Thursday, December 31, 2009

What Your Body And Soul Crave

By Masami Sato

As the age old adage says, health is wealth. Here we are speaking about soul's wealth. Nutritious food is good for one's health because body can absorb its essence - it is ditto with our life. When we espouse life in its entirety, enjoying all the impressions and sensations in it, our soul will be able to take in its 'quintessence', coming to terms with the core of our existence, and helping us to live our lives to the highest. Masami Sato shares the mystery of living a complete life in this excerpt from her latest book, ONE.

Why is it many of us (in fact, most of us) occasionally experience some kind of empty feeling in our life? It is like being hungry. When we eat, we feel satisfied and become less interested in food. But as some time passes, we get hungry again. Then all of a sudden we feel so attracted to the smell and thought of food. We can also feel some kind of hunger when we are not even physically hungry-just after eating something. Some of us stay being hungry all the time.

Persistent emotional thirst is not the happiest feeling to have. Then how can we live our lives to the brim? How can we be more contented enduringly?

Maybe the answer is straightforward: just live our lives fully. The word 'full' holds the meaning of entirety. Then the secret to live a life in entirety is only to live it fully.

Let's start to look at one example of this 'wholeness' with something awfully close to our heart-our stomach.

Whole Food VS Half Food

We are familiar with the word 'whole food.' It is said that consuming whole food is the secret to the health and fitness we need. What has whole food got more than 'part food?'

A full grain throbs with a life of its own. If you put the full grain in water, drain the next day and keep for a few days, it shoots. It has its own life. When we dine on such food, our body takes in the entire live nutrients. It has all the qualities required to purify, remedy and foster different body cells.

And just like the example of a grain, most traditional eating includes eating whole animals as well. Eating whole fresh fish used to be more common than taking a part of fish and throwing the rest away. It was the same for meat and the same for vegetables.

'Semi food' at times is more sweet and aromatic but does not offer much nutrition. We may savour its taste, but we could become a victim of a long-time malady if we only ate 'semi food' every day of our life.

So, to make up for the missing half, we began to take nutritional supplements. We have been trying and researching for pretty long to find the perfect equilibrium. It gets more and more difficult as we slice the food up, add preservatives and transport, and even try to supplement with other parts coming from various sources, places and seasons. Some of the nutrients are not even from natural resources. They are synthetically generated. After it is tested and analysed, it is approved for man's consumption. But however hard we try, we cannot merge the 'bits' from different sources to make it alive.

Semi Life-'Sweetness' of Life

So, if we looked at our life now, part of what we are doing can be like eating the 'half food'. Just savouring the sweetness of life but throwing away the real nourishing part. And if we soaked our 'half life' in water with other bits and left it in the sunlight, could it shoot and grow into a beautiful whole life?

Whole food is not (as some people seem to believe) of a bland taste. In fact it tastes better if cooked properly. But as requirement is low, it is more costly. It is in reality more cost-effective in the long term though, as we will have to pay less as medical costs later on. When more people will start having it, it would automatically become less expensive as it is a simple food with less processing cost and waste.

Our life is identical. When we are only conscious of the 'sweet taste' and discard the remainder into the dust bin because we do not realise its worth, we may be jettisoning the most important component. And that which we cast out could have the maximum power for the substantiation of our life and our financial system. It also needs more vigour and sources to throw it away. Better yet, that which we throw away comes at no cost.

So, what is that we are not looking at?

Think of a life where we didn't actually sense we were missing anything there.

The secret is right there. The secret of a whole life.

Whole Life-The Complete Life

When it's 'whole', it doesn't matter how big the whole is. It can expand simultaneously. It can still contain all the elements to sustain itself as a whole living being. Once it grows to a certain size, it can still live without some of the parts. Like plants can live after being eaten a little by birds or trees still thrive even after losing their leaves. But if we neglect the balance for a very long time, eventually it can start creating a fatal imbalance. Then it could become too complicated to get back into balance.

We do not have to return to prehistoric times to find fullness. Fullness exists in the present. All that is required to do is view intently; view intently enough to actually find.

When we can see our life as an entirety and resist jettisoning what feeds our life the most, we start feeling more and more satisfied without searching for 'material' to fill the depressions and vacuums of our life. Everything finally finds its level. We now recognize the entire apparatus of the world in a very altered way.

Yes, it is now time to learn how we can form (and find) this equilibrium constantly and manageably.

The actual sustaining element of our life is what makes us feel joyful deep down. It is like that component of food that makes our body strong in the long-term. Emotions we feel in our everyday life are the real solution to our permanent happiness. And there are emotions that make us feel more absolute.

The smiling visages we see when we acknowledge the merit of others. The happiness we feel when we give others gifts. The tenderness we feel when we see our children being happy. The motivation we get when we sense that our life is full of substance ..

Let us absorb these moments of our life wholeheartedly and savour the aroma of our full life. Then we will find how it is not obligatory to incessantly fill our heart (and belly!) with earthly satisfactions - those types of things that only add to our yearnings afterwards.

We can actually sense this pleasure, gratefulness and ardour in order to be aware of life as a whole at any moment despite the conditions. It is not about what we find, what we learn or what we accomplish that finalize our life in its entirety. It is about what we 'elect to' experience about our life.

Yes, our life in fact is already whole.

When we initiate taking actions based on this knowledge, we can have real control over the balance creation - enduring health, prosperity, enriching connection and delight.

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