How Ancient Ayurvedic Wisdom Can Dramatically Increase Your Well Being

Transcription

1 How Ancient Ayurvedic Wisdom Can Dramatically Increase Your Well Being Dr. John Amaral Interviews Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar JOHN AMARAL: Hi. This is Dr. John Amaral and I want to welcome you to the call today with Dr. Suhas Kshirsagar. Dr. Suhas is one of the most academically accomplished Ayurvedic physicians in the whole United States. He s shared the stage with Deepak Chopra and Tony Robbins, Wayne Dyer and many others. He is a lead faculty for a number of Ayurvedic institutions. He is a consultant and a faculty of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing. He is also a lead formulator of a number of nutritional and nutraceutical products like Zrii, Nutriveda and Accel. He is also currently leading an Ayurvedic clinic here in California, in the Santa Cruz area, offering diet and lifestyle consulting, Vedic Astrology, Vedic counseling, medical dietology and herbal medicine, as well as Pancha Karma. Dr. Suhas, I really want to thank you for being here. DR.SUHAS: Thank you John. It is my great honor and pleasure to be here today. JOHN AMARAL: One of my goals for the conversation is to really help listeners understand and be able to apply some of the concepts of 1

2 Ayurveda in their life, even if they don t have access to Ayurvedic practitioners, so that they can experience increased longevity and wellbeing. So first things first. Many of our listeners might not even know much about Ayurveda. Could you talk about what Ayurveda is? DR.SUHAS: Absolutely. Ayurveda, is a Sanskrit word which is simply composed of two different words. One is called ayu and the other one is called veda. The word ayu simply means life or life span and the word veda means knowledge of science. So, Ayurveda is considered to be the science of life. It is one of the most ancient and the most comprehensive systems of healthcare which exists from the last five to six thousand years. The ancient roots of Chinese medicine and the whole of Oriental medicine stem from Ayurveda. It is a part of this oldest existing body of knowledge called Vedic Literature. So when you talk about the science of life it is a medical science, which talks about every aspect and every area of life, how it impacts your health and how you should be trying to balance in every other area of life in order to find balance in your health. I think it is very intriguing especially for someone like me who comes from a classical Vedic tradition, to teach this medicine to one of the most advanced medical countries in the world, here in United States -- and to 2

3 talk about this ancient wisdom -- because it started a long, long time ago before we even started talking about mind-body medicine here. Ayurveda has actually used these terms and created templates for practitioners using not only mind and body medicine but mind, body and spirit medicine. It is a wisdom tradition which is a body of knowledge about much more than just taking care of people when they re sick. It is about actually looking at yourself in a totally holistic matter and trying to understand what is the real basis of human life. And I think that s where the strength of Ayurvedic medicine lies because it is a consciousness-based approach to health. Especially in this country we are painfully realizing just now how important it is to be really, really mindful of our own health. Because the real prevention lies on your own self. You are responsible for you own health. You need to be mindful of everything you do in order to be healthy. And I think that simplifies the message of Ayurveda. JOHN AMARAL: That is beautiful. You said something there towards the end about the best prevention and I would love for you to expand on that because here in western medical culture, we talk about preventative medicine, and to me a lot of that preventative medicine is a more reactive approach. For example, if you do this now, you may avoid this happening. So it seems to be oftentimes fear-based rather than about pro-actively engaging in 3

4 activities or practices that really help you and prepare you and balance you. Would you talk about a little bit about your perspective? DR.SUHAS: Yes, absolutely. In my day-to-day clinical practice I see so many people who spend their health to get some wealth. And afterwards, they would like to share their wealth with you to see if they can regain their health, which is not possible. I think the real catch is you need to be doing something which makes you feel good about yourself on an everyday basis. It is not just about popping a pill where you don t know how you feel. Everything that you do from the time you wake up in the morning until you go to sleep in the evening is how you can fill your life with a dimension, with a purpose. Feeling a state of perfect physical and mental and social wellbeing, even spiritual wellbeing is possible. When they re in that state, every individual feels every moment of their life, they re living with joy and zest, with a sense of fulfillment and harmony with the universe around them. And so, I think the biggest challenge we have created for both health and wellbeing in this country is outsourcing our individual health to HMOs and health maintenance organizations. It is like a big joke that you can outsource your health to an insurance company, imagine that they can take care of your health when you are sick, and you don t have to do 4

