Natural Hygiene teaches us to live a simple, natural lifestyle. The practice is a journey in which we learn wisdom. The principles can't just be learned intellectually, but they have to be practiced. The last thing Carol, from the market in Cairns, told me before I left Australia was, "Practice well".
Just because medical professionals have spent a lot of time studying disease and have built large elite universities does not mean they know about man and his health. We really can't be satisfied with second-hand knowledge given to us by other people. It's easy to get that kind of knowledge, and it doesn't require much from us personally.
The world can give us the statistics about sickness and health, but Natural Hygiene requires us to search out the causes for our illnesses for ourselves. The "practice" involves us experiencing things for ourselves and experimenting on ourselves.
It is possible to intellectually learn from others that fasting, eating a raw food diet, and obeying the laws of life and health really do work, but wisdom...really knowing...only comes when we practice those things for ourselves.
Some people say that Natural Hygiene is radical, fanatical, and impractical, but when we put it into practice for ourselves and live it then we can see and prove that this is a valid way to live.
Many times people become interested in Natural Hygiene in rebellion against medical dogma. I remember the day I walked away from the medical professionals. I was in the emergency room at a hospital when I realized they had nothing to offer me. Even though I felt like I was dying I got up and drove myself home. I told my daughter, "They don't know". I still feel that way. Finding the way to Natural Hygiene was an answer to a prayer that I prayed prostrate on my floor in the middle of the night.
We need to be careful that as we embrace Natural Hygiene to find freedom from disease that we don't become trapped in another set of ideas. The danger is that we trade one external authority for another external authority. The only authentic authority is in us. The laws of nature are simple and they are universal.
Practicing Natural Hygiene is like sculpting. We have to chip away at every thing that is not essential in order to reveal what is beautiful and wholesome. We have to learn to exercise our intuition. This is the work of the alchemist. It won't be finished in a year. It is a long-term commitment.
"You can reflect what is another's; you can radiate only what is your own." - Chinese proverb
The more we live the simple, natural life the more we will radiate the light within us.
-Inspired by The Quintessence of Natural Living
To health and happiness.
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