Immaterial domains

[Jhanananda]

Damnit Jeffrey. You bring such a rare gift into this world. I almost cannot get over how fortunate I am to have met you. You remind me of an Enlightened Tesla

Tesla was an inspiration to me in my youth.  He seems to have been somewhat of a mystic as well.

It tugs at my heart hearing about your complications and daily life. I hope I can find something to do to honor you. I will certainly teach what I learn of and from you to all who will listen (I've already begun with those I know outside the group who are interested.) You have done an incredibly noble deed for this dust ball. I find myself beginning to form an intention to write a book to tell some of your story, and teach the way of true meditation.

The books I would like to see you, Michael and others write is your journey to enlightenment.

Speaking of which, I believe I saw you are writing a book about what you teach? I think I saw something about that somewhere.

I found so much resistance, and a profound lack of financial support, for my work, that I gave up on completing the book.  Now that I am on disability and some funding is coming in, then it is back on the agenda.  I have a book to finish first, then I will complete the book Fruit of the Contemplative Life.

Also, it's worth mentioning that part of my education as a holistic health coach was learning how diabetes was being reversed consistently and successfully through diet. I have helped others also with diabetes, and have seen some improvements. Let me know if you are interested in this.

I am ope to suggestions.  At present I control it with diet, a low-carb diet, but it has not made it go away, it just keeps my blood sugar almost normal.  Sam has helped me quite a bit with herbs.  From reading recent research on type 2 diabetes, appears that it is often caused by autoimmune problems. This beast has an autoimmune problem, therefore it is reasonable that as long as inflammation can be controlled or reduced, then its variety of manifestations, such as type 2 diabetes will be controlled or reduced.

But now I have questions. Firstly, does this leaf have psychoactive qualities? I don't understand what you mean by it working too well.

It dropped my blood sugar so hard and so fast that I barely could get enough food into my mouth to keep from having insulin shock.

Next, I have seen you mention deva loca a couple times. I have never heard of this, and that is very odd because I study a lot. And I've also never heard of an arahant returning to take birth again. Please help me understand.

The spiritual dimension is full of possibilities.  The Pali Canon has one of the best descriptions of the religious experience, but no religious literature has a complete description, nor could there be, because the subject is vast, and there is no interest in documenting the authentic religious experience any way.  However, if the GWV receives enough funding then it could publish the books of its mystics, then we could have an entire library on the subject, but it would still be only the tip of the iceberg.

[roamer]

Jhanananda,
It is sad to hear of your health difficulties, its sad too to see that many health problems like type 2 diabetes and other automimmune disorders are nearly endemic to the population right now.  The monoculture of industrialism driven agriculture is at root here, we can not control and extract from the ecosystem in such a short sighted destructive manner and not hurt the web of life which also includes ourselves. 
My answer to health has been to mimick our ancestral hunter gather patterns both activity and diet to the extent i am able.  I try to fast go for day hikes and work out intsenly while fasting and then eat lots of vegetables, fruits and leanner meats.  Its not a buddhist diet, but i believe that there exists no such thing as a morally pure diet.  Even someone subsisting on soybeans must acknowledge that they have disrupted mother earth and displaced countless organisms so that they can till their food.  Civilization has long lost track though of the interdependent
nature of all food, simple truths that hunter gather cultures once intimately knew.  Living at the tail end of industrialism we must just make the best overall choices we can, knowing there is no ideal answer.
Anyways i reccomend looking into the work of  Arthur Devany on this subject http://www.artdevanyonline.com/evolutionary-fitness-slideshow.html  there may be some strategies there that you might find helpful in reducing your inflammation and autoimmune issues.  The inflammation is the largest issue, once you can bring that down your body will surprise you with its healing capacity. 
I often find myself working on the road for several weeks building towers and i am forced to compromise my diet and patterns, after several weeks of bread and sugar from remote gas station fed towns i notice the effects of inflammtion kicking in rapidly, this includes erratic blood sugar levels, muscle degradation, and slight puffiness in skin.  Within one week and one or two intermittent fasts i quickly go back to an exceptional healthy condition.  I know for me personally through repeated experience that staying away from grains, potatoes and other inflammatory starches is very crucial to my health.  Anways its something i've found useful perhaps it may be useful information to you too.

[Jhanananda]

Jhanananda,
It is sad to hear of your health difficulties, its sad too to see that many health problems like type 2 diabetes and other automimmune disorders are nearly endemic to the population right now.  The monoculture of industrialism driven agriculture is at root here, we can not control and extract from the ecosystem in such a short sighted destructive manner and not hurt the web of life which also includes ourselves. 

Hello again roamer, it always good to hear from you.  While I agree with much of what you say, I think in part the increased automimmune disorders might also be due in part to the ever increasing levels of contaminants in our industrialized environment. 

Additionally, doing research for several years exposed me to some now known, but not then, toxins, such as TCE, in massive quantities, and my health definitely showed deterioration from that exposure.  However, I started manifesting symptoms of automimmune disorders as early as when I was 15, which was before exposure to TCE, and after I contracted 2 serious influenzas.  So, I have to conclude that ground zero for my automimmune disorders is one or both of those influenzas, while exacerbation from exposure to toxins in research, such as TCE surely contributed to my over-all decline in health. 

Another part of my health history is I was apparently exposed to TB at a fairly early age.  I have never manifested symptomatology for TB, but I have tested positive for it since I was maybe 10.  Tucson, my home town, used to be the TB capital of the USA, where patience were sent from all over the world to convalesce.  So, TB might be part of my automimmune causality.

My answer to health has been to mimick our ancestral hunter gather patterns both activity and diet to the extent i am able.  I try to fast go for day hikes and work out intsenly while fasting and then eat lots of vegetables, fruits and leanner meats.  Its not a buddhist diet, but i believe that there exists no such thing as a morally pure diet.  Even someone subsisting on soybeans must acknowledge that they have disrupted mother earth and displaced countless organisms so that they can till their food.  Civilization has long lost track though of the interdependent
nature of all food, simple truths that hunter gather cultures once intimately knew.  Living at the tail end of industrialism we must just make the best overall choices we can, knowing there is no ideal answer.
Anyways i reccomend looking into the work of  Arthur Devany on this subject http://www.artdevanyonline.com/evolutionary-fitness-slideshow.html  there may be some strategies there that you might find helpful in reducing your inflammation and autoimmune issues.  The inflammation is the largest issue, once you can bring that down your body will surprise you with its healing capacity. 
I often find myself working on the road for several weeks building towers and i am forced to compromise my diet and patterns, after several weeks of bread and sugar from remote gas station fed towns i notice the effects of inflammtion kicking in rapidly, this includes erratic blood sugar levels, muscle degradation, and slight puffiness in skin.  Within one week and one or two intermittent fasts i quickly go back to an exceptional healthy condition.  I know for me personally through repeated experience that staying away from grains, potatoes and other inflammatory starches is very crucial to my health.  Anways its something i've found useful perhaps it may be useful information to you too.

Thanks for the link.  As an anthropologist, I will have to agree that our ecological niche is hunter-gatherer, so the closer we are to that lifestyle the healthier physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually we are.  In fact, the mendicant life is considered by most mystics as the righteous, or holy life, and it is mostly a hunter-gatherer subsistence.  I would recommend that you avoid the simple carbs or you may end up type 2 diabetic when you get older.