find ourselves in the predicament we do: in need of a whole new way to think about eating.[1]”

A loving nurturer like a mother will invest all her loving intention into the meals she prepares. That sort of loving intention is not only invaluable, but also worshipable. In fact, in the Vedic tradition, the father (Pitru Devo Bhavaa) and mother (Matru Devo Bhavaa) are considered the first guru and second guru respectively and should therefore be worshipped.

In Sanskrit, the word “Guru” consists of two words: “Gu” – which means darkness or ignorance and “Ru” which means “remover of.” The guru is someone who helps to remove ignorance from our hearts and enlightens us.

In the Bible, it is also stated:
Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.

I have provided a comparison chart on the following page between food prepared by a loving Mother and that which you can buy in a restaurant. I could have extended this list indefinitely, but these are what I feel to be the most important pros and cons of eating a meal prepared by one’s loving mother versus a meal prepared by a restaurant:

Prepared by a loving Mother

Made with loving intention
Prepared carefully
Cleanliness honoured
Selfless
Focused intention
Pure motivation

Prepared at a Restaurant

Made with the intention of profit
Prepared hastily
Cleanliness compromised
Selfish
Distracted intention
Material motivation

It is easy to see the benefits of eating a home cooked meal, and yet, every year, Americans will spend, on average, $1,000 eating out (which is said to be less than it once was).

Good Magazine, in partnership with Whole Foods, chronicled[2] the proportion of income Americans spend on food today as compared to the past. And guess what? They’re spending less than ever.

In 1949, Americans spent 22% of their incomes on food, whereas in 2009 they spent a meager 10%. However, of this 10%, nearly half (40%)[3] is spent on food away from home, and research[4] has found that meals prepared outside the home are less healthful.

How is this so? Because, while saving money seems like a good thing, the cheap processed foods we buy outside are often produced by factory farming and industrial agriculture and supported by government subsidies, which we ultimately pay for in the form of taxes. Also, with jumbo-sized products being priced more economically, Americans may be getting more for their dollar, but they're also gaining more weight, losing their health, spending more on healthcare, and supporting environmentally unsustainable practices.

The Seven Mothers

According to the Vedic tradition, there are actually seven mothers in our life:
The first mother is our biological mother, from whose womb we have come to this world. Then there is the wife of the teacher or spiritual master; the wife of a priest; the wife of the king, or the queen; the cow; the nurse or caregiver; and finally, the earth, often referred to as “Mother Nature.” In Sanskrit, the country in which we take birth is called deça-mätåkä or “motherland.” We refer to our language as “mother tongue.” So you can see that there are so many mothers, of which the cow is just one. In India, a cow is sometimes addressed as amba, which also means mother. (In broken dialect people sometimes use the word amma.)

There is one common principle that characterizes all genuine mothers, and that is selfless, loving service to their dependents. This pure loving intention is the true life giving force that our mothers nurture us with. Whether it is milk from her breast or the fruit of a tree, a mother’s offering is pure. No matter how hard modern science tries to emulate the pure offering of a mother, it will never succeed. The failed history of baby formula is a case in point. In a recent report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), tests performed on liquid baby formulas found that they all contained bisphenol A (BPA). This leaching, hormone-mimicking chemical is used by all major baby formula manufacturers in the linings of the metal cans in which baby formula is sold.

BPA has been found to cause hyperactivity, reproductive abnormalities and pediatric brain cancer in lab animals. Increasingly, scientists suspect that BPA might be linked to several medical problems in humans, including breast and testicular cancer.

[1] In Defense of Food, Michael Pollen p 81
[2] Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reyxkSWUjLI&
[3] US. Department of Labor, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditures in 2007 (Washington DC 2009)
[4] J.F.Guthrie, B.H. Lin, and E Frazao, Role of food prepared away from home in the American diet, 1977-78 versus 1994-96: Changes and consequences, J Nutr Educ Behav 34 (2002): 140-50

The Inner Artist (POEM)

2011-02-07T02:44:00.003-05:00

The Inner Artist

By Paul Turner

(6/2/2011 Sydney, Australia)

The artists’ quest to explore the heart,

To learn of Self – sets them apart,

From the fodder of public and depravity,

Who wallow in arcades of debauchery.

Surrendering their souls to the noble truth,

That life is for expressing our eternal youth –

The Child within that yearns for love,

And the reassuring hand of the Lord above.

Carefree and innocent, they find their song,

Convinced in mind that nothing can go wrong,

With their chins held high and a confident gait,

They pursue their path and so meditate –

On the Higher dimensions of the human psyche,

The world within where all souls are alike,

Where every word is a song and every step a dance,

And loving service is the currency of romance.

‘tis the artists that reveals heaven on earth,

by the stroke of their pen and the nature of Self worth,

Without their grace – humanity would despair,

For the artistic heart is a jewel so rare.

Awareness (POEM)

2011-02-07T00:51:00.003-05:00

Awareness

By Paul Turner 
(31/1/2011 Balmoral Beach, Australia)

Repeating patterns in the yellow sand,

Dominant Sun from where I stand,

Enlightenment possible – no doubt therein,

Removing refuse from the history within.

