Ella Magers:

Okay. Wow, Dr. Cousens, it is such an honour to have you with us today. Thank you so much for being here.

Dr. Cousens:

It is my joy. I like the smile on your face. It’s my joy that we should do this.

Ella Magers:

Yes. I’m a little awestruck. I know you usually like to start with a prayer of sorts. Can you tell us about that?

Dr. Cousens:

The prayer is about merging of the heavens and the earth and the heart and the mind. Okay? Because that’s missing today. We have what I call the wisdom of the heart. So that’s what we need to be able to listen to about health and holistic health is the wisdom of the heart. So here’s the prayer. [foreign language 00:01:07]. So feel the merging of heart and mind.

Ella Magers:

That’s beautiful.

Dr. Cousens:

Okay, good. You’re ready.

Ella Magers:

Thank you. Setting the tone. Wow, there’s so much I want to speak to you about, with you about today. What I’d like to start with, though, is something that really fascinates me that I want to really dive into today is the intersection section of science and spirituality, specifically as related to our diet. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you knew, Dr. Cousens, at the age of four that you wanted to be a medical doctor and then at eight you began having mystical experiences.

Dr. Cousens:

Yes.

Ella Magers:

Can you share your journey as related especially to diet, both from kind of a biological nutrition standpoint, the medical standpoint and a spiritual standpoint?

Dr. Cousens:

So it actually started when I was one. This is in 1943, and I had TB, which was fatal for most people at that age. There were no antibiotics, but somehow I survived. I had this question, what is this mystery of death? So that motivated me. Then at four, nobody in my family had ever thought of being a doctor. Okay? I want to be a doctor. What’s that about? Then visions and then when I was 16, I began kind of meditating spontaneously and my brother was killed in a car accident when I was 16 and that really, really set me deeper into what is this mystery of death? Then my father died at 21, my mother when I was 33, the picture got bigger. What is this going on? So I was always searching for it. So I met Swami Muktananda when I was 33 years old. My mother died a few months before and I received what we call a shakti, a special meditation where energy is transferred and it awoken a deep understanding and I was given the mystery of death.

Now what I mean given, you can say there’s no death for the self. Anybody can say that, but to know it, to feel it in every cell is what happened. But also the spiritual energy called Kundalini was awakened and then I had the question … No, the voice of God spoke to me and said, “You should learn to eat.” This is where it all came from. “You should learn to eat in a way that supports this sacred feminine Kundalini energy.” That’s it. That’s how it started. God said, “Do it.” So I don’t know. I was already vegan, but there’s more to it. So I began exploring and I was working with thousands of people who were involved in spiritual life and I just said, “Okay, how do I go about … what’s the best diet here?” By 1983, after a 40 day kind of fast, it got very clear that the best diet was at least an 80% live food, 100% vegan diet.

So that was the basis of my first book in 1986, Spiritual Nutrition and Rainbow Diet. So what did I learn? Okay, so as I saw with many people, including myself, that when you eat, I’m going to start more grossly, animals, you’re eating their pain and their misery and their fear literally goes into their flesh and that energy goes into your subtle system. I don’t want to get too technical by it, but there are what we call channels of energy and there’s a central channel of energy going up called the [inaudible 00:05:57] but again, this isn’t about a discussion in Kundalini. But the point is, I saw that meat, fish, chicken and dairy clogged the channels.

Now understand, I’m working with thousands of people as a doctor, helping them balance the energies of Kundalini and the spiritual energy and in the Torah we call it [foreign language 00:06:21], just the same energy, different languages. Holy spirit, another point. So it got very clear that if things got way out of hand, people would spontaneously eating meat. Why are they eating meat? Oh, I get it. Just slowing down the flow of the energy. So was an easy step to say, “Okay, if you really want to make things work right and amplify the flow of energy, you want to eat as light as possible and not take the energy of death, misery, fear and pain, also the animal ego, into yourself.” I mean, animals have souls in the also have ego structure, but it’s not the same as humans in terms of the evolutionary step.

Everybody’s equal. The souls are in everybody. That’s one reason we don’t eat animals because you’re taking their soul. But they’re at different levels of evolution. So it got clear to me that I don’t want me taking an animal soul into myself and the animal ego because it lowers the consciousness. I want to take the energy of plants and it brings light. Well, because what do plants live off? Light. The live off sunlight. So the idea is to take as much sunlight into you and transfer that sunlight into spiritual light. That’s really the basis of the diet. When you kind of understand it that way, we are beings of light. Now, I am a four year sun dancer and 11 year spirit dancer in the Native American tradition and in the final sun dance, I did what was known as the eagle dance. I’ll explain it and then I’ll explain where I’m going.

Ella Magers:

Okay.

Dr. Cousens:

So the eagle dance, you have hooks in your chest. This is just what you do. This is sun dance, but it’s for all four rounds. For four days you have the … they’re tied to a tree.

Ella Magers:

Hooks in your skin?

