Ben Ralston

You eat what you are?


So much more to us than meets the eye…




This was inspired by the recent debate (over on Elephant Journal, where I’m a regular columnist) on garlic. If you missed that, and would like to ‘catch up’, you can follow the links at the foot of this piece.

To cut a long story short: someone said that garlic is bad for meditation (he went so far as to call it a ‘brain toxin’). A lot of people were pretty upset about it; someone else wrote an article refuting their claims, and extolling the health benefits of garlic; then there was a refutation to the refutation, and so on.

Here’s what I think:
Garlic is toxic, but not to the brain – to our higher, subtle awareness. That awareness is not brain centered, although most people think it is.

 In this article:

  1. I want to explain how both parties in the recent debate about garlic are right!
  2. I also want to share some very useful information with you about the nature of your being, and
  3. I’ll share with you some practical tips, including a free, instant remedy for Jet Lag…

When I first saw the original article, …… I thought nothing of it, except that I was mildly pleased to see the subject broached on a popular forum.

I have not eaten garlic or onion for 10 years. However, I’m not obsessive about it; if I’m in a restaurant or at a friends’ home I’ll eat it without a thought.

I stopped eating garlic and onion when I trained as a yoga teacher in India in 2001. I learned many, many fascinating things on that course. For example: the ideal consistency of the feces of a healthy person is that of a ripe banana. Useful huh?! I thought so too…

Well, I learned a lot of useful information on that course. I recall thinking at the time that these things should be taught in schools – why, for example, did I have to wait 27 years, and travel to a distant continent in order to find out what my stools should look like? Why, after an expensive public school education in England, did I know the date of the battle of Hastings (1066) and various other utterly, utterly useless bits of information, but not these simple things that affect my everyday life?

During the month that I spent immersed in that course, from early morning to late at night, I felt as if my real education had just begun…

One of the things that I learnt is that according to the ancient yogic teachings, a human being consists of not just one, but three bodies: a physical body (which we’re all very aware of), an astral body (which sounds to many people like pure hokum, I know, but bear with me!), and a causal body.

Now, the 3 bodies have 5 ‘sheaths’ (if you thought the astral body stuff was hokum, you’ll love this!).

The physical body is composed of the Food Sheath (when you die: food for the worms!);
The astral body contains the Vital Sheath (think: energy); the Mental Sheath (senses, thoughts, doubts, and emotions, also the sub-conscious), and the Intellectual Sheath (analytical process, discrimination, decision making, and ego).
Finally, the causal body is composed of the Blissful Sheath (bliss, joy, calmness and peace).

Physical:

Food

Astral:

Vital (energy)
Mental (senses, thoughts, emotions)
Intellectual (analysis, discrimination, ego)

Causal:

Blissful (bliss)

The point of all this is: we are complex beings, ironically not unlike onions! We consist of many different aspects. Peel back one ‘layer’, and there is another underneath.

Now, the whole garlic-eating debate seemed to hinge on a basic misunderstanding that many people have (because it’s one of those things that they don’t deem important enough to teach us at school).

Our physical body is the densest, most material, gross manifestation of who we are. There is a subtler layer beneath it (or around it, or pervading it) known as the astral body, and an even subtler layer called the causal body.

Our society is focused (like tunnel vision and to the exclusion of all else) on the material. Awareness of the subtle aspects of our being is limited to small groups of people.

That’s my understanding of what Einstein meant when he said:
“The rational mind is a faithful servant. The intuitive mind is a sacred gift. We have created a society that honors he servant, and has forgotten the gift.”



The rational mind is concerned with, and grounded in the material world – our body, and it’s physical environment.
The intuitive mind is more concerned with, and grounded in the higher awareness – energy (prana, chi), emotion, intellect, bliss.

However, the tunnel vision of our society has not always been so. Thousands of years ago in India, the sages who developed Yoga had intimate knowledge of many things that our modern sciences are only now discovering.

For example, on my yoga teacher training 10 years ago there was a lecture by Amit Goswami, a now well-known professor of theoretical physics. (If you’ve seen the movie ‘What the bleep do we know?’ then you’ll have seen him). What he said blew my mind. In a nutshell, he explained that much of the knowledge of quantum physics that has emerged very recently in the scientific community was already known thousands of years ago!

