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ASCENT
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SPIRITUAL ANTHOLOGY
Dedicated to Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
Who continues to be my Guiding Light
“You are a child of God, and it is your God-given role to help others to remember that they are also children of God”
[Divine decree received 2010]
‘Energy cannot be created or destroyed;
It can only be changed from one form to another.
Everything is energy and that is all there is to it.
Match the frequency of the reality you want,
And you cannot help but get that reality.
It can be no other way.
This is not philosophy;
This is physics’
[Albert Einstein]
Why these Writings?
On completion of the Labyrinth here at Jacaranda Haven in 2010, I walked it on my own for the first time and then stood – silent and empty- in the centre. A loud voice spoke telepathically to me:
“You are a child of God, and it is your God-given role to help others to remember that they are also children of God”
Sai Baba had gifted me a pen and vibhuti (sacred ash) whilst leaving Puttaparthi in 1999, renowned psychic Joan Moylan had told me in 1998 to write, and psychic Jennifer Starlight conveyed to me from Spirit in early 2022 that I was meant to write…but what ?
And then I realised that all I could write about to assist others on their paths was my own experiences, teachings and learnings in order to “…help others to remember that they are also children of God”. Hence these autobiographical writings…
Modules
This is but one ‘module’ in this collection of autobiographical writings that I choose to call ‘modules’. Each one stands alone, but some cross-reference others. A completed book is a static thing once finished: however, these modules are flexible in that I can add to them at any time should new experiences/information comes to hand, and the reader can pick & choose which particular modules attract them. The collection of modules thereby constitutes an’ anthology’.
The intent of writing these is to share experiences and teachings that I have been blessed with along the way of a human incarnation – the ascent of consciousness – such that the reader may also benefit to illumine their own path/ascent to the ultimate inevitable goal for all humans: that of ‘self-realisation’.
Belief vs Truth
As a precursor to reading any of these Modules, there is a need to clarify the difference between ‘Belief’ and ‘Truth’: one may ‘believe’ eg it is raining outside by the sound on the roof, but when you actually see the rain falling/walk out and get wet, you actually then ‘know’ it is so – ie it is ‘true’, and so ‘belief’ about that instantly ceases.
Many go through life accumulating fixed ‘beliefs’ about people/things, and, as Krishnamurti taught:”… the moment you arrive at a conclusion/form an opinion/a belief, you block the possibility of further enquiry and discovery”.
So, a hot air balloon called ‘Ascent’ awaits: I invite you to climb into its basket with me, throw overboard the ballast of all those accumulated ‘beliefs/opinions’ you have acquired to feel safe, and therefore allow this balloon to rise free and drift to destinations unknown.
Because, otherwise, some of what you read herein may sorely challenge your accumulated beliefs…
Everything recounted within the Anthology is absolutely true, unless I have qualified otherwise.
John Stephen Butterworth
FOOD
My Journey with Physical Food to Date
I was born into this life in 1945 to a British father and mother who unquestioningly followed the same diet that their parents would presumably have had before them – one of bacon, eggs and toast for breakfast, some sort of cooked meat-based sandwiches plus a piece of fruit for lunch if at work or school, and a cooked meat evening meal always with a dessert to finish. My mother also kept an ample supply of home-baked biscuits and cake in tins in the kitchen cupboards that I at least would devour of an afternoon eg on arrival home after school. She was a wonderful cook! The only variation to this diet that I can remember was when my father in my teens started to juice celery and carrot on a Saturday morning with a hand-cranked juicer that he drank possibly to aid his gout…
And so it was as the years passed through my first marriage, then divorce, which found me back as a now single man living upstairs at my mother’s house whilst running my landscape design practice from next door/within the same premises.
And then it suddenly all changed…
In September 1985, at the age of 40, I was invited one Sunday evening to a musician friend’s home to have a roast meat dinner along with a couple of other musicians (In those days ,I was also a part-time professional double bass player doing casual jobs around Sydney).
I returned home after a most pleasant evening and went to bed only to start vomiting violently which went on and off much of the night. Morning came and I probably was so ill with this apparent food poisoning and exhausted that I remember spending a lot of time in bed unable to do anything…I remember calling downstairs to the 2 men in my design office explaining what was happening and telling them to carry on without me for the time being.
