^New Ecopsychology
or Spiritual Ecology

Nutrition Recommendations

God once gave people principles of nutrition through a prophet: “… See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food!…”. This commandment was written in the Jewish Bible (Genesis 1:29). After some time He added through another prophet: you may eat everything, “… only, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Genesis 9:1-4). What did He mean in this phrase? He was talking about the killing-free diet: you may eat any edible plants, use milk, eggs but do not kill for food those creatures in whose bodies you see blood.

But what did sly and gluttonous Jews, who received this commandment, contrive? They started to let the blood of animals that they were killing flow out into the ground and to eat their meat after that… — yes, without blood. They pretended to have understood that the animal’s soul is its blood… Later gluttonous “Christians” began using the same way of fooling God. And… they simply did not include the protests of Jesus Christ against this in the New Testament [6,11]…

But true Christianity is Teachings of Love. Is it possible to call these people Christians who are capable of causing other creatures to suffer just for satisfying their own gustatory cravings?

True Christians are not those who have been formally baptized but do not follow the Teachings of Jesus Christ. And especially not those who were baptized at a very young age. Or those who wear crucifix around their necks. It was crusaders who wore crucifixes, was it not?

True Christians are people who follow the Teachings of God that He has been giving to us through Jesus Christ and other Messiahs. The essence of these Teachings can be expressed in short in three phrases:

1. God is Love.

2. We have to infuse into Him for the sake of enriching Him with ourselves.

3. In order to do this we need to become Love, like Him.

Those who do not follow these Teachings do not have a right to call themselves Christians. They are simply perverts: “Christians” in quotation marks.

… In this incarnation I was born and grew up in a family of communists and atheists. Nobody thought about sin and compassion there, as almost in every “soviet” family. And I, too, ate meat and fish since my childhood: this was widely accepted. I even became a hunter and a fisherman — and I tortured and killed animals without even thinking that somebody other than myself could feel pain.

Only when I became a senior research assistant, I started to question my right to kill animals. But I immediately came up with a justification for myself: we cannot live without eating meat and fish, therefore I have an objective right to procure this kind of “food” for myself without any assistance from anyone else — since I can and know how to do it.

But then there was this incident. Once I came up to a lakeside and flushed a duck family: a mother-duck and about ten ducklings, which could not fly yet. They swam away from the shore heading towards an island fifty meters away — they swam in a tight group close to one another. But an unknown hunter was hiding on that island. And when the duck family swam up to the island he shot them all down with two gunshots…

This was the first time when I took the death of the victims of this cruel entertainment — hunting — as a drama. My confusion was aggravated by the fact that I became the cause of their death. And right after this I saw a contradiction: I would not get upset if I were the hunter who killed them! On the contrary — I would rejoice at such luck of getting a great hunting trophy!…

Later I happened to ride on a bus in Karelia with workers of a forestry. They drank vodka after work and were going night fishing — to spear fish with a fish-fork in a beam of light. But one of them got “deeply moved” and started to think aloud: “How is it possible: to spear live fish with a fork?! It is live, don’t you see! With a fork!…” He repeated these phrases many times in a heartfelt way, addressing these questions both to himself and to his friends. It was obvious that he was on the verge of illumination, of awakening…

But his friends just smiled at him slightly without saying anything: this happens if one has drunk a bit too much…

Then, seeing no support from his friends he suddenly felt ashamed of his “weakness” and exclaimed: “Yes! We are going to spear live fish with a fork!”

And the issue was removed from the agenda…

Once I was hunting ducks. I wounded one. I was shooting again and again trying to kill her off, but the duck saw me firing and managed to plunge every time before the shot reached her. Then I resorted to cunning and, steering my boat, drove the duck to a shallow place, where she could not plunge. And she realized it — and gave up. I was shooting at her again and again and every time her little body got pierced with the leaden hail. Severely wounded, with her wings broken, she cried from terror and pain, unable to escape. Her screams, as perhaps, the screams of all those innocent creatures, which get cruelly killed, sounded like this: “What for?! I did not do anything bad to you or to anybody else! Have mercy! Why are you causing me such terrible pain?!” But I rowed up closer and closer and kept aiming and shooting…, but she just would not die. And only after I got next to her I shot her head off.

