cherylclift,
I notice you haven't been active on the forum and may very well have left but, if you are still around (and for the benefit of newcomers who might read this thread), you might want to take the opportunity to examine your emotional responses throughout this thread. The approach of this forum is to challenge each other's beliefs and behaviours, in the hopes of coming to an objective awareness of ourselves and a mutual understanding of the reality we find ourselves in.
You seemed attached to certain notions that may or may not be true. As well, you have discounted other notions (diet, for example), assuming you know enough about those concepts to rule them out as contributors to the sensation you are experiencing. There are several things that could cause what you are experiencing, and many of them are combinations or chain reactions. While it is interesting to consider esoteric or ethereal origins of our experiences, we simply cannot accept such sources until all of the sources that are quantifiable have first been ruled out.
Since we not only gather to work on learning more about our external reality, but also our internal reality, we strive to identify and eradicate aspects of our false selves. This is painful. When we are challenged, it hurts. But it is important to know that no one challenges another to inflict pain. Pain is merely the side effect and the price one must pay for growth. Such challenges can bring us back to early childhood experiences where, for example, criticism was perceived as rejection. When we experience mechanical reactions in ourselves here, we should take note, as it becomes an opportunity to grow out of our reactive, mechanical selves. This is part of the Work, as described by Gurdjieff.
I hope you can get past your perceived wounds and use this opportunity to grow. But I also understand that sometimes we just aren't ready for the Work and need time to better prepare ourselves before exploring our mechanical selves and brace ourselves for the horrors we might uncover in the shadows of our minds.
Now, regarding why diet was constantly brought up, even after you felt you had ruled it out:
As I'm sure you are aware, diet is extremely complex, as are the human systems affected by diet. I appreciate that you seem to have dedicated a large part of your life to researching diet. Like just about everything else we study, we have found a huge amount of faulty logic, misinterpretation, ignorance, ego, and perhaps even malevolence, in much of what has been advanced as science, especially when it comes to dietary research, coming from allegedly reputable or trustworthy sources. So, spending a lot of time researching diet means one has waded through a lot of lies and truths. The question is whether a person has been able to discern one from the other.
But with all of your time researching diet, you only recently came across gluten as a potential enemy to your system. There's nothing wrong with this. In fact, it seems most health professionals, including many nutritionists, seem unaware of the huge body of research that points to gluten's addictive, mind altering and toxic effect on the human system. It merely demonstrates that we all are constantly learning more and can never know enough. But, based on what we do know, some foods can cause long-term or even permanent damage if not removed and replaced with appropriate healing regimes in time. As well, we know that diet is closely related to our mind and our body and, if the inverse of the adage "as above, so below" has any potential, the invisible aspects of ourselves as well (if such things like an etheric body even exists).
Therefore, for all these reasons, diet may always play a role in all aspects of our experience and should never be discounted so quickly.
And while you are right that there is no one-size-fits-all diet, there are truths that apply to everyone (e.g. neurotoxins like aspertame should be avoided at all times by all people). As well, there are probabilities. It makes scientific sense to use truths and probabilities when trying to troubleshoot a problem and only after we have exhausted the high probabilities should we ever consider the lower ones. And unknown unknowns (like chakra activations or kundalini) simply cannot be considered until the tangibles have been adequately evaluated and ruled out.
I feel bad that you misinterpreted having your beliefs and emotional investments challenged as being unwelcomed, but that's how things work here and is a significant part of participating in the forum. I hope you make the choice to dust yourself off, examine your reactions and seriously consider what has been shared here. If you choose to leave, that's fine too. I hope you find some other way to effectively work on yourself. Either way, we'll still be here.
Gonzo