After a few days, I had to get up as I recall that I had to go to a committed site meeting. On the drive back, I suddenly found myself stopped in heavy traffic on Parramatta Road Homebush (Sydney area) right next to/slightly behind a large truck – so much higher than my sedan – with open slatted sides that was packed with panic-stricken squealing pigs climbing over each other, and defecating & urinating over each other: I was stunned and shocked by the bestiality and cruelty of it all – realising that they were all headed to the nearby abattoirs to be slaughtered so that humans could have bacon, pork etc…
The following evening, I walked into my mother’s loungeroom after she’d had dinner and found her watching a rural TV program. The segment that came on the screen at that moment graphically showed ‘crutching’ (I think it’s called) of young lambs whereby each lamb is dragged and inverted, their back legs pulled apart and a slice of raw flesh is slashed off them across their anus from side-to-side, a handful of lime is thrown onto the bleeding flesh and the poor creature screaming in agony is thrown to one side as the next one is grabbed…
At that point, I snapped: something inside of me instantly knew that I could NEVER eat meat ever again – it was obviously the culmination of the food poisoning, the pigs going to the abattoir, and now this appalling cruelty in the name of “good veterinary hygiene”…all one after the other in that one week…
Now, 37 years later, as I reflect on that week, I bring to mind Robin Miller’s (author of the ‘Jonathon’ channelled books) unforgettable words to me in Sedona in 1996 when we ‘bumped’ into each other for a 2nd time :”There are no coincidences” (refer module: ‘1996-A Seminal Year’).
So, was everything that happened that week “…just coincidental”?
I never found out whether anyone else at that Sunday night dinner got ‘food poisoning’…was it just for me only, which coupled with the face-to-face with the distraught pigs and the TV show about the lambs, was Spirit’s way of letting me know that it was high time, at age 40, that I started more seriously on my spiritual journey…by pushing me ,firstly, to clean up my ‘physical body’…
I tend towards the latter understanding that it was indeed so.
So, as I emerged from that week, I explained what had happened to my mother who had been cooking evening meals for us both.
This presented a huge challenge to her as she understandably had no idea how to nourish someone without meat as the staple but, but to her credit, she met it face on – respecting that I just could no longer face meat.
Initially, she made egg-based meals but that was limited in potential scope so I went about researching how to be a ‘vegetarian’ – noting that the Internet had not yet been born.
I’d eaten once or twice at Hari Krishna temples where the public are welcome to eat and obtained a copy of their cookbook. This was immensely helpful in explaining how to ensure sufficient protein intake by combining eg beans/pulses and grains at each meal. And so I very quickly ceased any egg-based meals (which I generally found too rich anyway) and moved onto a different diet composition.
And 38 years later, at a physical age of 78, I am fit and strong with lots of energy.
Suggestion: For anyone contemplating switching to a vegetarian/vegan diet from a meat-based one, research thoroughly and make the transition gradual if best for you as it may be too much of a shock to your system to make an abrupt change.
Mistaken Belief about Non-vegetarian Food
Sai Baba is quoted as stating once:
“Many people are under the mistaken notion that non-vegetarian food gives them strength and vigour, but, in reality, it ruins their health. Non-vegetarian food is the major cause of several fatal diseases like cancer”. (Prasthanthi Nilyam Diary 2022 Page: 4 February)
But that’s by no means the end of the subject…because ‘food’ is EVERYTHING you take in: physical foodstuffs, thoughts, feelings, opinions – all energetic impulses, whether you realise it or not.
At this juncture, I step back to permit Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai explain, as He did in answering a questioner in Kuala Lumpur on 31.1.2017:
The question was: ”Why is vegetarian food essential for mental purity and physical well-being?”
Answer:
“What is food? It is primarily energy. What do you get out of food? You consume the food, take energy out of it and discard the matter. Therefore, food is not matter, it is primarily a source of energy.
What are thoughts? Thoughts are also energy. If someone thinks positively, he will be full of energy; if someone thinks negatively, he will be depressed; he is lowering his energy.
What are words? Words are energy. When you get angry, you speak loudly, you speak harshly and, as a result, you lose energy.
When you are happy, you speak sweetly, you speak softly and consequently, you gain energy.
What are deeds? Deeds mean work, which is all energy. There are words that will take away – waste your energy. There are also words that will help you conserve energy.
