January 23, 2024 • 44 mins
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Yes, I'm a humanitarian, but I'm also a pragmatic spiritualist. I'm also a fan of MMA and billiards and all types of sports. I'm also a vegan chef, and an author. I'm more than [someone who] promotes the idea of food being a medium to connect with our divine nature and to connect with people on a very deep spiritual level... So that's one of the challenges I've always had is how to define myself. - Paul Rodney Turner
Have you ever considered how a simple meal can speak volumes, transcending languages and borders?
Director of Food for Life Global, Paul Rodney Turner, joins us to unravel the fascinating story of food as a universal language and its power to connect us beyond words. His own journey from monkhood to leading a global non-profit serves as a testament to food's ability to bring people together, nourish the soul, and foster unity across diversities.
Our conversation with Paul dives deep into the philosophy of food yoga, revealing how intentional cooking and eating can be a form of spiritual practice that enriches our lives. We learn about the transformative experience of preparing food with love, the spiritual harmony achievable through a plant-based lifestyle, and how such acts create a ripple effect of compassion and mindfulness. This episode is a celebration of the sacredness embedded in the culinary arts and the profound impact it can have on our well-being and sense of community.
Together, we delve into a world where spirituality meets everyday life, and where each bite we take can be an act of love and connection. Join us on this journey of discovery and make your meals a bridge to a more conscious and compassionate existence.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul Rodney Turner (00:00):
When I offered them food at the
restaurant, all of a sudden I'mlike an equal to them, I'm like
their best friend because I'mfeeding them.
So I realized early on that,wow, food is a powerful
communicator.
It is the best communicator inthe world.
It breaks through all barriersthat divide us.
Because you may have so manypolitical things which divide
(00:21):
you, like politics, nationality,race, color, whatever it is,
language even.
But when you put a beautifulmeal down in the middle of a
table, all of a sudden we'refamily.
Ella Magers (00:36):
Hey there and welcome to Rise and Thrive with
me, ella Majors.
I created this high-vibrepodcast from a place of profound
curiosity, fierce compassionand the deep desire to connect
you with the wisdom ofinspirational wellness, health,
fitness and conscious leadersand change makers.
Here's to discovering our blindspots and embracing life as the
(00:58):
adventure it is.
The time is now.
Let's do this.
Hey, hey everyone, ella hereand I've got such a deeply
meaningful episode today with ahuman that I'm so very honored
to have on this show.
(01:19):
His name is Paul Rodney Turner.
He's Australian born.
He's the current director ofFood for Life Global, which is
the world's largest vegan foodrelief organizations, with
projects in over 65 countries.
The charity's services includefree schools, orphanages, eco
(01:41):
communities, medical care,animal sanctuaries and
large-scale food distributionkitchens that serve over 2
million freshly cooked mealsdaily.
All right, I'm going to saythat again 2 million freshly
cooked vegan meals daily.
How extraordinary is that?
Paul is a former monk, aveteran of the World Bank, an
(02:05):
entrepreneur, holistic lifecoach and a vegan chef who's
authored six books.
I'm actually reading his booktitled Food is Yoga right now
and it's phenomenal.
I'm loving every minute.
Now I will say that thisinterview ends really abruptly.
I didn't know.
(02:25):
He had to go pick up his sonfrom school, so we had a little
miscommunication about thetimeframe.
So just keep that in mind andstay tuned, because we will pick
up and do a part two soon.
So stay tuned for that.
All right, I think I'm justgoing to leave it there, because
this episode is soinspirational that I want to get
(02:48):
right to it.
So let's do this.
Hey, paul, thanks so much forbeing here.
Paul Rodney Turner (02:56):
You're most welcome.
It's a pleasure to meet you forthe first time.
I was looking at your websiteand I was very impressed.
Ella Magers (03:03):
Oh, thank you, yeah , and then we started to chat
like we have so much to chatabout.
And then we were like let'srecord this.
We were just chatting about yoursanctuary and, yeah, you know,
before we even dive into that,though, one of the questions I
like to start with is kind of alittle bit esoteric one.
And so if we think about kindof beyond the bio and all the
(03:24):
things that you've done andaccomplished and all the change
that you've initiated in theworld, if I asked you who is the
human being we call Paul RodneyTurner, Like how would you
respond to that?
Paul Rodney Turner (03:38):
I actually had a feeling you were going to
ask something like this.
Ella Magers (03:41):
Really.
Paul Rodney Turner (03:42):
Yeah, it's like you know.
Look, I put on this hat todayand I was thinking, wow, I look
like a golfer.
Ella Magers (03:47):
You do kind of look like a golfer.
Paul Rodney Turner (03:49):
Yeah, and it's so easy for people to like,
just in a very simplistic way,to define themselves and of
course it's not that easy.
And especially like people likemyself, I'm very eclectic, so
I'm sort of all over the place.
Yes, I'm a humanitarian, butI'm also a pragmatic
spiritualist.
I'm also a fan of MMA andbilliards and all types of
(04:12):
sports.
I'm also a vegan chef.
I'm also an author, so how doyou sort of put that into one
statement?
It's actually quite difficult,but I did actually come up with
something and let me see if Ican pull it up on my website.
I came up with a phrase.
I think it's on the website,it's paulrodneyturnercom.
No, it's not on that one, it'son another one.
I can't remember now what itwas, but it was something to the
(04:34):
effect that I'm an eclecticspiritualist, I'm a pragmatic
spiritualist looking for answersin life, and so you know that's
one of the challenges.
I've had to be honest with you,because for a while I was
branding myself and I sort ofstill do as a food yogi.
But obviously I'm much morethan a food yogi.
I'm more than simply justpromoting the idea of food being
(04:55):
a medium to connect with ourdivine nature and to connect
with people on a very deepspiritual level.
That's something that I talkabout in my book, food Yoga, but
obviously there's more to methan just that, so that's one of
the challenges I've always hadis how to define myself.
Ella Magers (05:10):
Oh my gosh, this is resonating so much with me what
you're saying right now,because I feel the same way.
There's so many layers in it tokind of define that.
And to this day I mean I'vedone a lot of things right.
And when somebody asks, oh,what's your title, I'm like, oh
my God, I don't know how am Isupposed to pick a title?
It seems like the hardest thingin the world and I did not know
(05:32):
you were into MMA.
This is very exciting.
Paul Rodney Turner (05:34):
Yeah, I saw you with the glove.
Yeah, I was following UFC backin 1994.
Ella Magers (05:39):
Interesting.
Paul Rodney Turner (05:40):
Yeah, me too , but listen, I was a monk at
the time.
Ella Magers (05:44):
OK, yes, oh my gosh , this is really fascinating, ok
.
Paul Rodney Turner (05:49):
I was a celibate monk from 1983 until
1997.
And so in 94, when I wasintroduced to MMA, like one of
my friends who was a mixedmartial artist, he says, hey,
check this out.
And he put the VHS tapes in andhe showed me, like you know,
hoist grassy winning C1.
And I was like, wow, this isfascinating, cause I was always
(06:11):
a boxing fan.
Early on, from when I was like10 years old.
My dad was a boxing fan, I was aboxing fan, so I used to watch
all the boxing matches, therumble in the jungle, all of
those ones.
I watched them live ontelevision, black and white, and
so I never gave up.
That you know attraction forthat sport, cause I just think
it's fascinating.
You know, mono or mono, bestman wins.
(06:32):
And it's a very fascinatingsport because it's mixed martial
arts, Meaning you just don'tknow what's going to happen,
like anything can happen at anytime, because you're using all
the skill, using every limb, andyou're sort of trying to solve
a puzzle in the form of theopponent in the ring and it's
quite fascinating.
So there's a fair bit ofintellectual processing going on
(06:52):
as well.
It's not just all brute forceand a lot of people don't get
that.
Ella Magers (06:56):
No, they don't.
I got a lot of pushback for alittle while.
You know people not getting inthere like you're supposed to be
compassionate, and yet there'sblood involved.
But this is so different.
This is.
It's so much skill, it's an art, it's an art form and the
people that are doing it arethere because they love it.
They love to be in that ring,they love to be having that one
(07:20):
on one and it's such ameditation.
It really is and I can't waitto talk about like mindfulness
around eating and food and allthat, but also with you know,
martial arts.
It's this space that you get inthat makes it for me very easy
to meditate, because you can'tbe anywhere else and perform.
You can't be anywhere else.
You're going to get knocked outLike you were forced to be in
(07:40):
the moment.
Be right there.
Paul Rodney Turner (07:42):
Yeah, you have to be super focused and
ultimately, what's happening iseach contender is testing
themselves.
So it's really a battle againsttheir will, a battle for
themselves, like it just sohappens that there's another
person across the ring.
But at the end of the day, whatthey're interested in doing is
overcoming their limitations,pushing beyond their fears, you
(08:04):
know, controlling their lowerurges and just becoming stronger
and better and greater in theirlife.
That's what it's all about.
And so you'll see that after atough battle, 99.9% of the time
the two contenders will embraceand say you know, thanks for a
great fight and they'rerespectful, and they sometimes
will bow down, which is reallyastonishing to see.
(08:26):
After witnessing, you know, thebrutality, then you see them
just softening up and realizingthat they're both spiritual
souls, they're both on a path, aspiritual journey, trying to
find their identity and so on,and it's a very powerful
experience for them.
Ella Magers (08:42):
Yeah, and I love this and I jotted it down.
When you said the pragmatic,spiritualist piece like of can
you explain a little more aboutwhat you mean by that?
Paul Rodney Turner (08:51):
Well, as I said, I was a monk from the age
of 19 to 33.
Ella Magers (08:54):
So and how did you get to be a monk?
Paul Rodney Turner (08:56):
Well, first of all, I was a regular kid.
I wasn't like a nerd oranything.
I was somewhat intellectual,looking like I wanted to get a
computer when I was 12 years old, I think it was like.
I can't remember what brand itwas.
It was 64 kilobyte memory,something you'd put together,
you know, like a kit, a computerkit.
That's back in the day we'retalking the 70s.
Ella Magers (09:17):
Yeah.
Paul Rodney Turner (09:18):
I was into astronomy at the age of 15.
So I would look at the nightsky and so I was also like I was
into sports, played soccer,played rugby league, played
cricket.
I did all of that stuff, gotinto fights, regular boy in that
sense.
But I was also veryphilosophical.
So I was always looking atthings and meditating and
thinking about things.
In my early days, my youngeryears, I practically was very
(09:42):
shy to even talk or I'd just sitthere and just listen, you know
, just take everything in andjust contemplate and wonder
what's going on and try andanalyze things, so that sort of
planted.
Particularly when I got intoastronomy, you know, I would
stay up all night looking at thenight sky and asking questions,
the big questions like who arewe?