We ate her body, riddled with shots, afterwards, but somehow I could not enjoy it then…

My last hunt was an elk one. The beaters drove an elk-cow to the shooters’ line. The hunters started shooting and wounded her. She dashed back to the beaters’ line, but they opened fire, too. Two of my bullets broke her spine. Other hunters kept shooting. I recall that the chasseur got into ecstasy over the sound of many shots and was screaming rapturously: “Here’s what I call music!!!” She fell down, eventually.

By the time I came up to her she already had stop breathing. But the hunters told me that after she had fallen, she crawled about fifty meters, leaving a wide bloody trail behind her. They laughed and felt happy when they were telling this. There was no compassion in a single soul…

I was shooting as well, thinking about meat and not about the pain, which this beautiful animal was experiencing…

Since that incident I quitted hunting and even sold my gun.

… When I later met a person, whom I respected and who for the first time seriously told me about the existence of God and that He did not want us to eat bodies of animals, — by that time I was quite ready to completely give up this terrible vice…

Later, I studied scientific literature on physiology of nutrition and learned that in the bodies of animals there are no nutritional components essential for the human organism, which can not be found also in vegetable products, milk or milk products, and eggs. Moreover, milk and eggs contain all the indispensable amino acids — the most important protein components. I came to the conclusion that eating meat and fish is not at all a necessity, but a striking manifestation of the human vice of gluttony, of the desire to satisfy one’s gustatory whims regardless of the fact that others have to suffer pain and to die for that!

And let no one seek an excuse like this: “I do not kill anyone — ‘they’ do, I just eat the meat”. No, we are those for whom “they” kill. We participate in this killing of innocent creatures, which have been embodied not for us to kill them at all, but in order to undergo the next stages of their evolution in the bodies that were granted to them by God. The souls that live in those bodies are just like us, only younger — they are like children…

… I killed lots of animals.

From my childhood I was taught to bait live worms onto a fish-hook. It never occurred to me then what it is like what each of those worms feels… And later fish suffered on those hooks.

Fish do not “fall asleep”, as many cruel parents comfort their children who show compassion for dying fish. Each fish experiences terror, pain from wounds, and sufferings of asphyxia…

Then I began shooting at living targets: birds and animals.

Later, I became an ecologist-zoologist — and thousands of animals died from my hands. This time I did not kill them for food but for purposes of “scientific research”…

Later, working in the medicine field, I used to cut and kill rats and rabbits — these gentle, lovely animals…

When awakening finally came to me, I suddenly realized all their pain… I repented and asked them for forgiveness… But apparently I did not suffer all their pain through in my repentance…

And when many years later a two-meters-tall primitive attacked me from an ambush — without any external cause and when I could not resist him, and fatally injured my body — then, dying in severe pain, I could also be puzzled: “What for? — I did not do anything bad to anyone, didn’t I?…”

And some day, perhaps, in their future incarnations, he and all the members of that gang will be dying in pain, groaning: “What for?!…”

Often people, who never cared before what it was they were eating, upon hearing a sermon about compassion and having agreed with it suddenly get perplexed: what is there to eat if not meat and fish?! So, here we will talk very briefly about general principles of nutrition.

First, as a rule, it is advisable for our diet to include all five groups of nutritional components: proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, and microelements. Deliberately scanted diets including mono-diets (those, which imply only one product — for example, only rice, wheat sprouts, oats or apples, etc.) can be very successfully used for therapeutic purposes, but they should not be adhered to for an excessively long time. So, after consulting with a specialist one may get on a diet like this for 1, 3, 7, 30 or 45 days — depending on how serious the disease and on the tactics of the treatment.