All life is energy. All creation is a play of energy and matter, so do not treat food simply as matter, treat it as energy. It can be positive or it can be negative.
If someone has experienced unhappiness, sorrow, fear, grief, how can that energy be good for you? How can that feeling be positive for you? All the fear, the anxiety, all the grief, all the pain, that has come along with the food as a form of energy will enter you along with the food. The matter will be discarded tomorrow, but the energy will remain inside you. It will become one with you. Therefore, it will start defining who you are.
When you harm another creature for your pleasure, you invite all their grief, pain, suffering and sorrow into yourself. Your body is not a tomb for animals: it is a temple of God and it should be kept that way.(Bold type by me).
Circumstances might have driven mankind to eat in a certain way based on need. Today, enough is available for everyone, so there is no need to harm another creature to fill your stomach. When you become slaves to your tongue, you start behaving like demons who do not think of others. They only think about themselves! They do not mind harming or troubling anyone else.
You are divine. The divine does not hurt for the sake of one’s own happiness. It believes in giving happiness and and getting happiness. Such a divine person has to behave accordingly.
Therefore… food gives rise to thoughts, which result in words, which influence one’s conduct.
Everything is connected with everything else, so if you think all life is energy, then you will know which energy to choose and which energy to avoid…
Vegetarian food alone is not enough; vegetarian thoughts are also very important. What you see is food, what you hear is food, what you smell is food, what you touch is food. Not just your taste, but through all senses, you are consuming. If you think wrongly, it is going to harm; if you see things that are not good, it is also going to harm. You are consuming through all the senses, so you have to be careful what you consume.”
Reflection
In the module I have written entitled ‘Karma’ in this series, I clarify the important distinction between ’pity’ and ‘compassion’ which is further emphasised by Sri Madhusudan above:
“…If someone has experienced unhappiness, sorrow, fear, grief, how can that energy be good for you? How can that feeling be positive for you? All the fear, the anxiety, all the grief, all the pain, that has come along with the food as a form of energy will enter you along with the food. The matter will be discarded tomorrow, but the energy will remain inside you. It will become one with you. Therefore, it will start defining who you are”.
Which is also what happens when someone pities another – what use is all “…the unhappiness, sorrow, fear” of another to you?: but to simply observe their predicament in an emotionally-detached state of love surely is true ‘compassion’- understanding that it is their life path, not yours.
A Sobering Tale
Late one night in maybe 1989, I was driving home from a music job on the South Coast of NSW and put on the radio where I discovered a marvellous program on ABC Radio called ‘ Inner Space’ presented by Jaroslav Kovaricek between 10pm and midnight. [Little did I know then that he would do a show on my work with ‘Sacred Sound’ a few years later to air on this same program!]
That night, Jaroslav had a man speaking about his experiences of living rough on the streets of northern England and ending up on a prison farm where he was put to work in the abattoirs slaughtering cattle.
His appointed job was to have animal after animal walk up to him bellowing and bucking in terror due to what awaited them in a narrow cattle ‘race’ where he had to fire the fatal bolt into their forehead. Each killed creature would then be dragged away by others to make space for the next one…
Day after day, he carried out this dreadful job until one day…
When one cow walked peacefully and more slowly towards him with no bellowing, AND MADE FULL EYE CONTACT WITH HIM…
THEN A SINGLE TEAR EMERGED AND TRICKLED DOWN ITS FACE…
He said that he instantly threw down his weapon, ran away out of the abbatoirs, and shakingly took himself to the Prison Farm Superintendent where he declared that he would NEVER again hurt any living creature and asked to be assigned to other duties.
I seem to recall he was shifted to the prison library where his researching led him to teaching meditation to other prisoners, and which I believe he continued to do after his release…
This story I heard all those years ago made a very deep impact on me, as it may well do also for you…
Another Sobering Tale
Australia
One of my step-grand-daughters qualified as a veterinary surgeon last year. In her final years of her course, she had to naturally do field work. In one case, she went to a dairy farm in Northern Australia to gain hands-on experience with dairy cows.
[Now, living where we do, my wife and I often drive past a couple of local dairies mid-late afternoon and see all those wonderful black & white Friesian cows patiently lined up for their afternoon milking: we just love those gentle creatures and admire the selfless service they provide…]
She was present when the farmer was deciding what to do with the male calves his cows had produced: the female calves naturally become part of the milking herd, but not so the male calves…oh, didn’t you realise?