Dr. Cousens:

Yeah. Take my baby finger here and they’re that thick and they’re through and then there’s ropes around those things and they’re through your skin. Right?

Ella Magers:

Wow, okay.

Dr. Cousens:

It’s not as bad as it sounds, but I’m trying to say something else here is that, okay, I’m doing this for four days. I don’t leave the centre, I am tied to that tree. If people wonder, I took an enema before, so I didn’t have to go to the bathroom. Just so people know. Like, “How do you do that?” Okay? So the point I’m going with is that by the end, there’s about 70 people started, there were about 13 people doing the eagle dance, or 17. I was the only one to complete and I didn’t get some and there are people with much darker skin than me. What happened? How do I have … and I didn’t just complete, I just had boundless energy. It’s like people are just dragging and it’s like, “What’s with him?” That’s what people were asking.

I mean, these are all buddies, but, “What’s with you that you’re just so full energy and you’re not eating or drinking for four days?” If you choose. I mean, that’s the [inaudible 00:10:03]. What I realised is that because of my live food diet, I had gotten used to taking the sunlight as food. So I was actually in the inner four days, instead of being tired and worn out, I was actually full of energy. I realised that I was eating the sunlight directly and that’s where that can take you. There’s been a little research on that. I said, “Well, okay, I’m a scientist. What’s going on here?” There was a famous cancer research in Germany and what she noticed, again, because she put on people on live food for healing cancer, she said when they’re put on live food, they could be on the sunlight four times longer.

So she came to the same conclusion that on live food, our body changes and can actually absorb the sunlight. So it’s kind of a message that what I’m saying is that live food holds the sunlight. When you feed it the animals and give it to an animal, that’s totally lost. When you cook it, you lose a whole lot of it. But when it’s raw, it’s full of sunlight energy. Now, you get some of that with the vegan, which is good. Now if we take that in terms of spiritual life, you’re taking all this incredible energy into your system and it becomes your food. So that is a huge move, a power that’s moving the spiritual energy. So that’s how it works. So when you’re eating the live food, you’re obviously eating vegan because you don’t want to take, as I said, energy of pain, misery and death and the egos and all those things into your system, and this isn’t just me saying, this is kind of the general yoga teaching as well and other teaching, then you’re going to amplify the flow of the spiritual energy.

That’s really the direct connection. The scientific connection is based on a lot of my observations of how it worked for people. We call it clinical observation. There isn’t much, but I have thousands of people where I’ve observed this is what happens, besides myself. I’m a researcher, I’m going to research anything, it’ll be on me first, I’ll take the risk first, and that’s kind of how it works. That’s how I really discovered it and the science was trial and error. It’s like clinical science. Now, we can talk about a variety of other things and the researchers have also found that when you’re in live food you have about 300% more energy. That’s been proven a variety of times and they started with the mice and they found when they fed the mice cooked food, junk food and they took the same mice and they fed them live food, they had three times the endurance.

So how does that translate? When I was captain of an undefeated college football team and national football hall of fame, so I wasn’t a wimp, I could do 70 pushups, which is more than anybody else could do, and hundred hundred sit-ups. Okay, so that’s 20 years old. Now I’m nearly in my 80th year and it’s like, okay, I regularly do 1,800 pushups. Okay? How did that happen? How did I get stronger with age? How does that happen? So you look back, there you are with your diet and you’re eating all vegan, really close to 100% live food and all that is filling with you with lots and lots of energy. So I’m kind of a living example of that. Plus, you get more flexible. When I’m playing football, I could barely get my hands past my shins. Now I can put my hands flat on the floor. So you get more flexible, you have more endurance and you actually get stronger.

Now, there’s a catch to this. That doesn’t happen to everybody and that takes us into a topic you kind of mentioned before. It’s like, well, how do you flourish as a vegan? Well, in my books, I make it clear and I have lots of charts which we’re not going to do here, but I’m going to explain. We are different body types. In [inaudible 00:15:20] we say [inaudible 00:15:22] are thin type person who can get nervous and get thrown out of balance and [inaudible 00:15:27] is just like a bull. Okay? The tiger is the pit of fiery person. Okay? So what’s the point? The point is you have to eat according to your constitution. So it’s not like everybody’s a cow, we all eat the same food. No, that’s not what we’re talking about. Okay? So you need to eat according to your constitution and build up your system that way.

Ella Magers:

We’re talking about macronutrients here, is that correct?

Dr. Cousens:

Say it again.

Ella Magers:

We’re talking about macronutrients, the balance of protein, fats and carbohydrates.

Dr. Cousens:

Yes, macronutrients. I thought you meant Big Mac. It’s not a nutrient. Okay. So according to your constitution to have more protein and grain, or more vegetables and fruit, the combinations would be different. That’s the second point. About 70% of the people need a relatively higher protein. 75% need a higher protein and 30% or so need a lower protein. Now, just to be clear, that’s between 35 and 70 grammes. For most people, 70 grammes is considered low.