Complete fasting (with obligatory drinking of water!) that does not exceed three days is also helpful for therapeutic purposes and is an effective means of purification of the body. If one is willing to fast for a longer period of time, one should do this only under the supervision of a specialist in therapeutic fasting. Break of the fast must be gradual. Best things to eat first, when you break a complete fast, are juices and fruits. No salt is allowed for the entire recovery period, which may last for several days — otherwise there is a high risk of edema of the body tissues.

Almost every natural type of food: milk, grains, vegetables, etc. — contains proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, though in different proportions. Depending on these proportions, they are usually classified into proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.

Milk and lactate products, curds, cheese, eggs, nuts, mushrooms, soybeans, peas and beans belong to the protein group. Proteins can be different, depending on the type of the amino acids that they are composed of. The amino acids in their turn can be divided into two groups: the dispensable (i.e. necessary, but which can be generated within the human body) and the indispensable (which are also necessary, but usually are not generated by the body, therefore their external supply with food is vital for the human organism).

So, the most valuable from the standpoint of supplying the organism with proteins are those foodstuffs that contain a complete set of indispensable amino acids. These are milk and eggs. Milk and eggs, if included in one’s diet, make it protein-balanced. If there are neither milk products nor eggs available — one should compensate for this by diversifying other components of one’s diet, especially those of the protein group.

But it would make sense to take into account that beans, when consumed in big quantities, result in generation of gases in the intestines. This also can be caused by barley and rye, and in case of adults — by milk (but not curds and cheese). In such cases, it is better to drink milk in the evening in small quantities and without combining it with anything else. By the way, in cases like that substituting milk with clabber would be even better.

Gases form also as a result of combining large quantities of protein or fat food with sweets.

One should not eat eggs and fat food before going to bed at night: these products remain in the stomach for a long time, but during a night sleep the digestion process in the stomach slows down (in contrast to that in the intestines). Food can stay undigested in the stomach for the whole night, which causes the multiplication of microbes in it and inflammation of the stomach walls first and then of the walls of the intestines.

Let us discuss also two issues in regard to eating eggs.

First, there is a postulate that we should not eat eggs for ethical reasons, since chickens could hatch out of them. But chickens can in no way be hatched from the eggs, which were laid by battery farm hens. The point is that domestic hen is a unique biological species (bred through a selection process), which lays eggs without being impregnated by a cock. Chicken cannot hatch out of these eggs. (At battery farms, cocks and hens are brought together only for making those eggs that would go to incubators for subsequent hatching of chicken).

But it would not make sense not to eat even impregnated eggs: since there is no embryo in a non-incubated egg, therefore it has no embodied soul; such eggs can feel neither fear nor pain when fried or boiled.

Eggs that we eat are merely ovules. But if we are to spare all ovules — how much more we should grieve over dying human ones! Since every menstruation is a sign of the lost opportunity of a human being to be born! Does not it follow from this line of reasoning that all women should be constantly pregnant in order to save all ovules from dying unnecessarily? (Joking!).

The second objection against eating eggs comes from the physiologists: eating eggs, they say, inevitably causes atherosclerosis, since eggs contain great amounts of cholesterol.

Once I participated as a laboratory assistant in the experiments on rats conducted under the supervision of academician N.N.Anichkov — the experiments that subsequently allowed him to “pronounce an anathema” against eggs. I myself then, with my own hands, was making atherosclerosis in those rats. However, they were fed not with eggs but with pure cholesterol powder mixed with oil. And the doses of that chemically pure cholesterol were quite impressive compared to the weight of the rat’s body: they measured grams per one intake, several times a day. And this is for a small rat! Of course, the rats developed atherosclerosis. But the doses of cholesterol were exceeded by millions of times — as compared to those contained in several eggs a day for a human being!

