When we search for the origins of the internal physical illnesses
[1] –
not those caused by injuries – we need to take into account that for "the
cause of physical illness we must ultimately seek it in the spirit going
astray in the organism." [2]
But if we include in our investigation the possibility that faulty nutrition
has caused or contributed to the occurrence of an illness, then we
immediately notice a contradiction with the above statement, because food
and drink obviously belongs to the realm of physical influences. However,
this is only an apparent contradiction. If we survey our food preferences
and food habits more thoroughly we can notice that they are to a large
extent the result of our soul-spiritual attitude towards food, which is
consequently the result of the manner in which we understand the world, our
own being, and the role of nutrition.
For that reason we can arrange the influences that contribute to the rise
of an internal physical illness into three categories: spiritual influences,
soul or psychological (emotional) influences, and physical influences. Only
the cumulative effect of these three types of influences will result in such
state of internal metabolic disorder which will lead to the emergence of a
disease.
Spiritual Imbalance between Surrender and Rejection of Food
If we look at the picture of the
FOURFOLD HUMAN BEING
we can notice that the spiritual core of our being – our ego – is seating as
a lord on the top of three other bodies – the astral body, the etheric body,
and the physical body. The ego enables us to have self-awareness – that is,
the ability of understanding of our own being in relation to the rest of the
world. But this is not the only relation we have to be aware of. By the help
of thinking we can get to know also our own inner world which is composed
from the mutual interrelations and collaboration among the ego-organization,
the astral body, etheric body, and physical body. However, this is not an
easy task at all. The reason for difficulties which are hindering us to know
ourselves is the fact that the four members of our constitution have come
into existence in the various stages of cosmic evolution:
- The physical body came into existence on the
Old Saturn and has passed through three further metamorphoses;
- The etheric body came into existence on
the Old Sun and has passed through two further metamorphoses;
- The astral body came into existence on the
Old Moon and has passed through one further
metamorphosis;
- The ego came into
existence as late as the present Earth.
Thus we can see that the ego is the youngest and the most inexperienced
member of our human constitution. It is still as a small child learning how to
understand and manage properly the older bodies – astral, etheric and physical
body. In other words, the present man is like a very inexperienced 'boss' in
charge of the ever more complex 'departments' when moving down through the
hierarchical structure of human organization.
As is explained in
THE
ESSENCE OF HUMAN HEALTH, we have a task to balance between extremes in a
multitude of characteristics of human personality. In this way we attain
appropriate virtues. According to Aristotle "virtue is human capacity or
skill guided by reason and insight, which in relation to the human being
holds the mean between the too-much and the too-little."
[3] Nowhere
is this so evident than in the realm of nutrition, where we can swing
between two extremes:
- food indulgence (surrendering to the pleasures of the world);
- asceticism in relation to food (rejecting the pleasures of the world).
Imbalance can also manifest as indulgence in specific foods and
simultaneously rejection of other foods. The effect of any extreme in regard
to food consumption has a weakening effect on our whole being.
Here we need to clarify that this polarity doesn't refer to our
food
preferences which are outcome of our personal sympathies and antipathies
(thus belonging to the soul realm presented below), but about our
mental
attitude towards nutrition. It makes a great difference to our general
attitude towards food if we see it as the fuel for our body, or if we
develop a spiritual-scientific understanding of the role of nutrition, the
outlines of which are given on this website.
The forces of our ego enable us to ponder and reflect on our behaviour,
including our eating preferences and habits. If we do this we will soon
notice that we have little impact on what happens inside our body after the
ingestion of specific food or drink. Contrary to this we have great impact
on our body via our nutritional choices. These choices can be guided either
by unconscious eating habits and semi-conscious food preferences, or by a
proper understanding of the mysterious workings inside our organism,
including the knowledge of the consequences of spiritual imbalance,
manifesting as food indulgence or asceticism. [4]
Psychological Imbalance in Enjoyment of Unsuitable Food
If we focus our attention to our feeling life we immediately notice that
"the soul world is actually constructed of sympathies and antipathies."
[5]
"To a greater or lesser degree, we develop sympathies and antipathies with
all that approaches us as human beings in this world. We have our vague
undefined feelings, slight inclinations or disinclinations."
[6] This holds
true also in the case of all foods and drinks we consume.