5 anything day-in and day-out to be healthy. And I think that mentality is the biggest challenge that I face in my day-to-day practice. We have to educate people completely differently. You need to be taking a look at your plate every day, what you eat, taking a look at your life every day, whatever events are happening and try to maintain that balance. And that s what the simplicity of Ayurvedic Medicine is all about. It actually gives you some very simple tools. And it is a science meant for common people to understand. If you eat heavy you become heavy, if you eat light you become light. If you are exposed to very hot, sunny weather, this is the impact on the body. It is a medical system but it is meant for common people to understand and probably create a lingo which they can apply. I think prevention and individual health and well being are almost a kind of programming of one s mind-set to be healthy. To be doing something, in order for one to remain more youthful and more energetic. JOHN AMARAL: Thank you that is a great explanation. So, I would love for you to expand on that more specifically. One of the things that you speak about are what you call Doshas. Basically, each individual has a different constitution of some sort and there are different practices or things that are more appropriate for each person based on their constitution. Would you talk about that? DR.SUHAS: We use this terms in Ayurvedic medicine called the three Doshas or the Doshas called Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. These Doshas are mere extensions of the elemental structure of the universe. We all know that we are a part of this huge wheel of nature which is made up of these five building blocks, which are space, air, fire, water and earth. We are 5

6 not a separate entity from nature but we are an integral part of this universe. So there is a beautiful Ayurvedic expression which is, As is the macrocosm, so is the microcosm, as is the cosmic spiritual, so is the individual spirit, as is the cosmic breath so is the individual breath. So you are an integral part of this universe and these Doshas are just the combination of these elements, like the combination of space and air is Vata. It is a structural and functional understanding of the building unit of the body. The combination of fire and water is Pitta. The combination of water and earth is Kapha. So these are biological building blocks of the body which govern the structure as well as function. And based upon that, they create a psycho-physiological personality of yourself. So your digestion, your metabolic activity, your ability to respond in a given situation, your memory, your intellect, your ability to process your thoughts and emotions, they are all governed by these states of Doshas as we call them. I think it makes your life easier once you understood who you are and what your genetic makeup of this Dosha is. JOHN AMARAL: If I may interrupt for a second. That brings me to another question. If somebody doesn t have access to an Ayurvedic practitioner -- and maybe you can recommend some basic reading or something that they can find in Google at the end of the call -- Let s say they don t really have much access, is there a way that somebody can get 6

7 a sense of what their Dosha is? Or if somebody does not know what their Dosha is, are there general practices that people can do across the board, that from an Ayurvedic perspective will help anybody regardless of the Dosha? DR.SUHAS: I think it is a good idea to find out your Dosha. There are numerous websites that can allow you to take a Dosha quiz. JOHN AMARAL: Is there any one that you could recommend? DR.SUHAS: I could list a couple of websites and you can go to my website which is ayurvedichealing.net. They can go to chopra.com. They can also go to something called doshaguru.com. And I think they are very user-friendly kind of websites where you can actually find out the body constitution makeup and once you understand who you are, I think it ll make it easier. There is a wonderful book which I would highly recommend for people to browse and it is available in public libraries. It is called Perfect Health by Deepak Chopra. It is a great simple primer on Ayurvedic medicine. This is something which I recommend to all of my beginner patients, as well as students. 7

8 This would be a place to start to find out more about yourself, and that will make it very easy because the traits of your personality -- about your likes, dislikes, how you look, your physical structure -- everything is very clear. And once it is clear, then you just need to bring the principle in to maintain the balance. JOHN AMARAL: Wonderful. Thank you. Those are some resources that you can go to that are free, resources where you can find out more about your Dosha. Let s say that somebody goes to one of those websites and they get some information. Then where might they go even if they are going out on their own and saying, How can I apply some of the principles of Ayurvedic philosophy and Ayurvedic living? What can I actually implement? Are there some things that you can share that in general are things that people can begin to apply right now to increase longevity, to enhance wellbeing, regardless of the Dosha or is it very different depending on the Dosha? DR.SUHAS: It is very simple. You can understand what a personality is. Vata There are some people who do their movements very, very quickly. They have a tendency toward dryness. They have dry skin. They are the people who have a difficulty to stay asleep and sleep properly. They have a little bit of variability which is governed by wind. They are called Vata. 8