To be aware of actions and behaviors – so swine,

To acknowledge your essence – so perfectly divine,

To allow those mistakes to be lessons learned,

In the world of misfortune as the ocean churns.

Countless souls on the shore of time,

Clamoring for sunlight and a taste of wine,

The elixer of immortality, beauty and fame,

Is the frivolous ball in the roulette game.

A game of chance – and yet we hanker for more,

While the house bets large against our pultry score,

If bewildered by neon and a foolish quest,

We’ll lose our awareness and fail the test.

Stand strong and tall above the smashing waves,

Affirm your brilliance in the world of names,

Allow the eternal flame of your soul to shine through,

As you lay in the Sun beneath the sky so blue.

Spiritedness

2010-11-15T16:53:00.004-05:00

Webster defines the word “spirit” as: “Energy, vivacity, ardor, enthusiasm, courage,” etc., while the word “spirited” is defined as: “Animated; full of life and vigor, lively,” etc.

The word Spirit expresses the essence of Universal Power and that which is present in man as the core of his being—his inner strength and power. Spiritedness does not mean the quality of being ethereal, spiritual, or otherworldly. It simply denotes a state of being “animated," or “possessed of vigor”. This vigor comes from the very core of one’s being—the “I AM” region or plane of consciousness. The quality of spiritedness is manifested in different degrees among different men—and animals. It is an elementary, primitive idiom of Life, and is never dependent upon culture, refinement or education. Its development is a consequence of one’s ability to recognize one’s power within.

Within the animal kingdom we see how the quality of spiritedness plays into determining who will be the alpha male. For example, if you put two male baboons in the same cage, rather than launch into an attack on one another, they will open their mouths to expose all their teeth and then proceed to ‘blow’ at each other. But one of them will blow with a hint of fear that immediately marks him as the inferior male and the “fight” is over. It is the same with the big cats. Put a dozen lions together, and they also, usually without a single strike, will soon discover which one of them possesses the valor of the leader. Thereafter he takes the choice of the females. He becomes leader of the pride. It is not always the baboon with the fiercest teeth, nor biggest lion that asserts his dominion by winning a physical fight—it is always something far subtler than the physical—the soul quality of the animal or its spiritedness.

And so it is with men. It is not the dog in the fight, but the “fight in the dog” that endures. The spiritedness or “nerve,” or “mettle,” of a man is always the deciding factor.

There may be no feeling of antagonism between you and your opponent, but there will be an inward recognition on both sides that one of you is superior. This superiority does not depend upon physical strength, intellectual prowess, social status or skill set, but upon the expression and recognition of one’s inner power or spiritedness.

We often hear of people “lacking spirit”; or having had “their spirit broken,” etc. The term is used in the sense of “mettle.” “A horse with a “bigger heart” will always run a gamer race and will often outdistance and out-cardio a horse having greater physical characteristics, but less “spirit” or “heart.” Other horses become discouraged and allow themselves to be beaten by higher-spirited horses, even though they may be superior physical specimens. This spiritedness or valor of an individual is a vital quality of success but it can only be developed and strengthened once one becomes firmly established in knowing their higher self. Never allow someone else to define who you are. Believe in yourself and know that you are much more than what the world sees externally.

Excerpt from HOW TO PLAY GREAT POOL - and become a better person in the process
(by Paul Turner)

BUY NOW
eBook - 115 pages
$9.95

World Best Aiming System for Billiards (Book)

2010-11-15T16:44:00.000-05:00

New Book by Paul Turner
eBook - 72 pages
$4.95

World’s Best Aiming System for Billiards teaches the legendary 3-cut system of aiming popularized in snooker and used by the greatest billiards players in the world. The book breaks down the essential elements of the system into an easy to understand method that can be applied immediately while playing any kind of billiards. The 3-cut system is based on geometry so it is the most reliable and accurate aiming system available. Get this book and start pocketing balls like never before! Your friends will be amazed.

BUY NOW

HOW TO PLAY GREAT POOL - Now available on KINDLE

2010-10-11T22:43:00.002-04:00

HOW TO PLAY GREAT POOL
by Paul Rodney Turner, inventor of the Billiard Aim Trainer

Paul started playing pool in 1975 at the age of 12 on a 7-foot particleboard pool table in his family’s garage. Fascinated by the art and geometry of billiards, Paul studied the books of legendary snooker and billiard greats, Joe Davis, Walter Lindrum and Eddie Charlton. Soon after he became a fan of a new BBC series called Pot Black featuring a new breed of snooker professionals like Steve Davis and Jimmy White.

With a sense of optimism, Paul began practicing on 12 foot snooker tables for 4 hours daily, meticulously going through drill after drill to perfect his game. He had hopes of one day becoming a professional snooker player, but then in 1983, as if being called for a higher purpose; Paul put away his snooker cue and traveled East to study the ancient mystical teachings of India. It is that experience that Paul now draws on when explaining the more subtle aspects of billiards, like mind managementand gamesmanship.

Join Paul on a journey of championship billiards and self discovery as he reveals essential ingredients of what makes a great pool player and a great human being.

