WWW.Vegan Inspiration.com
Dedicated to Peace on Earth Through Conscious, Healthy Living
Our Vegan Inspiration cookbook
is now available!
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Excerpts from the Foreword of Vegan Inspiration by We have arrived at an extraordinarily pivotal point. There are severe breakdowns occurring at every level of life on Earth. We see these as an old context dying, the cultural media expressing the death cries of an old, outmoded domain of existence whose time is completing. Yet there are also seemingly limitless breakthroughs occurring simultaneously all over our planet. It is a new time on Earth—and rapid consciousness, evolution is a new possibility. We are integral shamans and guides to people from many races, cultures, ages and income levels, and this is what we know: A contextual Shift is occurring now. If we are to move with this extraordinary opportunity, we must take responsibility to serve the evolution of ourselves and the world at the highest level possible, now. This means being the resolution through full embodiment of our awakened, authentic selves. This requires releasing the old context from every aspect of our lives, Beings and choices. It also entails immersing ourselves in integral life practices that support the awakening and transformation of our essential selves, our relationships and our world......... Thank you, Todd, for loving and nurturing everyone you feed and showing us through your book how to continue to do it for ourselves. Ever since Todd left a delectable pumpkin and seaweed soup (now evolved to the Thai Curry, p. 143) on the stove for us when we arrived on a rainy cold day, in 1989, on the south island of New Zealand, we’ve known without a doubt his food was healthy, delicious, and imbued with vitality. He’s made many beautiful meals for us and our students over the years, and we are so glad others will now be able to benefit from his knowledge (and recipes!). Thus my journey dynamically shifted as I began to unravel from my past—part of which was growing up on Oahu where the family business was one of the largest suppliers of animal-based foods to restaurants and hotels. While learning to navigate skillfully in new territory, I soon realized I was fascinated with exploring holistic practices and this new healthy eating style. As one thing led to another, I soon ventured into my first catering job at a workshop held at an intentional community in New Zealand where the principles of Total Integration were being shared. As these workshops became popular and my catering became more refined, my love of preparing and serving nurturing vegan delights to spiritually focused groups grew. Through my personal continuation of the diet and Integral practices, I noticed my quality of life increasing with more joy, well being, happiness and energy. This led me to an ongoing awakening and deepening with different teachers, ministers and swamis and an unfolding of catering opportunities in Hawaii, California and Europe. My trademark is to focus primarily on organic foods and healthy cooking with love. I have integrated lessons and information learned through my own major health challenges, working with many other wonderful, talented chefs, and ongoing explorations of spirituality and holistic health ............... Hi, I am Jia and I have contributed many of the recipes for this beautiful book Todd has so generously shared with me. I taught a vegan cooking school for fourteen years. I am the author of Celebrate Life! From the Heart of My Kitchen to Yours and the recipe author of May All Be Fed, Diet for a New World written by John Robbins. My journey as a vegan started in 1986 when I met my yoga teacher and spiritual guide, Kali Ray (Kaliji), founder of TriYoga®. Through her example, I opted for a diet based on plant foods. This diet is known as “vegan” and is based on the yoga principle of Ahimsa, meaning to be as harmless as possible.The Ahimsa Principle is not passive but meant to be a positive guide for meeting the challenges of daily life. A note from Veganandaji: Vegan Inspiration is a superlative cookbook, essential holistic health modalities overview, and a guidebook to key spiritual awakening principles. It realistically portrays the current ecological crisis of our planet and is intended to offer some integral awareness to creating a world more in harmony with the love in our hearts. It is a book I truly wish I could have had available to me much younger in life as I went through so much suffering, largely due to ignorance of, and non exposure to many physical and spiritual fundamentals of life. I pray it is of value for all who can receive it and helps make a profound and constructive difference in our lives, the lives of our children, this earth and all of nature’s animals and beauty. I have found that there is a universal calling deep within us of love, truth and freedom. In this culture (where time is believed to be money), life experience, and educational system this voice is mostly obscured, ignored and buried under layers of emotional pain, addictions, and false pleasure seeking. We live in a society rampant with co-dependence, shame, blame, fear, lust, greed and violence everywhere. To compound matters toxins have spread throughout our food supply, earth and air and factory farms produce products containing an enormous amount of suffering as well as toxins, animal antibiotics and unnatural hormonal stimulants.All these tend to keep us unaware of and to perpetrate the delusional hindrances, emotional afflictions and instinctual propensities that are at the root of our suffering, as they obscure this voice that is relentlessly calling within us. It is tremendously dangerous to our development and evolution as well as that of our planet and species to not take our inner life, our dynamic inner world into account, to see more clearly what is happening there. Vegan Inspiration is about dietary and lifestyle practices that become truly pleasurable, truly nurturing to ourselves, our bodies and caring for our Earth, while being and encouraging deeper awareness practice. Cleansing and integrating a lighter more sacred, higher vibration way of eating avails overcoming the “pleasure traps” of modern diets and can help develop skillful awareness in comprehending the underlying source of our thoughts, words and actions. Purifying the stains of the mind, habits of the ego and layers of the heart can allow a self actualized perspective that has profoundly effects our ability to authentically and effectively contribute needed changes to this world. The attractive power of the mind may start attracting new experiences of love and growth (evolution) when it is freed from dealing with returning past Karma or new Karma being reactively created over and over again. How may one be at Peace, have Peace of mind and support Peace on Earth? Only through determination and faith, choosing each step wisely with discriminating intelligence, making our spiritual evolution the highest priority, journeying into a deeper life and becoming a person that can serve humankind. This entails a healthy, hearty devotion, redirection of motive and minds attention to a willingness to live in integrity, answering that deeper yearning. As we consciously make choices to stop reactions and patterns that create more suffering and replace them with more and more gratitude and service Grace may then bless us with her incredible Divine love that makes it all so far beyond worthwhile. Many masters speak of a heaven state of consciousness where we live in the Holy beauty way of seeing the “bigger picture” and relate on a soul level. Sometimes called Heaven on Earth Consciousness, in this state there is a deep know-ability, an often obvious path and neurological connection with the universal web of life. It is said that awakening to this unity, that is there waiting within us, is why we are born, our noble purpose and who we really are! Many blessings on the journey home, Peace on Earth; Veganandaji
Diamond and River Jameson; Conscious Evolution, Now!
