Re-connecting with the Rhythm of Nature: A Book Review of Romy Paredes’ Sacred Simplicity: The Ultimate Sophistication

Sacred Simplicity: The Ultimate Sophistication is the culmination of Romy Paredes’ deepening journey of transformation. The author is a medical doctor who became an advocate of the Self-Health Empowerment Movement, which he describes as a national and global movement towards the ultimate healthcare system. Although slim in length (the book is only 50 pages long), the book contains the wisdom-filled realizations of Dr. Paredes on what really matters in life. It is a book for those who are feeling drained or burnt out, who are trapped in the rat race culture of this world in a never ending quest for achievement, a never ending “treadmill of more”. It is a book for those who have forgotten what life is all about and for those who are longing to know who they really are and why they are here.

The message of the book resonates with my present state of being. I am now on sabbatical leave after 16 years of teaching, study, researching, and performance of academic and administrative duties in the university I am connected with. After years of working hard to obtain tenure and raise my academic rank, I felt the need to slow down, rest, think, pray, and do those things I was not able to do because of so much busyness with my work. I especially like what Dr. Paredes says in his book about our need to reconnect with the rhythm of nature and balance “doing” with “being”.

After being busy with so many things as he hankered for success and did so much to achieve his many goals in life, Dr. Paredes came to have radical realizations about life, relationships, and health, which can be read of in his book. He admitted that he was once a workaholic: he was on a “doing doing doing” mode until he got stressed out and burnt out that he felt so sick. There was one person whom he consulted during his burnt out condition – the popular Catholic lay preacher and motivational speaker Bo Sanchez – who told him, “Doc, pay attention to the message”, and he did pay attention to the message instead of going to the hospital. He realized that the message was for him to slow down, to let go, to allow the divine plan and not just his own plan, to take time to “BE”, to balance “doing” and “being”. This deepened his understanding of healing, which has been an ever changing concept or belief in his medical career. He said:

In the beginning years of my practice, I prescribe mostly drugs, then later on mostly homeopathy, then later on mostly herbals, then later on mostly nutritionals, and so on….until I noticed myself prescribing less and less as I continue to search for higher levels of truth.

He overcame his own burnt-out predicament by slowing down, playing and wrestling with his little boy, hugging trees, and walking barefoot on ground. He let go, forgave himself and others, and went through a process of self-observation. He did deep meditations through the background of a soothing music, while only focusing on his breathing. He wisely observed that when we are purely ‘doing doing doing’, we get misaligned with the rhythm of nature, and so we get stressed out, but when we are on the “being” side, we get in tune with the rhythm of nature. He writes:

As we all observe, the blooming of a flower is a silent and subtle process.
The sunrise and sunset is a quiet and beautiful process.
Nature doesn’t rush.
We rush.

Dr. Paredes realized that his many years of “doing doing doing” has distorted his cellular structure, and the wisdom of his body has awakened him and reminded him to go back to the flow of nature. Now he balances his “doing” with “being” in a continuing journey of developing “being” habits, in a new way of living, a living at the core of his “Being”.

As he slowed down, let go, and learned to re-connect with the rhythm of nature, he found the real biggies in life as a product of his transformational journey, namely: family, health, mission, and spirit. He realized that we work hard so we can build our relationships. This was shown in the example he gave about his businessman friend who became so successful with his business but he forgot to have both quality and quantity time with his family that they eventually left him. Dr. Paredes learned more about caring for one’s family when he enrolled in the Family Reborn Club of Bo Sanchez, a popular Catholic lay preacher and motivational speaker, as he realized that it is the small things that count in taking care of one’s immediate family; it is the small ways of showing care and affection to one’s spouse and child or children that matters.

He also realized that the definition of family needs to be expanded because “infinite love” cannot be limited into one relationship. Family first and foremost refers to our immediate families, but can also include “our blood relatives, our mission partners, our co-workers and officemates, our church mates, our friends and our co-angels who journeying with us in this world, etc.” When we give freedom to the people that we love so that they become the best version of themselves in their lifetime, that is when we truly experience the true meaning of love. Dr. Paredes beautifully puts this principle in these words: “Great marriages are those that liberate, those that give freedom and those that truly love unconditionally”. It is a subset of God’s love, the highest form of love, which is “truly, completely and perfectly unconditional”.

With regard to health, Dr. Paredes identifies the two bottom line solutions to diseases which are: detoxification or cleansing of the body of all things that are not supposed to be in the body (toxins, harmful chemicals, parasites), and nourishment or feeding the body with its natural fuel. Dr. Paredes is radical in his thinking when he writes that “we are created in the image and likeness of God, not in the image and likeness of the pharmaceutical industry”. Pharmaceutical drugs treat the symptoms but not the root causes of diseases. He explains that the ultimate healing mechanism is when we love unconditionally, which is manifested by relaxing, letting go, forgiveness, selflessness, generosity, and being lifeaholic, which will open our immune and healing systems. We close our healing and immune systems with stress, holding on, bitterness, self-centeredness, greediness, fear, and being workaholic.

If we just spend our days making a living, Dr. Paredes calls that “existing”. Living a life is different from merely existing. Living a life is having a mission in life that is bigger than one’s self – a mission that is “in fulfillment with the greater agenda of your soul” and a mission that is “divinely assigned to you”. For Dr. Paredes, he found out that his mission is his vision quest towards a new healthcare system, towards the ultimate healthcare system which is a system of self-health education and empowerment – one that is built by the people and for the people, “not a system that is built by industries and for greed”, a system that “brings back the glory of the Divine Design of human beings” and “bolsters people’s sense of their own Divine magnificence”. Healthy habits make a healthy person.

This sense of the “divine design” and “divine magnificence” goes with Dr. Paredes’ realization that we are one with God, in this life and in the afterlife, and that separation from God and from others is an “illusion”. He writes: “Because of this illusion, no wonder wars have been waged among established religions. Isn’t it that the true purpose of religion is to unite and not to divide?”

Dr. Paredes finds out the simple truth that love is the key to everything; love is the master key while simplicity is only one key. He says that all his search for higher and higher levels of truth ends in love. He ends his book by saying that it is time to embark on a lifelong journey of bringing the messages he has written in his books to the world. He ends his book with two beautiful realizations that I believe everyone is called to do:

It is time to embark on a lifelong journey of being perfected in love…..until my last breath.

It is time to manifest the greatest thing on earth……LOVE!