Avatar comes from the Sanskrit word avatāra meaning descent. Within Hinduism, it means a manifestation of a deity in bodily form on earth, such as a divine teacher. For those who don’t practice Hinduism, it technically means ‘an incarnation, embodiment, or manifestation of a person or idea’.

I feel edgy doing a water only fast for my first few days at Kopan Monastery outside of Kathmandu. I can’t settle. Not permitted to leave the campus to go hiking, exploring and visiting pilgrimage sites, my brain begins the sabotage that tells me I am starving and at risk of dying … ridiculously only 12 hours without food. My ego shouts from its lofty position and decrees my body feed; dopamine receptors left lacking through adverse childhood trauma send my body into shutdown when I don’t comply. My brain, the tyrant that overcompensates to keep me alive and functioning, can forget sometimes that my body’s acquiescence also makes me sick.

I often think I have a food addiction. But it’s not so much an addiction to food as it is a filling of my mouth … with dopamine hits and the satisfaction of distraction. It’s not the substance that creates the addict but the feeling beyond, to which the substance offers a gateway. Sucking on a cigarette is often the only way the smoker gets to take that deep breath. Shovelling food is an urgency to fill an emotional void. Drinking alcohol in excess offers a fast track to spirit. Many people override the warning signs of disease with supplements and medicines whilst still continuing with the lifestyle choices that are making them ill … to avoid the pain of abstinence. Any addiction is, simply put, a manifestation of resistance in reaction to self-generated suffering.

Born into this world in a body weighing a mere several kilograms, we are fed on mother’s milk (not me) and then on (hopefully) nutritious foods that grow our physical forms until we are adults. So, when we eat a beetroot or an avocado or the flesh of a coconut—a recognisable food source—the body has this phenomenal capability to transmute whatever we ingest into building blocks of growth, expansion, regeneration and elimination; engineering the energy to continuously develop human cells and healing cells as old ones die off and are expelled through the colon and anus.

The membranes of the physical body have the intelligence to open and close, discerning what belongs and what doesn’t. But what about the consumption of emotional and spiritual substances? They too are entering the being on different levels and they don’t have a colon or anus for expulsion of what isn’t recognised or needed for human functioning. Instead they linger, where they create either the ballast for the psyche or they fuck it up, get confused and begin its stealthy erosion. Unable to integrate or eliminate, ‘energetic’ toxins attach to physical cells in the body … transform the cells of the body … become the cells of the body. The immune system launches an offensive against this threat. And the body devours itself.

We become what we practice, what we consume; we are the sum of those we hang out with. Whether physical consumption, thoughts or actions, the law of cause and effect is like the law of gravity … not paid much attention, yet working fulltime all the same. Karma is taking whatever you say, think, or act upon in this present moment, and ultimately living it out in a future moment.

This incredible human alchemical vessel—this avatar—we have been gifted for this earth incarnation has all the systems in place to solve what needs to be solved. Abusing it with addictions and distractions, avoidance and abstractions, is like putting a roof on a house with walls made of rubble.

If you want to build your house correctly, remember this:
What you fill your mouth with becomes part of your stomach becomes part of your body.
What you fill your nostrils with becomes part of your lungs becomes part of your body.
What you fill your thoughts with becomes part of your mind becomes part of your body.
What you fill your love with becomes part of your heart becomes part of your body.