Available on KINDLE

Clinton endorses plant-based diet

2010-10-10T19:19:00.003-04:00

Lorax Community Garden Sanctuary - Sponsored by FFL

2010-09-12T17:09:00.001-04:00

Raw green soup prepared by Kathryn Davis at the
Lorax Community Garden Sanctuary house

For the last six months I have been pretty much full time working on the Lorax Community Garden project in Bronx, New York managed by Kathryn Davis.

In February 2010, Kathryn was able to secure a nice house for the project on Broadway and although it is very old and lacking in some areas, for all intents and purposes it meets the project's needs. The front room of the house is now a garden room for young plants, there are two upstairs bedrooms, an office, a large dining room and a good size kitchen. Most of the furniture including all the beds were donated or obtained through craigslist "curb alerts" so we saved a considerable amount of money.

Food for Life Global is the main sponsor for the project, however, the Lorax Community Garden Sanctuary is an independent church organization. To learn more, go to: LORAX COMMUNITY

HOW TO PLAY GREAT POOL - and become a better person in the process

2010-04-17T01:08:00.000-04:00

I recently finished my first book on billiards. In this book, I share secrets to championship level play along with providing practical advice and guidance on how to improve one's quality of life and attitude. In the end, what resulted was a book that was both a training guide for the passionate pool player and self-help book aimed at the billiards industry.

The book is available in hardcover, paperback and as an ebook for download through Lulu.

HOW TO PLAY GREAT POOL - and become a better person in the process by Paul Rodney Turner

Paul Rodney Turner, the inventor of the Billiard Aim Trainer, takes you on a journey to championship level billiards and self discovery as he reveals essential ingredients to winning pool and becoming and a better person in the process.

Food For Life Global Is Coming Through Big In Haiti | Washington Times Communities

2010-02-24T17:03:00.000-05:00

Food For Life Global Is Coming Through Big In Haiti | Washington Times Communities

Welcome the Sun back into your life!

2009-12-23T00:24:00.006-05:00

The Winter Solstice occurs exactly when the earth's axial tilt is farthest away from the sun at its maximum of 23° 26'. The term Winter Solstice is also colloquially used as Midwinter. More evident to those in high latitudes, it represents the shortest day, the longest night, and when the sun's daily maximum position in the sky is the lowest. The seasonal significance of the Winter Solstice is in the reversal of the gradual lengthening of nights and shortening of days. Depending on the shift of the calendar, the Winter Solstice occurs on December 21 or 22 each year in the Northern Hemisphere, and June 20 or 21 in the Southern Hemisphere.

Sadly, though, it is a day that most people in the West barely notice, simply because of their fixation on Christmas, December 25, or the Gregorian new year, Jan 1. The Winter Solstice, however, marks the beginning of a new era, a potential blossoming of consciousness and the resurrection of spirit. Astro-theologists say that it marks the day when the Son of God, represented by the actual sun, pauses for three days before once again ascending in the sky.

Symbolic
Since the event is seen as the reversal of the Sun's ebbing presence in the sky, concepts of the rebirth of sun gods are common and, in cultures using cyclic calendars based on the solstices, the year has been celebrated as reborn and of new beginnings. In Greek mythology, the gods and goddesses met on the winter and summer solstice.

Sun Worship
Any way you look at it, it is an auspicious occasion and one that all of us should pay attention to by harnessing those shifting energies to our benefit. We can best do that by offering our respects to the Sun with a heart filled with gratitude. Practitioners of bhakti traditions will tell us that one need not bother with worshiping nature, but need only to "water the root the tree" by chanting the holy name of God instead. However, in the same scriptures they quote from, the Sun or Surya is described as the "eye of God." A closer study of these same devotional traditions teach us that Sun worship does in indeed take place daily in the form of the Gayatri mantra. The Gayatri mantra, regarded as one of the most sacred of the Hindu hymns, is dedicated to the Sun. Brahmans will privately chant the Gayatri mantra three times daily, just before dawn, at noon and finally at dusk.

Hinduism
In the Sanskrit Vedas, numerous hymns are dedicated to Surya/Mitra dev, the Sun personified, and Savitr, "the impeller", a solar deity either identified with or associated with Surya. The Adityas are a group of solar deities, from the Brahmana period numbering twelve. The ritual of sandhyavandanam, performed by some Hindus, is an elaborate set of hand gestures and body movements, designed to greet and revere the Sun.

The Sun God in Hinduism is an ancient deity, worthy of immense worship. The Sun is referred to in Sanskrit as "Mitra" or "Friend" down to the invariable warmth, life-giving nature and optimism its light brings to mankind. He is also called "Prati-Aksh Devta" meaning "The Seen Divinity".

The Mahabharata describes one of its warrior heroes Karna as being the son of the righteous queen Kunti who was impregnated by the Sun God. Sri Rama from the famous Ramayana descended from the Surya dynasty or clan of kings as bright as the Sun.

