Free The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight by James Redfield

toward me and feigned looking around the room to see if someone was listening. “This includes some of our most
     respected lamas.”
    I wanted to laugh but I dared not.
    “If we seek higher energy and at the same time consume foods that rob us of this energy,” Hanh continued, “we get nowhere.
     We must assess all the energies we routinely allow into our own energy fields, especially foods, and avoid all but the best
     if our fields are to stay strong.”
    He leaned closer to me again. “This is very difficult for most people because we are all addicted to the foods we currently
     eat, and most are horribly poisonous.”
    I looked away.
    “I know there is much conflicting information out there about food,” he went on. “But the truth is out there too. Each of
     us must do the research, make ourselves see the larger picture. We are spiritual beings who come into this world to raise
     our energy. Yet much of what we find here is designed purely for sensual pleasure and distraction, and much of it saps our
     energy and pulls us toward physical disintegration. If we really believe we are energetic beings, we must follow a narrow
     path through these temptations.
    “If you look all the way back at evolution, you see that from the beginning we had to experiment with food purely by trial
     and error, just to figure out which foods were good for us and which would kill us. Eat this plant, survive; eat that one
     over there, die. At this point in history we’ve figured out what kills us, but we’re only now realizing which foods add to
     our ultimate longevity and keep our energy high, and which ones ultimately wear us down.”
    He paused for a moment as if determining whether I was understanding.
    “In Shambhala they see this larger picture,” he continued. “They know who we are as human beings. We look like we are material
     stuff, flesh and blood, but we are atoms! Pure energy! Your science has proved this fact. When we look deeper into atoms,
     we first see particles, and then, at deeper levels, the particles themselves disappear into patterns of pure energy, vibrating
     at a certain level. And if we look at the way we eat from this perspective, we see that what we put in our bodies as food
     affects our vibrational state. Certain foods increase our energy and vibration and others diminish it. The truth is as simple
     as that.
    “All disease is the result of a drop in vibrational energy, and when our energy drops to a certain point, there are natural
     forces in the world that are designed to disincorporate our bodies.”
    He looked at me as though he had said something very profound.
    “Do you mean physically disincorporate?” I asked.
    “Yes. Look again at the larger picture. When anything dies—a dog hit by a car, or a person after a long illness—the cells
     of the body immediately lose their vibration and become very acid in chemistry. That acid state is the signal to the microbes
     of the world, the viruses, bacteria, and fungi, that it is time to decompose this dead tissue. This is their job in the physical
     universe. To return a body back to the earth.
    “I said earlier,” he went on, “that when our bodies drop in energy because of the kinds of foods we are eating, it makes us
     susceptible to disease. Here’s how that works. When we eat foods, they are metabolized and leave a waste or ash in our bodies.
     This ash is either acidic in nature or alkaline, depending on the food. If it is alkaline, then it can be quickly extracted
     from our bodies with little energy. However, if these waste products are acid, they are very hard for the blood and lymph
     system to eliminate and they are stored in our organs and tissues as solids—low vibrational crystalline forms that create
     blocks or disruptions in the vibratory levels of our cells. The more such acid by-products are stored, the more generally
     acid these tissues become, and guess what?”
    He looked at me dramatically again. “A microbe of