Every cow in the herd has to become pregnant on a regular basis to keep producing milk: well, of course, that’s obvious, when you stop to think about it …but how often would the average member of (urban) society stop to think through that sequence? Probably very rarely… and of course, milk and its by-products are constantly marketed in a glamorous way to present dairying in the very best, desirable light…
So back to that dairy farm in Northern Australia.
Our veterinarian grand-daughter reported that the farmer ordered that a trench be dug, and some/all of the male calves to have their throats cut, dumped in the trench and buried because they weren’t worthwhile selling for meat… “…most veal comes from young male calves of dairy breeds which are not used for breeding” (Wikipedia)
She (already a vegetarian, and as a vet, committed to caring for animals welfare) was appalled at the brutality of it all and I believe she took one of the male calves back to her ever-expanding menagerie at her farm with her as a rescue animal.
India
In India, it is a quite different situation.
Cows are generally regarded as sacred. There was a time in Indian history when it was forbidden to kill a cow. These days, cow slaughter in India is controversial because of cattle’s status as endeared and respected living beings to adherents of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is said that Krishna was a cowherd when a young boy and had a great affection for cows who also have always been an important source of nutrition from their milk. The cow is said to represent Mother Earth, and in the Rig Veda,it declares that ”…cow provides in its milk the curative and prophylactic effects of the medicinal herbs it eats.” Cows also produce (as well as milk), cheese, butter/ghee, urine and dung. The dung is used as fertiliser, in building and in sacred ceremonies such as Agnihotra.
Animal vs vegetable food sources
Sai Baba has pointed out that:
“There is a close relationship between your food, head and God. (Consuming) animal foods will let you develop animal traits…all plants and vegetables have life but lack the senses, just like a patient who is given anaesthesia during an operation lacks awareness of…cuts and stitches. However, animals have senses and when we cut them ,they suffer intensely”.
Humans and Animal Milk
Many years ago, a friend made the observation one day that:
“… humans are the only species on the planet who keep drinking animal milk after being weaned”
…again, probably a fact that would never occur to most of us.
That said, milk powder and similar products have probably been a Godsend for many starving children in third world countries/refugee camps/war zones etc. And as we’re exploring, it all gets down to the circumstances, hence influential energies, under which the milk is obtained…
Caring for All Cows
In India, all cows are regarded as sacred and are treated accordingly. Agnihotra practitioners worldwide consume the ash from burnt cow dung and use it for a range of medicinal, therapeutic, horticultural and agricultural purposes. When we were performing Agnihotra at sunset each day, I would have some ash (from the manure burnt in ceremony) on my cereal at breakfast each day…Sai Baba has spoken about the medicinal effects of cow dung as eg poultices.
It is obvious that most dairy farmers really love their cows which they milk twice a day, 365 days of the year and probably get know most/all of the herd ‘personally’ and hence affection… many/most of them would probably just accept that, to be a dairy farmer, hard decisions need to be taken about male calves…
And if they are meat eaters, never question the way in which veal is sourced…
Alternative dietary choices
In the 1970’s, my mother had a Scottish tradesman named Sandy re-paint much of her house. This pleasant man would always/often join her for lunch, and she discovered that all he ate (at least at morning tea and lunchtime) was white bread and potatoes, and said he had always done so. She told me about it and, when he also went on to paint the exterior of a large weatherboard clubhouse where I was working, I also discovered this to be a fact as we had morning tea/lunched together several days a week. No meat/vegetables/fruit …Yes, not surprisingly, he had a very pale complexion, but otherwise always seemed in perfect physical health…quite amazing, but living proof that people can survive/thrive on very different physical diets…
And I’ve read over the years about ‘fruitarians’ who say they only eat fruit… and even, urine therapy… until the mid 1990’s when something further emerged…
Breatharianism
In Paramahansa Yogananda’s renowned book ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’, he recounts the story of a Therese Neumann who was a nun in a German convent who was claimed to never eat solid food and also who is also claimed to have manifested the stigmata of Christ. Whilst research on the Internet casts some possible doubt about one/both these claims, those of you who have read my module:’1996 – A Seminal Year’, know of the extraordinary story of the lady from Maui in Hawaii that Spirit had me meet who claimed to have bled from her nipples whilst in a convent in Honolulu (which ceased when she followed her father’s advice and drank a glassful of Hawaian volcanic red soil and water) and which appeared fully substantiated by other nuns witnessing this extraordinary phenomenon.