9 And so when you have a thin body constitution where you don t gain weight easily and everything is dry, I think the most important quality that you should remember is you need to hydrate yourself very well. You need to drink enough liquids, especially warm liquids. You should be drinking lukewarm water. More often during the day, you should be very careful oliating your body or taking enough oil, eating enough of the right kind of raw, coldpressed oils in your diet. You should be actually applying oil to your skin on a regular basis. You should be doing what we call Abhyanga or a self-oil massage because you have a tendency towards dryness of the skin. Vata types have to be very, very careful with regularity of their routines. They should be eating more or less at the same time every day. They should be retiring for bed in the evening more or less around the same time every day. Because when everything becomes a little bit more irregular, they become very, very ungrounded, they get very, very cold. They tend to get constipated very easily and that s one of the main areas where the imbalances start to happen. They are prone to neurological diseases. They are prone to some psychological imbalances like anxiety; they love to worry about anything and everything. They feel ungrounded. If they follow things where they re eating good, warm grounding, wellcooked meals, they are eating enough good quality fats and they re actually doing oil massages, they can balance these Doshas very, very easily. 9

10 Pitta The second bodily constitution is the Pitta type, and these are mediumbuild ruddy complexions, a little bit flushed people who are a little bit more warm and intense and a little bit hot, I would guess. They are very sharp, very organized, and very meticulous but they increase their heat in Pitta. They have a tendency for retaining excess heat and they are prone to inflammation. They are prone to some alternative changes, some skin eruptions and some heat-related challenges in the body. And they have to actually learn how to probably cool down a little bit. They should be eating foods which are green, which are cool, freshly squeezed green juices, eating foods which are bitter and astringent in taste. And probably not engaging into a very competitive environment (at most fair weather) constantly pressed against deadlines. They have to meditate on a regular basis. They have to slow down consciously. They have to find vacations in which are able to transcend their ego, more in a natural setting, mountain tops, green lakes, oceans, these kinds of things. They have to find ways to laugh and release their pressure on a regular basis. They have to avoid long working hours and pressures where they put themselves under, and they can be too harsh and self- critical. Once you understand who you are and what you can do to balance, that makes it easy. 10

11 Kapha And for a Kapha body constitution, which is slightly heavier frame, they are a little bit more chubby. They tend to retain water in their system. They have sluggish metabolic activity. They are a little bit prone for laziness and dullness. They have to be very careful of staying away from high-fat foods. They need to stay away from sugary foods. They need to be eating foods which are pungent, bitter and astringent. They should be eating more spices in their diet. They should be exercising on a regular basis. They need to sweat and they need to release the water from their system on a regular basis. They have to eat foods which are a little bit more dry. If done, they remain warm; they live in a warm sunny place. And they are able to balance their Doshas. I think it makes easy. Understanding More About Your Dosha Sometimes jokingly I say that for Vata patients, I need to treat them like kids. You have to really n hold their hands and go around and give them tips and tools to balance the Dosha. For Pitta, you really have to guide them and allow them to get organized and structure their life in a way where they don t have to get really carried away too much and don t have to be that intense and pushy at times. 11

12 And for Kapha, many times you have to actually push them to the extremes and make their lifestyles less luxurious so that they will not be sleeping a lot. They will be probably moving around and doing lot of physical activity and lightening their foods in terms of quality, as well as quantity both. Once you understand your Doshic makeup, I think it will be easier to start looking at everything else around. Then you will be looking at your menu cards differently. You will be looking at your day-to-day lifestyle differently. For a person who will do a sedentary job, who is sleeping eight hours in a night and sitting in an executive chair for eight hours during the day, this is too much sitting, and that is something which is a prescription for creating a lot of Kaphagenic imbalance. Once we understand who we are and what our lifestyle is, we need to bring changes slowly, gently in a very conscious mindful manner which can have a huge impact on how we create diseases. The interesting thing about Ayurveda, is not about whether you are treating cancer, whether you are treating heart disease, you are actually treating who that person is, who is having what kind of disease. We use the terms called rogi and roga. We need to understand the patient and the person first before we start treating the disease. JOHN AMARAL: I love that about Ayurveda. I also work with people in a way where the disease processes have to be looked in the 12