Ella Magers:

Right. Exactly. In our protein obsessed world.

Dr. Cousens:

I’m talking about optimal function, optimal health and optimal strength. That’s what we’re talking about. And optimal longevity. So the research shows that you need between 35 to 70 grammes of protein a day to have optimal function and have the kind of longevity that’s associated with it. So people who need more protein need to go closer to 70 grammes. Another person doesn’t need a lot of protein. I was having about 8%, which is a little low and I was stuck with 25 pull ups. I was in my 60s. I couldn’t figure out, “Why can’t I go more?” Then I read that after 65, you actually need a little bit more. So I added one table spoon of blue green algae as in green algae, and I went from 25 up to a 100 pull ups at one time. Okay. What am I saying? It takes a little intelligence and experimental trial and error and just a little shift makes a huge difference.

Ella Magers:

You’re saying you’re a beast, Dr. Cousens. 100 pull ups, my god. That’s awesome. That’s so awesome.

Dr. Cousens:

So the point I’m making, however, is all I did is add a tablespoon, heaping tablespoon, of basically pure protein. Because the green algaes are 70% protein, 90% absorbable. They’re high in protein quality. So little shifts, if you’re working with a certain amount of intelligence, you start adjusting your diet. So you have to really think about it in not macro, that’s a starting point, but you need to adjust. Those are the two principles. So really everybody needs a slightly different diet according to their constitution and the ranges of their constitution. High protein, low protein, and your [inaudible 00:19:13] and they all get combined together. I’m not going into detail on that, but we need to eat according to our constitution. That’s really the message and that’s how you get optimal results. Okay?

Ella Magers:

Understood. Understood. I know you’ve talked about chromosome 19 and those are super expensive tests that people have to do, but don’t have a calculator on your website, I believe or something?

Dr. Cousens:

What I do, we have a test that people take and it will let you know if your person needs more protein or less protein. So they just go to my website, treeoflife.mm.co and they can download this sheet.

Ella Magers:

Got it.

Dr. Cousens:

It’s 30 questions and if it comes out high at one end, they’re this, if it goes high, you’re that and if it’s in the middle, you’re a mix. But it’s a really simple way to go about sorting it out and people really need to do that because then you can be optimal. You’re not just guessing on. That’s called science. That’s real science because it’s trial and error and the subject is yourself. So we need to be our own researchers on ourselves. That’s why all the books, they’re interesting, they’re interesting, but you have to do the detailed work.

Ella Magers:

What about people who say that humans are meant to eat meat from a biological standpoint and like in nature, a lion has to … I mean, they’re obligate carnivores. They’re out consuming another animal. How do you reconcile that?

Dr. Cousens:

Well, wait. For humans, it’s easy. Where do we start? The Garden of Eden. Were they meat eaters on the Garden of Eden? No, they weren’t. They were live food vegans. So it’s in the human constitution to be a live food vegan. I mean, what could be clearer? That’s really the answer to that. Some people need more protein but doesn’t have to be meat. We have food concentrates that are a whole lot healthier. I mean, meat, fish, chicken and dairy, they hold about 95, 96% of the pesticides and herbicides. Well, you don’t want that, but if you’re in the ocean, that’s what you get. Even the organic, they’re still much higher. So I think those are considerations, but the answer is go back to the garden Eden. How hard is that?

Then you have the Pelagasians who lived 300 BC and their average age was 200 years and they were 100% live food. They lived in ancient Greece, southern Greece. I actually researched it. I went to Greece and researched it. But the point of making is pretty clear. Okay? We have a clear live food Garden of Eden basis. They’re different cultures that were only vegan and live food. Now, when you’re doing live food, you could eat half as much. So when you cook food, you lose 50% of the protein, gets coagulate and 60 to 70% of the vitamins and minerals, probably 95% of the phytonutrients. Well, that means you have to eat twice as much.

So the ideas with live food, you’re getting all the energy, the sun energy, spiritual energy, and then you kind of eat it. Now how do you know when your diet’s right? You’re not losing weight and you’re not losing strength and ability and so forth. I haven’t lost weight for … and I haven’t gained weight either for years and years. So you’re at your kind of optimal weight. That’s how you know you’re on. It’s really simple and you have energy. So I have energy all day long. It’s no problem. Okay? That’s not an accident because I’ve organised it, so my food intake works. And that’s the point. So you need to have energy and you need to feel good and you need to have strength. Now, if you don’t have those, then you’re not doing so great.

Ella Magers:

Could that be micronutrient that are off? Do you recommend supplementation?

