The workshop was advertised as:
‘Moving From Sedation To Living On Soul Vibration – Rites Of Passage’.

From the content of Genesis’ website, I had no idea what to expect.

I was more or less just accompanying my wife Fiona who was going to make a documentary of the workshop and report on her own personal experiences (you can find details of the workshop on her site).

Generally, I do like challenges and workshops, and it had been a while since the last one.

this is me at the last day of the workshop - end of Nov - before the big changes

And on some level, I was at a point where a change to my lifestyle seemed to be something worthwhile to consider.

I was overeating on a ‘standard’ omnivore diet, binging from the fridge and biscuit cupboard, and gaining weight constantly.

I guess my BMI (body mass index) with an estimated 28 was well into the ‘overweight’ region; even being 1.83 m (over 8 ft) tall, my weight of over 93 kg (appr. 14 st 9 lbs) was definitively slowing me down.

Theoretically, I thought I knew about healthy eating, because, apart from many other qualifications, I have a diploma in Diet & Nutrition – but in real life, this had no effect on my eating habits.

Just to repeat: I was totally unprepared for what the workshop really was about.

The Friday evening was about the introduction to the two days of the ‘bootcamp’, to be prepared for eventualities, and about a assessment of each individuals fitness, and the proper preparation and use of the ‘salt water flush’. The goal of the workshop was to step the eating habits one step up towards freedom from food; i.e. from cooked food onmivore to raw food vegetarian; from raw food to living of fruit alone, and then to juices, and further – starting with the first day of the workshop.

The practical part started on Saturday morning at 5am with the actual salt water flush, and continued with physical exercises designed to carry each participant way beyond any pre-perceived limits (I must admit this was really hard work and totally exhausting for me).
The day ended with motivational talks by Genesis.

Sunday morning – again at 5am – saw another salt water flush, and more physical exercises (phew!! more hard work). And a final talk by Genesis about the downfalls of processed food, and the way ahead.

This guy is a brilliant teacher and motivator, who really knows how to deliver the message.

During these days I ate just one carrot and an orange, plus drank plenty water.  I must say that I have spend days in the past during which I virtually did not eat anything until tea time, so that was nothing particular diffficult for me. Although i had never in my recent past eaten so little.

Homework was to continue with the salt water flushes for the next five days, and to continue with a strict raw food diet focussed on fresh fruit and juices during that time – which we (my wife and I) did.
Since then we are eating mainly raw food daily (definitively over 98% raw), and are now enoying our new raw lifestyle.

first time on the scales - 1 month after the bootcamp

One month later, which happened to be on Christmas day: I got some new scales, and weighted myself for the first time, and the result was amazing – just below 80kg (appr. 12 st 8 lbs).
This is an estonishing estimated weight loss of 13 kg (appr. 2 st) in just over four weeks!
And without any hardship, no deprivation of tasty food, or extreme exercise; and despite continuing to prepare cooked and fried meals for the kids (who as a side effect started to accept salads and freshly juiced drinks as well   )

In these last four weeks I simply felt lighter, stood straighter, had general more energy.

We are continuing the raw food lifestyle, and are having fun with it.

smoked scottish salmon on mooli with wasabi, dill and lemon

On Christmas, day we started off with a (nearly*) raw brunch:
smoked Scottish salmon (my first animal product in these four weeks) on oat crackers*, with  mooli, mushrooms, wasabi, dill, and lemon, together with one glass of bubbly*.

coleslaw with brussel sprouts, red cabbage, parsnips and carrots

Christmas dinner was a raw nut loaf with a coleslaw of Brussel sprouts, red cabbage, parsnips and carrot (just olive oil, no majo) with guacamole – (plus two roast potatoes* and other trimmings* borrowed from the more traditional cooked dinner the rest of the family was eating).

 My advice: don’t take things too serious during your transition to total raw food, and enjoy every new discovery of appetizing raw food combinations. Eating raw is fun. Get inspired by raw food recipes but don’t get hung up on replicating those ‘gourmet’ raw food ones with all those exotic ingredients. The simpler the better.

And do book the next available workshop with Genesis - you’ll never know where the changes will lead you.

update: 7 weeks after the retreat – my weight is down to about 78kg and seems to stagnate; I feel I have reached some emotional barrier which makes it more difficult for me to focus on this pure raw food lifestyle.

Caveat: if you have watched the articles and video documentation of the workshop, do not attempt to do this transition just based on this information alone – there is far more to it than any video or textual instruction can teach. You will be very likely to meet  major obstacles much earlier than anticipated. This is not a weight-loss diet – it might happen, but weight loss is not the main goal for this transition.

Disclaimer:This article is not designed to provide medical advice or professional services. It is intended to be for educational use only. The information provided in this article is not a substitute for professional care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or a disease. If you have, or suspect you may have, a health problem you should consult your doctor.

SHREK: No! Layers! Onions have layers. Ogres have layers. Onions have layers. You get it? We both have layers.

The obstacles that separate us from enlightenment also form layers of various energetic composition – and have to be dealt with individually with specialized methods – there is no panacea!