Mother Gayatri
The Gayatri Mantra consists of twenty-four syllables - three lines of eight syllables each. The first line (Aum Bhur Bhuvah Swah) is considered an invocation, and is not technically a part of the original Gayatri Mantra as it appears in the Upanishads. Gayatri is also referred to as a Vedic poetic meter of 24 syllables or any hymn composed in this meter. Hence, there exists a whole family of Gayatri Mantras, which serve as meditative aids to pray for the blessings of a particular personal God.

Aum Bhur Bhuvah Swah, Tat Savitur Varenyam

Bhargo Devasya Dhimahi, Dhiyo Yo Nah Prachodayat

A basic translation can be given as...

Oh God, the Protector, the basis of all life, Who is self-existent, Who is free from all pains and Whose contact frees the soul from all troubles, Who pervades the Universe and sustains all, the Creator and Energizer of the whole Universe, the Giver of happiness, Who is worthy of acceptance, the most excellent, Who is Pure and the Purifier of all, let us embrace that very God, so that He may direct our mental faculties in the right direction

Ancient Egypt
Sun worship was exceptionally prevalent in ancient Egyptian religion. The earliest deities associated with the sun are Wadjet, Sekhmet, Hathor, Nut, Bast, Bat, and Menhit. First Hathor, and then Isis, give birth to and nursed Horus and Ra.

Modern attitudes towards the Sun
In mundane dealings it is often said that one should not trust someone that doesn't look you in the eye when shaking hands or greeting you. And yet our hurried lives are causing us to do just that every single day when the Sun rises to greet us. We are usually not there, but are snoring away in ignorance, oblivious to beauty and power that comes with greeting the Sun. The birds and other animals certainly realize the benefits of praising the early morning Sun. The early morning is a veritable symphony of song and dance performed by the animals and insects in praise of the Sun.

Yogis, brahmans and Qi practitioners have known of the health benefits of rising early for centuries. In Asian countries, it is common to find thousands of people performing tai chi, meditation, or prayer just before sunrise. The Vedas state that a 48 minute period beginning 1 hour 36 minutes before Sunrise is called the Brahma Muhurta and is considered the most powerful time for any kind of prayer or meditation.

The Brahma Muhurta or Hour of God in the Indian tradition is a time of great energy and tranquility. The Vedic seers came to discover that this is the time that the cosmic gods meditate and start to perform their heavenly duties at the command of the Supreme Lord Visnu. Even if you are a complete beginner in meditation, you will encounter very little resistance if you meditate at this time.

Sun Gazing
Another interesting practice from the Indian tradition is Sun Gazing, or the art of looking directly at the Sun as it rises above the horizon. It is important to remember that staring directly into the sun can be dangerous and therefore must be done with great caution. However, according to world renowned sunhealing teacher Hira Ratan Manek (pictured below), the benefits far outweigh the dangers.

For centuries, people and researchers believed that it was impossible for human beings to live their lives without sustenance, and that their vision would be destroyed by looking straight at the sun. Based on science, human eyes are not strong enough to resist the damage of direct sunlight while the human body has a natural cycle of hunger that has to be curbed. However, modern sungazing devotees like Mason Howe Dwinell writes that people can overcome such obstacles and even achieve the impossible of living off light alone, in his groundbreaking book, The Earth Was Flat: Insight into the Ancient Practice of Sungazing.

Sunscreens
Another paranoia fed to us these days by the pharmaceutical companies is the need for us to use sun screen lotions to protect our bodies from dangerous UV rays. However, it is important to understand that there are some serious dangers associated with sunscreen, starting with the fact that most popular brands contain a large number of toxic chemicals that can invade your skin and actually increase the chance for cancer to arise! The main culprits are: Oxybenzone, PABA,Titanium Dioxide, and Dioxybenzone.

Vitamin D
In addition, these cancer causing creams block the overall production of Vitamin D in the body. When our bodies are deficient in Vitamin D, either through the overuse of sunscreens or through a lifestyle that keeps us out of the sun, many negative health consequences occur, for example:

Weakening of the bones.
Inability to absorb calcium.
Slowing of cell regeneration
Potential for developing various types of cancers
Depression

Also, insufficient sunlight in the short winter days increases the secretion of melatonin in the body, throwing off the circadian rhythm with longer sleep. Exercise, light therapy, increased negative ion exposure (which can be attained from plants and well ventilated flames, burning wood or beeswax) can reinvigorate the body from its seasonal lull and relieve winter blues by decreasing melatonin secretions, increasing serotonin and temporarily creating more balanced sleeping pattern.

Don't be afraid of the light
It seems that that honoring and welcoming the sun into our lives is at the heart of many of our modern day ailments. Most people rise after the Sun has risen, take some kind of sheltered transportation to their office, where they will work in artificially lit buildings until after the sun has set, when they will once again return to their homes to repeat the pattern. By exposing your forearms to the sun every day for as little as 15 minutes, or as Hiren Ratan Manek recommends, gazing directly at the sun in the early morning, we could most probably curtail most health problems quite easily.

It is time to remember just how wonderful and beneficial the Sun is to our physical, mental and spiritual health. Arise O' living dead and seek the light of the Sun wherever and whenever you can get it. We are all light beings and the Sun is the very source of all light!

