Ayurveda - Know Thy Dosha - by Jamuna Rangachari

click on for more www.lifepositive.com/body/health Ayurveda believes that when all our doshas are in a state of equilibrium, we arrive at a balanced state of the body, mind and spirit. read on to know more about doshas and to find out yours

Whats Your Dosha?

Vata Physical characteristics Slender and does not put on weight easily Height is taller or shorter than average Hair, neck are all 'thin'<BR

Whats Your Dosha?

Vata Physical characteristics Slender and does not put on weight easily Height is taller or shorter than average Hair, neck are all 'thin' Energy fluctuates and comes in bursts Appetite is variable There is a tendency to become constipated Skin frequently becomes dry Cold hands and feet Light sleeper and may even have difficulty falling asleep Prefers warm, moist weather to cold weather Psychological characteristics Creative and imaginative Artistic Active and restless Quick learner but forgets quickly Becomes 'spaced out' quite easily Tendency to feel anxious, nervous and insecure Speaks quickly and uses hand gestures Always on the go Irregular routine Often has colourful dreams Suggested affirmations and practice Affirm "All is well. There is no need to worry about anything" Practise meditation to become more grounded. Take up a creative hobby, and pursue it in a sustained manner Pitta Physical characteristics Medium builds. Gains and puts on weight easily Average height Pointed features

 Energy levels high Strong appetite Regular bowel movements. Occasional bouts of diarrhoea Oily skin. Reddish tone Easy perspiration Penetrating eyes Prefers cool weather. May become irrit-able in hot weather Psychological characteristics Goal-oriented Good sense of humour Strong intellect. Likes learning new things. Natural ability to lead Critical of self and others Perfectionist Tends to become angry and irritable Becomes irritable if meal skipped Stubborn Enjoys competition Suggested affirmations and practice Affirm "I shall do my best and leave the rest to the Divine." Practice meditation to control anger and judgmental nature Be less critical and more accepting Kapha Physical characteristics Gains weight easily. Loses weight with difficulty Short and stocky or tall and sturdy Hair, neck are all 'thick' Abundant strength and stamina Weak digestion. Feels heavy after eating Regular bowel movements Oily skin. Smooth and pale Sleeps easily and soundly Catches cold easily Prefers hot weather Psychological characteristics Large-hearted Calm nature Prefers slow, relaxed lifestyle. Not a very quick learner but excellent long term memory Sentimental. Often thinks of past Methodical Protective of self and family Lets negative emotions build up rather than addressing them Lets others take the lead. Natural listener who many people confide in. Suggested affirmations and practice Affirm "All that is there is the present moment alone"

 Practise meditation to become less emotional and detached. Make regular physical exertion part of your routineWhats Your Dosha? Vata Physical characteristics Slender and does not put on weight easily Height is taller or shorter than average Hair, neck are all 'thin' Energy fluctuates and comes in bursts Appetite is variable There is a tendency to become constipated Skin frequently becomes dry Cold hands and feet Light sleeper and may even have difficulty falling asleep Prefers warm, moist weather to cold weather Psychological characteristics Creative and imaginative Artistic Active and restless Quick learner but forgets quickly Becomes 'spaced out' quite easily Tendency to feel anxious, nervous and insecure Speaks quickly and uses hand gestures Always on the go Irregular routine Often has colourful dreams Suggested affirmations and practice Affirm "All is well. There is no need to worry about anything" Practise meditation to become more grounded. Take up a creative hobby, and pursue it in a sustained manner Pitta Physical characteristics Medium builds. Gains and puts on weight easily Average height Pointed features Energy levels high Strong appetite Regular bowel movements. Occasional bouts of diarrhoea Oily skin. Reddish tone Easy perspiration Penetrating eyes Prefers cool weather. May become irrit-able in hot weather Psychological characteristics Goal-oriented Good sense of humour Strong intellect. Likes learning new things. Natural ability to lead

 Critical of self and others Perfectionist Tends to become angry and irritable Becomes irritable if meal skipped Stubborn Enjoys competition Suggested affirmations and practice Affirm "I shall do my best and leave the rest to the Divine." Practice meditation to control anger and judgmental nature Be less critical and more accepting Kapha Physical characteristics Gains weight easily. Loses weight with difficulty Short and stocky or tall and sturdy Hair, neck are all 'thick' Abundant strength and stamina Weak digestion. Feels heavy after eating Regular bowel movements Oily skin. Smooth and pale Sleeps easily and soundly Catches cold easily Prefers hot weather Psychological characteristics Large-hearted Calm nature Prefers slow, relaxed lifestyle. Not a very quick learner but excellent long term memory Sentimental. Often thinks of past Methodical Protective of self and family Lets negative emotions build up rather than addressing them Lets others take the lead. Natural listener who many people confide in. Suggested affirmations and practice Affirm "All that is there is the present moment alone" Practise meditation to become less emotional and detached. Make regular physical exertion part of your routine. My daughter gets extremely tense before an exam or a project submission while my son goes to the other extreme, taking all pressure in so cool a manner that we sometimes get perturbed, I mentioned to an Ayurvedic doctor, who also happens to be a family friend. Naturally, she is predominantly vata, while he is mainly kapha, he replied, enigmatically. Vata, pitta and kapha are the three doshas or constitutional types in Ayurveda, the ancient science of medicine. It is believed that the human body is made up of five elements space, air, fire, water, and earth. Although all these five elements flow through the body at all times, each individual has certain elements which are more dominant than the others. For instance, a person having a vata constitution has more of air and space; pitta has more of fire and water, and kapha, water and earth. At the time of conception, each persons predominant constitution (prakriti) is created by the way in which the three doshas combine through the union of parents. Besides genetic, the prakriti is also affected by emotions, diet, lifestyle, and even environmental factors like climate and time of the day. Once a person