Why are we so small?
The universe is so big, how didthis all happen?
(10:03):
You know, what's the purpose oflife?
I'm literally asking thosequestions at the age of 15.
It was not prompted by anyone,it just had a natural
inclination to ask thosequestions.
A few years later I wasintroduced to Eastern philosophy
, which began to unravel thoseanswers, and I realized, okay,
there's more to life than simplyeating, sleeping, mating and
(10:23):
defending, which is what theanimals do All right eating,
sleeping, mating, defendingthat's what we all do it.
But human form, human form oflife, is a very special gift,
and so we're meant to do morethan that.
We're meant to use ourGod-given intelligence to ask
those questions and inquire andask and find out what is the
purpose of life?
Why are we here?
Why am I in this body andanother soul is in a dog's body,
(10:46):
or a cow body or a sheep's body?
What is making that decision?
You know what's the reason forthat?
These are questions thateveryone should be asking.
So I was asking those questionsat that age and I decided you
know what, I'm gonna try andfind out.
And I decided to become a monk.
So for the next 14 years I wasa celibate monk, living a very
strict lifestyle.
Ella Magers (11:06):
That's amazing.
So at one point, because Ithink about really just in the
last maybe 10 years of my life,even though my dad was Buddhist,
he started practicing Zen whenI was young.
I'd go to some ceremonies andstuff.
But when you get to that placeof where you really experience
yourself from that consciousnesslevel, of then seeing the two
(11:28):
separate selves, theconsciousness self and then the
ego self, At what age did youkind of understand that?
Was that before you became amonk?
Paul Rodney Turner (11:38):
No, it really kicked in when I was 19.
And what happened was first ofall, as I said, at the age of 16
, I was asking those questions,reading books, but I wasn't
ready.
I wasn't mentally ready to takethat any further.
It was just more of afascination, like okay, this is
interesting, this is interestinginformation.
But it wasn't like somethingthat I wanted to base my life on
(11:58):
.
But at the age of 19, where Iwas much more mature, much more
a young man, now evolving, andthen I had a psychedelic
experience where I had literallyan out-of-body experience.
Aside from the psychedelicexperience, I was actually
practicing what's calledout-of-body.
What do you call it?
What's it called when youthere's techniques you can do,
(12:21):
breathing techniques, can youliterally?
Ella Magers (12:22):
Oh, holotropic.
Paul Rodney Turner (12:24):
Yeah, it's not holotropic, but it's like an
out-of-body experience Atnighttime when we sleep.
There's an astral body that wehave.
The astral body is made of themind and intelligence and it's
like a subtle form of you thatleaves a physical form when you
sleep and you enter into anastral realm and that's actually
where you recharge.
It's sort of like there's anenergetic plane there where you
(12:47):
actually recharge.
And that's why, if you laiddown for eight hours at night
and didn't actually fall asleep,you don't actually get
refreshed.
You don't get recharged.
You need to.
Actually the subtle body, thedream body, needs to leave the
physical body and recharge andthen come back in.
And also the part of the reasonwhy there is this experience is
it enables us to fulfillcertain desires on the subtle
(13:10):
plane which we couldn't do onthe physical plane.
So it's also an opportunity tofulfill our dreams and wishes
and to figure things out.
It's a problem-solvingmechanism as well, anyway.
So there are techniques you canuse where you can actually
induce this.
Naturally, it's called astralprojection through breathing
techniques.
So I actually did this at theage of 18.
I was laying on my bed and Istarted to.
(13:32):
My body was falling asleep, butI was staying conscious and I
started coming out of myphysical form and I was totally
aware, totally awake.
And then, as I'm coming out,and I'm seeing myself literally
come out of my physical body, mybody's laying on the bed, I
wasn't dying, I was justconscious.
During the astral, during thedreaming state, I was aware.
And then I heard someone saylook at him, he thinks he's good
(13:55):
.
I heard these voices in thebackground.
I didn't know where they were,but someone was watching me
doing this and was laughingabout it like joking.
There was someone on thatastral plane watching me do this
.
It sounds a bit crazy, but Istill remember to this day and
it's over 40 years ago.
So then, as a result of that,that sort of led me to realize
okay, there's more to this worldthan the physical form.
I'm more than just calories andatoms and blood and bone and
(14:21):
scan.
And that's not me, that's justmy vehicle that I'm using to
navigate this material world.
I'm a much powerful force, I'ma spark of God's splendor, I'm
literally godly in nature.
But I'm limited by thisphysical form.
Because this is my coming out.
I need to have certainexperiences, learn certain
lessons in this physical maleform and, like you have the same
(14:42):
thing, you have lessons thatyou need to learn in your female
form.
But it doesn't define us,because if I said that I'm Paul
Turner, born in 1963, I'll justturn 60, that would really be
like saying that if I had a bookhere and I read one page of
this book, I could tell you whatthe contents of that book was,
and it's just not right.
(15:03):
Or one frame of a movie.
So literally we have to see thebig picture and understand.
This lifetime that we'reexperiencing is literally one
page of a very long book, and soit's impossible to define
ourselves by this one page, bythis one human experience.
Ella Magers (15:18):
Right, wow yeah.
Paul Rodney Turner (15:20):
All right.
So once you had this out of,body.
Ella Magers (15:23):
no, this is right up my alley.
This is what my life is allabout these days, like exploring
this stuff, and so when you hadthat out of body experience,
you started to understand thisand you felt called to really
devote your life to it.
Is that how it?
Paul Rodney Turner (15:38):
Yeah, and I had that.
So I had that astral projectionexperience where I literally
felt I saw myself leave myphysical form and I was totally
aware it wasn't dying.
And also I come to realizelater on when I had other
similar experiences and I didn'tknow what was happening.
And it's called when peoplehave this experience where they
can't move in their bed, what'sthe time that I'm losing, I'm
(16:02):
forgetting.
When people have an experiencewhere they're laying on the bed
and they feel like they can'tmove.
They're awake but they can'tmove, yes, and then the astral
body is coming out.
So you're actually stillconscious, the astral body is
coming out.
Because it's coming out, youthen lose control of the
physical form.
So you think someone's holdingyou down and actually what's
happening is you're just awareof the astral projection.
(16:22):
That's what's happening.
So it made me realize, okay,there's more to life, there's
much more to this game thansimply this physical body, and I
felt that the Eastern teachingsreally provided a lot of
guidance in that, likeunderstanding that.
So I decided at the age of 19,20, I think I'd turn 21 up
(16:43):
Before I joined the astral.
I was already practicing,practicing celibacy, chanting
mantras, reading the BhagavadGita and so on.
And then finally I decided youknow what I'm just going to go
all in on this and just find outif it works for me.
I had no idea that I would doit for 14 years.
I just thought it was maybe acouple of years or something
like that.
But I ended up staying.
(17:04):
I stuck with it and during thattime as a monk, it was very
spiritually purifying, but Ialso was teaching myself skills,
so that when I stopped being amonk I actually had certain
skills that I could use in thereal world.
I taught myself computers,copywriting, communications,
marketing and so on while I wasa monk.
(17:25):
So I wasn't an average monk inthat sense.
I was always very thirsty forknowledge and not just sort of
following a blind path, butactually wanting to always
improve myself in differentareas.
Ella Magers (17:37):
You seem like if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna go
all in kind of person.
Paul Rodney Turner (17:42):
Yeah, it's pretty radical decision, but I
was excited.
To be honest with us.
The night before I joined I wasso excited, I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't sleep.
I chanted mantras for 10 hoursto purify my body.
I thought, if I'm gonna offermy body to God, I want to make
sure it's pure.
So I literally chanted mantrasfor 10 hours non-stop.
And then I joined the ashramand then that night I couldn't
(18:04):
even sleep because I was just soexcited.
Ella Magers (18:07):
At what point did food really come into play here,
in terms of your relationshipwith food, in terms of this food
yoga thing?
Paul Rodney Turner (18:15):
Well, my first service as a monk was to
pay meals, help the cooks in thetemple to prepare meals and
serve the homeless in Sydney,australia.
So that was my first.
Interestingly enough, before Ijoined the temple, I actually
had this idea.
Well, I'd like to be a cook forGod, because I sort of had an
inclination to get in thekitchen and just make stuff and
(18:36):
create things, because I was anartist and so cooking was like
an art form for me.
So I really liked that idea.
If I'm gonna join the temple,what will I do?
I'm not gonna chant mantras allday.
I gotta do something.
So I thought of myself as a cookand, wouldn't you know it, the
first service I was offered wasto help prepare meals in the
kitchen for the homeless.
So I got this idea that, wow,this is a great way to
(18:59):
communicate with people.
I had that experience becausepeople were looking at me,
naturally thinking, wow, thisguy's strange.
You know, he's wearing robes,he's shaved his head, he's a bit
of an oddball and they'rejudging me by the physical
appearance, not understandingthat I'm just a regular person
like them.
But I'm just trying to findspiritual answers.
I wasn't special in any way, Iwas just trying to find answers
(19:21):
and this is part of that process.
Was, you know, getting rid ofthe false ego, shaving your head
, changing your clothing, livingvery simply, chanting mantras,
eating a regulated diet, avegetarian diet?
It wasn't vegan then and anyway.
So when I offered them food atthe restaurant, all of a sudden
I'm like an equal to them, I'mlike their best friend because
(19:43):
I'm feeding them.
So I realized early on that, wow, food is a powerful
communicator.
It is the best communicator inthe world.
It breaks through all barriersthat divide us, because you may
have so many political thingswhich divide you, like politics,
nationality, race, color,whatever it is, language even
but when you put a beautifulmeal down in the middle of a
(20:05):
table, all of a sudden we'refamily, we can unite around that
food.
So that's what became thetagline for my charity Food for
Life Global uniting the worldthrough pure food, because
that's the way that we addressworld hunger.
It's not just about feedingbellies.
Of course that's important.
We want to fill people'sbellies, but at the end of the
day, what's important is thefood itself is prepared with
(20:26):
love, it has the ingredient oflove invested in it and when you
share such loving, pure food.
It has the ability to unitepeople, and this unity is the
cause of all problems in theworld.
If we unite as a global family,then things like hunger and
poverty will disappear overnight.
Ella Magers (20:45):
I can't help but think when you're talking about
this.
So when I went through a wholeburnout situation and depression
a year and a half ago, twoyears ago, I started listening
to the Ram Dass here in NowPodcast, so I listened from the
beginning to all 300 episodes,whatever, but one of the themes
throughout it was, like everymorning, that's how I started my
morning, and one of the themesthroughout was he would talk
(21:08):
about how, when he was seekingenlightenment, and he would ask
Maharaj, how do I findenlightenment?