For further reading on Sun Worship see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_deity

The desire to connect - at what cost?

2009-12-12T16:52:00.001-05:00

We often gloat about how "connected" we all are in this modern "wired world", but are we really? Look around any busy street, subway or office building and sure enough you're going to see cell phones and blue tooth devises stuck to people's ears, thumbs feverishly clicking away at tiny keyboards, or headphones feeding music into ears, as these people shut out the world around them.

Some of us will check email on our Blackberry, G1 or Iphone every few minutes because of a need to feel wanted. Others will talk for hours on their cell phone because they don't have the courage or desire to strike up a meaningful conversation with a stranger; a young activists blocks out all the bullshit by listening to Skinny Puppy, while couples "sext" each other raunchy IMs because they wouldn't dare say such things in person.

This wired world we live in has not made us more connected, but has literally hijacked us from the beauty of the human experience. We have become far too dependent on technology, to the point where we feel we can't live without it. And that very thought is the seed of all our confusion.

You see, we were not born with these gadgets and neither will we take them with us upon our departure from this world. They are, like every other man-made wonder, temporary distractions -- "toys" if you will, to play with while we wander through life. It is true, that technology has opened the door to information that would not or could not have been accessible to a vast majority of the human population, but at what price? We have to ask the question: "Am I really happier now that I have the latest Blackberry? Similarly, is that illiterate villager happier or better off now that they have access to the Disney channel? In a superficial way, yes, but if we really dig deep and look at the experience from the spiritual paradigm, the answer is a resounding NO! How can it be when the very essence of our existence here is transitory and meant only for awakening to the higher reality of spirit. Human life is a blessing from which the soul can once and for all escape this cycle of birth and death, and yet, modern man has created a life in which we have become fixated on electronic pulses and the glamor of owning new stuff, all the while losing touch with our innate need to love and be loved as souls.

As a way to fight this addiction to technology, I have begun to periodically turn off my cell phone and walk away from the computer to breath fresh air, take in the world without the use of a computer screen or sound system, and force myself to interact with other humans around me by smiling, watching them, speaking to them and just trying to be human once again.

If we wish to evolve, we simply must "turn off" this technology and start living as do all other animate beings in this world. I know by using my computer to write this blog I am consciously going against all of what I just said, but hey, while I have access to technology, I may as well use it help me. It's sort of like using your legs to help you get back up off the ground after those same legs had just tripped you up and made you fall. Or using the thorn of the rose bush to dig another thorn out of your hand. Get the point?

Yes, it's a relevant point, but, herein lies the problem: It is easy to justify any use of communication technology, for in many ways it has or is helping us survive. For example, in saving the life of someone after they called 911, or in stealthily alerting someone through text messaging, when it was not possible to call out. However, that is not the core argument I wish to make. What I am becoming increasingly uneasy about is the overwhelming amount of time that these gadgets have taken over our lives, to the point where we have forgotten how to connect with people one on one, face to face, by exchanging warm and meaningful words that are accompanied by real facial expressions and not some emoticon on a text screen. :-)

The same applies to the growth of social networking applications like Facebook, Twitter and the Grand daddy of them all, Google, with it's plethora of applications like Gmail that seek to make our lives better, all the while taking more and more of our privacy away. There is whole movement developing now to shut down facebook accounts (Facebook refusenicks). Indeed, there is even a site called Arsebook that helps people to connect to people they hate! I can't understand why, but I digress. The point is that along with the growth of these social media mavens, there are millions of people now canceling their online accounts or not even bothering to sign up at all, simply because they feel the trade-off of convenience is far outweighed by the loss of privacy. We've become a society that is so dumbed down that we openly welcome anyone into our life, even if they have ill intentions. I mean, unless you have gone in an changed your privacy settings on Facebook, by default you are allowing friends of friends and sometimes "anyone" to view your complete profile, what to speak of when you install those cute little applications that enable you to send a gift or vote for a charity, etc. All of them clearly state that they will access your personal information, but we don't bother to read the fine print and just click, click, click to install that app to our Facebook account. Such is the carelessness and mindlessness that dominates our culture these days. Why? Because we have been systematically "undressed" by large corporations and the media through carefully crafted Nuero-linguistic programming, to the point where most people have no idea that the elephant is literally sitting in their living room.

I encourage everyone to set limits on all communication technology and to do whatever it takes to get back to the basics of human interaction with other humans, animals and plants. For the survival of our species and spiritual evolution we need to!

Thanksgiving - a day to honor all life

2009-11-21T16:31:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving is a time to come together with family and friends and reaffirm your love and appreciation for them through the age old custom of sharing food. Typically Americans will eat more than 45 million turkey corpses on this day. Why do we think it necessary to slaughter so many innocent animals to show our love for each other? It is a sad reality of modern society that although there is so much to be thankful for we deem it necessary to carve up a turkey to express that sentiment. And at what expense? Americans are getting fatter and sicker year after year. The three top causes of death, heart disease, cancer and diabetes are all food related. Eating a greasy fat-laden dead bird is not going to help matters. But millions will do it anyway, because that is the "tradition". We celebrate a human genocide by participating in another genocide on innocent animals.

