Ep.18: Spiritual Diets, Peace Fantasies, and Other Myths

Why This Episode Exists

I’ve been on a personal mission since the 1990s to cut through spiritual commercialism and expose what actually holds up under real investigation. To do that, I had to question, test, and sometimes discard many of the spiritual fads that were popular then and are still circulating today in updated forms.

Some things require direct trial and error. Other things become obvious once cultivation matures and clarity sharpens.

If this message resonates, it’s meant for you. If it doesn’t, there’s no need to force it.

Awaken24 exists for one purpose: clarity. Clarity comes from questioning the mind, understanding the causes and conditions behind our sensory habits, and cultivating sincerely toward awakening, whether realization has already occurred or not.

Segment 1: Is There a Spiritual Diet?

One of the biggest confusions in spirituality today is the idea that there is a correct or superior “spiritual diet.”

Compassion often gets mixed with personal psychology, cultural conditioning, tradition, and individual physical needs. Many people assume that being spiritual means being vegan, because spirituality is equated with doing no harm.

On the surface, this sounds noble. But when examined honestly, it fails to account for human physiology. The idea of doing no harm to other beings quickly runs into contradiction when it ignores doing no harm to oneself. From there, the thinking spirals into endless karma debates about who killed, who sold, who prepared, and who ate, looping endlessly without resolution.

The truth is simple: there is no spiritual diet.

Someone may choose to follow the Buddha’s vow of non-killing strictly, and that is entirely valid. But teachings must be applied according to the conditions of the individual, including their mind, sensory habits, culture, traditions, and physical constitution. Teachings clarify reality, they do not override it.

A distorted worldview often sneaks in here, where people begin to see the Earth as belonging only to animals and non-human life, while humans are cast as inherently harmful or unworthy. This perspective deepens separation rather than resolving it.

Humans, animals, and plants all arise from causes and conditions. They appear as they appear and pass as they pass. Humans live differently from animals, and they are not required to mimic them to be virtuous.

If the way you eat supports health, stability, clarity, and sincere cultivation, then it is correct for you. If it weakens the body, fogs the mind, or destabilizes you, it directly interferes with cultivation. Continuing that diet is not virtue, it is self-harm disguised as principle.

From direct experience, I learned that a plant-only diet did not support my body or mind. Within months, my health declined, my cognition weakened, and my capacity to cultivate suffered. Dismissing such outcomes as “doing it wrong” often serves identity, not truth.

Everything generates causes. Every action becomes another condition. Cultivation is not about obsessing over outcomes, but about taking causes seriously, because the seeds you plant are the fruits you receive.

Spirituality is not rigid rules or moral performance. It is clarity, responsibility, and alignment with reality.

Perspective Check: Spiritual Aesthetics and Authority

Many people look for aesthetics to determine what is profound. Symbols of authority are mistaken for truth.

Monk’s clothing. Flowing robes. Earth tones. Crystals. Prayer beads. Soft voices. Carefully curated environments.

None of these are wrong.

The problem is the association. The belief that without these symbols, one cannot be spiritually sound or taken seriously.

There are also lifestyle symbols: tai chi, yoga, qigong, veganism, off-grid living, Wicca, and New Age spirituality. Again, nothing is wrong with these paths themselves. The issue is believing they automatically confer insight.

This often results in borrowed ideologies stitched together into convincing narratives that sound true, feel true, but are not realized.

True realization comes from investigating the mind directly, untangling the senses, seeing through illusion, and awakening to true nature. When we speak of “infinite paths,” we mean unbiased methodology, not ideological mixing.

Short-form spiritual content today often resembles real teachings but functions like a game of telephone. By the time it reaches the listener, the essence is gone.

Once clarity is refined beyond being a temporary state, concepts become easier to see through. There is a real difference between agreeing something makes sense and holding it up against realized truth.

Cultivators must be careful with what they consume. If you want to know what the Buddha taught, read sutras with commentary. Read more than one commentary. There is no rush toward enlightenment.

Intellectual understanding alone is not realization. Knowing the mind is the work.

Is Spirituality Supposed to Feel Peaceful?

Modern spirituality sells peace as the goal. Real cultivation does not fit that fantasy.

When someone genuinely turns inward, everything surfaces. Thoughts, emotions, memories, resistance, and physical discomfort arise together. While there are moments of joy and clarity, they do not remain.

The experience cycles until it doesn’t.

This is not failure. This is where cultivation actually begins.

The inward path is not decorative. It dismantles self-image, assumptions, and stories about who you think you are and how the world should be. If you stay with that process without replacing it with a prettier narrative, something real begins to reveal itself.

This is why spiritual personas are so effective in the commercial spiritual world. They allow the self to be decorated rather than dismantled.

And that is the trap.

The Core Clarification

Spirituality is not an identity. It is not a lifestyle. It is not an aesthetic or a permanent emotional state.

Spirituality is perspective.

It is the way you see the mind. The way you understand causes and conditions. The recognition that nothing is separate from awareness itself.

Peace and unrest arise from the same place. What changes is not the world, but the framework through which it is perceived.

Real spirituality is not about feeling good. It is about seeing clearly.

Clarity comes from meeting life directly, without grasping, resistance, or performance.

That is spirituality.

Not a feeling.

Not a persona.

A way of seeing things as they are.