13 context of that person s life, who they are, their subjective experience, their emotions, their feelings, their surroundings, their circumstances. And often times in a Western allopathic medical culture, the biomedical culture, we end up looking at averages and blood levels. We look at measurements, we look at what s normal and what s not normal. And you can really lose the person by just looking at the indicators of the disease or not disease. I would love for you to talk about that a little bit more. You mentioned at the beginning that Ayurveda is a spiritual as well as a physical practice. And I want to know if you can expand on the spiritual perspective of Ayurveda, as well as talk about Ayurvedic perspective on energy and how energy plays out in someone s life. DR.SUHAS: Let me share a story with you. I have a client who came to see me for Chronic Sinus Congestion and a lot of mucus, runny nose, itchy eyes, congested, feeling dull, heavy, headache, and things like that. When I looked at his paper work what he had filled out, he was eating a big, huge American breakfast at around 7:00 7:30 in the morning, and then practically eating nothing throughout the day. He used to come late back in the night around 7:30-8:00. And around 9:00, he used to have a big dinner with everything, with wine and meat, and all kinds of foods. He used to be in bed at around 10:00-10:30. So when I looked at his food I said, This is where your problem is. You eat this big heavy dinner and then you sleep on top of it for another eight hours. So when you sleep with this heavy dinner, you are not digesting this food. 13

14 When we sleep our heart rate, pulse rate, metabolic rate, respiratory rate, everything slows down. And the food remains in your system undigested for eight-nine hours. And then you wake up in the morning around 7:00, and you put another truckload of food on top of these undigested foods. And the whole day, you feel yucky, congested, mucus-y, and you are not eating any good food during the day, you are sitting on the chair. So I think this is the crux of your problem. What I need to do is, I need to lighten up your breakfast. I will give you a small bowl of oatmeal only in the morning, maybe a piece of fruit for snack and figure out a way to have a good decent cooked meal in the middle of the day. And in the evening, you can just come home and have a bowl of soup. It was difficult for him to make this change but he could understand what I was telling him. And within a few weeks, most of symptoms went away. He started losing weight more easily. He started feeling very, very energetic throughout the day. There was a completely different perspective he was feeling about himself. And he says, My sex life got better. My overall energy during the day got much better. I feel my senses are much clearer. I feel very sharp as if I have stopped my aging process and I m younger by ten years within these two weeks itself. It is a simple Ayurvedic concept of respecting your digestive fire. Keeping the channels open where the energies should flow in the body. 14

15 We call them nadi. So you need to allow the body to feel free of congestion and it should feel improved circulation, improved light, improved energy and clarity flowing everywhere else. You do this by increasing your digestive fire or Agni, and getting rid of something called ama which is the undigested toxic residues of the food which slows things down. We, the human being have a habit of overeating sometimes, eating at the wrong times and always accumulating some of these digestive metabolic impurities in our system. I think that s where the real crux is. If I look at the cross-section of my patients in the whole country, we are all suffering from something called metabolic syndrome. It is a sluggish metabolic function because of the wrong foods we are eating. Firstly it takes more energy for us to burn this food. Secondly, we are not digesting the food completely, so it remains into a chronic subtle state of indigestion, for a greater part. That s why we don t feel energetic. That s why we feel tired. That s why we feel fatigued. That s why we feel heavy. That s why we gain weight easily. We create hormonal imbalances, insulin resistance, you name it. I think that is the crux of the issue. If you eat right and eat light, that s 50% of the solution. JOHN AMARAL: Wonderful. Let s talk about eating right and eating light and some examples of foods that you would recommend. Talk about what eating right and eating light is. 15

16 The timing of eating, does it vary from Dosha to Dosha? Or as a general rule, is there a certain rhythm or cycle anybody should pay attention to? Also, are there certain foods anybody can benefit from for balancing the metabolism, and feeling lighter and freer. DR.SUHAS: I think they are both. Because you need to be eating something that I call super foods, which are intelligent foods, which are made in nature and made by nature. They should be full-packed with nutrients, fibers, antioxidants. They should be food that are really bio available and are 100% recyclable. Intelligent foods which are organic, non-gmo. It is important to be eating along with the seasonal variations, seasonal needs, eating foods which are abundant with vitamins and minerals, fiber, protein, fats. They should be lively vibrant, filled with prana, mana or chi as they call it. These are the general ways of eating but there should be variation according to Vata, Pitta. Kapha type. Vata So for a Vata person, who is literally a little bit more cold and dry, if their digestive state is not good -- if they eat a lot of cold salads and raw foods and everything, it is going to dampen their fire. They should be eating foods which are cooked. 16

