To support spiritual growth and planetary survival, Rabbi Gabriel Cousens, M.D., and Reverend Michael Beckwith, Ph.D., co-hosted the Juice Fast for Peace at Rev. Beckwith’s Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City, California, USA during the first week of March 2009.  

The event was organized to help participants end their addiction to meat and other animal products in order to support their own personal and spiritual growth while also acting to ensure planetary survival by reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases from the animal industry.  

On March 7, 2009, Supreme Master Ching Hai accepted the invitation to attend via videoconference to answer the participants’ questions and concerns about the damaging impact the meat diet has on the environment and human health.

Born from a deep concern for the future of the planet, Dr. Cousens, a vegan, began his Juice Fast For Peace series partnering with Rev. Beckwith in Culver City, with plans to offer them across the United States and the world to help people end their addiction to meat. 

According to Dr. Cousens, by consuming green juices during the fast, people lose the cellular memory of addictive flesh foods, dairy and eggs, thus, making it easier to transition to a plant-based diet. 

He is both a general medical practitioner and a psychiatrist who developed early in his career a fascination for understanding how the mind affects the body and how the body, and the food we feed it, affects the mind.  He was the Chief Mental Health Consultant for the Sonoma County Head Start in California and a consultant on the California State Department of Health. 

He is a holistic medical doctor who incorporates homeopathy, live food nutrition, Ayurveda, naturaopathy, acupuncture as part of his healing modality.  

Another core aspect of his approach to wellness and healing is a recognition that our purpose in life is to awaken to the divine. 

For the next several decades, he devoted his research to finding out how all body types could create a healthy balance and obtain all proper nutrition on a living foods diet.  
He has authored many books summarizing his findings over the years, such as Depression Free For Life and There is a Cure for Diabetes.

For over 20 years, Dr. Cousens has been leading and perfecting green juice fasts in which only juices made predominantly from green vegetables are consumed.

His goal is to help people become cured of supposedly incurable diseases such as diabetes, and drug and alcohol addiction, while also helping us clear our thoughts and reflect upon our true nature as the children of God.

Rev. Michael Beckwith, a vegan, has stated that our purpose on the planet is to “wrap our consciousness around the divine treasure within us.” He uplifted the fasting participants with daily inspirational talks. 

He is one of the featured teachers in the international bestselling book and movie, The Secret.  His spiritual journey began in the 1970’s where his exploration of Eastern and Western teachings led to his own style of teaching referred to as the New Thought-Ancient Wisdom spiritual tradition.

It was his vision of a non-denominational spiritual community that led to the founding of the Agape International Spiritual Center in 1986, which seeks to bring all peoples together into one human family unified in a core value of peace and the spiritual origin of all beings.  Each week, around 9,000 people come to hear him speak at the Agape Center.

He proactively works alongside other global peacemakers, including the Dalai Lama, and has also been featured on “Oprah” - an international, US-based daytime talk show - and interviewed on “Larry King Live” by one of the premier broadcast interviewers of our time.

We invite you now to join part 1 of our 4-part series witnessing this peaceful and uplifting dialogue between Supreme Master Ching Hai, Reverend Michael Beckwith, Dr. Gabriel Cousens, and the participants of the first Juice Fast for Peace in Culver City, California on March 7, 2009. 

For more information about Juice Fast for Peace, Please visit: www.juicefastforpeace.com

For more about Dr.Gabriel Cousens and the Tree of Life, Please visit: www.TreeOfLife.nu