And his answer was always feedpeople.
And so I heard that over andover again.
This story no, no, no, yeah.
But I want to go and do thisand meditate for 20 hours and
he's like no, feed people.
And for you to bring that inwith the love and with this
(21:31):
intention behind it and have itbe vegan food too.
Can you talk about food yoga,like where that term came from
and what that?
Paul Rodney Turner (21:40):
means yeah, so I created.
This is my book.
I don't know if you can seethat.
Ella Magers (21:43):
It's a little funky with the background, I'll take
the background off.
Paul Rodney Turner (21:47):
Hang on, I'll take the background off.
No, no, no, no.
Ella Magers (21:50):
That was blur.
Paul Rodney Turner (21:52):
Real background right Were you all
listening.
Ella Magers (21:54):
You can check us out on YouTube.
We will have the video.
Paul Rodney Turner (21:57):
This one.
There's the real background.
Ella Magers (21:58):
There we go, yes.
Paul Rodney Turner (22:00):
So that concept of food yoga came up
when I was writing this book,and essentially the idea was
spiritual veganism, likeintroducing a spiritual aspect
to the experience of eatingplant-based, because at the end
of the day, even if you're avegan, you're still committing
some harm, right?
Yes, obviously it's less.
(22:22):
Obviously it's less, but wecan't avoid violence in this
world.
Is this the nature of thisworld?
One man's food is another man'spoison.
One man's pleasure is anotherperson's suffering.
That's just the nature of thematerial world.
It's like it's given takes.
Black and white.
It's how things flow.
There has to be somedestruction for evolution.
There has to be death for birth.
(22:42):
It's the end of the yank ofnature.
You can't avoid it, you can'tjust have all.
There has to be some giving forsome taking.
Ella Magers (22:51):
That's the 3D world we live in.
Right, that's this kind ofmatrix of dualistic.
Paul Rodney Turner (22:57):
Exactly.
But so with food, even as avegan, we're committing some
suffering to living entities insome way.
The idea of food yoga and thisis what I learned from my
experience as a monk.
In that tradition it's calledthe Vedic hospitality, the
traditional Indian hospitalityculture, wherein it was very
common for the householders toinvite their friends or
(23:21):
neighbors for a meal if theywere hungry.
They wouldn't eat their mealuntil everyone else was
satisfied, so the wife wouldprepare the meal, the husband
would go outside Is anybodyhungry, please come.
If you need food, come and eatand then only after they had
eaten would the man and thefamily sit down and have their
meal.
So it was a culture ofselflessness and giving and
(23:43):
understanding the power of foodto show love and respect to
another person.
So food yoga is all aboutnourishing your body, mind and
soul.
It's not just about nourishingyour body because, yes, we
understand there's so muchresearch on this.
When you eat a plant-based diet, it's great for your physical
body because in so manydifferent ways your body is
(24:04):
designed for a plant-based diet.
We have, biologically, we'rebetter suited for a plant-based
diet.
There's so many benefits there.
But there's also the subtleaspect of our being, which is
the mental and the consciousness.
So food has to also nourish ourmind and spirit as well, and
the only type of food that cando that is food that's prepared
with a loving intention, becauseone of the ingredients of the
(24:27):
purest food is the intention,the love that's invested as the
person's preparing it.
So that was part of thetradition that I grew up in as a
monk, that when the cooks wouldprepare the meals, they
wouldn't even taste the mealwhile they're preparing it.
They would prepare it withouttasting it, and even if they had
to cook for hundreds, thousandsof people like I'm talking
large pots of food, they wouldnot taste that food while
(24:50):
they're preparing it, and thenonly after they finished cooking
, they would take a sample ofeach portion of, you know,
whatever preparation they may,take a portion, put it on a
silver platter, make an offeringto God, ask God to please taste
this food first and say somemantras, and then only would
they serve it to the public andtaste the food themselves.
So it was a very selflessoffering, and because of that
(25:12):
the food was transforming.
It was very, very pure.
It was just invested with loveand selflessness, and people
tasted the difference, even ifit was the simplest thing, like
rice or dial, something verysimple.
It was like the best dial thatthey've ever had, the best rice
they've ever eaten, because theytasted that subtle difference.
And so that's essentially whatfood yoga is about.
It's nourishing mind, body andsoul.
(25:34):
It's using food as a medium ofcommunication.
It's seeing food as a vehicle,as a medium to connect with our
divine nature and the divinenature of others.
Ella Magers (25:46):
This is so beautiful when it comes to the
actual process of eating thefood ourselves and I think you
know, in this culture where somany people will sit down and
just kind of shovel food intheir mouth and not even think
about it, is there a componentof I'm going to be present with
the food as I eat?
It as it enters my body and canyou talk about that?
Paul Rodney Turner (26:07):
Yeah, it's conscious eating, because we
always have be grateful rightFor the blessings that we have,
and that's one of thefoundations of a prosperous life
is to start with the greatthing, grateful, being thankful.
If you want to manifest thingsin your life positivity you have
to start from the point of okay, what can I be thankful for?
I'm thankful for my mother andfather.
I'm thankful for my friends,for the food on my table Just
(26:30):
understanding the blessings thatare surrounding you right now
before looking into the futureand wanting more and more and
more.
So when you're preparing a meal, it's important that the person
preparing it has a lovingintention, that this is a gift.
I'm giving you something out oflove.
So it's like if I bought you abox of chocolates, it wouldn't
(26:51):
be appropriate for me to firsttake one of the chocolates to
taste it to see if the chocolatetasted good.
That would then contaminate theoffering and you wouldn't feel
like it was a beautiful gift.
It would be sort of minimizedin so many ways if I tasted one
of the chocolates.
So in the same way, the cookhas to prepare the loving
intention, selflessness and as away to honor the efforts of the
(27:12):
chef.
It's important to us to eatwith consciousness, eat with
awareness, with gratitude, withfocus, and not be doing a me and
other things at the same timelooking at videos, reading a
book, talking, just sitting andjust enjoying the taste as
you're chewing the food, likemeditating and focusing on the
chewing, making sure you'rechewing.
(27:34):
There's an in the Ayurveda, theIndian health system.
It's called the Ayurveda, whichmeans the knowledge of life.
Ayur means life and Veda meansknowledge.
Ayurveda it says that youshould chew grains 32 times
before you swallow it.
So if you're eating bread, youshould actually chew that mouth
full of bread 32 times, Okay,I've been telling people 30, so
(27:57):
I got to add two more, 32.
Whatever, but yeah, the idea ofit's really the way to honor the
efforts of the chef.
This is a gift.
Just be like I gave you a giftand I wrapped it so beautifully
and put a ribbon on top.
It'd be like if you just toreit up or didn't read the card
first, right, and didn'tactually appreciate the effort
put into the gift for you.
(28:18):
Sort of like that.
Ella Magers (28:19):
Yeah, and then it seems to me it's also a respect
for our bodies, you know to beable to.
Paul Rodney Turner (28:25):
That's real, of course.
Ella Magers (28:26):
Yeah, so yeah, the combination of those some things
that most people don't thinkabout or not programmed in that
way in this United States.
Paul Rodney Turner (28:34):
Well, it's fast food culture, right,
because it's all about justfueling the body and just
getting on with the moreimportant stuff.
But actually eating is such animportant part of our evolution
and in fact the big takeawayfrom my book Food Yoga is that
evolution of consciousnessbegins only when we learn to
master the term.
So I'll repeat that ourconsciousness begins to expand
(28:56):
only after we learn how tomaster the tongue.
The tongue has two functionstasting and vibrating.
So what you speak and what youeat will have a tremendous
impact on your consciousness.
So if you're speaking positivity, if you're speaking truthful
words, words that are upliftingand so on, these things will
enrich your consciousness,expand your consciousness.
If you're speaking negativethings, that'll squash your
(29:19):
consciousness.
And similarly, if you're eatingfoods with a light, high
vibration, plant-based, lesssuffering, high energy, that's
going to expand yourconsciousness.
But if you're eating deadcorpses and rotten or processed
foods or foods that's not evenreally food that's just made in
the factory, it's not reallyjust made of all sorts of
chemicals and horrible things,then that food is not going to
(29:39):
nourish you on multiple levelsand it's going to squash your
consciousness.
So that's really the maintakeaway from the book Food
Jogger is learning to master thetongue.
Ella Magers (29:49):
And I keep smiling because I'm here in the roosters
, so I can't wait to talk aboutthem.
Okay, so here's kind of a funnylittle question for the people
that are listening.
I did a survey recently of ouraudience to see just how
interested people are in thespiritual aspects.
These are people that are atleast vegan curious and was
wondering how many of them wereinterested in the spiritual
aspects.
And overwhelmingly people arewanting to understand it and
(30:13):
wanting to expand theirconsciousness.
But for the people who are like, what does that even mean?
Why do I want to even expand myconsciousness?
What is that.
Can you speak to that?
Paul Rodney Turner (30:24):
Well, this gets back to my title of being a
pragmatic spiritualist, because, yes, I was a very fanatical
spiritual person.
I went to the point of becominga monk.
That's not what your averagespiritualist would do.
It's pretty radical.
But I've come to learn that youcan be spiritual without being
religious.
You don't need religion.
First of all, religion has away to guide you, like religious
(30:48):
institutions are there toprovide camaraderie, to guide
you, but at the end of the day,you have to fly your own plane.
It's your life, it's yourspiritual journey, not mine.
We're two very unique peopleand so you have certain
experiences to learn.
You have certain experiences tohave, lessons to learn, and I
have my own as well.
So we have to fly our own plane, and that's why it's important
(31:12):
that when people think aboutspirituality, they have to
understand that doesn't mean youhave to become religious.
You can be spiritual in even themost mundane thing.
For example, you're digging ahole or something and you're
preparing a garden, so aspiritualist would understand
that.
Okay, this is a blessing thatI'm doing physical labor.
It's good for my health,connecting with Mother Earth
(31:34):
like with nature.
So I'm grounding myself, whichis also good because it's
decontaminating me from theelectromagnetic pollution.
I'm touching the soil andplanting seeds.
I'm seeing you know the wondersof nature.
So in this way, if you havethis meditative way of going
about your work, you can bespiritual.
You can see the connection withthe divine even in the most
(31:55):
mundane thing of digging a hole.
So you can be spiritual withoutbeing religious.
And that's sort of essentiallywhat I'm talking about in my
books as well, and I've writtena few books.
That's another one I wrote aswell, the Seven Maxims of Soul
Happiness.
And I wrote another one calledthe Yoga of Pool, where I talk
about billiards, because I waslike a professional billiards
player and I would teach people.
(32:17):
So what I do?
I write a book about billiardsand I introduce spiritual
concepts into the book.
