Rabbi Gabriel Cousens M.D., M.D.(H.), N.D.(h.c.), D.D., Diplomate Ayurveda, Diplomate American Board of Holistic Medicine
He explores the intricacies of a plant-based lifestyle and explains the powerful role that live food has to enhance all levels of being, ameliorate many diseases, promote peace with the self and with the ecology of the planet, and to support our bodies and energies as superconductors for the Divine. As a Rabbi, Dr Cousens strongly promotes true nourishment as the connection of diet to meditation, fellowship, wisdom, and love. He sees optimal health, longevity, vitality, spiritual upliftment, and attunement as hallmarks of a live food lifestyle.
Gabriel Cousens functions as a true and complete holistic physician, homeopath, psychiatrist, family therapist, Ayurvedic practitioner, Chinese herbalist, world leading diabetes researcher, ecological leader, spiritual master, founder and director of Tree of Life Foundation and Tree of Life Center US, and bestselling author of the books Conscious Eating, Spiritual Nutrition: Six Foundations for Spiritual Life and Awakening of Kundalini, Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine, There Is a Cure for Diabetes, Creating Peace by Being Peace, Torah as a Guide to Enlightenment, and Depression Free for Life. He is considered one of the leading live-food vegan medical doctors, holistic physicians, and the world expert on spiritual nutrition. He is also recognized as “the fasting guru and detoxification expert” by the New York Times.
A cum laude graduate of Amherst College, Dr. Cousens received his M.D. degree from Columbia Medical School in 1969 and completed his psychiatry residency in 1973. He was one of eight people selected for the NIMH Mental Health Career Development program and served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Public Health Service. Dr. Cousens was the Chief Mental Health Consultant for the Sonoma County Operation Head Start and a consultant for the California State Department of Mental Health. He is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the American Holistic Medical Association (AHMA).
Since 1973, Dr. Cousens has presented seminars on topics including health and nutrition, psycho-spiritual healing, meditation, and spiritual awareness. He is now internationally celebrated as a spiritual master, an ordained rabbi, the founder of the Modern Essene Order of Light, a student of kabbalah, and a chief in the High Horse Lakota clan, into which he has been adopted. Dr. Cousens’ eclectic spiritual background has given him a unique, authentic, interfaith, unified worldview and comprehensive body of practical knowledge that is the foundation for his unique teachings on Holistic Liberation and Holistic Live-Food Veganism.
In 1986, Gabriel Cousens, MD planted the seed for the Cousens’ School of Holistic Wellness, offering the world’s first Masters programs for vegan live-food, for organic, veganic farming, and for blue-green architecture and building intra-disciplinary technology to create fully holistic infrastructures for communities. He is the founder and director of the Tree of Life Foundation which trains Essene priests and priestesses and coordinates international humanitarian programs benefiting disadvantaged families, children, and indigenous cultures through holistic education. His Tree of Life Center US, one of thirty-two centers throughout the world, has been called by Harper’s Magazine, “One of the world’s best ten yoga and detoxification retreats”. Dr. Cousens has taught in forty countries and has spoken on diabetes treatment and prevention at medical schools in many of those countries.
He is a co-founder of WARES (West African Rural Health Empowerment Society), and has established health and diabetes prevention programs, children’s schools, and orphanages in thirteen countries, including Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Ethiopia, and Mexico. Over 1,200 children are being fed vegan food each week through these programs. He was the recipient of the Cesar Chavez Award in 2013 for his nutritional and diabetes education of migrant farm workers in the U.S. His work in Africa has earned him adoption into the Baika tribe of the Buem traditional area of Ghana. Dr. Cousens weaves his comprehensive, unique background into his holistic healing and writing approach to support and inspire people into the sacred joy of being free and fully alive.