POLARITY OF ORGANIC LIFE AND LIFE OF CONSCIOUSNESS
One of the most important polarities in the human being is the polarity
between the organic processes of growth, maintenance and regeneration of his
physical body, and his inner life of consciousness, that is his activities of
perception, sensation and reason.
There are two organs which manifest this polarity: liver and brain.
The liver is the organ which of all human organs has the greatest power
of regeneration: it can grow back to its normal size even if three
quarters of its mass is destroyed. Other organs and body tissues can
only be regenerated by slow ongoing replacement of
old cells with new ones. We can designate these unconscious processes of renewal as human
organic life.
On the other side we have the brain. Here we find nerve cells which have lost the
ability to regenerate. [1] The brain with its associated sense organs is the seat of
mental activity and sensory perception. In spiritual science these activities are
characterised as human 'spiritual life' or as conscious activities.
If we look at a newborn baby, we can see that these two
organs are the most dominant. [2] The liver is the largest organ in the
trunk. This is not surprising because the child's main activity is to sleep and grow.
It can be also seen that the head of a baby is very large in relation to the
rest of the body. This makes sense if we know that a child has very important
tasks in his waking life: he needs to get to know the world around him, and he
needs to learn to speak and think. For this purpose he uses his sense organs of
vision, hearing, taste and smell, as well as his brain – all of them found in
the head.
The polarity between organic and spiritual life is expressed in the
following manner: By day we are awake in our head and our conscious life
is very active. Even if we don't move a lot, we feel tired in the
evening. Then we go to sleep and lose our consciousness. However, in the
morning we feel rested and refreshed. This is the effect of organic
processes of regeneration in the body active while we sleep.
[3]
We become tired because our conscious activities of perception, sensation, and
reason cause destructive processes in our body – they stimulate
breaking-down processes. These processes are an integral part of our
organism, but they need to be kept in balance with up-building, regenerative
processes. This balance is achieved by means of rhythmical exchange of waking and
sleeping, by breathing and by rhythmical intake of food.
"The chief characteristic of ordinary thinking
is that it injures the nervous system, and above all, the brain; it
destroys something in the brain. Every thought means that a minute
process of destruction takes place in the cells of the brain (neurons).
For this reason sleep is necessary for us, in order that this process of
destruction may be made good; during sleep we restore what during the
day was destroyed in our nervous system by thinking." [4]
ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FOOD AND STIMULANTS
Food enters into the digestive tract where it is gradually broken down before being
absorbed. [5] Already these activities of food
decomposition set into motion numerous metabolic activities associated with the
digestive system. After food substances enter the blood and lymph circulation
this stirs up an even larger number of metabolic processes which are essential
for the maintenance and functions of our whole body. In all this the liver is having
an indispensable role.
We already mentioned the exceptional capacity of regeneration that
the liver possesses. We can see this ability in the kingdom of plants
and some lower animals which can grow a lost limb or tail. This ability
of the liver becomes more understandable when we find out that the liver
is the ‘seat’ of the life forces in the human body, the forces which
enable growth, renewal, and maintenance of the cells and tissues in the
living organism. And the intake of food has the major impact on the
functions of the liver – that is, on its role to maintain life processes
in the human organism.
In comparison with this, stimulants can be absorbed directly through the skin, sense organs
and breath, or even injected into the blood. If taken through the mouth,
they are not broken down in the way food is; all they need is to be
dissolved in bodily fluids. Then they are absorbed through the walls of
the digestive tract into the bloodstream. Stimulants work through
changing our brain chemistry; they have a stimulating effect on our
state of consciousness. [6] This is evident in the
case of drugs like heroin, cocaine, etc., which change human
consciousness to a dramatic degree. But there are numerous more or less
subtle types of stimulants, all of them capable of affecting our brain
chemistry. This is the reason why they are so attractive and why people
become easily addicted to them. But the price of addiction is that it
causes our physical body to become too exhausted. If stimulants are used
to an excessive degree then we need a lot of life forces to repair the
damage done to the physical body.