So it's called the Yoga of Pool.
So that way when people areplaying pool, they have the
spiritual information as well.
They can understand thatthey're not the mind, they're a
spiritual being, they'repowerful, they can be confident,
drawing confidence from theirspirituality, not from false ego
.
So it's one of the most popularbilliards books in the market
(32:40):
now because it's such adifferent way of approaching
billiards.
Ella Magers (32:43):
Oh my gosh, I just love all of this so much, and
one thing I talk about is likewhen you get to that place where
you're not to demean life oranything, but kind of playing it
like a game, like seeing it asbeing so curious and so leading
with curiosity and compassion,if we can lead with curiosity
and compassion and everythingthat we do becomes fascinating,
(33:05):
it becomes an opportunity forgrowth, and I just love how you
put that into billiards.
Paul Rodney Turner (33:11):
That's fantastic.
That's pretty crazy.
So the idea is that in everysport, in order to become the
best, you need to learn how tocontrol your mind.
Like you talked to MichaelJordan, tiger Woods, the mental
side of it MMA, mental side ofit is critical, because you may
have the physical talent and youmay be able to do the best
(33:33):
wrestler, best puncher, whateverbut if you don't have your
mental game in order, whereyou're confident and you're
ready to push beyond those timeswhen you're ready to give up,
if you don't have control ofyour mind, you're never going to
be a champion.
So in this book I talk aboutthat, but drawing confidence not
from a false platform of egowhere you think you know, I'm
just going to pretend that I'mgreat, I'll pretend that I'm
(33:55):
good.
No understanding that.
You are really powerful.
You're a spiritual being.
You're a spark of God.
You are godly in nature.
You have incredible powers deepwithin you.
You just have to access those.
So you should be very confident.
Don't be limited by thisphysical form.
This is nothing.
This is just your vehicle.
It's like you're driving a youknow Honda Civic and someone
(34:15):
else is driving a Porsche.
But if you have self confidenceand you value yourself and your
knowledge and your skills, thenyou're in a better position
than that person driving a muchmore expensive car.
It's all about perspective.
Ella Magers (34:29):
Yeah, all right, let's talk about food for life.
When was that born and how didyou choose the name?
Paul Rodney Turner (34:36):
Well, food for life goes back 40 years
actually 50 years, 74, when itstarted by a group of monks.
They were responding to theirspiritual teacher Prabhupada his
name was, and he saw somechildren fighting with dogs over
scraps of food behind thetemple and he was so shocked by
this he said my God, there'schildren fighting with dogs over
(34:58):
scraps of food.
This should not happen.
So he told them no one within10 miles of our temple should
ever go hungry.
You need to start feedingpeople in the local community
now, and this is a great servicethat you do for the community.
So they started feeding peopleand then that concept expanded
around the world.
A few years in like, in 83, Ibecame a volunteer for food for
(35:19):
life.
Back then it was very grassroots, there was only maybe a
dozen projects around the worldand I became so passionate about
this project that I decided tomake it my focus for my service.
And then in 1993, I was askedto set up the headquarters and
actually formalize this wholeproject and then expand it
around the world.
So I left Australia, migratedto the United States and set up
(35:45):
Food for Life Global and begantraining.
I wrote a training manual,began traveling around the world
, training volunteers andexpanding the project.
That's now in 65 countries,over 200 projects serving over a
million meals a day.
So the name Food for Life cameabout in 1980 when it was still
very much a grass roots projectand it was called Hare Krishna
Food for Life.
When I took it over and Iexpanded it and created Food for
(36:08):
Life Global, I wanted toposition it in such a way that
it was non-sectarian and so thatanyone could be involved in
this project.
You don't have to be a HareKrishna or a Hindu, it doesn't
matter.
The concept of like preparingfood with a loving intention and
sharing with the public, that'sa universal concept.
It's not like it's exclusive toIndia or Indian culture.
So I made Food for Life Globalnon-sectarian.
(36:32):
I changed it from vegetarian tovegan because I realized that's
the higher principle and we'vebeen expanding ever since.
So that's sort of where itcomes from.
And then, if you look at thename Food for Life, it's sort of
like food for life food forsoul.
It's not just food for the body, it's food for body, mind and
soul.
Ella Magers (36:50):
Yeah, and over a million meals a day, I mean
every day.
That's amazing and like that'sunbelievable, almost to think
about how you've set that up tobe able to make that happen,
still being a relatively small,you know organization.
Can you talk about how you'vemanaged to do that?
Paul Rodney Turner (37:09):
Yeah, food for Life Global is a
headquarters, so we're not likecontrolling all of the
day-to-day activities of theprojects.
We're like a support office, amedia headquarters, a marketing
headquarters, fundraisingheadquarters but they're all
doing their own localfundraising.
They have the localadministration.
We're not micro-managing them.
We're providing the guidanceand support that they need to
training the marketing and thatsort of thing for them.
(37:31):
So we're a support office andso that's why we are at the
headquarters.
You know we're small but weoversee a global network which
is very big.
Ella Magers (37:40):
And do you call them affiliates?
Affiliates, so the affiliatescreate their own, you know mini.
Paul Rodney Turner (37:47):
According to our guidelines.
So we provide the guidelines.
Okay, in order to be anaffiliate, you have to follow
these rules, one of them beingvegan meals.
And then we raise funds onbehalf of the network and we
give grants to our affiliates.
They do their own fundraising,but when they need, like we
recently gave $20,000 to buy avan and one of our projects in
Nepal, $5,000 or $10,000 for,like, emergency relief.
(38:09):
So we're raising funds all thetime and giving grants to our
local projects.
Ella Magers (38:13):
And these are all home cooked like all made with
love food.
Paul Rodney Turner (38:18):
Freshly cooked that day, nothing
prepackaged, nothing frozen,nothing from a food bank.
It's all freshly cut that day,Like the fruits and vegetables
are washed, the rice and dal iswashed, made that morning,
served to the public.
So we're very unique in thisway because at the level that we
operate it's highly unusual ifnot, it doesn't happen outside
of food, If no one does it theway we do it they always have
(38:41):
like package food the World FoodProgram primarily does like
bags of rice and grains.
They provide the resources butthen they're not usually
prepared meals.
But we freshly prepare thesemeals and serve them directly to
the public.
And a massive scale.
Ella Magers (38:57):
Yeah, it's incredible.
And at what point did youexpand your mission and include
rescued farmed animals?
You want to tell?
Paul Rodney Turner (39:08):
them when I met my wife Juliana, so 10 years
ago.
Ella Magers (39:11):
How did you meet?
Paul Rodney Turner (39:12):
10 years ago , we met online because I was
looking for a translator, whileI was traveling around the world
promoting the food yoga bookand also documenting food for
life for a documentary, and Isays, look, I'm coming to South
America, I'm looking for atranslator, and I found her and
we ended up just taking itbeyond being a translator.
(39:33):
She became my wife and I thenbecame introduced to her project
, which was very small at thetime, and then I helped her
expand it and develop it overthe years 10 years ago, so, yeah
, so during that time I wasfruitful.
I've already had the mission totagline uniting the world
through pure food and she mademe realize, well, that doesn't
(39:54):
just mean humans, you know, itmeans animals too.
I mean, at the end of the day,we're all earthlings.
Even if you're a cow, we're allearthlings.
Right, we all belong here.
So we should show respect forall life, not just the plants
and not just the people.
But what about animals?
And so we included feedingrescued animals as part of our
mission as well.
Ella Magers (40:15):
And she already had a sanctuary.
Paul Rodney Turner (40:17):
She already had a sanctuary, the farm.
She started the first farmsanctuary in all of South
America.
Ella Magers (40:25):
Wow, it's amazing.
Paul Rodney Turner (40:26):
She was the first one to do that like farm
animals.
And now we have about 150animals bulls and cows and goats
and sheep and rabbits andchickens and dogs and cats and
horses and lots of pigs.
And right now she's doing atour.
She's got a school kids.
Right now she's doing a tour ofthe sanctuary.
So the schools come all everyweekend.
(40:47):
We have new schools coming.
The kids get to learn about theanimals.
They get to learn Like.
The other day she introduced oneof the kids to one of our bulls
and she said look, bulls arejust like dogs.
Watch what happens if you justrun up the hill.
And they started running up thehill All the children.
The bull started following themand jumping up and down.
And then they ran down the hilland he did the same thing and
(41:08):
they realized, oh my God, he'slike a dog.
And so just in a very cute,natural way, they realized oh,
if he's like a dog, why am Ieating bulls?
So she's really educating themand giving them the big picture,
understanding that they're allsentient beings.
They just so happen to have adifferent physical form, but at
the end of the day we're allspiritually connected.
So it's a very powerfuleducation experience here for
(41:32):
the kids and as a result thenational government has actually
included animal welfare clubsas part of the national
curriculum.
So she's actually had so muchinfluence that now they're
including that as part of thetraining education for the
children in the country likelearning to respect animals.
So that's really powerful.
I have to get going.
Ella Magers (41:53):
Okay.
Paul Rodney Turner (41:56):
I'm happy to do it again if you want to do
it.
Ella Magers (41:57):
a part two yeah, let's do a part two, because I
could just talk to you for hours.
So, yes, where can people findyou, support you?
Paul Rodney Turner (42:07):
So Food for Life Global is really easy one.
It's fflorg.
Fflfoxfoxlinaorg.
Juliana's Animal Sanctuary isJuliana'sAnimalSanctuaryorg.
You can reach me.
Food for Life on Instagram isFood for Life Global.
Facebook Food for Life Global.
Pretty easy to find me and I'musually.
My handle is Paul Rod Turner.
(42:28):
On social media.
Ella Magers (42:29):
We'll put all of those in the show notes.
Paul Rodney Turner (42:32):
Yeah, thank you.
Ella Magers (42:33):
Yes, oh, thank you so much.
Thank you for what you do,thank you for all the change
you're sparking in this worldand just for the beautiful human
being that you are.
Paul Rodney Turner (42:42):
Oh, I appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
I'm trying my best.
At the end of the day, we'reall going to be leaving a
positive legacy.
We're all gurus, even if it'sat the micro level of just being
an example for your children.
But at the end of the day, wehave to leave a positive legacy
and pass on wisdom, share ourexperiences and make the world a
better place.
Make the future generationsbetter and better.
Thank you.
Ella Magers (43:03):
Amazing Thank you.
Thanks for listening to thisweek's episode of Rise and
Thrive with me, Ella Majors.
I truly hope you found itinspiring and, if you did,
please help me spread the wordby leaving a rating and review
on your favorite podcast playerand by sharing the show with
your friends.
As you probably know by now, mylife's purpose is to use my
(43:27):
voice to make this world a moreconscious and compassionate
place, and your reviews andshares make a huge impact.