Vegan Chef Todd's Introduction to Vegan Inspiration Cookbook
My dedication to the “healing journey” quantumly accelerated in the late 1980s, by being introduced to the profound principles of Total Integration. I still remember clearly the life changing moment when Diamond Jameson, one of the facilitators at the Total Integration Institute, said to me, “How do you expect to have peace and happiness when you are eating pain and suffering?”—a principle I later came to know as Ahimsa in yogic tradition.
This new path of living freedom integrated a vegan whole food diet for health and energy reasons. It taught how to take responsibility, release addictions and limiting beliefs, and free the nervous system from contraction by surrendering to being in the unknown and letting go of control.
Co- Author Jia’s Introduction
John is a wonderful spokesperson for the factory farm animals and has changed many people’s lives through his writings, lectures and by his example. Where John and others have done a great job of educating so many people about the devastating truth of modern animal factory farming and the nutritional benefitsfi ts of a vegan diet, I share my gift of how to prepare delicious, nutritious vegan fare.
It is not always obvious which of our actions are doing harm. For example, when one buys cheese that is beautifully wrapped from their local market, what are they really buying? We know an animal has not been killed for this product, so why would it not be in alignment with Ahimsa? A closer look tells us a story of cruelty, abuse and disease. This is the life our factory farm animals must endure for their entire life. The story goes beyond the animals to our precious planet herself. Modern animal factory farming is causing major devastation of our Earth.
It gets down to, what is good for you and for me is also what is good for our Earth and all living beings............................
The Essential Message of Vegan Inspiration
(not in Book)
The first step in reconnecting with our true self lies in the willingness and choice to be fully present in our bodies. This presencing, or being aware of our whole physicality while at the same time feeling the spacious presence that is always around us is an end to ignorance. How may we engage in this practice consistently, in the now with toxic constipated bodies, stressed out and unbalanced hormonal systems and addictive avoidance patterns and choices? How may we engage fully in this choice when our nervous system/ emotional body is holding contraction, trauma and past wounds that are covered under addictive choices and avoidance strategies.
Our nervous system is meant to be a network to broadcast and receive information and love. To have deeper awareness and insight this network functions optimally in a sensitive state of release. This way we can fully feel each moment, in the moment and be guided to what’s true rather than the past conditioning of limiting beliefs and fears. Once again the importance of supportive dietary choices is major. Our minds are meant to be clear and focused on loving truth. Often though, acidic bodies create acidic thoughts which obscure the true nature of mind and the true nature of reality. Reality can also be obscured by transgressions of Karmic balance such as harmful thoughts, words, and actions. As the mind is purified and we are able to focus in the presence on our benevolent dreams and visions we can better see what’s the highest truth in each moment is to facilitate being in coherent resonance with Divine inspiration. There are many wisdom tradition terms for this including, "liberating insight", "spontaneous richness of the mind", "minds natural purity", "the perfectly attractive essence" and the non-artifiscial state".
Skillful practice in relationships, especially primary ones takes full clarity and presence. The basis of nurturing a loving authentic relationship includes, consistently telling the truth, doing what you say you’re going to do, taking full responsibility for feelings, being a good listener, being self directed, and knowing how to appreciate and be in gratitude. With so many patterns of abandonment and encroachment in many of our lives it takes all our consciousness and willpower to stay present, have appropriate discernment, and stay open to fully embracing each moment. Yet the rewards of true heart connection and intimacy are beyond exquisite. When a couple skillfully sees the egoic conditioning and mirroring, chooses out of the artifiscial state and alligns there heart and souls with Divinity the unimaginable life begins.
One of the most integral supportive practices one can engage in is the Yoga of singing devotional songs and mantra. These ancient seed syllables and phrases send coherent vibrations to our cells, allow contracted vibrations in our nervous system to easefully arise and clear, purify the mind, bring sweetness to the heart and are a call to allign to the hierarchical energies (Christ, Buddha, Krishna, Allah, Saints and Sages) for help and guidance. As our voices and words express allignment with Divine love so our actions and self empowerment benefit. One great principle of Yoga is Apaisunam, or absence of fault finding. This is one of the most powerful, self awareness and power building attunements, as we see how many opportunitys we have to take our attention off the imperfections of others and be present within ourselves! As inspired wisdom. liberating insights, love, compassion and service become the guideposts of our thoughts words and actions so does our own happiness and fulfillment manifest.
Veganandaji says "The more we serve the Divine the more the Divine serves us. Like attract alike."
Can we imagine a life filled with love, filled with freedom and peace within this context of modern society? What we can imagine and empower we can create with devotion and dedication, prayer and intention. Are we willing to step into each moment of unknown with full openness and focus on creating the reality that is our birthright? Can we join with others co-creating a unified field of love that transforms this world? Is there anything more important than being who we really are and embodying the part our souls have incarnated here to fulfill?
Favorite Quotes
Thus one starts working practically with cause and effect The improved feedback both from the external world and ones own subconscious gradually liberates mind's wealth, and, manifesting as compassion and inspired wisdom, such motivation will guide body and speech to further benefit others. From a foundation nof so much good, a strong attraction towards mind's full potential will arise as well as towards those having realised it..
The Way Things Are..Lama Ole Nydal