Substances with a stimulating effect on our nervous system are
minerals. Often these are in the form of white powder or in the form of
pills or tablets. There are a few exceptions, like alcohol [7], coffee,
and tobacco, which we consume as liquids or smoke. However, scientists
have also found in these substances specific chemical compounds with
proven stimulating effects on the brain (e.g. caffeine in coffee, etc.).
We have various groups of stimulants with various degrees
of stimulating effect (from more to less strong): [8]
- Psychoactive drugs (heroin, cocaine, etc.)
- Alcohol, tobacco, white sugar and salt [9]
- Medicines (medical drugs)
- Food additives
- Mineral food supplements [10]
- Cocoa, coffee, tea
- Natural salt, whole sugar
- Dry herbs and spices
The presence of medicines on the list might surprise some people, but the fact is that they are mineral compounds which
change the brain chemistry as other forms of stimulants do. We can
easily see the effect they have on our consciousness in the case of
antidepressants or anti-psychotics, but not so easily with other medical drugs.
Besides, their presence in the list demonstrates that stimulants are
not always just negative. Medical drugs can be beneficial if they are
used when real need exists, if they are used in the smallest doses as
possible, and if people do not get dependent on them. Some stimulants,
such as herbs and spices, are even part of our daily diet. For sure, it
would be senseless to avoid them just because they have stimulating
effect on our brain. Sometimes we need stimulants to be able to do what
life circumstances demand from us – for example, coffee to keep us alert
in the night shift. In the end it is a question of having the right
balance between the conscious activities which are causing partial
exploitation of our physical organism and our individual power of
regeneration.
DIETARY CONCLUSIONS & PRACTICAL INSTRUCTIONS
In the Western world there is a trend towards excessive mineralisation of
food. This is evident in conventional food production with use of
food additives:
artificial preservatives, flavourings and colourings.
In most cases they are either mineral compounds extracted from
various organic sources, or made artificially by means of
chemical engineering.
Usually they are sold in the form of powder. Whenever we use such food additives
we add more mineral compounds to the food.
This is also the case with food supplements
in the form of white tablets. It makes no difference if they are made from
organic sources or not, in each case we have mineral crystalline substance
acting as stimulants. [11] However,
there are available natural food supplements such as plant elixirs, herb
mixtures, seaweeds, fish oil, etc. Also dried herbs, spices, and herb teas are
all traditional forms of natural ‘food supplements’. If there is a need for
additional essential minerals and vitamins, then the best way is to obtain them
in natural form – as much as possible.
In the developed countries there exists a new trend called
functional foods. These are foods which have
been ‘enriched’ with a particular substance regarded as beneficial for human
health (for example, orange juice with added calcium). This is just another
attempt to change food into medicine – but not in the right way, for the outcome
is less food and more minerals on our menus.
The final outcome of this trend is that people in affluent societies
are eating an ever increasing amount of stimulants – that is, mineral
substances – either in their food, or in addition to it. The way out is
the consumption of organic-natural-wholefoods. Organic
food has more naturally occurring trace minerals, but much less
added minerals in the form of food additives. Natural
food – such as vegetables, fruit, grains and legumes – are more
authentic food than food which has been highly processed, adulterated,
‘enriched’ by chemical additives, etc. The former we can still call
food, but for the latter one the term junk food is really a very
appropriate expression, for it is food of very low quality and full of
stimulative substances with an addictive character.
[12] Wholefoods have
more essential trace minerals than refined foods. In the case of highly
refined sugars such as white sugar, we indeed get only sugar crystals,
while all other essential trace minerals and vitamins are lost.
WARNING: You always have to put the above
practical dietary instructions inside the framework of
GENERAL NUTRITIONAL
GUIDELINES with the aim to know their limits when looking for a solution
of a specific nutritional problem. You also need to be familiar with
THE ROLE OF NUTRITIONAL GUIDELINES with the aim to avoid any one-sided conclusions.