Now, the misunderstanding that I referred to (as the cause for confusion in the ‘garlic-gate’ episode) is quite simply due to the lack of awareness that most people have about the more subtle aspects of themselves! (It’s understandable because we’re not taught about it – we learn about what happened when, and algebra, and oxbow lakes, and ‘stranger danger’, and grammar, and how to dissect frogs… but not about what our stools should look like, or what we actually are)!

Garlic of course has many wonderful health benefits (as the rebuttal to the original articles clearly showed) – including for the brain. However the ancient yogis never said (as far as I am aware) that garlic is bad for you physically; they said that it interferes with the higher, subtler aspects of the consciousness. They were not concerned with the physical health benefits of garlic, because they didn’t need them!



They almost certainly had optimal health (check the link for an very relevant article about what health really is), a highly robust immune system, and extremely strong, healthy bodies. They didn’t sit all day in cars and at desks; they didn’t have to worry about pollution, genetically modified vegetables, or genetically engineered (Franken) fish. They developed the practice of asana and pranayama and lived in harmony with their environment.

So, I’m confident in my assertion that they were healthy.

I’ve been practicing yoga (in all it’s aspects) for many years, and I find that I also don’t need garlic to stay healthy. If ever I need antibiotics, sure, I’ll get them from natural sources where possible: and garlic is one of those sources.

Yoga is personal development: in fact, one of the oldest methods of personal development; one that has stood the test of time; and upon which many modern systems are built – Pilates, auto suggestive relaxation techniques, various techniques for concentation and meditation, and so on…

Personal development means development of the person. And Yoga, as we’ve seen, takes the view that our person is much, much more than a body. So it means developing the physical, energetic, and causal bodies, so that we become truly coherent and integrated as a whole person.

When the physical body is healthy and you want to focus on developing your higher faculties through regular meditation; when you want to experience the world around you not only through your physical body but also through the astral and causal bodies; perhaps even, ultimately, to experience true, lasting bliss; then, it may be that garlic interferes with that purpose.

Certainly that’s what the ancient yogis thought, and who am I to disagree with the only teachers I ever had that taught me what my poo should look like?

Another very useful thing that they taught me, which I hope will demonstrate to you very clearly why I hold what they say in such high regard, is a cure for jet lag…

Anyone who has ever been seriously jet lagged knows how valuable this is: I’ve only been jet lagged once, but it was so bad I wished the earth would swallow me up.

I couldn’t sleep for a week, and was hallucinating from tiredness. In the end I got very sick. It happened when I flew to India…

Jet lag is your body clock out of whack. The ancient yogis knew what regulated the body clock. This is amazing, because our scientists don’t even know for sure (or if they do, they only just *very* recently figured it out) what regulates the body clock.

It’s the pineal / pituitary gland in the middle of our brains.

So the cure for jet lag is: headstand. It was known by the ancient yogis as the ‘King of the Asanas’ because it has such powerful restorative uses: in fact, it is written that one who practices headstand for 3 hours conquers death! I can’t testify to that – the most I’ve ever done is 10 minutes!

However, I can tell you that when I went to India I was jetlagged so badly I almost wanted to die… and when I left India, I stood on my head before the flight for 3 minutes, and after the flight for 3 minutes, and slept like a baby when I got home – no jet lag whatsoever.

Those ancient yogis sure knew a lot of useful stuff.

Were they right about garlic interfering with higher awareness? I’ve found it to be true, yes.

It’s good to first take care of your body and health, because that’ll give you a firm foundation on which to build your personal development. When you’ve done that, you may wish to take care of the other aspects of your self.

Meditate deeply, go beyond body consciousness, and experiment with your diet. You may find that garlic and onion suddenly seem less important.

HEALING: A personal example

WOW!

This morning I had a major breakthrough. I’m going to tell you how I:
– overcame a serious personal blockage;
– let go of an inherited fear that was preventing me from feeling great;
– paved the way for a much greater degree of success in my work.