And last, I'm getting a ton ofinsanely positive feedback about
my short and sweet monthlynewsletter called the Way.
It's called Short 4, the WayOut is Through.
I give my top five latest badassdiscoveries, insights and
(43:47):
explorations, like veganproducts and recipes.
I'm obsessed with books andshows I'm loving and workouts
that have me fired up.
Head on over to my website,EllaMajorscom, to sign up and
check out all the other awesomeresources I have for you and
projects I'm involved with, andHogs and Kisses Farm Sanctuary,
(44:09):
where our mission is to createthe best life for farm animals
while inspiring compassion forall living beings.
Thanks a lot and I'll see youon the next one.
When I offered them food at the
restaurant, all of a sudden I'mlike an equal to them, I'm like
their best friend because I'mfeeding them.
So I realized early on that,wow, food is a powerful
communicator.
It is the best communicator inthe world.
It breaks through all barriersthat divide us.
Because you may have so manypolitical things which divide
(00:21):
you, like politics, nationality,race, color, whatever it is,
language even.
But when you put a beautifulmeal down in the middle of a
table, all of a sudden we'refamily.
Ella Magers (00:36):
Hey there and welcome to Rise and Thrive with
me, ella Majors.
I created this high-vibrepodcast from a place of profound
curiosity, fierce compassionand the deep desire to connect
you with the wisdom ofinspirational wellness, health,
fitness and conscious leadersand change makers.
Here's to discovering our blindspots and embracing life as the
(00:58):
adventure it is.
The time is now.
Let's do this.
Hey, hey everyone, ella hereand I've got such a deeply
meaningful episode today with ahuman that I'm so very honored
to have on this show.
(01:19):
His name is Paul Rodney Turner.
He's Australian born.
He's the current director ofFood for Life Global, which is
the world's largest vegan foodrelief organizations, with
projects in over 65 countries.
The charity's services includefree schools, orphanages, eco
(01:41):
communities, medical care,animal sanctuaries and
large-scale food distributionkitchens that serve over 2
million freshly cooked mealsdaily.
All right, I'm going to saythat again 2 million freshly
cooked vegan meals daily.
How extraordinary is that?
Paul is a former monk, aveteran of the World Bank, an
(02:05):
entrepreneur, holistic lifecoach and a vegan chef who's
authored six books.
I'm actually reading his booktitled Food is Yoga right now
and it's phenomenal.
I'm loving every minute.
Now I will say that thisinterview ends really abruptly.
I didn't know.
(02:25):
He had to go pick up his sonfrom school, so we had a little
miscommunication about thetimeframe.
So just keep that in mind andstay tuned, because we will pick
up and do a part two soon.
So stay tuned for that.
All right, I think I'm justgoing to leave it there, because
this episode is soinspirational that I want to get
(02:48):
right to it.
So let's do this.
Hey, paul, thanks so much forbeing here.
Paul Rodney Turner (02:56):
You're most welcome.
It's a pleasure to meet you forthe first time.
I was looking at your websiteand I was very impressed.
Ella Magers (03:03):
Oh, thank you, yeah , and then we started to chat
like we have so much to chatabout.
And then we were like let'srecord this.
We were just chatting about yoursanctuary and, yeah, you know,
before we even dive into that,though, one of the questions I
like to start with is kind of alittle bit esoteric one.
And so if we think about kindof beyond the bio and all the
(03:24):
things that you've done andaccomplished and all the change
that you've initiated in theworld, if I asked you who is the
human being we call Paul RodneyTurner, Like how would you
respond to that?
Paul Rodney Turner (03:38):
I actually had a feeling you were going to
ask something like this.
Ella Magers (03:41):
Really.
Paul Rodney Turner (03:42):
Yeah, it's like you know.
Look, I put on this hat todayand I was thinking, wow, I look
like a golfer.
Ella Magers (03:47):
You do kind of look like a golfer.
Paul Rodney Turner (03:49):
Yeah, and it's so easy for people to like,
just in a very simplistic way,to define themselves and of
course it's not that easy.
And especially like people likemyself, I'm very eclectic, so
I'm sort of all over the place.
Yes, I'm a humanitarian, butI'm also a pragmatic
spiritualist.
I'm also a fan of MMA andbilliards and all types of
(04:12):
sports.
I'm also a vegan chef.
I'm also an author, so how doyou sort of put that into one
statement?
It's actually quite difficult,but I did actually come up with
something and let me see if Ican pull it up on my website.
I came up with a phrase.
I think it's on the website,it's paulrodneyturnercom.
No, it's not on that one, it'son another one.
I can't remember now what itwas, but it was something to the
(04:34):
effect that I'm an eclecticspiritualist, I'm a pragmatic
spiritualist looking for answersin life, and so you know that's
one of the challenges.
I've had to be honest with you,because for a while I was
branding myself and I sort ofstill do as a food yogi.
But obviously I'm much morethan a food yogi.
I'm more than simply justpromoting the idea of food being
(04:55):
a medium to connect with ourdivine nature and to connect
with people on a very deepspiritual level.
That's something that I talkabout in my book, food Yoga, but
obviously there's more to methan just that, so that's one of
the challenges I've always hadis how to define myself.
Ella Magers (05:10):
Oh my gosh, this is resonating so much with me what
you're saying right now,because I feel the same way.
There's so many layers in it tokind of define that.
And to this day I mean I'vedone a lot of things right.
And when somebody asks, oh,what's your title, I'm like, oh
my God, I don't know how am Isupposed to pick a title?
It seems like the hardest thingin the world and I did not know
(05:32):
you were into MMA.
This is very exciting.
Paul Rodney Turner (05:34):
Yeah, I saw you with the glove.
Yeah, I was following UFC backin 1994.
Ella Magers (05:39):
Interesting.
Paul Rodney Turner (05:40):
Yeah, me too , but listen, I was a monk at
the time.
Ella Magers (05:44):
OK, yes, oh my gosh , this is really fascinating, ok
.
Paul Rodney Turner (05:49):
I was a celibate monk from 1983 until
1997.
And so in 94, when I wasintroduced to MMA, like one of
my friends who was a mixedmartial artist, he says, hey,
check this out.
And he put the VHS tapes in andhe showed me, like you know,
hoist grassy winning C1.
And I was like, wow, this isfascinating, cause I was always
(06:11):
a boxing fan.
Early on, from when I was like10 years old.
My dad was a boxing fan, I was aboxing fan, so I used to watch
all the boxing matches, therumble in the jungle, all of
those ones.
I watched them live ontelevision, black and white, and
so I never gave up.
That you know attraction forthat sport, cause I just think
it's fascinating.
You know, mono or mono, bestman wins.
(06:32):
And it's a very fascinatingsport because it's mixed martial
arts, Meaning you just don'tknow what's going to happen,
like anything can happen at anytime, because you're using all
the skill, using every limb, andyou're sort of trying to solve
a puzzle in the form of theopponent in the ring and it's
quite fascinating.
So there's a fair bit ofintellectual processing going on
(06:52):
as well.
It's not just all brute forceand a lot of people don't get
that.
Ella Magers (06:56):
No, they don't.
I got a lot of pushback for alittle while.
You know people not getting inthere like you're supposed to be
compassionate, and yet there'sblood involved.
But this is so different.
This is.
It's so much skill, it's an art, it's an art form and the
people that are doing it arethere because they love it.
They love to be in that ring,they love to be having that one
(07:20):
on one and it's such ameditation.
It really is and I can't waitto talk about like mindfulness
around eating and food and allthat, but also with you know,
martial arts.
It's this space that you get inthat makes it for me very easy
to meditate, because you can'tbe anywhere else and perform.
You can't be anywhere else.
You're going to get knocked outLike you were forced to be in
(07:40):
the moment.
Be right there.
Paul Rodney Turner (07:42):
Yeah, you have to be super focused and
ultimately, what's happening iseach contender is testing
themselves.
So it's really a battle againsttheir will, a battle for
themselves, like it just sohappens that there's another
person across the ring.
But at the end of the day, whatthey're interested in doing is
overcoming their limitations,pushing beyond their fears, you
(08:04):
know, controlling their lowerurges and just becoming stronger
and better and greater in theirlife.
That's what it's all about.
And so you'll see that after atough battle, 99.9% of the time
the two contenders will embraceand say you know, thanks for a
great fight and they'rerespectful, and they sometimes
will bow down, which is reallyastonishing to see.
(08:26):
After witnessing, you know, thebrutality, then you see them
just softening up and realizingthat they're both spiritual
souls, they're both on a path, aspiritual journey, trying to
find their identity and so on,and it's a very powerful
experience for them.
Ella Magers (08:42):
Yeah, and I love this and I jotted it down.
When you said the pragmatic,spiritualist piece like of can
you explain a little more aboutwhat you mean by that?
Paul Rodney Turner (08:51):
Well, as I said, I was a monk from the age
of 19 to 33.
Ella Magers (08:54):
So and how did you get to be a monk?
Paul Rodney Turner (08:56):
Well, first of all, I was a regular kid.
I wasn't like a nerd oranything.
I was somewhat intellectual,looking like I wanted to get a
computer when I was 12 years old, I think it was like.
I can't remember what brand itwas.
It was 64 kilobyte memory,something you'd put together,
you know, like a kit, a computerkit.
That's back in the day we'retalking the 70s.
Ella Magers (09:17):
Yeah.
Paul Rodney Turner (09:18):
I was into astronomy at the age of 15.
So I would look at the nightsky and so I was also like I was
into sports, played soccer,played rugby league, played
cricket.
I did all of that stuff, gotinto fights, regular boy in that
sense.
But I was also veryphilosophical.
So I was always looking atthings and meditating and
thinking about things.
In my early days, my youngeryears, I practically was very
(09:42):
shy to even talk or I'd just sitthere and just listen, you know
, just take everything in andjust contemplate and wonder
what's going on and try andanalyze things, so that sort of
planted.
Particularly when I got intoastronomy, you know, I would
stay up all night looking at thenight sky and asking questions,
the big questions like who arewe?
Why are we so small?
The universe is so big, how didthis all happen?
(10:03):
You know, what's the purpose oflife?
I'm literally asking thosequestions at the age of 15.
It was not prompted by anyone,it just had a natural
inclination to ask thosequestions.
A few years later I wasintroduced to Eastern philosophy
, which began to unravel thoseanswers, and I realized, okay,
there's more to life than simplyeating, sleeping, mating and
(10:23):
defending, which is what theanimals do All right eating,
sleeping, mating, defendingthat's what we all do it.
But human form, human form oflife, is a very special gift,
and so we're meant to do morethan that.
We're meant to use ourGod-given intelligence to ask
those questions and inquire andask and find out what is the
purpose of life?