If you have read ‘The Four Agreements’ by Don Miguel Ruiz, you might know that your reactions are guided by the way you agreed, at a very early age, to certain pattern and conditioning by those whom you trusted to be superior to yourself.
Every single one of these agreements forms a layer.

Every time we make one of these agreements, it removes us further away from who we really are. As we grow older, these agreements form layer after layer after layer ….

Each of these layers can have very different ‘energy’ to it.

To make my point clear, let me go over to the physical world and compare this to archaeology – some ancient artifact is covered by different layers of debris, mud, slime, hard crusts, rubbish, concrete, more slime, scrap metal, compost, gravel, ………

To get that cleared and removed to get to the core, the ancient artefact, you would need to use more than one single method – particular as you don’t want to risk and damage the core.

You would start with a heavy excavator to remove the rubble, then use a pick-axe and spade, and the little trowels. You can then investigate what you have unearthed, and try to make sense of it. If you are satisfied with your explanation, this layer is no longer of any interest to you, and you proceed with the next one.

The next layer can have a totally different structure and composition.

( more to come …
- - - work in progress )

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

The Buddha

This holds true also for an open source program such as wordpress.

I will put it this way: the wordpress software, ie. the core program, is the subconsciousness. We know it is there, but generally we are not aware of it and don’t understand how it works. And, unless something goes wrong, we don’t really want to know.

And in a way, you could see that all the programmers and organizers of wordpress.org  as an open source software  are a kind of  ’creator’ who is well above all and who has put all this out for us to work with. This is not unlike some interpretation of G.O.D. (greater organized design) who made us but also gave us the freedom and intelligence to change the program.

Now, there a many many thousands of blogs out there, using wordpress.org software to program there own way of expression.

What every blog software does, is to take a lot of input in (the posts, pages, articles, pictures and so) and arrange and present them in a way that is personal and special for the individual (programmer).

In wordpress, these are the php-files, such as index.php, single.php, functions.php, comments.php, and so on.

This is analogue to the conscious mind which does exactly the same – gathering input (through our senses), storing it (memory),  sorting it, and creating specific output, based on a hidden program.

The ‘sorting program’ is build upon past experiences, ways we accepted from our parents, teachers, the society, religion, and so forth.

Think of the primary output as the HTML code that is generated by the wordpress php files. If you look at that on a screen, it seems pretty ‘bland’, uniform, not very interesting.

This is where the themes of wordpress come in: they individualize the output in a way that is again personal to the individual designing them. They add the CSS styles, and make the output colorful, creative, enjoyable (or not, if you don’t like the theme).

(Look up CSS Zen Garden if you are not familiar with css.)

Again, i like to compare this to the human mind. The ego will use its ‘css style sheet’ and ‘color’ any message it receives from the mind, and will give it an individual meaning.

Just present a piece of information to a group of people and watch how they react – you can be sure to get a whole range of different reactions.

The good thing with this model is, that we have the power and opportunity to change the programs, the php files, the themes, the css at any time.

As a programmer – and we all are our own programmers ! (even if we don’t like the programming results) – you can adapt the wordpress files, change your theme, and tweak the style sheets at any time.

This is the fantastic opportunity when you host your own wordpress blog (ie. when you are an individual in control of your life), it gives you control over ‘consciousness, mind, and ego’, to stay within the model.

Those who run the free blogs on wordpress.com, on the contrary, have not this level of control. They have to use what they get offered by somebody else (ie. the makers of wordpress.com, the filter programs that filter all the html input in the posts, the providers of the free themes you can choose from, and so on). They have a limited choice of  ‘conscious decisions’, ‘ways of expression’, ‘influence’.

Sounds very familiar with real life, where the expression of the ‘masses’ are pre-programmed and limited by a small elite (tv and media, politicians, church, tradition, teachers, …).

Coming back to the beginning of this post, where I compared the wordpress software with the subconsciousness, I hold the vision that when enough conscious people (programmers) join and work together, they can change the very core programming of the consciousness, the subconsciousness of mankind – also known as ‘common consciousness’.

- Buddha

The seven main chakras and their influence are:

Crown chakra; Sahasrara:
location: top of the head;
representation: 1000 lotus petals;
colour: purple or white;
gemstone: diamond, quartz or amethyst;
element: thought;
gland(s): pituitary;
area of influence: consciousness.

Third eye chakra; Ajna:
location: between eyebrows, slightly up;
representation: two lotus petals;
colour: indigo;
gemstone: sapphire, lapis lazuli;
element: light;
gland(s): pineal;
area of influence: (psychic) vision.

Troat chakra; Vishuddha:
location: throat;
representation: sixteen lotus petals;
colour: blue;
gemstone: turquois, aquamarine;
element: ether;
gland(s): thyroid;
area of influence: sound, communication.

Heart chakra; Anahata:
location: in the middle of the chest at heart level;
representation: 12 lotus petals;
colour: green with pink;
gemstone: malachite, green jade, rose quartz;
element: air;
gland(s): thymus;
area of influence: love, balance.

