Spiritual Nutrition: Six Foundations for Spiritual Life and the Awakening of Kundalini

"This is the best most well researched book you will ever find on this subject. Possibly the only book that covers this subject with such thoroughness. It is scientific and at the same time spiritually inspiring. I have no idea why some of the reviewers are claiming the author has an ego. I certainly did not get that impression. This book is priceless to those interested in spiritual growth like myself. It fits right in with my factual books on the raw food diet as well as my books on the chakras, etheric body and astral projection...and it merges nutritional facts with our true spirtual nature and how we may awaken it even further with a raw vegan "life-force" diet in one very comprehensive book.

I am already 80% raw vegan and I am thrilled to take this journey a step further. I highly recommend it to those who are both scientific and spiritual like myself because that is what it delivers."
~ Written on 2008-05-21

"Becoming a vegetarian, eating certain foods, or fasting is not going to lead you instantly to enlightenment. Awakening the Kundalini, reaching enlightenment, examining ones spirituality are paths that can take lifetimes worth of work or can spontaneously occur through grace. With that said, there are certain things that you can do that can facilitate the process.

Spiritual Nutrition sets out six foundations that help purify the system and ease the natural progress of one's spirituality: nutrition, building prana (life force), service, spiritual guidance, silence, and Kundalini Awakening. Although each of our journeys are unique, the majority of seekers do some work in each of these areas throughout their lives. As expected the choices in each of these categories are quite varied. For instance, spiritual guidance can be received through reading scripture, through the assistance of a mentor, by experiencing sacred music, or by communing with nature. Likewise, silence can be attained through meditation, prayer, mantra, or chanting. The possibilities are virtually endless.

To most people on a spiritual path finding the appropriate way to express these different parts of the self seems pretty simple in theory if not in practice. Of the six foundations, nutrition is probably the most difficult to comprehend. Fully understanding how different foods interact with your body, learning how much food your body requires, and discovering ways to reduce the toxins that you take in is quite an overwhelming prospect. For this reason, Spiritual Nutrition goes into a good deal of detail for this category. The purpose isn't really to subscribe to one particular diet set out by the author. Instead, the author seeks to educate the reader and give him or her a place to start his or her own explorations. I appreciate that. "
~ Written on 2008-05-16

"Having lived and breathed Gabriel's teachings at his community in Arizona since 2001 I can truly say that there is so much depth, wisdom and beauty to be found within these pages that you will keep coming back to it again & again.

This book cannot be taken in one sitting, nor can personal spiritual transformation. The knowledge in this book is a summary of 35 years of the author actually living this way. How many books can you find where the teachings are actually lived by the author.

This book is to be savored, Meditated On, Lived & Experienced one bite at a time.

The shallow reviews on this page from people who have never actually met Gabriel, Lived the Six Foundations or even read the whole book seem really odd to me.

Regarding nutrition this book covers: Living Water, Minerals, Enzymes, B12, Fasting, Low Glycemic, Organic, Veganism, Ayurveda, and yes Undereating.... and if you have ever eaten at the Tree of Life Cafe you will realize the food is amazing, packed with nutrition, satifying and alive... people go home feeling like they have certainly feasted.

On a daily basis at the center/ community we meditate for world peace, share with like minded people, practice yoga, teach food prep classes, eat organic live foods... and teach people to go out and live their own dharma (life purpose)that helps bring peace into their own communities.

The teachings are there for us to take what works for us.... like Gabriels other book Conscious Eating focussed on Individualizing the Diet... This book focusses clearly on Individualizing the Spiritual Life. The six foundations are simple... and contain levels & depths of knowledge and flexibility for each unique beautiful soul walking the planet.

I invite you to take a taste of this book, experience & live some of the wisdom & teachings and share it with family & friends."
~ Written on 2007-09-03

"This book is not really a book on nutrition, but rather a collection of scripture based quotes and out of date references selling the 'virtues' of veganism and undereating. This thick text can be summerized as follows: "Remove anything in your diet that you enjoy or that might put a little bit of excitment on your plate, and with what is left DON'T eat much of that and make sure you go HUNGRY, then when you are really miserable you can kid yourself that some how you are really spiritual and the pain in your stomach is your kundalini awakening"
Deprivation and misery in the name of spiritual virtue is so last millenium, there IS a better way. Bon appetit,salut, MANGIA MANGIA"
~ Written on 2007-07-28

"I'm extremely interested in working with and moving energy, and the spiritual and mental implications of energy (I'm a Reiki Master), so I'm not unamenable to the subjects addressed in this book. (That's why I bought it.) However, your ability to stomach this book will depend on the extent you buy into Cousens himself as a personality. He saturates the entire tome with his own presence, and the central irony is that while he brazenly refers to himself as "a Liberated spiritual teacher" who "no longer identifies himself with the body-mind-I AM complex" and has "realized the innate perfection" (real saints, by the way, are always convinced they aren't, but are acutely aware of what they perceive as their own imperfection), he writes about himself relentlessly, offering long descriptions of his supposedly amazing experiences and awakenings of cosmic consciousness during his practice. Rarely have I read the outpourings of such an egotist, and to compound this he employs the literary stratagem of never referring to himself as "I" (because he's so selfless), but always as "this one" or "Gabriel". This pretentious device makes for trying reading after a while. It's very distracting. Readers should be forwarned that Cousens makes the fatal error of mistaking strange, overwhelming physical sensations and surreal visions for spirituality and spiritual practice. They are not. They're phenomena of the mundane level and not to be given credence as genuine spiritual experience, which is subtle and rarified and borne out only by the emergence of real virtues in the aspirant's personality. Read St. John of the Cross to find out what REAL spiritual elevation entails. As a guide to nutrition, the book is virtually useless. The writing is so dense, disorganized, rambling and loaded with specialized scientific language it's a labor to read, and extracting actually useful information is a chore at best. In a nutshell: Cousens advocates a completely vegan, raw food diet. There you have it. (No need to buy the book.) This, of course, isn't doable for most people. And since we are all born for the specific purpose of achieving spritual realization, this can't be the only dietary regimen that supports this goal. Countless fully enlightened, God-realized beings throughout the ages have achieved their illumination while eating a more varied diet. Skip this one."
~ Written on 2007-05-07