But staying with the matter of eating, I also personally encountered in the mid-1990’s three other cases of people on their spiritual paths not eating solid food.
The first I’d heard about ‘Breatharianism’ was via a lady from Queensland in the mid 1990’s who claimed to not need to eat but was also offering to ‘train ‘others on their spiritual path who felt called to do likewise. There was much talk at the time about ‘ascension’ and ways/methods of attaining such and this seemed to be allied to that. Please note that I personally was not drawn to try experimenting myself.
But regardless of that, Spirit had me encounter 3 separate people doing/claiming to do so. Allow me to share:
Case 1
I ran a ‘Sacred Sound’ Friday evening meditation and weekend workshop in an old church called ‘Chalmers’ which was being restored in Launceston, Tasmania, and one of the attendees invited us all to her place for Sunday night dinner. About 4 or 5 of us accepted and were served freshly cooked wild mushrooms that her husband had foraged that afternoon from nearby forests which were delicious, As we tucked into this feast, we became aware that our hostess was not eating…When she was asked why, she explained simply that she no longer ate solid food…I remember with some amusement that at least 2 of the visitors involuntarily immediately clutched their hands (holding knives & forks) across their stomach and heart chakras – obviously feeling shocked and threatened by this revelation. I didn’t doubt our hostess at all – as I’ve reflected on occasions that when someone is really telling the truth, and you are listening in an empty state, you know it to be true…and, for me, this was the case here.
Case 2
In June 1995, I ran a similar event out of the ‘New Age Shop’ events room in Hong Kong (whereby, when I had first walked into this shop 12 months earlier, the proprietor Sally Anderson had immediately pulled out her diary and booked me for 12 months hence…)(Also, as I discovered on my return in 1995, a psychic lady had seen me at the same time, and knew she would do a reading on me 12 months hence…interesting!)
One of the attendees at my course was a well-educated Chinese lady (journalist by trade) who quite obviously absented herself at tea/meal breaks… and then I found myself (as though guided by Spirit) ‘cornering her’ and saying to her:
“You don’t eat, do you?” To which, she privately confirmed: ”No, I don’t: I live on prana”.
I then spent a little time with her just prior to flying back to Sydney and felt that the claim was genuine…
Case 3
Around the same mid – 1990’s period, I walked one day into a consulting practice in Sydney and saw a man with his somehow familiar back turned towards me off to one side. As I approached, he swung around and embraced me, whispering in his American accent in my ear:
“John, I’ve just gone 40 days without eating, and I feel wonderful and so light!” He then whispered that he had been down in South Australia doing so under the close scrutiny/supervision of someone competent in the practice.
Whilst I choose to keep his identity anonymous for his privacy, I can confirm he is a professional man, highly qualified in his chosen discipline, and a well-known, highly respected researcher, author & presenter about alternative therapeutic/healing methods and technologies.
Like I said above under Case 1, I knew he was telling me the truth: what I don’t know is whether he has continued as a ‘breatharian’ or not as we’ve lost contact.
Iodine and the Critical Part it Plays in Our Diet
One morning, several years ago, I was driving in Sydney on 3 February 2017 (original broadcast December 2015) and at 11am, a remarkable interview came onto the radio about iodine and its significance in human diets.
The interviewer was Richard Fidler and his guest was Professor Cresswell Eastman with the startling program title ‘The Man Who Saved a Million Brains: Cresswell Eastman’s pioneering work with Iodine Deficiency Disorder’ (full episode accessible via the internet).
Professor Eastman is Clinical Professor of Medicine at The University of Sydney Medical School, and Principal of The Sydney Thyroid Clinic at the Westmead Specialist Centre.
He has led projects to abolish Iodine Deficiency Disorders (IDD) throughout the developing world. Children born to mothers deficient in iodine can suffer a range of defects including mental retardation, deafness, and speech and physical impairments.
Over the past decades, he and his teams have been effective in Malaysia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, China and Tibet. His transformative work with populations in remote areas of China led him to be dubbed ‘the man who saved a million brains’. During his first visits to Tibet, he discovered that 13% of the population were born with cretinism as the result of iodine deficiency.
