Dear Good Netizens: the first step in raising Earth's collective consciousness starts with expanding our awareness of the food we eat in relation to energy and health.
The world is shifting in more ways than one - have you recently took the time to just look around? Take a walk through nature? Observe the weather? Hug a tree? Realize animals are friends, not food?
This blog's existence has no intention in convincing human beings to shift to a plant-based diet - all that information exists already in the great interverse - and every being has their own journey to healing. If you are the type a person who needs to be told what to think by a third-party source versus seeing how the information resonates with you via personal experience, then you probably still eat meat because you were "educated" that way (and will also probably want to leave this website). Planet Vegan is an online space dedicated to empowering vegans who have already made the shift, provide community support, & share information that will deepen your understanding of what "high-vibe" food means.
The old adage "you are what you eat" embodies the relationship between food and energy in the simplest yet most beautiful way possible. America is a society of "sickcare" where being in a constant state of illness has become normalized by the medical profession, television shows with hot doctors "saving lives", and constant pill commercials. People do not a) know that it is possible to live in a state of constant health and b) question the fact that maybe (just maybe) the fast foods being advertised to them day & night are contributing to their illnesses. The first thing vegans may notice after shifting their diet is the way their body, skin and health change. Which begs the question: why do we feel differently - more vibrant, more healthy, more energized - when we eat a plant-based diet?
Ayurdveda is an ancient Indian tradition based on thousands of years of Vedic observation of medicinal plants, roots, & foods. Ayurveda is quite complex knowledge of the mind-body connection extending over many disciplines - nobody knows how ancient it truly is - so summarizing it is difficult. However in a nutshell, Ayurveda acknowledges a core truth vegans experience first-hand: when we consume plants, not only are there physical effects, but there are also profound energetic effects. In Ayurveda (similar to Chinese medicine) all disease is viewed as an energetic imbalance: the physical illness is simply the surface symptoms manifesting from a deeper, energetic issue in the subtle body. The subtle body can be corresponded to the "chakras" - or energy centers - of the body and how a variety of non-physical energies related to the elements (agni, prana, kundalini, tejas, etc.) are channeled to the various organs. The physical plant is a manifestation & conduit of a subtle energy (which can make sense in modern minds when considering plants are highly evolved energy beings who convert sunlight into food). Thus Ayurveda views the plant world as great teachers, a source of energetic healing (if you choose the correct ones!). With this perception of nature as a dynamic and multi-layered energetic environment co-existing with the physical, it makes sense that Ayurveda considers humanity's relationship with plants as a sacred one and important vehicle for expanding our collective consciousness.
Ayurveda
Western minds find it difficult to understand a multidimensional reality that all great cultures from the ancient world acknowledge, which speaks to a difference in perception. Just look to how we treated the Native Americans and their sacred spaces: European settlers viewed the land as property to be stolen and used for natural resources, while the Native Americans had no concept of land ownership and viewed the Earth as a living, sacred entity with dual physical & spirit (or energy) worlds. Western doctors look only at the physical body and symptoms, which is quite limiting when compared to Eastern doctors who also consider the energetic and emotional bodies when diagnosing illness. Western perceptions do not allow the understanding of how holistic healing works because it does not acknowledge any layer of being beyond the physical body, and corresponds the conscious mind to the physical brain. However just because you cannot physically see the electricity powering your computer or cellphone, does not mean it isn't real, and doesn't mean the circuitry is the most important part. Just because you can only see the bit of a glacier above the surface does not mean what is invisible below does not exist.
The Sanskrit word "prana" describes a subtle life-force energy accessible via the breath which permeates all things, dimensions, and realities. It is the source energy not visible to the human eyes, yet we can observe its effects on the body and human consciousness. Other cultures have a vastly different perception when understanding the phenomena of consciousness: consciousness exists outside the brain in all things, and the brain functions more like a radio which "tunes into" various frequencies of energy, rather than consciousness originating in the brain. When one considers the implications of this perception (which resonates with what modern quantum physics now illustrates - check out the book The Tao of Physics), there is clearly more to our being - and therefore our health - than just the physical body.
All the great ancient cultures had systems to describe the energetic anatomy and the phenomena of subtle energies like "prana". The Chinese called prana "chi" while the Egyptians called it "Ma'at". The acupuncture meridian lines can correspond to the Indian "nadis" or points which subtle energies are grounded through the physical body. Acupuncture has been studied the most by scientists when it comes to observable effects of non-physical energies on the physical body. It seems that ancient cultures knew a lot more about subtle energies then we currently do, and they have survived for a lot longer than our civilization, so maybe we should listen to what they explicitly documented in their medical systems?