17 They should be mixing those foods, likely steamed or sautéed in some oil, more of a soupy version of a food. And then, they will digest them very well. They should be eating complex carbohydrates which are easily digestible for them. Pitta For a Pitta person, they have a good amount of digestive fire, so they can eat more of the raw version of food and they can tolerate that food very well because they can digest it more easily. And especially all the greens, an abundant quality of greens in their diet is very good. But any amount of alcohol, vinegar, very, very hot and spicy foods for Pitta people is not really good. I tell them to avoid hurry, worry and curry because that is what their nature is sometimes. So just stay away from hot and spicy foods. They can balance that properly. Kapha And for Kapha people, they need to lighten up their diet. They should reduce a portion of what they eat. They should be eating foods which are a little bit more dry, which are cooked. They should be eating foods which are more soft and easier for digestion, not with a lot of oil and fat in them. So you can eat foods as a general template and there are tastes we talked about, six different tastes in Ayurvedic medicine: Sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent taste of food. 17

18 We need to incorporate these six tastes in our diet properly because these six tastes have a greater impact on the Doshas, which can actually help us to digest the food much more easily, and probably help people stay away from ama and increase their agni. A sense of good, clear hunger will always generate a degree of clarity, as well as feeling of vitality. JOHN AMARAL: You say a sense of good, clear hunger. Talk about that a little bit. DR.SUHAS: Because I think we have forgotten how it feels to be hungry. Hunger is a sign of feeling and light and that the body is ready to receive food. Not only should we be feeling a sense of hunger but understanding at what level we need to stop eating food without getting full. That sense of hunger is actually a quality that your body is feeling light and is ready for some food, and that it can digest the food if it is eaten at the right proportion at the right quantity. I call it a hunger meter. Right before you eat your food, you need to ask yourself very clearly how hungry you are and what you want to eat. It is not by the taste or mind that you should decide what food you want to eat, but by exactly what you can digest. That feeling of feeling lightness, and after eating if you don t feel sleepy, that is one of the most important signs that you have eaten just the right amount. Postprandial narcosis, or your ability to feel sleepy right after 18

19 eating within the first hour or so, it means you have abused your agni and you have overeaten yourself. Eating just right is the key, and again there are different states of variation of your digestive fire each day. So there is nothing, a set point that you can say, but you need to do that with different seasons, with different types, with different age groups and everything, for yourself. So it s a very self-referral process of how hungry you are and how satisfied you feel. JOHN AMARAL: Yeah, that's a great explanation. So, building on this importance of digestion and understanding the difference between hunger and satiation, and really lightening up the way you eat are key. I know in your clinic, in Ayurveda in general, there's a lot of focus on detoxification. And I'm curious if you'd just speak about detoxification a bit, and also what people might do for their own lives and processes when it comes to clearing or cleansing their system? What can people do on their own to be sure that they are detoxing some of this ama and some of this build-up of toxins? DR. SUHAS: Well, it's quite common and it's a very natural process that we tend to accumulate some of the impurities and toxins. Many of them are actually coming in from the food, many of them are coming from environmental pollution and toxins that we knowingly and unknowingly absorb into our system. And they go into the deeper parts of our body, and they get stuck somewhere, and they throw a wrench into the normal functioning of the 19