Why are we here?
Why am I in this body andanother soul is in a dog's body,
(10:46):
or a cow body or a sheep's body?
What is making that decision?
You know what's the reason forthat?
These are questions thateveryone should be asking.
So I was asking those questionsat that age and I decided you
know what, I'm gonna try andfind out.
And I decided to become a monk.
So for the next 14 years I wasa celibate monk, living a very
strict lifestyle.
Ella Magers (11:06):
That's amazing.
So at one point, because Ithink about really just in the
last maybe 10 years of my life,even though my dad was Buddhist,
he started practicing Zen whenI was young.
I'd go to some ceremonies andstuff.
But when you get to that placeof where you really experience
yourself from that consciousnesslevel, of then seeing the two
(11:28):
separate selves, theconsciousness self and then the
ego self, At what age did youkind of understand that?
Was that before you became amonk?
Paul Rodney Turner (11:38):
No, it really kicked in when I was 19.
And what happened was first ofall, as I said, at the age of 16
, I was asking those questions,reading books, but I wasn't
ready.
I wasn't mentally ready to takethat any further.
It was just more of afascination, like okay, this is
interesting, this is interestinginformation.
But it wasn't like somethingthat I wanted to base my life on
(11:58):
.
But at the age of 19, where Iwas much more mature, much more
a young man, now evolving, andthen I had a psychedelic
experience where I had literallyan out-of-body experience.
Aside from the psychedelicexperience, I was actually
practicing what's calledout-of-body.
What do you call it?
What's it called when youthere's techniques you can do,
(12:21):
breathing techniques, can youliterally?
Ella Magers (12:22):
Oh, holotropic.
Paul Rodney Turner (12:24):
Yeah, it's not holotropic, but it's like an
out-of-body experience Atnighttime when we sleep.
There's an astral body that wehave.
The astral body is made of themind and intelligence and it's
like a subtle form of you thatleaves a physical form when you
sleep and you enter into anastral realm and that's actually
where you recharge.
It's sort of like there's anenergetic plane there where you
(12:47):
actually recharge.
And that's why, if you laiddown for eight hours at night
and didn't actually fall asleep,you don't actually get
refreshed.
You don't get recharged.
You need to.
Actually the subtle body, thedream body, needs to leave the
physical body and recharge andthen come back in.
And also the part of the reasonwhy there is this experience is
it enables us to fulfillcertain desires on the subtle
(13:10):
plane which we couldn't do onthe physical plane.
So it's also an opportunity tofulfill our dreams and wishes
and to figure things out.
It's a problem-solvingmechanism as well, anyway.
So there are techniques you canuse where you can actually
induce this.
Naturally, it's called astralprojection through breathing
techniques.
So I actually did this at theage of 18.
I was laying on my bed and Istarted to.
(13:32):
My body was falling asleep, butI was staying conscious and I
started coming out of myphysical form and I was totally
aware, totally awake.
And then, as I'm coming out,and I'm seeing myself literally
come out of my physical body, mybody's laying on the bed, I
wasn't dying, I was justconscious.
During the astral, during thedreaming state, I was aware.
And then I heard someone saylook at him, he thinks he's good
(13:55):
.
I heard these voices in thebackground.
I didn't know where they were,but someone was watching me
doing this and was laughingabout it like joking.
There was someone on thatastral plane watching me do this
.
It sounds a bit crazy, but Istill remember to this day and
it's over 40 years ago.
So then, as a result of that,that sort of led me to realize
okay, there's more to this worldthan the physical form.
I'm more than just calories andatoms and blood and bone and
(14:21):
scan.
And that's not me, that's justmy vehicle that I'm using to
navigate this material world.
I'm a much powerful force, I'ma spark of God's splendor, I'm
literally godly in nature.
But I'm limited by thisphysical form.
Because this is my coming out.
I need to have certainexperiences, learn certain
lessons in this physical maleform and, like you have the same
(14:42):
thing, you have lessons thatyou need to learn in your female
form.
But it doesn't define us,because if I said that I'm Paul
Turner, born in 1963, I'll justturn 60, that would really be
like saying that if I had a bookhere and I read one page of
this book, I could tell you whatthe contents of that book was,
and it's just not right.
(15:03):
Or one frame of a movie.
So literally we have to see thebig picture and understand.
This lifetime that we'reexperiencing is literally one
page of a very long book, and soit's impossible to define
ourselves by this one page, bythis one human experience.
Ella Magers (15:18):
Right, wow yeah.
Paul Rodney Turner (15:20):
All right.
So once you had this out of,body.
Ella Magers (15:23):
no, this is right up my alley.
This is what my life is allabout these days, like exploring
this stuff, and so when you hadthat out of body experience,
you started to understand thisand you felt called to really
devote your life to it.
Is that how it?
Paul Rodney Turner (15:38):
Yeah, and I had that.
So I had that astral projectionexperience where I literally
felt I saw myself leave myphysical form and I was totally
aware it wasn't dying.
And also I come to realizelater on when I had other
similar experiences and I didn'tknow what was happening.
And it's called when peoplehave this experience where they
can't move in their bed, what'sthe time that I'm losing, I'm
(16:02):
forgetting.
When people have an experiencewhere they're laying on the bed
and they feel like they can'tmove.
They're awake but they can'tmove, yes, and then the astral
body is coming out.
So you're actually stillconscious, the astral body is
coming out.
Because it's coming out, youthen lose control of the
physical form.
So you think someone's holdingyou down and actually what's
happening is you're just awareof the astral projection.
(16:22):
That's what's happening.
So it made me realize, okay,there's more to life, there's
much more to this game thansimply this physical body, and I
felt that the Eastern teachingsreally provided a lot of
guidance in that, likeunderstanding that.
So I decided at the age of 19,20, I think I'd turn 21 up
(16:43):
Before I joined the astral.
I was already practicing,practicing celibacy, chanting
mantras, reading the BhagavadGita and so on.
And then finally I decided youknow what I'm just going to go
all in on this and just find outif it works for me.
I had no idea that I would doit for 14 years.
I just thought it was maybe acouple of years or something
like that.
But I ended up staying.
(17:04):
I stuck with it and during thattime as a monk, it was very
spiritually purifying, but Ialso was teaching myself skills,
so that when I stopped being amonk I actually had certain
skills that I could use in thereal world.
I taught myself computers,copywriting, communications,
marketing and so on while I wasa monk.
(17:25):
So I wasn't an average monk inthat sense.
I was always very thirsty forknowledge and not just sort of
following a blind path, butactually wanting to always
improve myself in differentareas.
Ella Magers (17:37):
You seem like if I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna go
all in kind of person.
Paul Rodney Turner (17:42):
Yeah, it's pretty radical decision, but I
was excited.
To be honest with us.
The night before I joined I wasso excited, I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't sleep.
I chanted mantras for 10 hoursto purify my body.
I thought, if I'm gonna offermy body to God, I want to make
sure it's pure.
So I literally chanted mantrasfor 10 hours non-stop.
And then I joined the ashramand then that night I couldn't
(18:04):
even sleep because I was just soexcited.
Ella Magers (18:07):
At what point did food really come into play here,
in terms of your relationshipwith food, in terms of this food
yoga thing?
Paul Rodney Turner (18:15):
Well, my first service as a monk was to
pay meals, help the cooks in thetemple to prepare meals and
serve the homeless in Sydney,australia.
So that was my first.
Interestingly enough, before Ijoined the temple, I actually
had this idea.
Well, I'd like to be a cook forGod, because I sort of had an
inclination to get in thekitchen and just make stuff and
(18:36):
create things, because I was anartist and so cooking was like
an art form for me.
So I really liked that idea.
If I'm gonna join the temple,what will I do?
I'm not gonna chant mantras allday.
I gotta do something.
So I thought of myself as a cookand, wouldn't you know it, the
first service I was offered wasto help prepare meals in the
kitchen for the homeless.
So I got this idea that, wow,this is a great way to
(18:59):
communicate with people.
I had that experience becausepeople were looking at me,
naturally thinking, wow, thisguy's strange.
You know, he's wearing robes,he's shaved his head, he's a bit
of an oddball and they'rejudging me by the physical
appearance, not understandingthat I'm just a regular person
like them.
But I'm just trying to findspiritual answers.
I wasn't special in any way, Iwas just trying to find answers
(19:21):
and this is part of that process.
Was, you know, getting rid ofthe false ego, shaving your head
, changing your clothing, livingvery simply, chanting mantras,
eating a regulated diet, avegetarian diet?
It wasn't vegan then and anyway.
So when I offered them food atthe restaurant, all of a sudden
I'm like an equal to them, I'mlike their best friend because
(19:43):
I'm feeding them.
So I realized early on that, wow, food is a powerful
communicator.
It is the best communicator inthe world.
It breaks through all barriersthat divide us, because you may
have so many political thingswhich divide you, like politics,
nationality, race, color,whatever it is, language even
but when you put a beautifulmeal down in the middle of a
(20:05):
table, all of a sudden we'refamily, we can unite around that
food.
So that's what became thetagline for my charity Food for
Life Global uniting the worldthrough pure food, because
that's the way that we addressworld hunger.
It's not just about feedingbellies.
Of course that's important.
We want to fill people'sbellies, but at the end of the
day, what's important is thefood itself is prepared with
(20:26):
love, it has the ingredient oflove invested in it and when you
share such loving, pure food.
It has the ability to unitepeople, and this unity is the
cause of all problems in theworld.
If we unite as a global family,then things like hunger and
poverty will disappear overnight.
Ella Magers (20:45):
I can't help but think when you're talking about
this.
So when I went through a wholeburnout situation and depression
a year and a half ago, twoyears ago, I started listening
to the Ram Dass here in NowPodcast, so I listened from the
beginning to all 300 episodes,whatever, but one of the themes
throughout it was, like everymorning, that's how I started my
morning, and one of the themesthroughout was he would talk
(21:08):
about how, when he was seekingenlightenment, and he would ask
Maharaj, how do I findenlightenment?
And his answer was always feedpeople.
And so I heard that over andover again.
This story no, no, no, yeah.
But I want to go and do thisand meditate for 20 hours and
he's like no, feed people.
And for you to bring that inwith the love and with this
(21:31):
intention behind it and have itbe vegan food too.
Can you talk about food yoga,like where that term came from
and what that?
Paul Rodney Turner (21:40):
means yeah, so I created.
This is my book.
I don't know if you can seethat.
Ella Magers (21:43):
It's a little funky with the background, I'll take
the background off.
Paul Rodney Turner (21:47):
Hang on, I'll take the background off.
No, no, no, no.
Ella Magers (21:50):
That was blur.
Paul Rodney Turner (21:52):
Real background right Were you all
listening.