The origins of the Thanksgiving celebration are not as blessed as most people think. Thanksgiving is a quintessentially American holiday, so much so that it is not just a holiday, but really is one of our Holy Days, almost universally celebrated by Americans. In its sacredness, families get together to celebrate one genocide (against Native Americans) by committing another (against turkeys). Can we celebrate in good faith and conscience?

On Thanksgiving Day, we give thanks. We give thanks for being the invader, the exploiter, the greedy, the colonizer, the thief, indeed the genocidaire. As Mark Twain points out in his War Prayer, wishing and being thankful for one’s own success and victory is, at the very same time, wishing and being thankful for another’s defeat and destruction. Do we want to make these kinds of wishes and give these kinds of thanks?

I do not wish to labor the negative history of what Thanksgiving represents, because most people visiting this blog will most probably already be vegetarian and much more conscious in their eating habits. On this day, therefore, Food for Life encourages one and all to be consistent with the true spirit of Thanksgiving by sharing pure food with love and respect for all of God's creation. Do not conform to the bogus traditions perpetrated by the masses, but rather stand strong on principle and make this day a day where you honor God and all of creation for what it truly is - our larger spiritual family.

Food for Life believes strongly that food in its purest form can speak all languages. It has the power to unite and heal and more importantly create real peace and prosperity in the world. We feel that such food, given in a spirit of love is the solution to all problems. Simply because food is central to every cultural gathering, every spiritual holiday, every ritual, every battle, every celebration and of course, without food there is no meaning or future for any family.

Thanksgiving therefore should be day that highlights the importance of food in our life and how much it is critical to our physical, mental and spiritual health. By eating flesh on this day, we in effect defile this day and lose touch with the very essence of our life. For by taking the life of another we offend God's creation and abuse the blessing of what human life affords us. Instead of eating a turkey, Americans should invite a Turkey to dinner and feed it as we would do with any other animate being that came asking for a meal.

The Farm Animal Reform Movement (FARM) has this to say:

Abusing and killing an innocent bird betrays the life-affirming spirit of giving thanks for our life, health, and happiness. The nearly 300 million turkeys killed each year in the U.S. spend their entire lives crammed in large sheds with little room to move. Artificially inseminated and selectively bred to gain enormous amounts of weight, they suffer heart attacks, broken limbs, lameness, and death from their genetically-induced accelerated growth rate. Most of these same conditions apply to "free range" turkeys.

Let the madness and hypocrisy stop once and for all.

Swami Prabhupada, the founder of Food for Life, believed that human wars are the direct result of slaughtering innocent animals. "It is karma," he explained.

Prabhupada offered a reason, which he repeated in books and lectures. For example, he wrote in a Shrimad Bhagavatam commentary to 4.26.5:

In this age of Kali the propensity for mercy is almost nil. Consequently there is always fighting and wars between men and nations. Men do not understand that because they unrestrictedly kill so many animals, they also must be slaughtered like animals in big wars. This is very much evident in the Western countries. In the West, slaughterhouses are maintained without restriction, and therefore every fifth or tenth year there is a big war in which countless people are slaughtered even more cruelly than the animals.

In lectures, Prabhupada would express himself more emotionally, as in this one in Los Angeles in 1973:

The desire is never satiated that “You have killed so many animals. Now you don’t—” No, he will go on, go on killing, killing, killing, killing, killing, killing. He is never satisfied, “Now I have killed so many. No more, stop.” No, there is no stoppage. . . . The injunction is “Thou shalt not kill,” but he will kill and kill and kill and kill, and still, he want to be satisfied. Just see. The Bible says, “Thou shalt not kill,” and they are simply engaged in killing business, and still they want to be happy. . . . Therefore Krishna says, “Yes, you be killed by occasional world war. You must be killed. You have created this situation. You must be killed. You may be American or Englishman or German or this or that. You may be very proud of your nationality. But you must be killed.” This is the position. Ishvarasya viceshtitam [the will of the Lord]: “You have killed so many animals. Now wholesale killing, one bomb. One atom bomb. Be killed.”

It is days like Thanksgiving when this wholesale human karma is elevated to astronomical proportions, thus paving the way for more suffering. There may not be much we can do to change the collective karma of the American public, but if we choose to reject these bogus killing traditions we can at least feel satisfied that we did not contribute to the chaos that is being created day after day and we will be one step closer to perfecting our human lives and becoming self realized.

Celebrating Genocide by Dan Brook
A Gentle Thanksgiving (FARM)
American Indian Genocide Museum
Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide (book review)
We were not the savages (book review)

NOW is all that really matters

2009-11-04T16:50:00.004-05:00

When I awoke today I laid in bed and spent many hours just going over past childhood memories, looking for answers for what made me the person I am today. The exercise was certainly interesting, and yet despite how hard I tried, all I got were mostly the same old memories. I visualized myself walking around my old house and then in the homes of friends and relatives, all the while trying to stimulate the mind for new pictures and experiences that I could learn from. However, there was nothing really all that compelling or instructive, other than what I already had come to realize about my persona thus far.