Dr. Cousens:

I do. Most people, our foods today are very, very depleted, even with really good organic soil. So I do recommend supplementation. Almost everybody’s low in vitamin C and the B vitamins on some level. It is true that vegans tend to be more human active B12 deficient. Meat eaters are too and that’s a mistake they don’t realise. Everybody needs B12 supplement. Yeah, meat eaters, if you get to the optimum what you need, about 400 micrograms, that’s about 80% of vegans will be deficient in about … I’m sorry, 90% of vegans and about 80% of meat eaters. Everybody’s deficient. So everybody needs a B12 forecast acid supplement. So I do recommend that. In my practise I’ve been doing this 50 years, they’re always efficient. Okay? That’s the key to keep in mind. Just incidentally, the blood tests are not accurate for B12 because they’re getting a different kind of B12. The only test that gives you adequacy is the methylmalonic acid test, MMA. It’s not martial arts, it’s not mixed martial arts.

Ella Magers:

Oh, yeah, I’m a big fan.

Dr. Cousens:

That’s a urine test. Anybody can do it. You don’t have to go to a lab to do it. You just get the … and that will let you know if you have adequate B12. Human active B12, not just B12.

Ella Magers:

I want to go back to the spiritual side for a moment. I’ve been reading this book called The Presence Process and I have a couple of examples, but this is one, and I find the book amazing in terms of helping people connect with and helping me connect with present moment awareness and kind of elevate my consciousness in that way. But he talks about how by doing that, some people will go from vegetarian to eating meat. After, he talks about realising that we’re all one, that we’re all one kind of consciousness. I don’t understand how that’s possible, number one. Number two, I’m going to call him out, Tim Ferris. He had Gabor Mate on and he talked about wanting to get into animal communication, Tim Ferris did, and he loves his dog Molly so much and he thinks that animals have something to share that we should really pay attention to about their connection with present moment awareness.

Next thing he is talking about a sponsorship he’s running with Butcher Block and killing animals to eat. Can you talk to just connection in general, our lack of connection with nature, with spirituality, how we can continue to move through the world and love our dogs and our pets so much and then not think about the suffering of the animals that we consume that really kill our energy and create this disharmony? Can you kind of speak to that a little bit?

Dr. Cousens:

Well, it’s a lot. It’s not a little bit.

Ella Magers:

Or a lot, yes. This fascinates me.

Dr. Cousens:

I think the starting point is … I did some research about people in spiritual life and people, what their diet was initially, which most people were eating meat and so forth, but when they got into meditation, after a year or two, 95% had become vegan. Why? Well, because eating meat is gross and I don’t mean it like a negative. It’s gross in terms of what it does to your body and we know from [inaudible 00:28:22] the different kinds of diets and there’s a diet for meditation, which is a vegan … well, today would be a vegan diet. So it’s not like we’re making it up. It’s like a no brainer. You eat more refined foods and lighter foods when you’re meditating and meat eating lowers that. Now, sometimes people have unique constitutions so there’s always the exception. But we can’t talk about exception. We have to take the rule is that going to vegan food is pretty much what most spiritual paths recommend.

That’s not by accident. Okay? So I think that’s really the answer. So whatever his issue was, that’s him. But I want to talk in general. Look at most spiritual pasts, they’re all recommending [inaudible 00:29:27], no harm to animals. But also it’s the best for your spiritual life because it doesn’t block the flow of the spiritual energy because you’re not taking pain, misery and death into your system and their ego. Most traditions know this, so I think that’s the way to really answer that question. Now, how does a person go back and forth with that? That’s his own … and I don’t want to focus on him. That usually doesn’t happen.

I wasn’t raised as a vegan. How I became vegan was when my wife was pregnant with our second child, 1973, and we both had this nightmare. I mean, a real nightmare that the foetus was a chicken and we were going to eat it. It’s like, “That’s it. We be vegan.” Okay? So everybody does things for different reasons. I can give you eight or 10 different reasons why you want to be a vegan, for the weather and for this, that and the other. But the point is that’s what happened for me. I couldn’t imagine eating meat, fish, chicken or dairy anymore. It was done. Because it would make me out of harmony with life.

When you’re trying to lead a piece of life, you have to have a diet. Tigers eat meat, okay? They’re not peaceful. So the diet affects your consciousness. That’s one of the principles of my book Conscious Eating, really spiritual nutrition. Diet affects your consciousness. So you’re going eat meat and you’re eating pain, misery and death. That’s what you’re putting into your consciousness. So it kind of goes like that. So my answer is whatever’s going on for him, that person has some issues to work out because he’s always in contradiction.

Ella Magers:

Got it.

Dr. Cousens:

Now, we have lots of cats. My wife loves cats and so we feed, we go out tomorrow morning, there’s 20 cats we feed. They all come running from all over the way and we feed them, plus we have our own cats. But they communicate all the time. There is no question that they’re communicating. The same with dogs as well. The same with animals in general. So there is a natural communication. The way the animals communicate is more in pictures rather than in words, although sometimes I think they’re speaking words, but I think it’s thought form pictures that you get. I think that’s a kind of way to understand. When people look at animal communication, I think the key people are really good.