His current focus is on the recurring problem of IDD in Australian and Thai populations. He is concerned that IDD may be affecting the ability of Australian children, and in particular First Nations children, to perform at school. He has started programs in Central Australia to get iodine and folate given to all indigenous pregnant women.
A key issue that jumped out for me from this interview is that Australian soils are totally deficient in iodine as are the Himalayas due to millions of years of weathering and that hence it is critically important that everyone ensure that their diets are supplemented with iodine if they do not eat eg fish or other seafood regularly. I have powdered kelp on my cereal mix each morning plus we cook with iodised salt as I am vegetarian.
[NB He stressed the sea salt and Himalayan Rock salt do NOT carry iodine].
[My own mother had an underactive thyroid gland and had to take Thyroxine as a treatment all her adult life; in the early 1950’s, I remember going with her into the City (Sydney) to the very first Australian ‘health food shop’ ,Blooms, in order to buy powdered kelp which we use to have scattered eg on soup. So this subject was always present in my earlier life].
Order of Food Intake
In the West, there is a tradition of eating a meal of savoury/proteinaceaous food, then following it with fresh fruit (or other dessert). When I was learning how to manage a vegetarian diet, I read how, based on thousands of years of Ayurvedic practice, any fruit should always be consumed BEFORE savoury foods – the reason being that fruit, being light, needs to move quickly through our digestive system versus the understandably slower rate of savoury food digestion.
If the savoury food precedes the fruit, the latter can ferment whilst it is inhibited in being digested.
Interestingly, my eldest daughter also learned this in biology classes whilst in USA as an exchange student 1988-89: I was impressed that this basic physiological fact was part of her US curriculum whilst in the British tradition, it appears largely unknown. She also learned that of all the fruits, bananas take the longest to digest – maybe 20 minutes.
Hence, at breakfast, we have fruit first, then I go and attend to other morning routine matters, and have my cereal mix & soymilk about 20-30 minutes later. Very simple.
Order of Daily Meals
About 1989, I needed to go to an acupuncturist south of Sydney who coincidentally was also at that time, was President of (I think) The Australian Naturopathic Practitioners Association (apologies if this is slightly incorrect).
Whilst administering his needles, he was extremely articulate and talked to me about various matters – one of which I recall now and would like to share.
He was of the opinion that Western society generally were eating in an incorrect daily order – by eating the biggest meal of the day at night.
In contrast, he said that he ate his largest/most substantial meal of the day for breakfast in order to give the body fuel for the day’s activities, a lesser meal at lunchtime, and then only eg soup and toast in the evening – so that the body was able to go to bed at night and rest fully without also having to digest heavy foods…
It made so much sense, but I must confess that I (at 77) and my wife (at 84) are yet to shift fully to that different order. Old habits die hard…
However, we are both very light eaters, even for the evening meal, at which we do occasionally have just soup and toast.
Dietary Recommendations from Sai Baba
I have read that Sai Baba has recommended humans eating sprouting pulses (ie beans/peas/chickpeas) and generally ”…a healthy balanced diet of greens, milk, curds and grains will provide you with all the required nourishment”.
Provenance
With foodstuffs purchased in a supermarket, it is usually difficult to know fully where it was grown/produced but most importantly, under what energetic conditions from point of growth/harvest/production through to point of passing into your hands.
For if you go back to eg the discourse/answer given by Sadguru Sri Madhusudan Sai (above in this module) on 31.1.2017 in Kuala Lumpur, foodstuffs are energy (as well as matter) and hence absorb other energies they are exposed to. And when you consider from that point of view, you realise that there is potentially a vast array of different energies that may have affected any supermarket food item including during growing/manufacture/slaughter, processing, packaging, transportation, and handling through to point of sale/handing over.
We’ll address ways of managing this shortly, but first I’d like to share…
For several consecutive years in the late 1980’s – early 1990’s, I would visit The Woodford Folk Festival in Southern Queensland where thousands of people converge for the last week of each calendar year to enjoy an extraordinary range of the world’s music, food, culture, spirituality etc.
