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Is Life a Vacation From Death, or Death a Vacation From Life
I went on a watermelon fast once, and another time on the Muktananda 7 day cleansing diet (only steamed vegetables, period). I had heard there were many beneficial effects and I wanted to drop some pounds. But then I learned that after WWII it was found that victims of the concentration camps gained weight faster if they fasted some days, ate the others. It seems that the body perceives it is starving it slows the metabolism way way down, so the net effect is weight gain.
Sooooo....I've finally gotten it together. Spend 5 or 6 hours a week at the gym doing low-impact aerobics and water aerobics and eating no carbs. I just started no carbs Monday, and I've lost 4 pounds! I'm happy!
There is no magic: it's diet and exercise. The good news is that the exercise builds muscle thereby raising metabolism and the no carbs gets rid of my cravings for same. I find if I eat no sugar or refined flour or starchy vegetables I don't want them.
Carl might have some alternative advice...he recently lost lots of weight...but I couldn't do what he did.
Good luck to you Ziggy!
Sooooo....I've finally gotten it together. Spend 5 or 6 hours a week at the gym doing low-impact aerobics and water aerobics and eating no carbs. I just started no carbs Monday, and I've lost 4 pounds! I'm happy!
There is no magic: it's diet and exercise. The good news is that the exercise builds muscle thereby raising metabolism and the no carbs gets rid of my cravings for same. I find if I eat no sugar or refined flour or starchy vegetables I don't want them.
Carl might have some alternative advice...he recently lost lots of weight...but I couldn't do what he did.
Good luck to you Ziggy!
Comments
Assuming that ‘I’ am alive, I reckon “death is a vacation from life”. Although vacations can be pretty chaotic. Hmm…
What do you see?
Life – stirs – needs – takes - work
Death – settles – satiates – gives – rest
(Perhaps!… I nearly wasn’t brave enough to try post that.)
‘Need’ calls us into action to satiate, but we all know too well that contentment is fleeting. So I would agree that death is the vacation, the rest from action. But it seems that 'not acting' doesn’t last ‘long’ and will emerge into action again. Like the swing of a pendulum... the stillness is when it reaches its boundary before it helplessly continues the only way it can.
Due to our survival instinct’s bias towards action, more often we tend to need reminding of sameness and that all things return to stillness. Those who are drawn to a taoist viewpoint find this soothing. But perhaps the most lingering stillness lays in surrendering to that which is without substance, which in turn means accepting feeling drawn to fill the void. Phew.. wish me luck.
My best "vacations" are the ones when I've let go of expectations, and am simply totally present in the moment. (Try scheduling a flight to mindfulness on United Airlines!)
It sounds to me like you won’t need any. When we know what needs to be, we can’t help but follow. I guess it all hinges on ‘gut level knowing’.
Of course, neither is true in the sense of ‘[chref=56]profound sameness[/chref]’ . But, our nervous system evolved to tune into ‘difference’, and so we can’t help make mountains out of molehills. So, couldn’t we say that ‘ease’ and ‘difficulty’ are likewise illusion. One revolves into the other before our very eyes… within our very eyes. [chref=58] The straightforward changes again into the crafty, and the good changes again into the monstrous[/chref].
I marvel at how the disconnect between what we can see and what we actually feel offers us unending ways to ‘work it out’.