I had been feeling ‘out of sorts’ for a few weeks now:
  • First of all I haven’t had much work, which means not much money – Eek! A month ago I had an average of six / seven clients a week. The last three weeks I’ve had one or two. If you’ve ever been self employed, with no one to pay your wages / sick leave / taxes / holidays etc. you’ll know what this feels like.
  • Secondly, I’ve been feeling kind of ‘foggy’ – unable to think clearly and unable to put my resolutions into action. In a word: incoherent. For example, I haven’t been able to write – even though I’ve been trying to write something every day, nothing has been coming out. Both my blog and my book have been neglected – typical example of writer’s block. Every time I tried to write something I felt that it was no good: I didn’t have the confidence to publish anything.
  • Thirdly, for the last three days I had a headache. Not a really bad headache – just one of those nagging, dull, annoying pains that just won’t go away; I was even waking up in the middle of the night with it.


All in all, I’ve been feeling pretty bad! So I knew something was wrong…
The trouble is that when you’re feeling ‘foggy’ and unable to think clearly it’s difficult to get to the bottom of the problem.

Yesterday I fasted on fruit (I plan to write an article on fasting) to clear my head. It worked. I woke up this morning feeling slightly better – headache gone – and decided to immediately work on whatever was causing me these problems.

(Something you need to know before we continue: my wife Petra and I are expecting our first child in November…)

As I felt into the problem, I began to feel something very deep and strong welling up inside me. I realized that I was harboring a deep fear of being a Father. It dawned on me that I felt completely unprepared for this huge undertaking: what if I don’t have what it takes to be a Father? What if I don’t have enough love to give to this new being? What if I cannot support the three of us, financially, emotionally, and spiritually? What if…
I was completely ‘stuck’, paralyzed with fear.

Deep down, I felt unworthy; incapable; and uprepared to be a Father.


Let me be clear: if someone had asked me if I was prepared to be a parent, I would have said yes! Absolutely, I can’t wait. I didn’t think that I would be a bad Dad. On the contrary, I knew that in many ways I would be a great Father.


But I felt the blockage on a deeply subconscious level.


Now to understand subconscious blockages and the healing of them, here comes the important part:
My higher consciousness was trying to bring this subconscious blockage to my attention so that I could deal with it, and let it go. So what actually happened is that I manifested headache, lack of abundance, and writer’s block in order to make myself stop everything and look deeply at the underlying problem: a subconscious resistance towards the BIG CHANGE that is fast approaching in my life.
Clever huh?!

Now, is it normal to feel apprehensive about being a Father for the first time?
Do other first time parents ‘get the fear’ about suddenly becoming completely responsible for another human being?
Is it ok to be uncertain about the biggest change one can ever face in life?
Absolutely – I’m sure many people go through the same thing! Change is part of life, and sometimes fear of change is also part of the territory.

Are there some people who don’t have this fear of being a parent for the first time – I’m sure there are. But I believe that we all, unless we’re fully enlightened, have some blockages like this. In fact, I believe that enlightenment is the state of being completely free of these blockages. So as we release them one by one, we gradually come closer and closer to our natural state of being, which is perfect.

Why did I have this particular blockage: well, I believe that the main reason is: my Grandfather died when my Father was just 6 years old: he didn’t have a Father himself, and had never learnt ‘how to do it’. I was his first child, and he wasn’t a confident Dad. In other words, I inherited it from him. (It has been proven scientifically – through epigenetics – that we inherit memory in our cells).

Why did I resist that fear for several weeks and take such a long time to deal with it – well, all I can say is that I’m still learning, and sometimes I find it easier healing other people than I do myself.

To summarize this story:
Having discovered the cause of my problem – a subconscious resistance to the upcoming changes in my life – I released it, relatively quickly and easily (the whole process took about 10 minutes). I simply acknowledged the previously subconscious association between that feeling of ‘PARALYSIS’ and CHANGE, and it vanished, taking all the fear, self doubt, and confusion with it.
Result: I’m writing again; my head is clear; and I am free from that nagging sense of “I’m not good enough”.
What a wonderful morning!

That’s healing folks: we all have subconscious associations, beliefs, and ideas that hold us back. Sometimes those blockages cause physical problems; sometimes they manifest as emotional or psychological issues – sometimes all three. Whatever the symptoms are, the cause is a lack of coherence due to subconscious blockage.