Solar plexus chakra; Manipura:
location: solar plexus;
representation: 10 lotus petals;
colour: yellow;
gemstone: citrine, amber;
element: fire;
gland(s): adrenal, pancreas;
area of influence: will, transformation.

Sacral chakra; Svadhisthana:
location: top of pubic bone;
representation: 6 lotus petals;
colour: orange;
gemstone: carnelian;
element: water;
gland(s): ovaries, testicles;
area of influence: creativity.

Root chakra; Mulhadra:
location: between anus and genitals;
representation: 4 lotus petals;
colour: red;
gemstone: hematite, ruby, garnet;
element: earth;
gland(s): adrenal;
area of influence: survival, manifestation.

The goal of spiritual practice is to open and energize all chakras to allow a full integration of the physical and spiritual body. One way to achieve this is to meditate on the individual chakras and visualize them as opened flower blossoms glowing with their respective colors. The use of the corresponding gemstones can enhace this process.
I usually focus on the pictures of the chakras painted in vibrant colors on silk in form of a beautiful flowing wall hanger while I meditate.

For all spiritual practices it is best to set-up a sacred space or temple where you can display the objects that represent your goals for you. In this space you can be safe and undisturbed during meditation.

We do not dare taking things apart, because we still have no clue how the finished puzzle will look like.
Now- sometimes we encounter a guru, or a teacher, who succeeded in solving a part of the puzzle for himself, and who is enthusiastic and willing to share the picture of this part with us.
If we trust this teacher, we can allow ourselves to undo a few small bits of our puzzle, and to put them together in a new way that will open up a greater vision towards the whole.
Each one of us has a different puzzle to solve – no two puzzles are exactly the same. However, they have large areas in common.
Remember – the guru cannot solve the puzzle for you, he can only hold up small picture details like bits of a collage, or actually he can only describe these details of the puzzle with his own words.

And it comes even harder: the puzzle of our life is not two dimensional – it is multi-dimensional.
And there are way too many bits to put together in a lifetime …

So – go ahead and look for your guru – a man with a vision greater than yours; a man whose language you understand; a man who inspires you to keep working on your puzzle.

“If the student is ready – the guru will appear.”

(For the politically correct: If you are female just substitute he with she, man with woman etc. Thank you.)

See you in class …

PS:
The guy in the picture is the Indian yogi and mystic Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev (www.sadhguru.org). He is featured in the book ‘Midnight with the Mystic’ by Cheryl Simoni and Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, 2008.
But be aware – gurus come in all forms and disguises.
___
PPS: It is all in our language:
“I am picking up the pieces as I go along.” – “I didn’t see it this way before.” – “Everything seems to be falling into place.” – “Everything is fallen to pieces.” – “I have got a greater vision.” – “This is a real eye-opener.” – “I can see much clearer now.”

Repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem, but backfire for the very people who need them the most.

Joanne Wood
University of Waterloo

WOW!!
That is similar to what some personal development coaches already said: you have to remove your inner ‘obsticles’ first, all these old believes, agreements, blockages and so on.

Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary
transformation:

1: an act, process, or instance of transforming or being transformed
2: false hair worn especially by a woman to replace or supplement natural hair
3 a (1): the operation of changing (as by rotation or mapping) one configuration or expression into another in accordance with a mathematical rule ; especially : a change of variables or coordinates in which a function of new variables or coordinates is substituted for each original variable or coordinate
(2): the formula that effects a transformation
b: function 5a
c: an operation that converts (as by insertion, deletion, or permutation) one grammatical string (as a sentence) into another ; also : a formal statement of such an operation
4: genetic modification of a bacterium by incorporation of free DNA from another bacterial cell ; also : genetic modification of a cell by the uptake and incorporation of exogenous DNA 
 
transforming:

transitive verb

1 a: to change in composition or structure
b: to change the outward form or appearance of
c: to change in character or condition : convert
2: to subject to mathematical transformation
3: to cause (a cell) to undergo genetic transformation
 
My post is concerned with number 1 of the explanation of the noun: an act, process, or instance of transforming or being transformed – obviously correlated to the verb number 1 a to c: to change in composition or structure;  to change the outward form or appearance of;  to change in character or condition.
These transformation can take place:

• first on the physical level ( body; clothes; surrounding; machines; furniture; your dwelling; raw materials into a composition, like food into a meal) and
• second on an intangible level (soul, character, life, mind, thinking process).

Both aspects can be accelerated by using power tools – either physically powered mechanical tools, such as drills, jack-hammers, chain saws or the like – or metaphysical tools, such as top seminars, hypnosis, guided meditation, drugs, or similar things.

The word transformation originates from the Latin  ‘trans’ – meaning ‘through’ – and the word ‘formare’ – meaning ‘building a form’, ‘structure’. therefor transformation means to me ‘going through different forms’, ‘changing form’. Nothing ever is static, we are constantly changing – our appearance, our minds, our surrounding.

This blog is about applying tools – power tools – to this process.