There’s a story about this lady with the black panther and he wouldn’t talk to anybody. I don’t know, you’ve probably read that story and then she started communicating and they started talking in thought forms. Like, “What happened to my own kittens?” So it’s thought form patterns that are not verbal, but they’re kind of verbal. They’re thought form. People can do that but not be as tuned in, but usually that doesn’t happen. There’s an old Sufi story where the main master was a vegan and she was in the forest and all these animals were around her, and then the student came up who was a meat eater and they’re all ran away. He said, “What’s wrong with me? They’re all running away,” and she said, “Well, what’d you have for breakfast?” Ding. You’re going to eat animals, they smell it, they feel it, they feel the death. I don’t want to be around him. Does that answer the question in a kind of-

Ella Magers:

Yeah, I guess I’m just thinking of how many people just have such love for their companion animals and would never … I mean, it would be a horrifying thought to eat dog meat, but that disconnect, which I was seven years old when I realised that it was an actual chicken on my plate. For me, I’m seven years old and I said, “What? That’s an animal in my plate?” I was like, “Never again,” and that was it. I never ate meat again and I was vegan by the time I was 15. It was this obvious thing to me. Why would I do that? I wrote in all my schooling and I would write, “Why are we eating that when we have so many other things to eat? Why would we choose that?”

That question has always … and I get our society and I get that that’s what’s normal and that’s what’s programmed, but it still is hard for me at times to understand that disconnect and to know from a standpoint of I want to help inspire people what I can do to help them have the same love for a cow that they do for their dog. Just not on a personal … they don’t need to be at a sanctuary like I’m at right now and having that, but to understand that that cow deserves the same amount of love as that dog and how I can be more influential into helping people kind of take that next leap from somebody like yourself who’s so influential to so many people.

Dr. Cousens:

Yeah, it’s an interesting question. I just will say my wife, I think, became vegan when she was 14. The same thing, was just a natural thing. It’s like our sense of oneness. So when I lived in Arizona, you worked on the street and there’s cow and this and that and there was this bull and I was having a discussion with him, face to face. We were that far apart, but there was a fence separating us, and I said, “How is it when your horns go out like this, how do you work with that? How do you eat food or catch food?” And he goes, and I realised what he does is he actually told me by moving his horns, he could get anything in front of him. But what’s my point? My point is that, again, thought form, animals understand. So the first step is to understand that these are sentient beings.

We’re all one. God made a soul first in the animals. The animals got the soul first. Then he created humans. So they actually were the first to be empowered with the soul. So bulls are big, you don’t want to mess around. But we’re sitting there having this discussion. So when you sense that they’re sentient beings, they also understand that you sense that they’re sentient beings. Again, I’m talking about nose to nose, that far away over the fence. So that I think is the key. If you can’t get that they’re sentient beings, it’s really hard to get off the ground in terms of the process. But if you get it and they get that you get that they’re sentient beings, then you actually can have a conversation.

I mean, this is a bull on the street. I don’t know the bull. I mean, we’re just talking. I know that sounds funny, but that’s-

Ella Magers:

Not at all.

Dr. Cousens:

But it’s a way of being that all our souls are connected and that’s what I’m trying to say here is that I know my soul’s connected to him. When you approach an animal with that understanding, it changes the whole dynamic because they immediately get it. I think that’s the answer. So we are all connected. We are all one soul. When you get that, then it’s like you don’t have a problem making the jump.

Ella Magers:

I’m so glad you just said-

Dr. Cousens:

It’s a consciousness issue.

Ella Magers:

Yeah, no, and I’m so glad you just said way of being because that reminded me, this year’s been quite the year for me and one thing I realised was my addiction to doing and that my kind of thought process that my worthiness and my purpose was dependent on what I’m doing. You know what I mean? And what I had to start to discover, what I’m still kind of learning, is how to be. I don’t want to say just be, but the importance of being and how we can support ourselves to get to that place. Can you talk to that? It sounds like meditation is a huge piece of that. Can you take that? Because I think a lot of our audience has experienced or is at risk at experiencing total burnout, exhaustion in that place of that doing addiction. Can you speak to that?

Dr. Cousens:

Certainly. So it starts with loving yourself enough to want to heal yourself. How do you start to love yourself? Okay, that’s the question. So I find when people meditate, they begin to know the truth of who they are. They begin to know the beauty of their soul because they’re doing things that help them experience the beauty of their soul. You see where that goes? So as we meditate and we get more in touch with the source of who we are, which is the God within us, okay, we naturally want to start taking care of that. We naturally want to optimise it with diet, with exercise, with meditation. The more you meditate, it becomes a hardcore reality. It’s not like a theory. You experience the light of God within yourself. It’s a direct experience. The real message here is it has to be a direct experience.

