Raw Foods and Spirituality: What’s The Connection
by Phaedre Suriyai Christ
*Want to go raw for a week? See the raw vegan menu, grocery list and recipes below!
The goal of spirituality is to understand who we are. Not who we are in terms of our names, our jobs, the neighborhoods we live in, or any of the other data that we commonly identify ourselves by…but who we Really are. Who we actually are, each and every one of us, are sparks of God. We are the same energy that is God/Absolute Mind/Source, focused for this lifetime inside a suit we call the human body. To come to a realization of this requires going beyond where the intellect can carry us. Although intellectually understanding our connection, our “oneness” with God is helpful to truly knowing ourselves, to begin to experience ourselves as this omniscient, omnipotent energy requires that we hold a high vibration.
What is a “high vibration”? The best way to explain it is: Next time you’re in a really happy mood, laughing, not a care in the world, notice what’s happening inside. The lack of worry thoughts. Feeling good, however that plays out in your system. That very feeling is a high vibration. There are even higher, better feeling vibrations than where you can get to with a round of laughter, but it takes practice and dedication to live in those states. Keeping ourselves in our highest vibration is one way of plugging into Source energy. But how do those of us who don’t have a comedian sitting under our desk stay naturally high?
Being a raw foodist is one way. Most people who are ready to dedicate their bellies to their spiritual growth have many other practices as well, such as yoga, meditation, prayer, etc., but raw foods is definitely a powerful method. And when I talk about raw foods, I’m talking about raw veganism. Vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts, nothing cooked, no animal products. Uncooked foods grown in the earth have the energy of being alive in them. This lifeforce energy becomes a part of your body when you eat them.
There are people who eat raw meats and raw dairy products but I don’t have experience with that path. This is not to say I don’t comprehend eating meat. I was a meat eater most of my life. I ate meat and other animal products at most meals, in fact dinner wasn’t dinner without meat or fish. Not everyone who eats raw is doing it primarily for the spiritual healing. I decided to experiment with vegetarianism because I felt sluggish and old. I noticed myself using the bannister to pull myself up the stairs, and dreading the climb. I picked up a book about blood types which claimed my type comes into balance when we only eat meat as a condiment. That’s right, a little dab of meat on the side of my plate instead of my usual prime rib or plateful of fried chicken wings.
I went raw overnight, without trying. In fact, it was actually a mistake. I mentioned the blood type book and the fact that I was planning to try vegetarianism to a friend of mine who owned a raw foods delivery service. He brought me over a week’s worth of raw vegan samples to try. Although I would have never thought I could easily transform from an everyday meat eater to the most extreme form of vegetarianism in one step, I got hooked. It wasn’t just the brighter, more alive taste of the delicious foods he served me, it was the fact that before the week was over, I climbed a mountain. I wasn’t trying, I was just out in nature and there was a mountain in front of me and I had all this boundless energy. So I walked up it, when a week earlier I hadn’t wanted to climb the stairs in my house.
Soon I noticed that there was a different feeling in my body after eating a raw meal than the feeling I was used to. My normal meals had sat in my stomach and all I was fit to do after eating was rest or watch tv. These raw meals seemed to go directly to my internal organs and energize them like pure sunlight. I felt happier. My life felt more meaningful. Areas that felt stuck in my life changed, rapidly. I couldn’t have explained it, but my vibration was rising.
Recently my best friend started eating raw. The week before Christmas, I stayed at her house and prepared raw meals every day. Before I left, I wrote her out a grocery list and several of my favorite raw recipes that would take her only five minutes each to prepare. I should add that she’s a top executive who travels a lot and eats whatever she wants at gourmet restaurants seven nights a week. On top of that, I’ve known her since ninth grade but never seen her cook. In fact, I have rarely seen food in her refrigerator.
On New Years Day she told me she’d decided to go raw for a month, as a cleanse. When I talked to her halfway into it, her voice sounded different, brighter. She’d prepared and eaten the raw recipes for two weeks straight. She said her energy was “through the roof”, that the food was “off the hook”, that an added bonus was she’d lost four pounds in the first week, and that she was thinking of making this a permanent change, perhaps eating meat only on the weekends. So I decided to share the menu, grocery list and recipes here with all who are inspired to try eating raw for a meal or a week or perhaps forever.
Bon appetit, and may your vibration rise!
*Note: If you don't want to lose weight, eat extra bananas, soaked nuts and seeds, and avocados.
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