In Lebanon, thirty-eight years ago, I remember no chemicals being sprayed on the land. I remember people enjoying each other and the land, bartering and sharing produce, and growing different things: corn, wheat, apples, grapes, vegetables, figs, eggplants. Everyone had a piece of land to grow a different thing, and it was beautiful. There was connection between people, the land and the universe. You saw the land very green, very nice. I don't see heaven upstairs - I see the heaven in the land. And Heaven is in the people, between people. Before the sun set, everybody finished working, and went to prepare their showers. We boiled the water in a big drum - me, my sisters and brothers - and tipped the water over each other with a cup. We washed and dried each other, feet and body. Everyone did the same. Then we went out and met other brothers and sisters and friends in the street: we all knew each other - we were all one community, one family. If we didn't know a person, we were happy meeting them and getting to know them - the streets were a way to meet - this is the natural way. Everybody helped each other. Everything was barter - no money. You helped me one week; I helped you the next week. Every day was like this: healthy land and healthy people. There was no need for counsellors, psychologists, meditation, yoga, or other things; there weren't many hospitals, doctors, or chemists. People didn't need fixing; they just lived the natural way. Nowadays people are searching everywhere for healing, trying all kinds of modalities. Many don't find what they are looking for, because what they really need is to be part of a loving and sharing community.

Through growing organic food, we can create community. As I have experienced, in organics, everyone works together: the growers, the wholesaler, the customers. They are my family. Many people in this industry understand that they are in it for more than just making money. They do it because in their hearts they know the value of true community. They want to provide quality produce that will truly help people grow healthy. My customers are happy to take food which has a few spots on it, because it supports the grower, the retailer, the wholesaler. If I see that people are supporting in this way, I give them the food at no charge. People don't want to just throw out organic food, because they know it is valuable. It takes a lot of time and effort to grow organic food as opposed to conventional food. I say, Easy to grow —› easy to throw; hard to grow —› hard to throw!

I am not doing this as a business, to make profit. I could find many ways to make more money than I do. All the money I make goes into buying more food to give people. I value my customers: they are special, they are human beings like me; they are my family. It is not enough to just sell them food; I give them my heart as one human being to another. My customers understand this; that is why they are here buying good food. I do not sell bad food - food that has no nutrition or that makes people sick. I sell food that I know promotes good health and beauty on the inside, as well as on the outside.

Before I opened the organic store, seven years ago, I was a regular user of medication and not a happy person. I was not eating organic foods before opening the shop, although I did eat food as fresh as possible from the land, home grown. I thought it was the good way to eat. I used fertiliser and sprays in my backyard vegetable patch. But it wasn't good enough for my health. I visited the doctors, visited the hospital, and they checked what was wrong with me. I was very tired, and did not know what I was doing wrong. I saw people sitting beside me who were suffering from diabetes and other health problems. It was at this time that I decided I wanted to set up something to make myself, and others, free of health problems. I said to the universe: "Let me change!".

And so every day - every week - I educated myself on healthy living. I saw myself improve. I then wanted to open a shop for organic and natural sugar-free products. So I opened the shop, and sold organic natural products, sugar free products, and also organic meat and chicken. I thought the meat was good because it was organic. I served juice as well. When I made a juice for a customer, I called them my "family", because they let me grow - they let me see the truth. And every time I finished making a juice, I drank the leftovers from the jug. Every day was like this. As I cleansed my body, I could see the doors being opened in my mind. I realised I had the key to my health: through eating this way, I could open the door for releasing every block in my body.

The next step was after six months, when I decided not to sell organic meat or chicken - no live kill in my shop. I learnt there is no need to eat meat to be healthy, as I discovered in myself. Now I find myself, every day, every week, every year, seeing the world in a new way - because there are no more blocks. I have no need for the doctor, or for medications, or for the hospital. Just organic fruit and vegetables. I'm happy every day. And that's why I am sharing this message. I want to make the whole world happy, every day.

This is why we want to stop the chemicals. We want to stop them because they destroy the health of ourselves and our families. Who eats the chemicals that are sprayed on the food? My brother, my sister, my father, my mother. We are all one family. We introduce each other as our family, and we don't want to destroy each other, we want to share. That is why we need people to be on the land. The land needs us. There is plenty of room for everyone. The land needs people to work, or it gets too dry. Even now, most farmers use chemicals, and yet we need more farmers to grow organic. Remember when the farmer sprays chemicals, he protects himself with a mask, so the chemical does not affect him - because chemicals are very dangerous. When you spray on fruit and vegetables, it gets absorbed into the skin of the fruit and vegetables, in the same way that it would come into you if you were not wearing a mask. We eat the poisoned fruit, and it goes inside us. We may kill the insects, but we are also killing ourselves, killing our family, killing each other.

The land is sprayed with chemicals in order to increase production. However, this is at a cost to the land; there comes a time when the land is spent, and cannot yield any more. Consider the analogy of having money in the bank. You make, say, a hundred thousand dollars, and say to yourself: "I have been productive!" What happens next? You decide to go on holiday. Every day you withdraw ten thousand dollars from the bank and enjoy it. How long will it last you? Ten days! And after that, what happens? No more money in the bank - dry! And so it is the same with the land. When you take from the land every year, and give it chemicals and artificial fertilizers and hormones to grow, then when the land gets sick it cannot give you any more. You give something to the land that is poisonous, and that is why we are now sick. We have large hospitals, we need more doctors, more nurses. If we use the land in the natural way, the no chemical way, we will be happy and healthy.

I have heard people argue that it doesn't matter whether we eat chemicals in our food or not, because we are absorbing pollution all the time from the air around us - from cars and industries. What people don't realise is that our bodies work in a very similar way to a car, in that we have our own filtering system to cleanse toxins from the blood. With a car, when it is fed the wrong petrol, the filter cannot remove all the junk from the fuel and the car smokes out a lot of pollution. Eventually the engine works less efficiently and its life is shortened. With people, when we eat foods full of chemicals, our bodies become overloaded with trying to filter out the toxins. As a result, our filtering systems cannot cope with any further toxins from the air we breathe or absorb. When we eat pure foods, we can process any other chemicals we absorb; we can filter them all out.

Both body and mind are affected by chemicals. When we are blocked by toxins, in mind and body, we no longer understand each other clearly. We lose our intelligence. When people get sick they go to the doctor, and they rely on the doctor to fix them with medications, instead of helping themselves. And sometimes even doctors themselves are sick, with overwork and stress. We all have the ability to look after ourselves. Let your food be your medicine, and your medicine be your food! Food is more important than meditation. When you have healthy body, healthy blood, you have automatic connection to the Universe, and you are in meditation all the time