So what I do as a person teaching meditation since ’73 is get people meditating and then it’s like you’re tasting this incredible fruit. It’s just the nectar of your soul. You’re experiencing it. It’s like, “Well, I think I want more of that.” So that’s how that begins to happen. So the only way to check the water out is put your foot in the water. So to me, getting people to do rather than talk. When I’m teaching meditation, we’re going to meditate. I’m not going to talk to you about it. I’ll talk to you for 10 minutes and explain it, but then let’s do it. So I think that’s the way to begin to break that barrier. Because as soon as you first talk about there’s something incredible inside of you, the light of God, the self, not an ego self, but the big self, there you go. The idea is to begin to experience that.

Ella Magers:

Now you went off the deep end, I don’t know how else to say it, you went and did … was doing six hours of meditation a day to get to this place for some time. Do we need to go to that route or how can people get started?

Dr. Cousens:

Not to do this, not to do what you’re saying. Okay. There are two pieces going on to explain that. First, I’m in an ashram in India where it’s normal to meditate. It’s not abnormal. It’s not like in America. No, what I see is that people … if you can meditate an hour a day, that’s good. Some people do a half hour twice a day. But some people, it takes them a half hour or 45 minutes to get to that quiet place. So if you could meditate an hour a day, that’s good to begin to know that that exists. Okay? Now, what was going on for me was the power of what we call the shakti, the feminine force. Okay? Shakti [inaudible 00:43:11]. It was driving me to meditate. I even asked [inaudible 00:43:15], “What is going on? Is it okay to meditate this much? I’m being driven, it’s not my idea, so what’s happening to me?”

He thought that was very funny. That’s what he thought. He said fine and he just laughed and waved me in. But the point I’m making is once we get started, God is guiding us. So for me, that was what I’ve been doing because I have a certain purpose in life, why we’re having this discussion. It’s like, well, I had to do that because that brought me to a way different understanding, just knowing that there’s a self. You see what I’m saying here? People used to know their self. If you’re meditating an hour day, you’re going know that over time. Now, there is something else that helps and that’s what we call in different traditions the awakening of the spiritual energy. So we can call it Shakti [inaudible 00:44:14] there and the biblical tradition that’s called Haniha. Same thing, a transmission of energy from the spiritual teacher, spiritual master that awakens the energy in the student. Okay? That’s a very real thing. That’s what [inaudible 00:44:30] did to me, and thousands of people. Not just to me, I wasn’t special.

In the Torah tradition, it happened more individually. Moses looked at [inaudible 00:44:47] and the light was within him, that kind thing. But the principal is there, you see what I mean? That’s kind of what I’m saying. So when that’s awakened, then that whole inner life is awakened so you become very aware of that. So that’s what I did. Actually, believe it or not, you can do it over the internet, which I never would’ve believed.

So I’m doing that. Thursdays, before you, we had two sessions of doing that and then I had one in Brazil and one here and there and we can awaken it just by the energy coming through the eyes. It’s usually by look, by touch, by sound, by breath. [inaudible 00:45:40] breathed into my mouth and it was like, “Whoa.” But you understand what I’m saying. So we can do it over the internet by look and by sun. So that’s how that can be, if that makes sense. It’s available to everybody. As I say, every Thursday here I am in Israel, but it’s like, okay, so Thursdays at seven in Israel, which is at East Coast time noon. You get what I’m saying here. West Coast it’s a little bit earlier, it’s nine o’ clock. So it’s available and it does work and when it’s awaken then it’s really easy to experience the light within because the light’s been turned on.

Ella Magers:

You’ve set that up through Tree of Life?

Dr. Cousens:

People can go to treeoflife.mm.co.

Ella Magers:

We’ll put that in the show notes.

Dr. Cousens:

You’ll get the schedule when I’m doing that.

Ella Magers:

Yeah. Yes.

Dr. Cousens:

Go ahead.

Ella Magers:

I joined Tree of Life and I was being interviewed before this actually, but I’d wanted to join so I will be on a future meditation.

Dr. Cousens:

Okay, good.

Ella Magers:

Yeah, I’m excited about that.

Dr. Cousens:

The more you do it, the more it deepens. That was my own discovery for myself. The more I was with [inaudible 00:47:14], it’s the more it happened. So all those things add up, but you have to want it, so you have to be turned on enough to want it, to love yourself enough not only to heal yourself but to go beyond that. You asked one other question that is relevant, which is what I call the six foundations and sevenfold piece. So I’m basically teaching a way of life, a simple way of life that can lead to liberation, because in my world, that’s the highest value to merge with God. Okay. So we start with 100% vegan, 80% live food diet. That is taking care of the flow of the spiritual energy through you and then the next is building what we call life force energy [inaudible 00:48:09]. Sacred dance, yoga, which I do every day. Yoga and different things like that.

Tai chi, qi gong, there’s a bunch that … [inaudible 00:48:23]. Third is service and charity. People don’t consider that, but when you’re offering your heart to people, it’s a really good thing. Again, I have programmes in 26 different countries, diabetes prevention and organic vegan farming, which has really caught on in Europe. I have one in Cameroon. Africa, I mean, Cameroon, we have over 55 organic vegan farms.