When one expands their awareness of energy to what the ancients knew, their world view opens up to you, and you may realize this major lesson when it comes to what "high-vibe" means:
The production cycle and environmental conditions - i.e. the energy that went into the making of food - is just as important (if not more) than the physical nutrition of that food.
A diet high in factory farm meat clearly causes so much illness (like heart disease - ironic, no?) when one considers the horrific energy that goes into commercial slaughter. It all makes sense from an energetic perception: you are what you eat. If you eat meat produced in an environment of fear where human beings turn off their sense of compassion to kill animals (kept in unnatural conditions) every single day, that energy goes into the food. Not all meat is produced in this way, but the majority of meat that Americans eat is. When you shift to a high-vibe diet rich in plant-based foods that were grown with the energy of the elements, in the sun, naturally you will feel better! Let's get one thing straight though: you must keep the production conditions in mind for all foods, including plant-based food. Soy and wheat for example can be just as awful as meat for your body depending on where and how it was grown. Go to farmer's markets to get fresh produce and meet the producers of your food face-to-face in order to know where and how your food was made.
If you are interested in understanding more about subtle energies, one essential book to check out is Cyndi Dale's The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy. This book describes the vast amount of western scientific studies done to try and explain in our modern "logical" terms what the ancients described in "spiritual" terms; as well as comparing and contrasting all the great ancient cultures who were documenting the same phenomena. While mainstream media would like you to believe that Vedic science, acupuncture, and medicinal plants are all superstitious myths not supported by "Western medical science" (whatever or whomever that authoritative body really is), then why does Dale's book show there has been countless Western studies conducted to understand how energetic phenomena work? Clearly something doesn't add up.
The fact that Ted of TedTalks (who have a history of censorship) flagged a well known Ayurvedic doctor's presentation suggests something sinister about the Western medical community's desire to discredit all alternative methods of healing: "We've flagged this talk, which was filmed at a TEDx event, because it contains many assertions about Ayurveda that are not supported by the scientific community. Please do not look to this talk for medical advice." Whenever information is discredited in this way, when we supposedly live in a society of free thought, it makes one wonder:
1) Who is pressuring Ted to discredit this information?
2) Why is someone threatened by this information being shared in a little youtube video?
3) What is the "scientific community"? What does that really mean? Is this an authoritative council? All individuals who claim to be scientists? Does this include only white, Western scientists? Or does it include foreign ones as well?
Ayurvedic science is based off of thousands of years of high civilization, while "Western medicine" is only a few hundred years old. It is not only racist to write off knowledge from non-Western cultures, it is extremely arrogant to assume we have nothing to learn from them when they have been around for much, much longer. When one goes to a Chinese doctor or Ayurvedic healer, it is a profound cultural experience to the testament of a) knowledge gained through observation over a long period of time and b) these cultures deep connection with nature. Ancient cultures for thousands of years found medicine in nature, not a laboratory. The fact that Hindus are traditionally vegetarian makes one wonder - what does Western medicine (and the pharmaceutical industry) not want us to know?
Ayurveda empowers the individual with knowledge that they can apply to their own self-healing with plant products that can be grown in their garden or bought at the local market. Self-healing is not a popular topic in a Western medical industry that makes millions off of a perpetually sick population who (rather than take health into their own hands) look for a quick-fix (and very costly) pill. This is not a "conspiracy theory", but common sense realizations when it comes to marketing a pharmaceutical industry that makes a lot of money off of an ignorant population and likes it that way. If people knew that medicinal plants were an option in their healing, how would that change the medical industry? Israel since the 1970's was the leading country in medicinal studies on marijuana, and has long incorporated it into their medical system, but none of that research was allowed or considered in America for explicit political reasons. Does that make you wonder "Why"?
By embracing a plant-based lifestyle you can take your personal health into your own hands, educate yourself, and reclaim personal autonomy over your body. Shifting to a plant-based lifestyle is so much more complex than simply diet. It is a revolutionary act in personal sovereignty and access to alternative information which has been discredited and shamed by corporate interests who profit off of keeping people in the energy of sickness, fear, and ignorance. Veganism provides a model for an empowered humanity who take responsibility for their own health, a more sustainable world, and a way of living that is more in tune with nature and the beings we share it with. Free the people, save the animals!
"Knowing is a very great power, just to know" ~ Hakim Awyan
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