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The body is a coat for the mind,
the mind is a shirt for the soul.
Scrub your soul a layer at a time,
and be naked with the spirit you find.
APPEARANCE
Will katsugen help you lose weight and make you look good?
I believe it can, in many cases, but I am not a medical scientist and I have no data to prove it. Weight control is a complex subject that is affected by environment, heredity, diet and culture. It depends on each particular case but even when the regular practice of katsugen moves you toward an ideal weight, it is not an "instant fix."
Logically, being slim and staying slim would seem to require only one thing: to expend as much energy as you take in. To lose weight, one only needs to put out more energy than you put in. It seems so simple, but of course, it is not.
Biologically, we're made so that it's easier to keep our energy in the form of fat than to use it in the form of exercise. Why? It used to be extremely difficult to find food; humans lived for millions of years with not enough to eat; and hunting, gathering and growing food took up much of the food's energy that we did manage to procure. So what we did find and eat, our bodies were very efficient at keeping as stored energy - fat. It was a matter of survival.
In much of our past history, being fat was looked upon as a sign of wealth and prosperity. Currently, the view of corpulency is much more negative. We know now that it is even a health hazard.
We're living in a civilization where we have more than enough to eat, but our bodies do not realize that, it still wants to hoard that energy as if our survival depended on it. How do we convince our bodies that it's okay to use up the stored fat energy?
First of all, our bodies must want to eat the right foods: currently, common nutritional wisdom recommends complex carbohydrates, fruits and vegetables, protein and little fat. Secondly, our bodies must exercise or somehow use the energy we take in.
Once you have a good feedback loop with your body through katsugen, you will know immediately the effects of eating the right foods or the wrong foods. You will also know when you need to exercise. You will begin to desire eating good quality food and to exercise. Many people who are naturally in tune with their autonomic nervous system have this without katsugen, but they also quite often lose it over time or by overindulging in one thing or another. Regular practice of katsugen keeps you on top of it.
One of the reasons I believe that some people eat too much or eat too much junk food is because eating is the main pleasure in life for them. They "live to eat" rather "eat to live" to paraphrase Ben Franklin. By developing more wholesome pleasures in life, the focus on eating for fun can be diminished while at the same time those added pastimes can help you use up more energy. As I mentioned in the chapter on pleasures, katsugen can restore the child within you so that your capacity for creative pleasure is increased. Become varied in the interests you have in life, have less fun eating and more fun in ways that expend energy rather than in taking it in.
There are limits, though, to what any diet, exercise regimen and even surgery can do. We are stuck with certain physical traits that cannot be changed. Our height, our bone structure, certain medical conditions, and body types are "hands" that we are dealt with. However, we can always make the best of it. Even the worst "hand" can be a winning "hand" if played by a resourceful and positive mind and soul.
What is truly important is how healthy you are and how good you feel. Body styles are often determined by culture. Plump ladies were once the vogue and they still are in some parts of the world. In our society, models that look like waifs are "in" right now, but who knows how long it will last?
Most of us will never be among the so called "beautiful" people. But we are, all of us, truly beautiful. There most definitely is an inner beauty that transcends outer physical beauty which we can access with katsugen. This beauty is not "skin deep" nor is it dictated by the passing trends of time, age and culture. It is the beauty of balance, of integration of body, mind and soul and its manifestation as loving action and service to others. This beauty brings us both inner joy and outer satisfaction. It is not made up of one facet of ourselves but it is a coordinated amalgam that brings the best out of our imperfections to create something new, original and unique. It is beauty in the truest sense of the word.
We must remember, though, that this inner beauty is unlike physical attractiveness. It does not turn heads, but it will turn souls. It will not bring you one night stands, but long lasting relationships. You will not have countless lovers for it but rather the one precious soulmate that lasts into the mists of time.
This beauty is not necessarily easy to live in, for it must be nurtured daily, cultivated and vitalized. Sometimes it will even be lonely when surrounded by a society that knows only the beauty of the flesh, but it is more real than anything and when one comes to that realization, the whole universe will radiate peace and goodwill, and physical appearance becomes merely a shadow cast by the light of true reality and total beingness. It is here now, tap into it!
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