Introduction

but from the harmony of our inner being. What is life for, if it is not to make an effort to achieve a higher realization of consciousness? A realization of the soul, which gives us the uplift associated with the best of physical and mental health, and raises us far beyond the reach of the pain and anxiety caused by emotional, mental or physical dis-ease [disease].

The soul functions in the body as conscious awareness, through the mind, the emotions, the senses and the electromagnetic sound and light waves. If we do not discipline our negative qualities of mind and emotion, we can never escape from ill health, in one form or another. Having experienced ill health and its pains, let us be determined to combat the intrusion of physical ailments, negative emotions and thoughts into this body-temple, by constant efforts to tune in to our higher consciousness and its healing powers.

"As we think, so we are."^[1] If we want health, we must learn to govern and direct our energies from the center outward, as expressions of life and motion, with a reverent attitude toward all life. We cannot kill for the sake of our palate without it having a profoundly destructive effect on our mental health, which in turn directly influences our physical fitness. Mentally, we have to inculcate in ourselves an approach which treats all life as the sacred gift of the Creator, and we as its steward. As a natural corollary, the ideal diet will consist of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, grains, milk and milk products. These foods form a wholesome, balanced diet, which not only nourishes the body, but also appreciably lessens both emotional and mental tensions.

Besides such physical reactions as the toxins produced in our body when we eat the flesh of slaughtered animals, fish and fowl, there is also the factor of karma - that we inevitably reap what we have sown. We are responsible for all our actions, past and present, and experience the consequences in our physical, mental and emotional state of health. Hence, we are well advised to eat for health, by sowing the seeds of life,

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¹ James Allen (1864-1912), a British philosophical author and pioneer of the self-help movement. In 1903, he published his most popular book, As a Man Thinketh.