I come from the eastern part of the world relatively called east by British Emperor. From there I left the east completely to submerge myself in the west, for my quest to seek financial freedom. I did everything to be like a westerner, I ate their food, I dressed like them, I talked like them, I surround myself with plastic things, I even pop pills for illnesses like them. It was quite nice to be away from hard down-to-earth eastern-ness and be surrounded by a completely new world where things were done differently, where happiness was pursued tirelessly with instant pleasures. All this time, I thought west was superior to east. The western science was so far ahead compared to eastern intuitions and folk beliefs and plant medicine that took long time to heal things, which could be solved so fast with a western pill. I was living on the western high. Because why wouldn’t I, there is so much catchy things that offers instant delight and pleasures, forget the long term whatever.  When I visit back east, I could not imagine ever living in east, in such inconveniences. I acted as if I was superior to eastern people – my people, because I have lived in the west.

Little did I know all of these mind illusions came crashing down after one big event. Ok well two. One was seeing a life threatening allergic reactions to food by someone that was a part of me. The other was my own gut telling me, “stop this nonsense I’ve had enough of this garbage American food” and deciding to send me various gut issues to finally make me hear clear of the nonsensical western life style I was living. And I listened, and years have passed in my transformation back into my old eastern ways of living, back to the earth.

Not many people can see the illusions and the profit driven choices presented nonstop to people in western world (in fact everywhere in the world now, sadly) and perceive them as detrimental or ineffective ways for healthy living and that they been separating us from nature little by little over time. A gigantic shift in the inner energy is required to create the understanding and the awakening. Looking back I am very grateful that I left the east, because if it wasn’t for that I would have never come to realize the beauty and the magic of it. Looking back I am very grateful that I had the big events to turn things around to find my way back to the beginning.

Leaves of Nidikumba close up when you touch it, as if to protect itself from harm, and open back up slowly with time.

Now I see things clearer than yesterday. Back in the east, in the rural village town of Gorakadeniya the jewelry maker’s wife would go to the store with her bag made of palm leaves wearing cotton clothes with no plastic, the store owner would weigh it and give her 500g of sugar in a paper funnel made from the newspaper. Villagers knew an insane amount of knowledge about their surrounding plants that they taught to their children. Rural farmers knew how to grow plants in combination with other plants and share it with animals. A very powerful buddhist motto of looking at every sentient beings (animals and people) as “they too feel pain and they too wish to be happy”, was rooted in everyone’s hearts to treat animals, people and even plants with respect and gratitude. There was no convenient gadgets, a hard labor of love was needed to perform the tasks. A task which would make them stronger and healthier and the end product, which would become worthy of giving gratitude for. The people very frequently walked barefoot connected to earth’s electromagnetic healing powers and sat in Yogic squat to mingle with others. In a village where the night sky would only be disturbed by a wax lighten lantern or a burning flame. A villager with chronic pain would find his way to the village doctor (weda mahaththaya) where he was treated with plants with no side effects. The plants that healed him taught him how to surrender to pain, the lessons of patience of the slow process of nature and to overcome the pain with gratitude. An earth where fallen leaves are left to decay to feed the new growth and some cleared up using rakes made from sticks in coconut leaves. I have heard stories and lived to some extent of this life where people lived in harmony with nature, without plastic, without EMF radiations, without noise pollution, without all this cancerous petroleum junk. 

But those people and me that lived there thought that we were missing something and we had to pursue a modern life to get what was missing, the luxuries, the comforts, the conveniences, the power, the status. But now I see, it was all an illusion of empty dreams, which makes you want more and more and never feel enough. The real gold had always been back in the east, in that village, but that village is no more, it too had been modernized in its innocent ways.

Life forward on this earth can only be built bringing awareness to the ways our ancestors lived, and identifying the ways that they lived in harmoniously with nature. It is very obvious isn’t it, every decision made forward must be made with the well being of our nature and earth as the highest priority. If we continue to make decisions purely for money and profits, yes we will make lot of it and some day we will be left to eat money, we may not even have that if money was all digital, in that case we’d have to feed ourselves on hard drives. Before making decisions for the future, we must leave our climate controlled AC rooms and breathe the fresh air, go touch a tree, take off our rubber shoes and connect with earth’s electromagnetic vibrations and walk on grass, and feel the earth so we can align ourselves to make the correct decisions for the earth. 

As for my life, step by step I have been able to find the gold in my current modern western life to create a new life with the essence from eastern villager. I have been eating predominately plant-based whole food, which we prepare from raw food most of the time with a great labor of love. I try to stand barefoot on my backyard in the suburbia of modern world and touch the earth and walk on grass. I try to get sunlight on my bare skin. I choose paper and wood over plastic products. Following ancient philosophies, I regularly practice yoga and meditations. I do not shy away from jumping full-on to various ancient natural practices and methods such as Ice tank theraphy, energy sound healing etc. We make plant based herbal medicine, teas, concoctions and tinctures that relieve common colds, flus, coughs, sore throats, pains very effectively without any side effects. Every fall season, we clear our leaf covered yard with a metal rake or let them decompose on the grass to nourish the soil. We are working on creating a food forest in our backyard and grow our vegetables without pesticides but home-made compost. The teachings have been laid out 1000s of years ago. But the industrial revolution has taken us away from it, and now we have to listen to the lessons again. Because if we take care of the earth and lived in a way harmonious with it, it will take care of us so we can create a brighter new life tomorrow.