In reality cholesterol is quite an important substance for the human organism, since it serves as a material from which all sex hormones — both male and female — are formed.

Cholesterol gets generated within human bodies as well. And its high concentrations can be found not only in eggs but also in the bodies of animals, especially in the liver, brain, and fat tissues.

But in order to identify the cause of atherosclerosis one should start with finding out first whether those people, who adhere to the killing-free diet, suffer from it.

… Fats can be of vegetable and of animal origin. The latter include both butter and fats obtained from corpses of killed animals.

Scientists say that consumption of fats significantly increases risk of cancer, but we need to know that for butter this is not true.

Both vegetable oils and butter are good for people. The former contains vitamin E among other things and can dissolve cholesterol deposits, if any. Butter is rich in vitamins A and D.

It is better to use butter for frying and heating of food, since all oils get oxidized when heated in presence of oxygen, forming harmful substances. The more liquid the oil is the quicker it gets oxidized.

There are also margarines, which represent mixes of various oils. If someone wants to use them, it would be better to read the list of ingredients on the package first.

All vegetables, fruits, berries, cereals, greens, jam, honey belong to the group of carbohydrates… All bodies of plants and grains are rich in fiber, which is important for proper functioning of the intestines, and in vitamins, especially of the C and B groups. Sugars among other things provide the body with energy that is easily assimilable.

It is currently widely known that bread is a source of the necessary vitamins of the B group. But it is important to know that bread made of high-grade flour contains almost no vitamins of this group, as well as almost no proteins. Bread made of coarse grinded grains or with bran added is a much healthier food.

The same can be said about rice. Unpolished rice is rich of the vitamins of the B group and in protein.

As for vitamins, we have discussed them enough already. I will just add that if we drink milk and eat eggs, vegetable oil, butter, carrots, greens, fresh fruit and berries, — then we provide our bodies with all necessary vitamins. In case one doubts it or if there are special medical indications — one can buy poly-vitamins or specific combinations of them in a drug store according to a physician’s recommendations.

Vitamin C is worth special attention. It is important for the resistance power of the organism; in particular, it helps in curing catarrhal diseases. But it is not heat-resistant. This is why herb, fir needle, or hip brews should be made without bringing the water to a boil. Garlic and nettle contain great amounts of vitamin C.

We provide necessary microelements to our bodies when our menu is diversified to include milk, mushrooms, and many other kinds of foodstuff. But the best source of microelements, which contains a full set of them, is sea kale (laminaria). It is sold in many grocery stores either canned or dried (the latter is also sold in drug stores). One can simply add sea water or sea salt to food.

… Lives of those, who love and know nature, not only are full of beauty, healthier and more efficient in terms of spiritual growth but also require less money. A true nature-lover will always store up jam and self-made flower honey and dry up delicious herbs for using in place of tea for the winter. But the most useful thing to store is, of course, mushrooms.

Fried or boiled mushrooms are very delicious, but they are hard to digest, since the membranes of their cells are not easy to destroy for our peptic enzymes. Drying mushrooms up also does not improve this situation. But prolonged exposure to acetic or lactic acid — when mushrooms are marinated or made sour (salted) — destroys the membranes and makes mushrooms easy to assimilate.

One can store salted mushrooms in one’s own house; the only thing that needs to be done regularly is taking off the mould from the surface over the brine (approximately once a week). But do not try to pickle honey fungus (armillaria) only with salt separately: the process of its fermentation goes without producing lactic acid — thus the result will not be good. One may either add this kind of mushrooms to the vessel with other salted mushrooms or pickle it using vinegar and salt.

* * *

The most important thing about correct nutrition is adherence to the fundamental ethical principle of not harming. Only those who have developed compassion for the pain of other living beings can make progress on the spiritual Path, for God will let get close to His Abode only those, who become embodiments of the principle of LOVE.