For our soul life is characteristic in that it is not as clear as our
thinking; it can be compared with the state of our consciousness when we
dream. In fact, even in our waking state we are always dreaming by the means
of our feelings. "The dreamlike experience of feeling which comes to
expression in sympathies and antipathies aroused by different forms of life,
by forms of art or of nature, or in sympathies and antipathies connected
more with the bodily organs and arising in us through smell or taste or
through a sense of well-being or comfort – all this weaving activity belongs
to the soul." [7]
This half-conscious state of our soul life is the first challenge when we
want to review our food preferences. It would not be human to not enjoy what
we eat and drink. But there is more than enough evidence that many people in
modern societies can enjoy consuming very low quality foods and drinks which
are not contributing to their well-being. Modern people have
lost the ability to sense what is good or harmful for their bodies –that is,
an ability to protect against any harmful thing that is entering into them
from the outside world.
How did this situation came about? Our life of feelings, including
sympathies and antipathies for various foods and drinks, is an expression of
the astral body. As is mentioned above our ego is the most inexperienced
member of our constitution; for that reason we can easily deceive ourselves
when we decide which food and drink suits our needs. In addition our astral
body is also not yet so developed as our etheric and physical bodies are. In
fact, we could say that from one perspective "the astral body is the part of
man that shows most clearly the non-divine. The etheric body is more divine,
for man does not have so great an influence on that, and the physical body
is the most divine of all. Whereas in his astral body man seeks all kinds of
pleasures and can have all sorts of desires that have a harmful effect on
the physical body, even today his physical body is still such a wonderful
instrument that it can withstand heart poisons and other harmful influences
of the astral body for decades. And so we have to admit that because of all
these things that occur in the human astral body it has become the worst
part of man. Whoever looks deeper into human nature will find that
the
deepest causes of illness lie in the astral body and in its bad effects on
the etheric body, and by way of the etheric body on the physical body." [8]
The most common example of such an effect is when we enjoy in food or
drink what is to a lesser or greater degree harmful to our body. But there
exist another, more hidden way of harming our body, when we dislike specific
food or drink which would benefit us. For example, nowadays we have more and
more children in affluent societies who do not like to eat specific
vegetables or fruit – often not just one, or two, but a great number of
them. Although a child might not become ill immediately, we need to know
that there are consequences of improper diet which manifest only after years
or even decades. In any case "we make ourselves weak with regard to nature
when we reject her substances" [9] which
are entering us via natural food and drink. Therefore the modern trend of
rejection of products of nature goes hand in hand with the consumption of
junk food. Both trends are expressions of psychological imbalance in the
domain of food preferences that are paving the way to the onset of a
disease.
Physical Imbalance through Improper Eating Habits
As has been presented above, our food choices are guided by our
overall attitude towards food. But after we have established an improper
eating habit, our body is, on a daily basis, exposed to disturbances due to:
- imbalance between what one eats and what one can
digest (i.e., between activities of poisoning and de-poisoning presented
in FOOD AS 'POISON');
- one-sided stimulation of specific metabolic processes with their
tendencies towards formation of an illness (presented in the NUTRITION AND 'INNER PATIENT').
In the activities of human digestion and metabolism there are involved
numerous metabolic processes. In the case of digestion they work from
'outside' on the food which moves through the digestive tract, while in the
second case the nutrients became an integral part of the metabolic processes
that are evolving and spreading in all directions inside our body. Both of
these metabolic processes can get out of control and consequently create an imbalance
in our inner environment.
In our inner environment there are continuously occurring imbalances due
to various outer influences. This is especially true in the case of intake
of food and drink. As science puts it, each time "when a meal is consumed, there is a
homeostasis-disturbing influx of fuels into the bloodstream."
[10] But this does not cause the appearance of illness,
because "whenever an imbalance occurs, regulatory systems become active to
restore optimum conditions, usually by a process known as 'negative
feedback' in which a deviation from the normal level is detected and
initiates changes that bring the level back to where it should be."
[11]
In other words, we will not become ill if we eat something wrong once. We
can even eat wrong foods more often without developing an illness. But when
we establish an eating habit which does not suit our individual needs and
digestive capabilities then we are repeating such an improper pattern week
after week, month after month, year after year, until our ability to
maintain the homeostatic
balance of our internal bodily environment is seriously impaired or even
lost. Only then does a disease emerge! Therefore we can conclude that diet
will contribute to the emergence of an illness when one, for a long period,
enjoys eating too large quantities of unsuitable food of low quality.
When we take into the account that "the glands are the expression of the
etheric body and the nervous system is the expression of the astral body" [12] and
that both, the glands and the nervous system, are involved in the control
of homeostasis, then we can see another link among an unhealthy desire of
the astral body, a bad habit of the etheric body [13] and
an internal disease of the physical body.
For complementary perspectives see:
♦ DIET AS A THERAPY
♦ LOSS OF HEALTHY EATING INSTINCTS