One particular happening stayed in my memory: one of the food tents was run by (I am fairly certain) the BrahmaKumaris who cooked and smilingly served delicious vegetarian meals and snacks. As they gently went about all this, they were all singing spiritual songs softly in unison (maybe some in Sanskrit/some in English) which imparted a wonderfully peaceful energy to their area…and, as you understand, also imbued the food with those same loving energies…
I do likewise of a morning when commencing in the kitchen to prepare for breakfast – usually softly chanting eg The Gayatri Mantra or maybe just long sustained Aums.
We are small – scale commercial growers of fully organic Elephant Garlic (aka Giant Russian Garlic) which I (mainly) handplant clove by clove each April – this year approximately some 2,600 cloves, and then with assistance, we heavily mulch with hay/grass that we slash & rake off other paddocks. (We are also farm – grade members of Biodynamic Agriculture Australia). As I plant and we eventually harvest about 8 months later, I am softly singing in like fashion including Sanskrit bhajans…Once the harvested garlic is fully dried on racks, we caringly hand- clean and sort it, then start to market it both person-to-person at the door/’farmgate sales’ or by mail by personal contact. Our garlic has won First Prize in the annual Wallamba Agricultural & Horticultural Show in 2020 and 2022 (no show in 2021 due to COVID). We have an ever-increasing repeat client base who keep wanting more…Is all this any surprise?
Our garlic is saturated in love and caring; we love growing it …
A Salutary Tale
In late 2017, I took a presentation tray of the best of our garlic to meet with a restaurateur acquaintance at his prominent Lower North Shore restaurant in Sydney to see whether he/his chef would be interested in a regular order. But the meeting did not turn out quite how I/we might have imagined…
He called his chef out from the kitchen to see our garlic, to which the latter immediately said:
“I’d make black garlic from that” and briefly explained how.
Once I had shared details of the provenance of ours, his boss asked the chef what garlic he used and to fetch some from the kitchen.
This he did, and presented us with a rectangular plastic shallow box (like a Chinese restaurant take-away box) in which finely chopped ‘garlic’ swam about listlessly in some kind of oil…
Asked about the provenance of this, he said that it was just what his providore obtained when he asked for ‘garlic’…at $4 per kilo (NB our garlic at that time was $25 per kilo): he knew nothing about how or where it was grown, or by who, and didn’t know what oil it was in…he thought it was likely from China…and was quick & easy to use…
When I contacted my restaurateur acquaintance some weeks later to follow up their response to our garlic, I was curtly informed that the chef I’d met no longer worked there… it spoke volumes… I initially felt a little bad about how it had all turned out, but it was an important lesson for any chef to learn: tough love, some call it. I am sure the chef in question became instantly more discerning from then on…
This is what ‘provenance’ is all about…it is hence critically important to know as far as possible the energies that may have affected foodstuffs before we obtain and consume.
It’s about knowing the quality of the energies that have gone into a foodstuff and demanding that’s all you’ll accept…
So in an urban world served by bulk-handling supermarkets with their piped incessant radio and rush & bustle, what can you do?
You can join the ever-expanding numbers of caring people who are growing and sharing food in their own yards/balconies/roofs/roadside verges so that they have control over the quality of as much of their food as possible. But firstly to address the matter of what to do about foodstuffs you are presented with that you know little about energetically…
Meal Prayers and Offerings
At breakfast (refer separate module : ‘Jacaranda Haven’), we commence with expressing gratitude and asking for a blessing for all that is on the table, and asking Sai Baba that it please be transmuted into prasadam as a fit offering to God.
We may say a Sanskrit food prayer (2 slokas(stanzas) from the Bhagavad Gita):
Om,Brahmarparnam,Brahmahavir,
Brahmagnau,Brahmanahutam,
Brahmaiva Tena Gantavyam
Brahmakarma Samadhina
Aham,Vaishwanaro Bhutva
Praninam,Dehamaashritah,
Praanapana, Samaayuktah
Pachamyannam Chaturvidam
Om Shanti,Shanti,Shanti – hee.
[In English:
God is the offering, God is what is offered, Offered by God in the Fire of God:
Unto God they go who only see God in their actions.
I am the digestive fire abiding in the bodies of all living beings:
Associated with Prana and Apana, I digest the four kinds of food’]
[The 4 kinds of foods are those that are chewed (solids), swallowed (liquids), sucked (eg sugar cane), and licked (eg honey)].
