As an adult, one day I was in the mountains of Mexico near Popocatepetl far removed from pollution. I was visiting a friend and he took me to a small shrine where I met a master, a leader named Guru Macelli who was giving a meditation course. I sat and listened to his lecture. He was a very sensitive man, taking special care with each little object. He discussed incense and its importance to people throughout the ages.

Guru Macelli went on to say that now much of the incense on the market is manufactured from synthetic fragrances. Today, many people, when buying incense, are not careful to look at the origin. They just smell the box or envelope….If it smells like strawberries or vanilla, things that they like, they buy it. But these are just pieces of wood with a wood powder attached to it – dipped into synthetic fragrances….When these products burn, they do just the opposite of what we are looking for…they drag us down instead of lifting us up.

Long exposure to artificial products has the potential to be harmful. These can be found in many areas in our homes…candles, incense, cleaning products, soaps and many perfumes. The base of the scent is extracted from a petroleum product. Synthetic incenses have been tested in temples in India and found to be more toxic and more pollutant than the smoke from cigarettes. They try to fool us, but when you burn these over a period of time, they might make you feel ill…they tend to make you feel low…People don't understand this.

There is a truth in essential oils and aromatherapy. 

Mikael Zayat is a distiller of essential oils in Quebec . He has been doing research for over 25 years. He is the president of Foundation du Havre, a foundation dedicated to promoting a healthy, balanced life-style.