20 cells and tissues. So they can burden our liver, they can strain our kidneys, and everything like that. So for a long, long time, Ayurveda has always talked about seasonal cleanses and purges on a regular basis. This very effective treatment for the colon is called Panchakarma. "Pancha" means fire and 'Karma' means action. So there are five specific actions that one can do to embark on to a detox program. By lightening your diet, eating foods which are light and right, drinking some specific kind of herbal teas, and probably having an internal oliation, where it softens the impurities which are stuck in the body. And then you do a series of treatments which includes different kinds of massages, heat treatments, steam treatments, and enemas -- which actually purge the impurities from the nearest possible exits. Panchakarma is a very, very systematic way of detoxification. And it's not only detoxification where you feel very harsh, but you actually feel very relaxed and rejuvenated. So if you haven't experienced the Panchakarma treatment, I would highly recommend it. And one of the things I would like to highlight, the reason of doing Panchakarma on a regular basis -- because we do accumulate toxins on a regular basis -- it's like you take your car to the garage, change its oil, lube, and filter on a regular basis every few thousand miles. We take better care of our cars than our body! This is exactly what is happening. The oil becomes old, the filter becomes completely clogged, and we need to filter our body. And so we cleanse and purge the impurities. Many of these things can be done in a clinical setting where 20

21 there's an Ayurvedic practitioner doing Panchakarma, and many you can do yourself. What you can do is for a few days, I would say every three months or so, you can have a juice fast for two or three days where you do freshly squeezed juices which include fruit and vegetable juices for two and three days. You can take a gentle laxative, herbal tea, to have a little bit stronger bowel movements, and you can actually do a little bit of a more inward meditative-like activities. JOHN AMARAL: Are some of these recipes for juices, fresh juices, or the herbal teas that you recommend available either through this website or some other site? DR. SUHAS: Yeah, it is available through the website; they can also go to chopra.com as a website. They can go to my website, ayurvedichealing.net. It will be available. There's a wonderful book that we recently published called Ayurveda Quick Reference Guide. It's a manual for people to prepare these herbal teas. A Simple Detox Drink Recipe I can give a quick, simple, key recipe right now, which is a combination of cumin seeds, coriander seeds, and fennel seeds. So you take about a quart of water, and you add a teaspoon full of cumin, a teaspoon full of coriander, a teaspoon full of fennel seeds, and some freshly-grated ginger, maybe half a teaspoon in there. Bring it to a 21

22 boil, let it steep for a couple of minutes, strain it into a stainless steel thermos flask, squirt some lemon juice, maybe half a lemon s juice in there, and sip it warm all day. You can drink plenty of water, and your meals during these three days of cleanse have to be freshly-squeezed vegetable and fruit juices, which could be celery, cucumber, carrots, green apples, spinach, kale, whatever greens you can throw in. And you can drink, I would say, at least 16 ounces of juices twice a day. Drink this tea throughout the day, and stay away from any solid foods. What it does is, it lightens up your digestive fire, this tea strokes your agni, your digestive fire, it burns the ama, and slowly you start feeling light. 3 Important Ayurvedic Approaches for Your Daily Routine One of the things which I would highly recommend for people who want to actually prevent the onslaught of diseases, is doing three things as a part of their daily routine. One is Yoga, two is Pranayama which is a breathing exercise, and the third is Meditation. So, if you have access to a Yoga studio where you live, you should embark onto a basic Hatha flow or an Ashtanga Yoga, where you go and you do a Yoga session in group. And it's actually meditation in motion, where you slowly gently bend, twist, turn, flex, all the different parts of your body. And it creates deep- 22

23 seated compression and relaxation on the vital endocrine organs and the vital organ systems of the body. Slowly, it actually allows a deeper sense of relaxation. It also facilitates cleansing. And so, done in a proper breathing style, if you do the right breathing exercise, along with these Yoga asanas, as they call them, and embark onto a good meditative practice where you're looking at your life in a detached manner a little bit, and you re being a bit more mindful in everything that you do. I think it can change the spectrum of everything that you do and everything what you want with your life. JOHN AMARAL: Yeah, that's wonderful. I'm grateful you're giving so many applicable tips, I know you talked about the three things: the practice of Yoga, the practice of Pranayama, and then the last one was Meditation. So could you just talk about how someone might go about meditation? DR. SUHAS: Well, I think, what it is, is that there are numerous techniques of meditation. I personally recommend something called Transcendental Meditation, which I practice, and there are numerous Transcendental Meditation teachers available in the country. There are different meditation techniques which I respect, many of your Yoga teachers, if they're experienced, they will be able to guide you to the right kind of technique to you. But doing asana, doing breathing exercises, it actually opens the subtle channels. 23