But then it struck me: All those past memories are just that, memories or "mental photographs" and "mental videos" that do not exist anymore. They are in fact illusory and gone forever. Yes, they serve a function of supporting the philosophical paradigm we currently adopt, but other than that, they are useless. What really matters is what is happening NOW? Who are we NOW? What can I be thankful for NOW? What do I want NOW?, etc. As I meditated on the NOW, it reinforced the importance of steering clear of meditating on what you don't want. To often we think and speak about what we don't want to happen, or what we don't like, etc, rather than what we want or appreciate. Such thoughts and discussions are not only unproductive, but harmful as well. You see, by thinking and talking about what you don't want, you're in effect attracting that very thing to you. The vibrations you send out in the form of words and mental thoughts, act like a magnet and sure enough the Universe arranges to send those experiences your way.

Therefore, today I began the day meditating on what I wanted in my life and what I could be thankful for right now. It is an exercise that we should do every morning because it then sets a positive framework for the rest of the day.

You see, living in the NOW is really all that matters. Our life is in essence just a bunch of NOW moments strung together in this illusory web of time. In the higher spiritual planes, there is no time. Time is conspicuous by its absence. Life in the spiritual realm is eternal, so the concept of past and present do not exist. Living is all about NOW.

Learning to live in the moment is truly a gift of immeasurable worth. In the Western world we are brainwashed to think in terms of schedules and deadlines, so our lives sometimes feel like a blur of past unfulfilling experiences. The word "Deadline" seems to solidify the idea that we are racing against the clock to meet out death!

Take a moment to stop and study the faces of people during rush hour and see how anxious and worried they appear. The "consumer-driven" system we have adopted in the West keeps us running on a "treadmill" getting nowhere. There is another interesting word, "Nowhere". It can also be written as NOW HERE. Instead of running for a mirage in the future, it is better to stop and appreciate what is NOW HERE.

The last 12 months of my life have probably been as transforming to me as the first year of my life when I became a monk way back in 1983. At that time, as is happening now, I began deconstructing everything I had ever learned up to that point and building a new reality for myself. Shaving my head was a big part of that experience. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking how different I looked now, and that all of the vanity that came with those long locks was now laying on the floor ready to be swept away. I felt so liberated! A new persona had emerged. I was "Born again," if you will. From that day on I dove deep into the path of bhakti yoga and never once regretted that decision.

Now 26 years later, so much has happened since that fateful day. I surrendered 14 years of my young adulthood to live as a monk, traveled the world, got married, had a daughter, got divorced, left my base in Washington DC, and am now starting all over in New York -- rebuilding once again. A dear friend of mine in New York has been so instrumental in my new metamorphosis by constantly reminding me of the very things I write about today, while also helping me to be more objective and less dogmatic. The new ME living in the NOW, although still strongly drawing on my most recent history as a Vaishnava, is a work in progress as I explore other spiritual traditions and honor and respect the perspective and opinions of great thinkers, philosophers, adherents, and even antagonists of these traditions.

The important thing to realize is that we are ultimately not Christian, Hindu, Vaishnava, Muslim, Zorastrian, Jewish, or Bhuddist, all of which are just material designations, but rather, we just are. You and I are unique individuals. There is no need to put a label on who you are. Nor is their a need to define yourself by some church, temple, community, race or religion. You are who you are -- a fragment of the splendor of God. We are in fact little Gods having a human experience. The human experience is meant for facilitating self discovery, bringing us to the point where we know absolutely who we are on the highest spiritual planes of existence. The search begins with recognizing that we are eternal spirit souls, far more significant than some gross physical body. Once we are set in this divine paradigm, characterized by the absence of time, we then need to focus all our thoughts, gratitude and actions on what is happening NOW, because in absolute reality NOW is all that really matters.

According to the Gregorian Solar calendar, today is the anniversary of my birthday. Many friends have expressed their love for me and offered blessings, so I am inspired and thankful for their presence in my life right NOW.

May the rest of my life be a string of such meaningful NOW moments, because when death comes knocking the only thing that we can hold onto is the NOW and how we are responding to it. To live in the moment is to live eternally.

Privacy is dead and our freedom is soon to follow

2009-10-21T03:14:00.005-04:00

In the Age that we are entering, every person must regain his or her sovereignty, and in so doing become as a Pharaoh. The days of charismatic leaders and saviors are over; no one is going to rescue us from the mess we have created. Each of us must step up to the plate and re-member ourselves, and our sacred purpose for being here on the planet, now.

[Shamanic Mysteries of Egypt by Nicki Scully and Linda Star Wolf]

"Privacy is dead, get over it," says privacy expert Steven Rambam. In this very long but incredibly illuminating look at modern data-mining, he gives deep insight into the possibilities of privacy invasion through tools that are freely available on the internet. Web sites like myspace, facebook, Monster.com, Amazon and blogger are making it really easy for private investigators like him and "big brother" to know everything about us. With tongue in cheek, he actually thanks Google and the like for making his job so easy!