Ella Magers:

That’s so cool. I want to go work on one.

Dr. Cousens:

So it’s really exciting. People get it, they know what organic is, they know pesticides aren’t good. It’s not really a hard discussion. It’s harder discussion here in America or in the Western world, but in Africa it’s not hard. Then working with a spiritual teacher because people need guidance. You want to learn to play the piano? Well, you can learn by yourself, but how long would that take? So spiritual teachers, spiritual masters, one that can help you not fall through into all the holes along way.

Ella Magers:

How do we find the right spiritual teacher for us?

Dr. Cousens:

That’s a really important question and I deal a book with it in some of my books. Into the Nothing I talk about it. So when I sense that I needed to find one, they had to answer that question, what’s the meaning of death? Some are in their teachings and they have to be someone who’s liberated. For me, that was the criteria. Not everybody needs that. You can just have a good teacher who knows more than you do.

Ella Magers:

What does that mean to you, for somebody to be liberated?

Dr. Cousens:

It means you’re free to move in any direction in your life and you’re more immersed in God than not. You could be 52% immersed in God, you’re still liberated and then it gets more and more until you’re totally absorbed. But you’re across the barrier where the truth of who you are and that’s the … intellectually you can read that in a book, but you know from your experience.

Ella Magers:

Got it.

Dr. Cousens:

Then with that, you know the self and you become free to move in any direction. You can just be totally authentic in the process. That hints at it because it’s kind of beyond the mind type thing, but those are some qualities, I’ll put it that way. So you want them to be that and then it has to be a person you like. It has to resonate with them. I describe it in my book Into the Nothing, it’s a spiritual marriage. It’s not sexual, it’s a spiritual marriage and there has to be a clear contract, literally, about how this works. Teacher student contract and proper boundaries, which doesn’t always happen. People cross over the boundaries and the role of the teacher, it’s their responsibility to keep the boundaries clear.

You have to find somebody that kind of fits that and you have to like them. You have to have a resonance because you are going places with the teacher. It’s like where you haven’t ever gone before and you have to have that fundamental trust. So that’s roughly, it’s a little bit more complex than just saying, well, they’ve got a good reputation. It’s very personal.

Ella Magers:

No, that makes perfect sense.

Dr. Cousens:

But the other criteria have to be met.

Ella Magers:

Got it. Well, as we start to wrap up, I’ve got a great curiosity around … as I find myself kind of elevating slowly, there starts to be this kind of balance of who I can talk to about some of the stuff that I’m learning. You talk about what it means to, and I’m going to quote here, I think, live in the world between nothing, the world beyond time, and something, the temporal world and what it means to experience a fully integrated life in multiple dimensions, which already right there for the average person sounds very out there.

So as I start to get more “out there” with my beliefs and what I’m discovering and what I’m believing and what I’m feeling, I find I have less and less people to talk to and then I feel a little more disconnected from this 3D reality. I’ve had some trouble having fun almost like in this world because I’m exploring all this stuff. It can be a little overwhelming. I think some of our audience is probably making some of those steps and starting to feel that. Can you talk a little bit to that and what you?

Dr. Cousens:

I mean, that’s a great question and it’s a very real question because we’re moving into other realities and dimensions. Okay? They’re all there, but we’re moving into those. So the first thing is a lot of people tend to shift their friends to find somebody who they can talk to. Just makes common sense. But not everybody’s in a hurry to do that or tune in. For example, what I’ve set up at the website, treeoflife.mm. is a place where people could talk who are asking exactly the same questions, but they need somebody to hear, they need that support. We call it kahila, group support. It’s very, very important to have it. It makes it much easier because then you’re not alone.

A lot of people start and they feel alone. Well, my friend’s like, “What’s going on?” So you have to have that like-minded people who are on the spiritual path, and that’s a very important step to take. The other thing is your value system changes because you’re feeling the truth of things, the light of God was in you and that so fills you with that joy, peace and love. You’re not seeking it from events outside of yourself. That becomes where the big shift, that’s where you start to become independent of social society. Doesn’t mean you don’t interface, that’s not what I’m saying. It means you become spiritually, emotionally, mentally independent because you are tuned into the light within and you’re being filled with that light and joy I call non causal peace, non causal love and non causal compassion.

I even mentioned in terms of relationships, because it actually is better for relationships because you don’t get dependent on the other person as a source of your joy or your sense of love. So when you’re loving yourself, then that’s easy and the relationship with the other person, if they’re activating that sense of love for yourself, that’s a good thing. But you’re not dependent them. So it helps you move away from codependent relationships. That’s pretty important for a healthy relationship. So really knowing the self and focusing on that as your prime life experience throughout the day is really kind of a key element in this. Then you’re shifting friends, you’re shifting your own consciousness, you’re knowing where your joy really comes from and non causal joy and love, peace, imagine from within yourself, the light of God within you.