(Bhagavad Gita Chapter 4 v 24 and Chapter 15 v 14.)
Another offering/food prayer we also use (from The School of Practical Philosophy tradition) is:
Aum Paramaht mane namah Ah tah (at the commencement of a meal) and
Aum Paramaht mane namah Ee Tee ( at the conclusion of eg the meal)
[Please note that these phonetic renditions of the Sanskrit words are mine, and may well be corrected by a Sanskrit scholar].
Needless to say, such prayers/invocations must be recited with absolute heartfelt intent and awareness.
Sai Baba has said that reciting such prayers transmutes any disharmonious or discordant energies (my words) that may be in food.
Local Production of Food
This now brings me to a most vital matter – that of local food production.
As a matter of pure survival, England reportedly nearly ran out of food during The First World War when its supply lines from overseas were cut by hostilities. As a result, the ‘allotment’ scheme was instigated throughout Britain at the end of the war lest this ever happen again – whereby lands immediately adjacent to /behind urban housing was subdivided into small lots –each large enough to permit a family to grow vegetables, fruit and herbs and have a small toolshed.
With the onset of the COVID pandemic worldwide as from early 2021, there was panic as to possible shortages – the most extraordinary of which was that of ….toilet paper, first and foremost with panic buying stripping supermarket shelves the moment any was delivered…and later, the same with paper tissues…
Simultaneously, there was general public worry about all foodstuffs and other essentials eg petrol.
But it led to many turning to grow vegetables etc at home…which, during periods of extended lockdown (when not allowed to leave home) permitted even more time to do so. And this activity grew, and grew and grew to the present day when food-producing gardens are springing up, not only in home yards, but also on roadside verges, rooftops, balconies – anywhere that it is possible to grow within cities and towns. Following in the footsteps of the UK example, community gardens have sprung up on waste land and many of these are regularly featured on TV gardening shows – encouraging others to do likewise.
Passers-by are encouraged to help themselves to produce growing on roadside verges, and/or exchanging produce with others.
I recall being in first year of my Landscape Architecture degree at the University of New South Wales in 1977 and hearing an inspiring and prophetic lecture on the importance of Sydney having food-producing lands preserved to its west where there was a tradition of fruit & vegetable production on the fertile soils of the Nepean-Hawkesbury Rivers plains versus the ever-increasing subdivision of such lands for residential housing/urban development. It was a warning that the same as the British situation could happen one day all over again – but here in Western and South-Western Sydney.
And then, at the height of the initial COVID pandemic in 2021, supply lines in Australia at least were indeed compromised by increasing shortage of drivers and workers due to illness.
In Britain, a different crisis occurred after the exit of Britain from the European Union( aka ‘Brexit’) when service stations ran short of fuel due to many drivers economically forced to relocate to Europe. Which was a sobering reminder that supply lines can be affected in different and sometimes unpredictable ways.
Similarly, I attended a combined Permaculture/Biodynamics workshop weekend in our area in 2005 run partly by the inspirational David Holmgren (one of the founders of Permaculture) who continually drove home the same thesis: that all food production should remain local, for long-term food security, and that the world simply cannot keep freighting food thousands of miles burning up fossil fuel, polluting the atmosphere, and generating higher costs to the consumer.
So whilst there are commonsense reasons for security of continuity of food supply, economic feasibility and minimising pollution to the planet, a lot more has also been given birth to: a greater sense of community and cooperation, a delight and satisfaction in growing fresh food right where it is going to be consumed, and an increasing reverence for Mother Nature.
And this trend will almost certainly expand as people more and more have the freedom to work online from anywhere and have more time for leisure and recreation activities including gardening & farming versus long hours and expense formerly spent commuting to and from work. It is surely predictable that much office space around the world will be abandoned – giving governments the opportunity to re-purpose such for affordable housing. Country towns will undergo a revival from former city folk moving there for the benefits of cheaper real estate, more peaceful lifestyle, clean air, less traffic & pollution etc.
So all this impetus from the combination of absurdly increasing city area real estate prices, the COVID pandemic, ever-increasing over-population & pollution in urban areas and food & power costs will almost probably result incidentally in increasing food production by individuals and small groups at/near the point of consumption – hence permitting greater awareness & discernment about ‘provenance’ in relation to foodstuffs and the energies that have influenced it, and at lower costs/increase in bartering.