Ever ask yourself, “Where does consciousness come from?” Or, “Can consciousness come from an absence of consciousness?” Albeit, not the subject of your everyday discourse, these are still interesting and relevant questions. When inquiring about consciousness a valid qualifying question might be, “What type of consciousness are we talking about?” For example, dreaming consciousness comes from the REM cycle. A medical coma consciousness comes from pharmaceutical drugs. Enlightenment consciousness comes from meditation or some other practiced ability to observe and focus attention. However, when it comes to your physical consciousness, such as how emotional and mentally astute you are and how healthy you are on a cellular level, the answer might surprise you.

I don’t normally consider actor/comedian Tom Arnold a disseminator of sage wisdom, yet in his recent appearance on Conan O’Brien’s now defunct Tonight Show, he surprised me with a rather enlightened perspective. Tom was talking about the highly charged issue of gay marriage when out of the blue he pointed out the most obvious and yet collectively overlooked epiphany. Arnold started out with a statement that completely transcended all religious dogma and political ideology: “I appeal to your sense of greed.” Gay marriage… it simple makes good business sense.

Next to the notions that one can achieve a body without cellulite and a life without suffering, the greatest mistaken belief is that there is one diet, one type of oil, one form of exercise, one hormone supplement, one mantra or prayer, one rigid organizational life structure or one medication that will work for everyone. Most of us grew up with the "magic bullet" concept that science was going to invent this one universal panacea that would solve our problems throughout all of time.