So you’re not trying to get something out there that’s nowhere near what’s happening in here. That’s how it works. It’s simple when you understand the way I’m saying it. You don’t have to work on it. It just happens naturally.

Ella Magers:

No, that makes perfect sense. I kind of feel like I’m in this phase of life where I’m … and I’ve heard this quoted something like this, I’m like a caterpillar in the cocoon that’s in this transformation where I’m not a caterpillar anymore and I’m not quite a butterfly and that brings up some kind of confusion and some restlessness almost of still wanting to be a part of society as I knew it before, whereas I can’t see it the same anymore.

Dr. Cousens:

Exactly.

Ella Magers:

Yeah. So I’m really grateful.

Dr. Cousens:

You have to let go of that and know you’re seeing it at a different level in a different way and learning how to interface that way, which is what you’re talking about too. It’s not like you’re seeing it different. You also see it different, then you have to learn to interact differently.

Ella Magers:

Right. Yeah. What about for you Dr. Cousens? What’s next for you? You’ve done so much, you’ve set up so much for other people around the world. What are you doing next to help with your purpose and fill your cup?

Dr. Cousens:

Well, my cup’s pretty filled. God has filled it pretty well. But in terms of service, we’re doing some really work with veganism here. I didn’t quite get it, but Israel is the number one vegan country in the world.

Ella Magers:

I’ve heard that.

Dr. Cousens:

Didn’t really get it until I got here. So I’m working with that vegan community to help it really take more leadership with it because it’s all there. You got Tel Aviv, which is the biggest vegan city in the world and it’s like, whoa, okay, and it’s easy to get vegan food anywhere. So that’s one thing. I continue to do my humanitarian work, which is worldwide and sharing the spiritual teachings. Again, since COVID, the whole thing has gone over the internet, which is fine in terms of that so I’m sharing the teachings that way. Then we’re doing a lot of things. We have spiritual fast in the internet, our seven day fast. I teach a special course with the mine and yoga. Yana yoga, it’s the yoga of the mind. So I’m basically doing many of the things I was doing before.

The community setting is a little different. There are people who are totally living off the land, organic live food off the land, that there are communities like that and there’s more out where we were the other day. I support those kind of things for people, and basically teaching. I’m also teaching the live food spirituality at the Sally Reedman School of Naturopathy. I’m a professor there. So I’m doing a lot of different things. The big project, you know what I mean, like the diabetes, that hasn’t come into focus and it may not, maybe it’s time to be doing what I’m doing, but I don’t know that yet. I’m just sitting. Very active, but I’m not committing here or there. But there is this pull with the vegan. We’re going to have a conference, I don’t know, probably in December or January here that will be more than just looking at food. So it may be that way. I’ll see where that goes. So that’s kind of how it is, not as this is the way it has to be or that. The game hand hasn’t come together.

Ella Magers:

Got it.

Dr. Cousens:

Have an advantage because when you’re healthy and young and ready to play, there’s no emergency. I don’t ever expect to retire, I expect to keep getting more alive with the process. So it’s going to get clear in the next year or two. We’ll see what happens.

Ella Magers:

I love it. I love it. Any final words you want to …

Dr. Cousens:

I think the most important thing for people is what I’ve said twice, is to love yourself enough to heal yourself. Love yourself enough to want to know God and the beauty and ecstasy of knowing God. That’s like the biggest thing. I’ve laid out a pretty simple thing. We shared the six foundations and the sevenfold piece I didn’t talk about, but a key part of that is the relationship is the spiritual path. I just lay that out and to understand that we’re talking about a simple lifestyle that one needs to work out for themselves. You don’t have to go anywhere where it leads to liberation.

We went through the six foundations, which are all part of that lifestyle. So I want to bless everybody, I want to bless you. I love your enthusiasm and the depth already where you’re at. It’s really good. I bless everyone, bless the listeners and bless you, Ella, that you continue to expand in your joy and your love and understand spiritual joy is the path to God. So you want to keep the joy. It should never be misery, it’s always joy. That’s key. The key teaching. No suffering is needed.

Ella Magers:

Understood.

Dr. Cousens:

I mean, people, they don’t get that, they need to suffer, that’s it. But it’s not needed. So stay with the spiritual joy and live with the experiences in yourself as you walk through life. It’s just a wonderful way to live.

Ella Magers:

You’re amazing. Thank you so very much for being here and sharing with us today, and bless you as well, Dr. Cousens.

Dr. Cousens:

Okay. Bless you. If people want to know more about me, they can go to treeoflife.mm.co or if you can’t remember that, drcousens.com and it takes you where all the workshops and seminars and offerings are.

Ella Magers:

Yes.

Dr. Cousens:

Also, we have a newsletter as well for people to sign up to and kind of keep current.

Ella Magers:

Yes, I’m on your newsletter list and we will put all those links in the show notes and hope to see everybody involved.

Dr. Cousens:

Thank you, Ella. Thank you for your good work.

Ella Magers:

Thank you.

Dr. Cousens:

Excellent.