However, underneath the blockage there is a higher consciousness. That higher consciousness is divine; perfect, all-powerful – it is our essence. All we need to do is let go of the blockage, and let our ‘higher self’ do the rest. It really is easy, fun, and fast. This is a new paradigm for healing:

in the past, healing was thought to be complicated, expensive, and time-consuming. People thought that only ‘gifted’ people; perhaps ‘wounded’ healers, or ‘special ones’ could do it. It was thought to be something ‘magical’, or supernatural. But you know what?
Anyone can do it. The technique is simple (you can learn it in a couple of days) and the results are permanent!

It is written that Jesus said:

“…All these things, and greater, you shall do too…”

It seems that Jesus was prophesying a time in which ‘normal’ people would also be able to perform miracles.
I believe that time is now.


Would you like to learn for yourself how to release blockages and heal?
Do you agree that enlightenment is a state of ‘no blockages’?
Can you relate to being nervous about being a first time parent?
Please leave a comment!

WHAT IS HEALTH?



Many people (including many doctors!) view HEALTH like this: “we are healthy when there is nothing wrong“.
You know what? When you look at health like that, you are really just waiting to get sick!

I’m going to share with you some information that not many people know, and fewer understand.

I want to tell you WHAT HEALTH REALLY IS.
I’m also going to give you 5 practical tips which, if applied intelligently, will transform your life!
Health is not a lack of disease. It is not the absence of sickness. It is not a negative anything. But many people (including many doctors!) view it like this: “we are healthy when there is nothing wrong“.
You know what? When you look at health like that, you are really just waiting to get sick!




True health is a radiant state of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual vitality. It is much, much more than a lack of symptoms. It is a state of consciousness in which abundant energy and vibrant wisdom merge with physical well-being and peace of mind, bestowing an all-consuming sense of JOY…


This is actually our natural state of being – it is our birth right! It is the way we are supposed to be.

When we experience this state of natural health, it is because all the different aspects of us are unified. Our head, our heart, and our body, are all speaking the same language. We are coherent. All of our different aspects are co-operating.


As I said in the article SUCCESS, coherence and intention, this term coherence comes from the language of Reference Point Therapy. It is also a scientific term: a coherent light pattern is one which is focused. When you focus the beam of a torch, the light becomes more intense; brighter… similarly, when we focus our light, (our awareness, our energy)… we become more powerful. Specifically what this means to us as human beings, is allowing our head (thoughts), our heart (emotions), and our gut (instincts) to be in harmony. When we operate like that, we are coherent, and that means healthy.

So, poor health, sickness, disease, depression, and addiction are symptoms of incoherence. It really is that simple.
If there is something wrong, it is because some part of you is not communicating with the other parts. You are, on some level, incoherent.
What this new understanding means – and let’s be really clear: this is modern, cutting edge information that I am giving you here. Only very recently has this new approach to healing been discovered. What I am talking about here is a NEW PARADIGM, a completely new approach to health and healing.
What this new understanding means, is that we can HEAL ourselves very quickly, very easily, and permanently – now. This is the Holy Grail of healing.


We don’t have to keep on repeating the same patterns of illness, poverty, unhealthy relationship. We don’t have to visit the doctor anymore, or spend thousands of euros on psychotherapy, or keep on going to bio-energy healing again and again. We are able now, if we so choose, to become more coherent!

If health and joy are our birthright, why do so many people suffer from poor health and depression?

The reason why so many people are unhealthy is that our society is unhealthy.
You don’t need me to tell you why and how our society is unhealthy – it’s obvious. Essentially, health is our natural state, but we have become very far removed from what is natural. It’s not natural to spend so many hours inside. It’s not natural to spend so many hours sitting down. It’s not natural to sit in chairs, or to stare for hours at the pixels of a computer screen. It’s not natural to… I could go on, but I won’t because you know all this.


What to do about it?
Well, if you want to be healthy, I offer you here some practical advice:

  1. The body needs exercise every day. It needs to stretch, and the muscles need to be used regularly. You don’t have to over-do it, but do DO it! (I’ll write an article on proper exercise later).

  2. Breathe deeply and slowly.
  3. Diet: You need to eat fresh, healthy food, and drink lots of water. If you eat meat, eat only a little (once or twice a week is about right). The human body is not designed to eat large quantities of meat, and doing so causes toxins. (I will write an article on nutrition and vegetarian diet later).
  4. Practice deep relaxation daily.
  5. Meditate. Meditation is relaxation taken to a whole other level. When you meditate, you combine deep relaxation with focused awareness (concentration), and the result is a profound, powerful meeting between YOU and YOURSELF. It’s hard to describe – if you have experienced it, you don’t need me to tell you. If you haven’t… I’ll write an article on meditation later!