Ella Magers (21:54):
You can check us out on YouTube.
We will have the video.
Paul Rodney Turner (21:57):
This one.
There's the real background.
Ella Magers (21:58):
There we go, yes.
Paul Rodney Turner (22:00):
So that concept of food yoga came up
when I was writing this book,and essentially the idea was
spiritual veganism, likeintroducing a spiritual aspect
to the experience of eatingplant-based, because at the end
of the day, even if you're avegan, you're still committing
some harm, right?
Yes, obviously it's less.
(22:22):
Obviously it's less, but wecan't avoid violence in this
world.
Is this the nature of thisworld?
One man's food is another man'spoison.
One man's pleasure is anotherperson's suffering.
That's just the nature of thematerial world.
It's like it's given takes.
Black and white.
It's how things flow.
There has to be somedestruction for evolution.
There has to be death for birth.
(22:42):
It's the end of the yank ofnature.
You can't avoid it, you can'tjust have all.
There has to be some giving forsome taking.
Ella Magers (22:51):
That's the 3D world we live in.
Right, that's this kind ofmatrix of dualistic.
Paul Rodney Turner (22:57):
Exactly.
But so with food, even as avegan, we're committing some
suffering to living entities insome way.
The idea of food yoga and thisis what I learned from my
experience as a monk.
In that tradition it's calledthe Vedic hospitality, the
traditional Indian hospitalityculture, wherein it was very
common for the householders toinvite their friends or
(23:21):
neighbors for a meal if theywere hungry.
They wouldn't eat their mealuntil everyone else was
satisfied, so the wife wouldprepare the meal, the husband
would go outside Is anybodyhungry, please come.
If you need food, come and eatand then only after they had
eaten would the man and thefamily sit down and have their
meal.
So it was a culture ofselflessness and giving and
(23:43):
understanding the power of foodto show love and respect to
another person.
So food yoga is all aboutnourishing your body, mind and
soul.
It's not just about nourishingyour body because, yes, we
understand there's so muchresearch on this.
When you eat a plant-based diet, it's great for your physical
body because in so manydifferent ways your body is
(24:04):
designed for a plant-based diet.
We have, biologically, we'rebetter suited for a plant-based
diet.
There's so many benefits there.
But there's also the subtleaspect of our being, which is
the mental and the consciousness.
So food has to also nourish ourmind and spirit as well, and
the only type of food that cando that is food that's prepared
with a loving intention, becauseone of the ingredients of the
(24:27):
purest food is the intention,the love that's invested as the
person's preparing it.
So that was part of thetradition that I grew up in as a
monk, that when the cooks wouldprepare the meals, they
wouldn't even taste the mealwhile they're preparing it.
They would prepare it withouttasting it, and even if they had
to cook for hundreds, thousandsof people like I'm talking
large pots of food, they wouldnot taste that food while
(24:50):
they're preparing it, and thenonly after they finished cooking
, they would take a sample ofeach portion of, you know,
whatever preparation they may,take a portion, put it on a
silver platter, make an offeringto God, ask God to please taste
this food first and say somemantras, and then only would
they serve it to the public andtaste the food themselves.
So it was a very selflessoffering, and because of that
(25:12):
the food was transforming.
It was very, very pure.
It was just invested with loveand selflessness, and people
tasted the difference, even ifit was the simplest thing, like
rice or dial, something verysimple.
It was like the best dial thatthey've ever had, the best rice
they've ever eaten, because theytasted that subtle difference.
And so that's essentially whatfood yoga is about.
It's nourishing mind, body andsoul.
(25:34):
It's using food as a medium ofcommunication.
It's seeing food as a vehicle,as a medium to connect with our
divine nature and the divinenature of others.
Ella Magers (25:46):
This is so beautiful when it comes to the
actual process of eating thefood ourselves and I think you
know, in this culture where somany people will sit down and
just kind of shovel food intheir mouth and not even think
about it, is there a componentof I'm going to be present with
the food as I eat?
It as it enters my body and canyou talk about that?
Paul Rodney Turner (26:07):
Yeah, it's conscious eating, because we
always have be grateful rightFor the blessings that we have,
and that's one of thefoundations of a prosperous life
is to start with the greatthing, grateful, being thankful.
If you want to manifest thingsin your life positivity you have
to start from the point of okay, what can I be thankful for?
I'm thankful for my mother andfather.
I'm thankful for my friends,for the food on my table Just
(26:30):
understanding the blessings thatare surrounding you right now
before looking into the futureand wanting more and more and
more.
So when you're preparing a meal, it's important that the person
preparing it has a lovingintention, that this is a gift.
I'm giving you something out oflove.
So it's like if I bought you abox of chocolates, it wouldn't
(26:51):
be appropriate for me to firsttake one of the chocolates to
taste it to see if the chocolatetasted good.
That would then contaminate theoffering and you wouldn't feel
like it was a beautiful gift.
It would be sort of minimizedin so many ways if I tasted one
of the chocolates.
So in the same way, the cookhas to prepare the loving
intention, selflessness and as away to honor the efforts of the
(27:12):
chef.
It's important to us to eatwith consciousness, eat with
awareness, with gratitude, withfocus, and not be doing a me and
other things at the same timelooking at videos, reading a
book, talking, just sitting andjust enjoying the taste as
you're chewing the food, likemeditating and focusing on the
chewing, making sure you'rechewing.
(27:34):
There's an in the Ayurveda, theIndian health system.
It's called the Ayurveda, whichmeans the knowledge of life.
Ayur means life and Veda meansknowledge.
Ayurveda it says that youshould chew grains 32 times
before you swallow it.
So if you're eating bread, youshould actually chew that mouth
full of bread 32 times, Okay,I've been telling people 30, so
(27:57):
I got to add two more, 32.
Whatever, but yeah, the idea ofit's really the way to honor the
efforts of the chef.
This is a gift.
Just be like I gave you a giftand I wrapped it so beautifully
and put a ribbon on top.
It'd be like if you just toreit up or didn't read the card
first, right, and didn'tactually appreciate the effort
put into the gift for you.
(28:18):
Sort of like that.
Ella Magers (28:19):
Yeah, and then it seems to me it's also a respect
for our bodies, you know to beable to.
Paul Rodney Turner (28:25):
That's real, of course.
Ella Magers (28:26):
Yeah, so yeah, the combination of those some things
that most people don't thinkabout or not programmed in that
way in this United States.
Paul Rodney Turner (28:34):
Well, it's fast food culture, right,
because it's all about justfueling the body and just
getting on with the moreimportant stuff.
But actually eating is such animportant part of our evolution
and in fact the big takeawayfrom my book Food Yoga is that
evolution of consciousnessbegins only when we learn to
master the term.
So I'll repeat that ourconsciousness begins to expand
(28:56):
only after we learn how tomaster the tongue.
The tongue has two functionstasting and vibrating.
So what you speak and what youeat will have a tremendous
impact on your consciousness.
So if you're speaking positivity, if you're speaking truthful
words, words that are upliftingand so on, these things will
enrich your consciousness,expand your consciousness.
If you're speaking negativethings, that'll squash your
(29:19):
consciousness.
And similarly, if you're eatingfoods with a light, high
vibration, plant-based, lesssuffering, high energy, that's
going to expand yourconsciousness.
But if you're eating deadcorpses and rotten or processed
foods or foods that's not evenreally food that's just made in
the factory, it's not reallyjust made of all sorts of
chemicals and horrible things,then that food is not going to
(29:39):
nourish you on multiple levelsand it's going to squash your
consciousness.
So that's really the maintakeaway from the book Food
Jogger is learning to master thetongue.
Ella Magers (29:49):
And I keep smiling because I'm here in the roosters
, so I can't wait to talk aboutthem.
Okay, so here's kind of a funnylittle question for the people
that are listening.
I did a survey recently of ouraudience to see just how
interested people are in thespiritual aspects.
These are people that are atleast vegan curious and was
wondering how many of them wereinterested in the spiritual
aspects.
And overwhelmingly people arewanting to understand it and
(30:13):
wanting to expand theirconsciousness.
But for the people who are like, what does that even mean?
Why do I want to even expand myconsciousness?
What is that.
Can you speak to that?
Paul Rodney Turner (30:24):
Well, this gets back to my title of being a
pragmatic spiritualist, because, yes, I was a very fanatical
spiritual person.
I went to the point of becominga monk.
That's not what your averagespiritualist would do.
It's pretty radical.
But I've come to learn that youcan be spiritual without being
religious.
You don't need religion.
First of all, religion has away to guide you, like religious
(30:48):
institutions are there toprovide camaraderie, to guide
you, but at the end of the day,you have to fly your own plane.
It's your life, it's yourspiritual journey, not mine.
We're two very unique peopleand so you have certain
experiences to learn.
You have certain experiences tohave, lessons to learn, and I
have my own as well.
So we have to fly our own plane, and that's why it's important
(31:12):
that when people think aboutspirituality, they have to
understand that doesn't mean youhave to become religious.
You can be spiritual in even themost mundane thing.
For example, you're digging ahole or something and you're
preparing a garden, so aspiritualist would understand
that.
Okay, this is a blessing thatI'm doing physical labor.
It's good for my health,connecting with Mother Earth
(31:34):
like with nature.
So I'm grounding myself, whichis also good because it's
decontaminating me from theelectromagnetic pollution.
I'm touching the soil andplanting seeds.
I'm seeing you know the wondersof nature.
So in this way, if you havethis meditative way of going
about your work, you can bespiritual.
You can see the connection withthe divine even in the most
(31:55):
mundane thing of digging a hole.
So you can be spiritual withoutbeing religious.
And that's sort of essentiallywhat I'm talking about in my
books as well, and I've writtena few books.
That's another one I wrote aswell, the Seven Maxims of Soul
Happiness.
And I wrote another one calledthe Yoga of Pool, where I talk
about billiards, because I waslike a professional billiards
player and I would teach people.
(32:17):
So what I do?
I write a book about billiardsand I introduce spiritual
concepts into the book.
So it's called the Yoga of Pool.
So that way when people areplaying pool, they have the
spiritual information as well.
They can understand thatthey're not the mind, they're a
spiritual being, they'repowerful, they can be confident,
drawing confidence from theirspirituality, not from false ego
.
So it's one of the most popularbilliards books in the market
(32:40):
now because it's such adifferent way of approaching
billiards.
Ella Magers (32:43):
Oh my gosh, I just love all of this so much, and
one thing I talk about is likewhen you get to that place where
you're not to demean life oranything, but kind of playing it
like a game, like seeing it asbeing so curious and so leading
with curiosity and compassion,if we can lead with curiosity
and compassion and everythingthat we do becomes fascinating,
(33:05):
it becomes an opportunity forgrowth, and I just love how you
put that into billiards.