24 And one of the biggest things that happen is, it actually makes you health-conscious. It's not like going to a gym and pumping iron. It actually is something that you are doing in a very slow and gentle manner, and so that activity that connects your heart and brain, both. And this is a very interesting concept, actually, which is more researched now, that the cardiac index associated with the cerebrovascular health is a very close connection. So meditation done with the right kind of breathing, and the Yoga postures are actually a great way to connect your heart and brain both. Because one is the seat of the circulation and the other is the seat of the regulation of the nervous system. And that's exactly where this whole idea of maintaining your health and preventing the onslaught of disease happens. If anybody really wants to prevent aging or prevent any chronic diseases, I would advise them to learn meditation, to start joining some Yoga activities done on a regular basis, and doing some breathing exercise also on a regular basis. The fact remains the same that nutrition, exercise, all of these are the key components for health, but there's something unique about all these three integrated in a Yoga session, which has a great impact and benefit on every little area, the overall cellular health of our body. JOHN AMARAL: That's a good point there, because one of the things that breath brings is an increase in awareness, and when the focus is on the inner experience of the body -- because you're noticing your breathing pattern and doing it in a very mindful and purposeful pattern of breathing -- you're enhancing or increasing awareness. 24

25 And awareness in and of itself is transformative. So the state of consciousness shifts, the person's subjective experience shifts, and the choices they might make, the ideas that they might have, the actions they might take, are going to change just from being with the breath, am I right? Do you agree? DR. SUHAS: Yeah, you are actually translating a quotation from Hatha Yoga Pradipika which is "Chale vate, chale chittam, nishchalaya nischalaya bhavet." The breath wanders, the mind wanders. So in order to control and regulate your mind, you need to regulate your breath. And the moment you are aware of your breath and you're consciously slowing down and breathing nicely and deeply, the whole way of mind, instinctively reacting to situations slows down. And the moment it slows down, it goes inward instead of outward, and that inward projection of this mind actually changes the inner environment, which changes everything that you're going to manifest outside. And that's the secret law of attraction. You can change every little thing outside, but the moment you change your inner thermostat, then the whole universe changes. The whole attitude of gratitude, which fills your life with a complete different level of hope and prosperity. JOHN AMARAL: It makes me think of a couple of things. There was a researcher named Karl Pribram, and Pribram did research on the brain, and looked at the function of the brain. 25

26 Basically, what he said is that your brain and nervous system processes information from the environment through your sensory system. You have waves of light, vibrations of sound, touch is a vibration. All these sensations, these vibrational waves that the nervous system is processing, they re all molecular oscillation and vibration. And as this information is coming in, both from your body inside and from the environment, and it is processed internally. But what you're really doing is you're projecting out, you're picking up all the sensory information and then your brain or nervous system is determining what that means -- and you project out into the world, in a way a hologram, a virtual reality of what the world is on the outside. But that's totally based on your inner sensory experience, and its different for everybody. So there really isn't a world out there that you're seeing. You're projecting a world out there based on your inner environment, which I think is right along the lines of what you're talking about. DR. SUHAS: Well this is absolutely right, and I can hear different Vedic quotes in what you're saying because it's an illusion anyway, life. We create this life, we are living in this so-called illusion, until and unless we are directed outwards and we are affected by every little thing that is happening in our life. The moment we come from this inner peace, and inner state of stability, which is based on our own connection with the consciousness, then everything is much, much easier to regulate and manage. Then it doesn't really affect us that much. 26

27 That's actually the motto or the main aim of Ayurveda. The main aim of Ayurveda is called the Ayurveda Amritanam, Ayurveda for immortality. So finding that place within you from where everything is kind of regulated, and finding that peace a few times every day and during meditation, and then developing a habit of doing everything you do from that degree of peace, and wakefulness, and awareness, and mindfulness. Then the whole expression of how everything else affects you, we sometimes talk about how to metabolize experiences, because the experiences are there outside, they're going to affect you, but the way you metabolize them is totally dependent upon how your outlook is towards them. How you look at them, how you ingest them, how you cultivate the state of optimism and positivity in your thinking and in your behavior and in your actions. Because it s the Karmic way of living, because the moment you start thinking and looking at things with a degree of optimism and positivity, then everything flows in your life with a lot of abundance and a lot of splendor and luster and prosperity. JOHN AMARAL: It makes me think of a recent interview I just saw with Oprah Winfrey, interviewing Deepak Chopra. She asked Deepak a number of questions about life and death and immortality and he talked about just having spent a month recently meditating on death. I think when we switch the conversation from longevity and How do we add more years to our life? to How do we add more life to our years?, and knowing that we are so much more than this body in this moment, I think it expands the meaning of life to a spiritual level. 27

