There are some things that can not be taught; only experienced. Snow, Beethoven, an ancient rainforest, van Gogh, cherimoyas, true love: to fully grok these things, you must immerse yourself in them. The best a book or a teacher can do is to bootstrap the process, awaken curiosity, and motivate the student to want that experience herself.
Clarity of mind is another example. This one is trickier, because it requires active and prolonged commitment to achieve. However, the path is simple to describe. Genesis 1:29 (and similar text in scripture of other religions) points the way. “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.”
Your first instinct may be to say that this is wrong. Clarity of mind is something we just have inherently! And even if we don’t, well, one of our fine institutes of higher education will easily remedy that.
It is impossible to win an argument like that. Objective discussion cannot take the place of subjective experience. The only way to know is to know.
The Genesis diet consists only of whole plant foods. No animals or animal products, no drugs, no chemicals, no refined or processed food products. These substances are like sand in the gears. They clog the body’s pathways, restricting the flow of nutrients, as well as important chemical and electrical messages. As a result, organs fail to function properly, and eventually deteriorate.
The mind is also an organ, nourished though the same pathways as the rest of the body. Like the others, it is susceptible to error when the flow in these pathways is choked. Since the product of the mind is thought, the errors produced are those of reason and judgement.
It takes some time and determination to stop putting sand in the gears. And it takes awhile longer after that for all the old built-up sand to work its way out of the machinery. But once it does, the repair work can begin. Fortunately, the human body is not a machine. The gears fix themselves, when given what they need.
How do you know when you have achieved clarity of mind? One of the first things you realize is that it’s an ongoing journey which you never complete in one lifetime. It’s like a huge onion, so big you can’t even tell its size. Every time you peel away one layer, a new one is revealed, and you get closer to the truth.
Another thing that happens is you lose the desire to argue. You no longer feel the need to prove your point to everyone within earshot. Instead, you begin to look for ways to agree with people. “Hey, you’re right!” “Yes, that’s it exactly!” “You really hit the nail on the head!”
One of the best parts is that all of your health problems begin to resolve themselves. Your aches and pains vanish, various cysts discharge and heal, and allergies cease to bother you. You find yourself rarely getting sick with colds, flu and the like. Even severe chronic ailments become minor occasional annoyances.
Unfortunately, you also begin to realize how truly broken the world is. Everyone, of course, knows this is true to a degree. Many people see the symptoms, and some work valiantly at fixing them. Meanwhile, the underlying problems remain, and the symptoms continue to occur.
With clarity of mind, eventually it dawns on you that you can’t fix the world. You can only fix yourself. All you can do is keep peeling the onion, gaining in wisdom and understanding.
Moving through life is like a fish swimming through coral. Darting skillfully this way and that, ever watchful, taking just what it needs, wasting nothing. Not knowing in advance what the next turn will bring, but having instinctive confidence in its ability to make the right choice, and negotiate swift passage.
But even this essay is as kensho to satori: a mere glimpse. The words are just ink on paper: tomorrow’s trash or birdcage liner. Clarity of mind can never be gotten from words alone.