Most of us would probably agree that our brains and minds are restless: continually consuming (unless we’re asleep) vast amounts of data and information from limitless sources, sometimes of dubious quality, a behavior that is often the direct result of how we programmed ourselves to think. They usually run on automatic pilot, craving a high-calorie diet of constant stimulation.

We know our body and physical systems will suffer from a diet too rich in the wrong kinds of calories and energy. So too our brain, mind, and higher faculties can’t function near their natural capacity and ability on a diet of ‘junk food’ — knowledge with potent energetic content that can supercharge the brain, but leave the rest of our systems deprived of real mental and spiritual nourishment.

Our freedom of choice as human beings means we are free to fill our minds with toxic and self-destructive patterns and programs, or the knowledge and awareness that feed our natural intelligence and connections to greater universal possibilities. But how do we improve our mental diet?

In the latest chapter of the Portals series “Current Openings: What the World Doesn’t Quite Get Yet”, Aviv Shahar and David Price Francis explore the seven types of natural knowledge that nourish our mental activity and support change and personal growth. Among their insights:

• Unless we are able to source knowledge within ourselves, we are not going to be very good at loving and caring and being compassionate with other people.
• Only humans have a knowledge problem. Squirrels don't. Cats don’t say “What's going to happen when I die?” Everything else in the planetary program is full and complete.
• There are addictions to foods that are bad for us physically, and similarly to ‘foods’ bad for our mental diet, like when we get addicted to provocative headlines created to actually hijack our brains.
• Many may say that you cannot think of anything original, so why try? That’s an abdication of the capacity to live into the fullness of our humaneness as a source of new discovery.
• We have privileged the telescope and microscope over and above the ‘energy scopes’ of ourselves and our natural technology, sometimes with detrimental results.
• You can’t find character-forming knowledge in any app online. How is a young person to realize this unless they are guided to discover their passion and build a character?

This conversation builds on concepts and insights first explored in The Human Predicament and Planetary Program and The Addiction Trap. It is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.