The sad part about this is that most people simply don't care. How many of us know that Google reads every one of our emails inside the Gmail application? Maybe most of us, but who really cares? not many. Google tells us that they do this data mining so that they can select the appropriate ad to load inside the application. What they don't tell you is that once they have our data we have absolutely no right to do anything about it. They can sell it, cross reference it and massage it to their heart's content to find out exactly who you really are. Cell phones are another gaping gash in our personal privacy veil. When you marry GPS telephony and your cell phone habits, your cell phone essentially becomes you. Not only do data-miners know where you are, but they know what your searching for, buying, reading, who your calling, and who your friends are -- all of which help to connect the dots and reveal your "soul."

To put it bluntly, if you have ever used Myspace, Facebook, Gmail, Twitter, Monster.com, eBay, Skype, Paypal or Yahoo your privacy is toast. I am not sure about you, but I have used all of these web sites, and I think everyone I know has done the same. Don't believe me? Check this video out and decide for yourself.

So what can we do about it? In terms of hiding or deleting your records from these private and public databases, nothing. By signing up for their services, we essentially sold our soul. Well, not exactly our "soul" but we did sell our physical identity to these corporate vampires. The good news is that we can transcend the mundane layers of ego that keep us bound to this physical realm and seek a higher path of self realization. The bad news is that until the day we are vibrating on the higher planes of conscious awareness and have transcended the mundane urges to eat, sleep, and pay bills, we should care about our freedoms beginning with our basic privacy, because by not caring we are putting ourselves and our family in danger. If you think it is bad now, you're in for a huge shock. Over the next 2 years things will get worse.

I recently heard from a very reliable source that within 2 years we may not recognize America. The once "Land of the Free" will become the "Land of the dire". Despite overwhelming public sentiment upon his election, President Obama is not what he appears to be. He is not the "savior", but like those that came before him, he serves as a puppet to the elite class -- the "evil wizards behind the proverbial curtain," so to speak. The same ruling families that hijacked the US financial system in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve, are still at it today weaving their web of deceit through the media, multinational corporations, and puppet governments. Their agenda is simple: A world government and total control of the masses.

See:

History of the Fed
Ron Paul speech about abolishing the Fed

Moving on... Alex Jones comes out with a new documentary called the Fall of the Republic today. I recently viewed his last documentary, The Obama Deception and I must say I was shocked and enraged.

View the trailer of Fall of the Republic

If you're still reading this and have not already fainted, swore at the screen or punched someone, congratulations, you're a saint! Seriously, the more I investigate this information the more disgusted I am with our society and how much we have lost our way and enslaved ourselves to the system and the evil hands that rule it. I mean, if you're thinking of punching someone, you should put yourself in front of the mirror and think about hitting the guy looking back at you. We only have ourself to blame for this mess, because we bought the story those "snake oil peddlers" sold us.

Modern society is a total disgrace -- a far cry from the divine life we left when we fell to this physical world. The elite ruling class are laughing at us and according to my source they have stepped up their agenda to gain absolute control. Apparently there will be a big squeeze on the economy pushing inflation through the roof and devaluing the dollar such that Americans will be so poor they will not be able to travel. The truth be told, and it's an old story, but Gold and Silver are all that we can rely on. Paper money is a scam and soon those Federal Reserve notes will be worthless. There is talk now of a Euro-centric oil trade system and dropping the "greenback" like a pile of turd.

The U.S. media tells us that Iran may be the next target of U.S. aggression. The anticipated excuse is Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. However economic reasons may have more to do with U.S. concerns over Iran than any weapons of mass destruction.

Growing speculation over the potential end to dollar-based trading in the oil market may be part of the reason gold prices have rallied beyond $1,020 an ounce to stand near their highest level in 18 months.

And the strength was kept even as several top officials, including Saudi central bank chief Muhammad al-Jasser, denied the report.

Gulf Arab states, along with China, Russia, Japan and France, are planning to put an end to dollar-based trading in the oil market, according to an exclusive report published Tuesday in the U.K. by The Independent.

"News on gold's expected future role in oil transactions between these trading partners has sent the price past $1,020," said Peter Spina, chief investment analyst at GoldSeek.com.

See: Potential end of dollar-based oil deals helps gold shine (Marketwatch)

We cannot depend on the phony Federal reserve note much longer. By 2012 the dollar will be dead. In 2003 Gold was around $300 and silver was around $6 per ounce. They are the only real currency of value. Buy gold and silver now if you don't already have it, not for the investment, but simply to have possession of a bonafide form of currency.

The bankers appear to be moving in with their entire program (strategies) all at once, rather than just one at a time. It could be related to the hysteria surrounding the Mayan 2012 "End of the world as we know it" date. Whatever the reasons, it is obvious that things are moving very fast -- bills are being passed to take more and more of our freedoms away under the guise of homeland security and public health; the economy is hurting, people are being dumbed down with sport, beer and the McDonalds diet; health care is evaporating, people are getting sicker, and our children are getting poisoned with vaccines. It's all part of their global agenda to reduce the population, control those left over and bring in a New World Order.

It's time to wake up and take action. Rise up and use what freedoms you still have to save yourself and your loved ones.