Ricky’s Raw Recipes #12

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Author Richard F Holmes

Hello raw food slurpers! It’s been a few weeks since my last recipe so I thought it was about time to raid my fridge again and see what I could knock up. This recipe really is a concoction because, as things stand, the cupboards (and fridge) are a bit bare.

So, I started as usual by adding a large glass of water to my blender. I then added an apple, a stick of celery, half a green pepper, a piece of cucumber and a good quantity of spinach. I topped this off with the juice of half a lime. The end result was just about palatable, however, I’m including this recipe for a good reason. Had I not been out of fresh root ginger and been able to add a large chunk to the mix, I’m sure it would have been a great raw food concoction. It didn’t make me grimace when I was drinking but there was definitely something lacking. Try it yourself, but make sure you add the ginger, and if the taste doesn’t transport you immediately to juice heaven I’ll eat my blender! Laterz…

Love Expressed In Words

Quote

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Author Richard F Holmes

I recently came across a beautiful piece of poetry by the wonderful Rabindranath Tagore. It is too long to share in its entirety, but this is the opening verse from his work entitled “Gitanjali”; so utterly profound in its beauty that I could not but share it with my blog followers. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

“Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
The little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales, and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.
At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loves its limits in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.
Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill”.

Rabindranath Tagore

The Dance Of A Thousand Friendships

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Author Richard F Holmes

It seems like only yesterday when one of my favourite pastimes was to mock social media and the aficionados thereof; after all, why on earth would anybody want to take a photo of their breakfast and post it online? To me, social media was the virtual playground where fools would vent their anger and abuse others, whilst hiding behind a computer screen hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away. It was the vehicle used by unscrupulous people to groom and exploit their victims; it was how people with more time on their hands than sense whiled away their days.

One day, somehow, I opened a facebook account; and for the best part of two years it lay dormant. I had no more than a handful of “friends” and I didn’t even have a pic on display. One evening whilst visiting a friend, we somehow got on the subject of facebook and her son decided that I needed a profile pic and proceeded to use the webcam on his laptop to snap me. Then in the very early part of 2011 another friend’s son told me of the importance of global networking and made me realise that social media could be used for things other than announcing to the world that you are munching on a piece of cake or nursing a stonking hangover; and so it began, “The Dance of A Thousand Friendships”.

At the time I decided to use social media to connect with like-minded people all I had was an unused facebook account with around 15 friends (not one single post I tell you) and as for twitter, well, that was another universe entirely. Now three years have passed since I gingerly put my toe in the water, and what an incredible bunch of people I’ve connected with. I have found that spirituality works in its own way, independently of us humans, and will do whatever is necessary to connect people.

For me, what has been the outstanding factor of social media and what has had the biggest impact on me is how it has taught me to examine myself, my thoughts about myself and my thoughts about any particular situation I find myself in. When I’m having one of those days when I’m thinking along the lines of “doom and gloom” my online friends help me to put things into perspective.

I have been privileged to connect with, and even meet in the flesh, some incredible people. Social media has taught me that there are some amazing people in the world; survivors, entrepreneurs and inspirational people from all walks of life. I’ve met various cancer survivors (one particular lady is a five-times stage four survivor), I’ve met people who have made great sacrifices for the love of their families, I’ve met people who have made great successes of their lives and who rub shoulders with the rich and famous, but who remain firmly grounded and mindful of where they came from. I’ve even met a man who was on hunger strike outside 10 Downing Street and who was prepared to lay down his physical life for the cause he believed in.

Yes, most certainly, there is a link between spirituality and social media.

My incredible friends, you all know who you are; and I salute you!

Why The Quality Of Our Food Is So Important

Posted on February 6, 2014 by Author Richard F Holmes

Food, like everything else in our universe, is three-dimensional. We have the seed from which it takes form, we have the form itself and we have the subtle energy of Divine Spirit that flows through it. But how many of us have ever pondered what happens to our food once it is consumed? The ancient spiritual texts of the East, and the sages that introduced them to the world, told us thousands of years ago of the importance of what we put into our bodies.

The physical body may itself be nothing more than an aspect of the illusion of duality. However, if we have created for ourselves a temporary reality that requires that we dwell within this illusionary form for a period of imaginary time, then we ourselves are responsible for its maintenance; the body being “The House of God”.

The ancient Vedic texts informed us that our food maintains its three-dimensional status once consumed. Its gross form consisting of waste products, its middle form merging with the body as flesh and blood and its subtle form consisting of the mind. What this tells us is that we most certainly are what we eat with regard to our physical and mental self. Therefore it stands to reason that if we are not mindful of the food we consume we are very much inviting trouble into our lives. We think it’s fine to consume the meat from animals that have been reared in appalling conditions, fed on artificial diets, pumped with steroids and then slaughtered in terror; oblivious to the fact that the terror of these animals has its own energy that remains within the meat. We think it’s fine to consume processed food products that have been laced with chemical additives, and then we wonder why our kids are going crazy and sickness is rife.

This article is not a platform for vegetarian moral high ground, but more of a simple reminder that we owe it to ourselves and all our fellow creatures to be more sensible about what we consume as food.