Paul Rodney Turner (33:11):
That's fantastic.
That's pretty crazy.
So the idea is that in everysport, in order to become the
best, you need to learn how tocontrol your mind.
Like you talked to MichaelJordan, tiger Woods, the mental
side of it MMA, mental side ofit is critical, because you may
have the physical talent and youmay be able to do the best
(33:33):
wrestler, best puncher, whateverbut if you don't have your
mental game in order, whereyou're confident and you're
ready to push beyond those timeswhen you're ready to give up,
if you don't have control ofyour mind, you're never going to
be a champion.
So in this book I talk aboutthat, but drawing confidence not
from a false platform of egowhere you think you know, I'm
just going to pretend that I'mgreat, I'll pretend that I'm
(33:55):
good.
No understanding that.
You are really powerful.
You're a spiritual being.
You're a spark of God.
You are godly in nature.
You have incredible powers deepwithin you.
You just have to access those.
So you should be very confident.
Don't be limited by thisphysical form.
This is nothing.
This is just your vehicle.
It's like you're driving a youknow Honda Civic and someone
(34:15):
else is driving a Porsche.
But if you have self confidenceand you value yourself and your
knowledge and your skills, thenyou're in a better position
than that person driving a muchmore expensive car.
It's all about perspective.
Ella Magers (34:29):
Yeah, all right, let's talk about food for life.
When was that born and how didyou choose the name?
Paul Rodney Turner (34:36):
Well, food for life goes back 40 years
actually 50 years, 74, when itstarted by a group of monks.
They were responding to theirspiritual teacher Prabhupada his
name was, and he saw somechildren fighting with dogs over
scraps of food behind thetemple and he was so shocked by
this he said my God, there'schildren fighting with dogs over
(34:58):
scraps of food.
This should not happen.
So he told them no one within10 miles of our temple should
ever go hungry.
You need to start feedingpeople in the local community
now, and this is a great servicethat you do for the community.
So they started feeding peopleand then that concept expanded
around the world.
A few years in like, in 83, Ibecame a volunteer for food for
(35:19):
life.
Back then it was very grassroots, there was only maybe a
dozen projects around the worldand I became so passionate about
this project that I decided tomake it my focus for my service.
And then in 1993, I was askedto set up the headquarters and
actually formalize this wholeproject and then expand it
around the world.
So I left Australia, migratedto the United States and set up
(35:45):
Food for Life Global and begantraining.
I wrote a training manual,began traveling around the world
, training volunteers andexpanding the project.
That's now in 65 countries,over 200 projects serving over a
million meals a day.
So the name Food for Life cameabout in 1980 when it was still
very much a grass roots projectand it was called Hare Krishna
Food for Life.
When I took it over and Iexpanded it and created Food for
(36:08):
Life Global, I wanted toposition it in such a way that
it was non-sectarian and so thatanyone could be involved in
this project.
You don't have to be a HareKrishna or a Hindu, it doesn't
matter.
The concept of like preparingfood with a loving intention and
sharing with the public, that'sa universal concept.
It's not like it's exclusive toIndia or Indian culture.
So I made Food for Life Globalnon-sectarian.
(36:32):
I changed it from vegetarian tovegan because I realized that's
the higher principle and we'vebeen expanding ever since.
So that's sort of where itcomes from.
And then, if you look at thename Food for Life, it's sort of
like food for life food forsoul.
It's not just food for the body, it's food for body, mind and
soul.
Ella Magers (36:50):
Yeah, and over a million meals a day, I mean
every day.
That's amazing and like that'sunbelievable, almost to think
about how you've set that up tobe able to make that happen,
still being a relatively small,you know organization.
Can you talk about how you'vemanaged to do that?
Paul Rodney Turner (37:09):
Yeah, food for Life Global is a
headquarters, so we're not likecontrolling all of the
day-to-day activities of theprojects.
We're like a support office, amedia headquarters, a marketing
headquarters, fundraisingheadquarters but they're all
doing their own localfundraising.
They have the localadministration.
We're not micro-managing them.
We're providing the guidanceand support that they need to
training the marketing and thatsort of thing for them.
(37:31):
So we're a support office andso that's why we are at the
headquarters.
You know we're small but weoversee a global network which
is very big.
Ella Magers (37:40):
And do you call them affiliates?
Affiliates, so the affiliatescreate their own, you know mini.
Paul Rodney Turner (37:47):
According to our guidelines.
So we provide the guidelines.
Okay, in order to be anaffiliate, you have to follow
these rules, one of them beingvegan meals.
And then we raise funds onbehalf of the network and we
give grants to our affiliates.
They do their own fundraising,but when they need, like we
recently gave $20,000 to buy avan and one of our projects in
Nepal, $5,000 or $10,000 for,like, emergency relief.
(38:09):
So we're raising funds all thetime and giving grants to our
local projects.
Ella Magers (38:13):
And these are all home cooked like all made with
love food.
Paul Rodney Turner (38:18):
Freshly cooked that day, nothing
prepackaged, nothing frozen,nothing from a food bank.
It's all freshly cut that day,Like the fruits and vegetables
are washed, the rice and dal iswashed, made that morning,
served to the public.
So we're very unique in thisway because at the level that we
operate it's highly unusual ifnot, it doesn't happen outside
of food, If no one does it theway we do it they always have
(38:41):
like package food the World FoodProgram primarily does like
bags of rice and grains.
They provide the resources butthen they're not usually
prepared meals.
But we freshly prepare thesemeals and serve them directly to
the public.
And a massive scale.
Ella Magers (38:57):
Yeah, it's incredible.
And at what point did youexpand your mission and include
rescued farmed animals?
You want to tell?
Paul Rodney Turner (39:08):
them when I met my wife Juliana, so 10 years
ago.
Ella Magers (39:11):
How did you meet?
Paul Rodney Turner (39:12):
10 years ago , we met online because I was
looking for a translator, whileI was traveling around the world
promoting the food yoga bookand also documenting food for
life for a documentary, and Isays, look, I'm coming to South
America, I'm looking for atranslator, and I found her and
we ended up just taking itbeyond being a translator.
(39:33):
She became my wife and I thenbecame introduced to her project
, which was very small at thetime, and then I helped her
expand it and develop it overthe years 10 years ago, so, yeah
, so during that time I wasfruitful.
I've already had the mission totagline uniting the world
through pure food and she mademe realize, well, that doesn't
(39:54):
just mean humans, you know, itmeans animals too.
I mean, at the end of the day,we're all earthlings.
Even if you're a cow, we're allearthlings.
Right, we all belong here.
So we should show respect forall life, not just the plants
and not just the people.
But what about animals?
And so we included feedingrescued animals as part of our
mission as well.
Ella Magers (40:15):
And she already had a sanctuary.
Paul Rodney Turner (40:17):
She already had a sanctuary, the farm.
She started the first farmsanctuary in all of South
America.
Ella Magers (40:25):
Wow, it's amazing.
Paul Rodney Turner (40:26):
She was the first one to do that like farm
animals.
And now we have about 150animals bulls and cows and goats
and sheep and rabbits andchickens and dogs and cats and
horses and lots of pigs.
And right now she's doing atour.
She's got a school kids.
Right now she's doing a tour ofthe sanctuary.
So the schools come all everyweekend.
(40:47):
We have new schools coming.
The kids get to learn about theanimals.
They get to learn Like.
The other day she introduced oneof the kids to one of our bulls
and she said look, bulls arejust like dogs.
Watch what happens if you justrun up the hill.
And they started running up thehill All the children.
The bull started following themand jumping up and down.
And then they ran down the hilland he did the same thing and
(41:08):
they realized, oh my God, he'slike a dog.
And so just in a very cute,natural way, they realized oh,
if he's like a dog, why am Ieating bulls?
So she's really educating themand giving them the big picture,
understanding that they're allsentient beings.
They just so happen to have adifferent physical form, but at
the end of the day we're allspiritually connected.
So it's a very powerfuleducation experience here for
(41:32):
the kids and as a result thenational government has actually
included animal welfare clubsas part of the national
curriculum.
So she's actually had so muchinfluence that now they're
including that as part of thetraining education for the
children in the country likelearning to respect animals.
So that's really powerful.
I have to get going.
Ella Magers (41:53):
Okay.
Paul Rodney Turner (41:56):
I'm happy to do it again if you want to do
it.
Ella Magers (41:57):
a part two yeah, let's do a part two, because I
could just talk to you for hours.
So, yes, where can people findyou, support you?
Paul Rodney Turner (42:07):
So Food for Life Global is really easy one.
It's fflorg.
Fflfoxfoxlinaorg.
Juliana's Animal Sanctuary isJuliana'sAnimalSanctuaryorg.
You can reach me.
Food for Life on Instagram isFood for Life Global.
Facebook Food for Life Global.
Pretty easy to find me and I'musually.
My handle is Paul Rod Turner.
(42:28):
On social media.
Ella Magers (42:29):
We'll put all of those in the show notes.
Paul Rodney Turner (42:32):
Yeah, thank you.
Ella Magers (42:33):
Yes, oh, thank you so much.
Thank you for what you do,thank you for all the change
you're sparking in this worldand just for the beautiful human
being that you are.
Paul Rodney Turner (42:42):
Oh, I appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
I'm trying my best.
At the end of the day, we'reall going to be leaving a
positive legacy.
We're all gurus, even if it'sat the micro level of just being
an example for your children.
But at the end of the day, wehave to leave a positive legacy
and pass on wisdom, share ourexperiences and make the world a
better place.
Make the future generationsbetter and better.
Thank you.
Ella Magers (43:03):
Amazing Thank you.
Thanks for listening to thisweek's episode of Rise and
Thrive with me, Ella Majors.
I truly hope you found itinspiring and, if you did,
please help me spread the wordby leaving a rating and review
on your favorite podcast playerand by sharing the show with
your friends.
As you probably know by now, mylife's purpose is to use my
(43:27):
voice to make this world a moreconscious and compassionate
place, and your reviews andshares make a huge impact.
And last, I'm getting a ton ofinsanely positive feedback about
my short and sweet monthlynewsletter called the Way.
It's called Short 4, the WayOut is Through.
I give my top five latest badassdiscoveries, insights and
(43:47):
explorations, like veganproducts and recipes.
I'm obsessed with books andshows I'm loving and workouts
that have me fired up.
Head on over to my website,EllaMajorscom, to sign up and
check out all the other awesomeresources I have for you and
projects I'm involved with, andHogs and Kisses Farm Sanctuary,
(44:09):
where our mission is to createthe best life for farm animals
while inspiring compassion forall living beings.
Thanks a lot and I'll see youon the next one.
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