28 Deepak, she said, How much do outside circumstances bother you? How reactive do you get? and he said, I m at a point now where the outer world no longer is able to really trigger me to react. I think that s the ultimate place. One of the ultimate places to be is to be able to be in a relationship with the outer world, where the outer world is not triggering us to go into reaction and protection, but yet we can just observe and experience. DR. SUHAS: Absolutely. He likes to quote a Vedic quote which says that, We are not human beings having the cosmic experience, but we are cosmic beings having an occasional human experience! JOHN AMARAL: So this has been, really enlightening. I want to thank you for sharing so much really wonderful information. This is stuff that people can apply right now, right away. In closing, what are some of the things that you would recommend that maybe we haven t talked about and maybe a couple of things that you think would really benefit people to know? And then also, information about how people can get in touch with you. I know people fly in from all over the world to do Panchakarma sessions with you at your offices here in Santa Cruz, and at the Deepak Chopra center also I m sure is maybe another resource. And I would love it if you could share any information about how to get in touch with you, plus also things that people can do that maybe we haven t talked about, and then we can take it from there. 28

29 DR. SUHAS: Well I think, one of the most important messages that I would like to share with everyone who is listening to this, is create a sense of awareness and engage yourself into self-observation. If we could only change our way of looking at it, we could in fact change all notions and all the realities about living, aging, mortality and immortality. It s how we think and what our notions are that construct the reality. It s our ideas, our thoughts, and everything that we construct the material Universe of. So, pay attention to all of your sensory activity that you do, everything. What kind of movies you watch, what kind of vacations you take, what kind of entertainment ideas you have. Start regulating your sense to reaction and slow down the mental faculties of your mind and senses a little bit. You will attain a stability of intellect from where if you consciously put attention to good amount of physical exercise, stay outdoors and in connection with nature, you re eating the right foods, which are made in nature, made by nature. You engage into the right kind of cleansing activity and set the right time, you maintain a state of good vitality of hunger and agony and keep yourself free from ama. You are regulating your heart and brain connection with breathing exercises, Yoga, regular practices of meditation. You are eating intelligent food, herbal supplements which are capable of invoking that inner intelligence of your body to connect whatever patterns of imbalances you may have. 29

30 I think you will be able to maintain your health and well-being at your own level. And I think that s the whole message of Ayurveda. It s a consciousness based approach to health. You should be responsible for your own health and well-being. And if you need any help learning more about Ayurveda, you can always come to our website at Ayurvedichealing.net. I have a school where I teach Ayurvedic education to common people as well as many of my patients at the at the year-long program and the website is AyurvedaAcademy.com. You can also come and contact at this number, which This is my clinic here in the Santa Cruz, in California, where you can contact either a phone consultation or in-person consultation. We ll be happy to put together a Panchakarma program for you, if you re interested. I think there are numerous Ayurvedic institutions and schools in the country that you can access to. There are wonderful books written. There are institutes like Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, Kripalu Institute which is in Massachusetts. Numerous Ayurvedic schools, like Kerala Academy which is based out of Seattle. So in the country, there are numerous Ayurvedic schools, institutions and good Ayurvedic doctors and I ll be happy to put you in touch with those people in your area. But my website is a good healing resource for medical astrology, for Panchakarma, for Ayurvedic dietology and lifestyle counseling. Me and 30

31 my wife, Dr. Maneesha, we are both Ayurvedic physicians and we practice here, very close to John where he is from. So again, thank you John for inviting me on this show and once again, my website is AyurvedicHealing.net. My personal is and my phone number for the clinic is Thank you. JOHN AMARAL: Thank Dr. Suhas this has been an enlightening and inspiring, I would say a short course primer on how to live an amazingly, healthy and abundant life and I really appreciate the time, and I look forward to our paths crossing again soon. DR. SUHAS: Thank you John. JOHN AMARAL: Take care. Bye. 31