My Biggest Fear

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Author Richard F Holmes

My biggest fear is not of death or dying. My biggest fear is to leave my body never having lived. I fear that, having been given another chance to reincarnate into flesh, I do not take the opportunity to use the time here (albeit imaginary) to create something unbelievably magical. I imagine there is nothing worse than leaving the body, and then realising that I am unfulfilled, that I did not achieve my soul purpose; my very reason for being here in the first place.

Out Of This World

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Author Richard F Holmes

In recent months this blog has attracted a number of new followers, so I thought I would wind the clock back a bit for the benefit of my new friends and recap on why I blog and the things I blog about. Essentially, I write about spirituality, spiritual subjects, and in the main, my own actual life experiences. I also like to write articles that contain messages of inspiration and upliftment. In recent months I have introduced the “Ricky’s Raw Recipes” series, (mainly because my spiritual experiences dried up and I needed to write about something!) but even though those articles are just a tad tongue-in-cheek, they are nonetheless valid, informative; and the juices themselves are very nutritional and detoxifying. However, the subject I’m going to concentrate on for the purpose of this article is out-of-body experiences and astral travel.

Back in the late 1990s I started to have strange experiences in the middle of the night; quite often these experiences would involve the sensation of being pinned down and unable to move (this is also a common symptom of psychic attack). At the time I was in a very dark place; I’d suffered with depression for years and also had a penchant for alcohol, which took me down into the pits. At some stage I went to seek advice from a lady medium, in Swindon, where I was living at the time. She explained that I was experiencing the first stages of astral travelling and that I should allow myself to go with the flow instead of resisting; she also said that I would enjoy it.

Inevitably, soon after the meeting with the medium I experienced that old familiar sensation in the middle of the night. This time I allowed myself to be taken on what turned out to be the first of many amazing journeys. Since those early days I have now had so many astral adventures that it would be impossible to say how many. This is something that I didn’t go looking for; it’s something that came looking for me and I’m so grateful. The pattern always used to be the same. I would wake in the middle of the night and be unable to get back to sleep. After what seemed like an age of tossing and turning I would enter a kind of limbo state; neither awake nor asleep, and it was at this point that I would get taken from my body and embark on an amazing experience. Yes, you did read that correctly; I get taken from my body, and in astral form, I am taken on the most incredible journeys. I know they are not dreams because they are all tangible experiences (although sometimes they are preceded by dreams) and on one occasion I even came back with an astral bruise.

I never know who the souls that carry me off are; I just trust them. In the early days there were a few hiccups and on a few occasions I became quite stroppy and demanded to be back in my body. These days however, the journey is always extremely smooth and the astral experiences themselves seem to be constantly evolving and becoming even more incredible.

In the early days I very quickly learned that I could will myself to move in any direction I wanted once I had reached my astral destination. I also very quickly learned to pass through solid objects. Incredibly, the experience sometimes becomes a bit tedious, and when this happens, I’m able to will myself back into my body. There was only one occasion during the last 14 years or so when I found it difficult to get back.

I’m sure you will all be very happy to hear that once we are free of the physical body we are also free of stress, strain, worry and any other negative feeling you may be able to think of. It is a sensation of complete and utter freedom and it proves to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that life within the Earth dimension really is nothing more than an elaborate illusion. Please feel free to ask me any questions you want!

I wish you all love, light and peace.

Ricky’s Raw Recipes #11

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Author Richard F Holmes

This is a great little juice that I threw together today. Shock! Horror! It was the second day in a row that I juiced without fresh ginger; I even went shopping and forgot to buy it. So, all the more reason for me to post this recipe because even without ginger it tasted great! Here goes…

I added just under a pint of water to my blender and threw in a stick of celery, a chunk of cucumber, a handful of red grapes, some green beans, an apple and a generous helping of spinach. I whizzed as I went along and gave the whole lot a good old whizzing at the end. I have found now that the longer you whiz, the closer your concoction gets to being a smoothie!

I’m going to finish with a question:

What happened next? Scroll down for the answer

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Those of you who answered that “I entered Juice Heaven” were absolutely correct!! 🙂

All Is Well

Posted on January 13, 2014 by Author Richard F Holmes

My tricky situation appears to be coming to an end; thanks by-and-large to a miracle that happened today! I will be blogging about the whole episode when things finally do get resolved. I also should be back to writing as normal very soon.

All Is Perfect

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Author Richard F Holmes

All is perfect, so perfectly perfect!
Whatever being lives, moves and breathes on Earth
At every level from atom to galaxy
Is absolutely perfect in its place

The Isa Upanishad

Interesting…

Posted on January 6, 2014 by Author Richard F Holmes

First of all I would like to wish you all a belated Happy New Year and I hope 2014 brings you lots of magic and abundance. The drawing to a close of 2013 and onset of the new year have certainly left me with a situation that I can best describe as “Interesting”.

It would not be appropriate for me to go into details, but suffice it to say I have a difficult situation to contend with and I am just grateful that I have my health and my spiritual understanding to help me through it. I am sure that before long my current circumstances will be nothing but a distant memory as these things have a habit of resolving themselves. But in the meantime I hope that these few words find you all healthy and happy and I’m sure I will be back to writing stuff that’s interesting for all the right reasons before long. Bye for now!