The Divine Teacher Huang Di taught this way of life in ancient China. Pythagoras, Gautama Buddha and then Jesus Christ taught the same [6-7,11]. (Jesus made several exceptions only when He talked to fishermen and to crowds of common people, when He was feeding them with bodies of fish). Nowadays God is teaching the same through Babaji and Sathya Sai Baba [6,11,19,45-55].

This opinion of God seemingly contradicts to His words in the Quran. But we should keep in mind that during the first years of the establishment of Islam, which were marked with the continuous state of war, the situation was not appropriate for introducing new nutrition habits among cattle-breeders and desert inhabitants. God, Who guided prophet Muhammad at that time, had another purpose — to establish a monotheistic faith in that region of the Earth. And only after Islam had been established and accepted by people, Muslims were presented with an opportunity to think about the ethical aspect of their nutrition.

If one ignores the ethical aspect of nutrition, then one becomes subject to special mechanisms, created by God, that make for the development of diseases.

Deposits of salts of uric acid, of which meat and fish dishes are the major sources, start to form gradually in the blood vessels, in the skin and in the cartilaginous tissues. This disease is called gout. Among its symptoms there are memory failure, headaches, disturbed sleep, sexual malfunction, and muscle and joint pain. And an urgent need to eliminate the states of discomfort of the brain provokes smoking and alcoholism.

Energy aspect of such nutrition should be considered as well: the chakras and meridians get contaminated with the energies of dead bodies, and this causes disorders of bioenergetic supply of multiple organs and contributes to the development of cancer. The same energies adversely affect the organs of digestion, thus acute and chronic inflammations and ulcers develop. This also provokes the development of aggressiveness in people. Their energy of the consciousness coarsens, and they become incapable of attaining subtle states.

The well-known postulate that meat and fish are the only sources of necessary proteins, as we have discussed above, is absolutely invalid, and those who defend it only demonstrate their ignorance in medical issues. The complete set of amino acids (the elements of proteins) necessary for the human organism is found in milk and eggs.

The best testimony to the correctness and adequacy of the killing-free nutrition is the dramatic improvement of health and disappearance of diseases in those who switched to this type of diet. In addition to this, their ability to perform various kinds of activities increases.

I want to note also that people, who eat bodies of killed animals to satisfy their gluttonous habits, should be aware that the time may come for them to experience their own pain. This is the way God teaches us Love. This is the law of karma in action: those who disregard the pain of others have to learn compassion through their own pain, experiencing it themselves.

The ethically correct behavior in regard to the “pure” foodstuff — plants, milk and milk products, and eggs — is to use them sparingly and with respect. They should not die in vain.

One should avoid using too much salt as well as drinking alcohol, which by no means contributes to attaining Perfection, also to restrain from excessive consumption of caffeine-containing drinks (coffee, cacao, tea, etc.) and from frying food using vegetable oils. And of course, under no circumstances one should drink urine, which has become quite popular “foodstuff” in Russia recently. Regular drinking of urine intoxicates the brain and causes mental disorders.

What should we eat then? What is the best diet for one and for one’s whole family? Of course, everyone has their own tastes and nutritional habits. The set of the four basic products: rice, mushrooms, eggs and tomatoes (fresh or as various sauces, ketchups, or pulp) — became the basis of my nutrition. In addition to these, I use mayonnaise, greens, potatoes, carrots, wheat bread, jam, berries, butter, vegetable oil, cheese, and other. This type of diet is satiating and provides a sufficient amount of energy for any kind of work, including meditation. Only at the last stages of my spiritual ascent I had to give up eggs: the energy derived from them was not favorable for settling down in the Abode of the Creator.

And the last piece of advice: we should not think about food too much! Upon eliminating vicious nutrition habits, you should establish a new thinking “algorithm” — and think about God and your Path to Him, including your service to Him. Beware of repeating the mistake, which so many people have made by focusing all their attention only on “nutritional rules” and forgetting about more important things.