If you put these 5 points – exercise, breathing, relaxation, diet, and meditation – into practice daily, you will be well on the way to perfect, radiant health. Remember, that means:

“abundant energy and vibrant wisdom merged with physical well-being and peace of mind, bestowing an all-consuming sense of JOY!”

Practicing these 5 points will help to re-align the different aspects of yourself (for example body, emotions, and thoughts). This means coherence, and therefore greater health.


If you get stuck, it may be that there is a blockage. I highly recommend Reference Point Therapy as a unique, highly efficient alternative healing method – quickly and permanently releasing blockages. One such blockage could be a lack of discipline – lack of discipline is really low self-esteem: when we love ourselves deeply, we don’t need ‘discipline’ because we automatically do for ourselves what is best.


An example of the way in which RPT works:
Perhaps your parents didn’t express their love for you openly when you were a child. Perhaps they worked a lot, or maybe they just didn’t know how to love their children fully. This caused you, as a child, to feel a sense of emptiness; like something is wrong with you; as if something in you is missing. This sense of emptiness is a blockage that causes many problems for many people. It prevents people from living life fully; from loving themselves deeply; and from doing the things that they know they should.
It’s easy to release this kind of blockage with RPT.


I practiced the above 5 points for many years, and I made very good progress. Whereas I used to be ill a lot, and suffer from emotional ups and downs, after years of practicing yoga (which is where these 5 points come from – I’ll write more articles on yoga later!), I felt much better. But something was missing. When I discovered Reference Point Therapy all that changed. I let go of several blockages that were holding me back, and my health, abundance, and self-esteem all shifted: I became much more successful.


The purpose of this blog is to share the secret of that success with you. I hope it is helping…
With love,
Ben


Do you agree with this article – anything you disagree with?
Do you feel that something is blocking you from the life you WANT to live?
Have you experienced RPT yourself? – If so, share your experience by leaving a comment.

SUCCESS: coherence and intention

The following quotes are a “conversation” from my facebook page. I originally wrote  this ‘status update’ about intention:

“…without intention, we are like dry leaves in the wind – at the mercy of random forces far beyond our control or understanding. But with intention all of those forces are seen to be what they truly are: ours.”

 My friend Metka asked me to write about it and the following conversation ensued (bear with me):



Metka: “the wind can be too strong, blowing away the ability to know the intention”


Ben: “With pure intention, the wind is always behind us.”


Metka: “with pure intention the wind is positive and colourful, and you are sailing peacefuly – untill the wind decides to be naughy and stops blowing immediately, leaving you lost in the middle of the sea. Which way to choose to find intention? Or just wait for it to come itself? It is not easy and simple at all.”

Metka’s questions prompted me to write about a very important topic. Important to success in all areas of life – health, relationship, work, personal life: COHERENCE.


– The state of coherence  is a state of awareness in which we are truly powerful. We can achieve anything we set our minds to, and we live in a state of physical and mental health .
– The state of incoherence is a lack of awareness, in which we are truly weak. We set our minds to all sorts of things, but they don’t happen the way we would like. We spend our lives feeling frustrated and emotional.

My work as a healer is very simple: guiding people towards greater coherence. And you know what? It’s easy, fast, fun, and permanent! The reason it’s so easy is that we are meant to be coherent.

As human beings, we seem very complex. We have a body (with many parts), and a mind, and emotions; senses; intuition; instinct; subconscious… the list goes on and on. Sometimes, especially in this crazy world we live in, where we were never taught – or even encouraged to think about – WHAT WE ARE… sometimes, life can be very confusing.
I want to help relieve that confusion:

– We have a center of awareness which we call our ‘mind’. It is in our head. That center of awareness, in our head, is very complex – like a computer. It thinks; it is responsible for language, and analysis. No other animals have this awareness.
– We have a center of awareness which we call our ‘heart’. It is in the center of our chest (not the physical heart). That center of awareness, in our heart, is fairly complex. It feels; it is responsible for emotions. Other mammals have this awareness.
– We have a center of awareness which we don’t call anything, because most people are not even aware that it exists! It is in our body, below our solar plexus. The ancient Taoists called it the Tan Tien. That center of awareness, deep down in our bodies, between our solar plexus, and the space between our hips, is very simple: it knows; and it is responsible for our safety, survival, and reproduction. ALL animals have this.

Now, when these three separate centers of awareness are out of ‘synch’; not communicating with each other, or speaking a different language, it’s called INCOHERENCE.
Example:
Have you ever been attracted to someone physically, but you didn’t like them?
The body awareness was attracted; the heart awareness repelled; and the head awareness, confused! The reason for this is that our various centers of awareness – body, heart, and head – are all saying different things.
The body is saying “mmnnn he is HOT”
The heart is saying “no, he is NOT, he is horrible”
The brain is saying ” comon you two, make your minds up so I know what to DO about it?!”

Let’s leave that example for now, and look at the mechanics of our awareness.
The body vibrates with the world around us. On a very deep level, it FEELS the world around it, and KNOWS how to respond. This is because our body has literally hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary cellular memory. (Scientists have proven that our cells carry memory). If the body responds to something or someone in a certain way, there is always a reason.

However, we often don’t listen to that voice. We instead listen to another voice (usually the head) which says: “I CAN’T do that” or ” I SHOULDN’T do that”. So we feel caught up in a constant inner struggle. This struggle is called INCOHERENCE. It is the single biggest cause of poor physical and mental health in the world.

On the other hand, there is COHERENCE. That is when our body responds to something in the world, our heart accepts the message and passes it through to our brain, and our brain chooses the correct course of action. When that happens, all three of those centers of awareness are in harmony with each other. This is the single biggest cause of happiness, health, and success in the world.

You know when you focus the light on a torch, so that the light is more intense, brighter, more powerful? Science calls that light, COHERENT. Similarly, when the light of our awareness is focused, it becomes more intense and more powerful. Example: 

  • Choose a goal: maybe you want to expand your business (or earn more money; become more well known; find a beautiful soulmate…) Consciously, in your head, you want that.
  • But what about in your heart? Put your hand on your heart. Close your eyes and visualize success (picture yourself, and really FEEL it, with that new partner, new job, fame, whatever it is you want). Is there any fear there? Any doubt, or confusion, or uncertainty? Perhaps fear of succes – being more visible, attracting attention. Or perhaps fear of failure?
  • And if the heart is in line with the head – what about the body? Put your hand on your belly, and feel if there are any deeper feelings / instincts there opposed to your goal? These are usually connected to survival and safety.


If so, that’s the reason you’re not getting what you want. You are not coherent about it.
We often think we want something, but we really, on a deeper level, don’t!
 Now, to answer Metka directly:
The wind you are talking about is your head awareness – your mind and thoughts.
The Sea you are talking about is your emotions.
Intention comes from below those places; deep down in the body.

Listen to your body, your instincts, your intuition, your deeper feelings. You KNOW what is right, what is needed, in every moment – that is your intention. Don’t allow your thoughts to interfere with that KNOWING intention. Do what is right for you in every moment. Most people get stuck by not having the courage to DO what they feel and know they need to do.
Listen to your inner voice. Do what it says.

When your heart and head  follow that voice, THAT is coherent intention, and it can move mountains.

I acknowledge that it can seem complicated – especially if you are caught up in a situation that is complicated. But we always have a choice. We can always choose to listen to that inner wisdom, and follow it’s direction. Or we can be afraid.

I chose long ago to turn my back on fear; to follow that deep inner wisdom that I call intention. It has never once let me down. In the beginning, it was very hard, because I doubted it. No one had never taught me to follow my own inner voice – I’d been forced many times to listen to others: teachers, parents, doctors, politicians… 
I questioned it, and found it hard to surrender control to it. But little by little, it won my trust. And so it gets easier and easier.



Let me know what you think…
do you get this idea of coherence? Does it make sense to you? Does it feel right?


If you do get it, and you would like to make yourself more coherent so that you can become more focused, more powerful, more healthy, and more successful in all areas of life, come and see me for a session, (or to learn RPT for yourself) – that’s what I do!
With love,
Ben


*(coherence is a term that I originally learnt from Simon Rose, the genius who created the alternative healing method which I now use: Reference Point Therapy . He taught me, and I’m very happy to share this information with you).