recognises his prominent dosha, a lot can be done to take care of the diseases that one is most prone to. The doshas Dr Ramesh, CMD of Aryavaidyasala, Kotakkal, shares his experience with a busy company executive, who had a vata prakriti. Because of his prakriti, he was unable to cope with the stress in his life, and suffered from a disturbed sleep pattern, constipation, continuous disturbance in his gastro-intestinal area, and hypertension. Treated with therapies like dhara panchakarma, his quality of life improved substantially, and he was able to manage himself. With a change in lifestyle, he could cope with the stress factor too. The vata dosha controls very basic body processes such as cell division, the heart, breathing, and the mind. Physically people with a strong vata dosha are either very tall or very short, non-muscular, with thin and bony limbs, and have a quick gait with short, fast steps. They are creative, enthusiastic, fond of freedom, generous, joyful and full of vitality. However, on the flip side, they may be fearful, worrisome and anxious, doubting, and over-analytical. Some common complaints for a vata dosha disposition are stiffness, especially in joints, low back and spinal pain, sciatica, constipation and nervousness. Ayurveda & Life Impressions Bodywork by Donald Vanhowten states that 60 per cent of all ailments are due to an increase in vata because vata controls the mind, and most ailments have a mental component. Fear, cold climate, too little water and food, and too much of bodily activity, increase the vata. In such cases, meditation, moist heat and massages can really help. The pitta dosha is said to control hormones and the digestive system. A person with a predominance of pitta has a moderately well-developed physique with muscular limbs and a purposeful, stable gait of medium speed. Pittas have an intellectual and precise disposition due to a very alert, focussed mind. Sharp and knife-like in anger, they are irritable, jealous, and aggressive by nature. Discriminating and judgemental, they are articulate, learned and proud. With a developed sense of responsibility, they can take decisions and organise affairs well. Argumentative, but with a sense of humour, their selectively excellent memory makes them fast learners. They are ambitious, can concentrate well, are courageous, and have an enthusiasm for knowledge along with intelligence. However, they have a tendency to become angry, abrasive and jealous. Some common complaints the pitta constitutions will have are inflammation of joints, tissues and organs. Excess heat can cause problems in the liver, blood, gall bladder and intestine. As heat rises, migraines, neck and spinal stiffness, fevers and headaches can arise. These problems can be controlled by avoiding hot food, alcohol, red meat, too much physical and mental activity, and too little liquid. Also meditation (and any other relaxation activity), and drinking a lot of fluids can benefit tremendously. The kapha dosha is thought to help keep up strength and immunity, and to control growth. A thick, broad, welldeveloped frame and large, long limbs go well with a pleasant, deep and resonant voice with low, slow, rhythmic speech. The skin is usually thick, oily, pale, and cold. Plentiful, thick, wavy, lustrous hair is set on a large, rounded and full face. The neck is solid, with a near tree-trunk quality. A large, rounded nose and large, attractive eyes are found and a mouth that is large with big, full lips. Teeth too are big and white, and set in strong gums. Kaphadominated people are calm, steady, considerate stable, patient personalities who are not easily provoked. They are honourable, true to their word, and avoid lies. Loyal, forgiving and understanding, they can be lethargic, even lazy, if not driven by others. Learning may be slow but memory will be strong. Excellent in logical analysis, they take time before reaching conclusions. Long hours of deep sleep are natural to them. They are caring, centred, compassionate, content, grounded, patient, have faith and fulfilment, feel nourished and are mature. However, there can at times be an element of dullness, given that a kapha mind is usually too content to seek fresh mental stimulation. Some common complaints for kapha dispositions are congestion, overweight, fluid problems, swelling, head colds, lung problems, lethargy, depression and sadness. One needs to decrease the kapha by reducing intake of cold foods and dairy products, too much liquid, sweets, and a sedentary lifestyle. One should try to remain active, eat light food, and try to include hot food in ones diet to keep the kapha in control. Most of us are combinations of each type, and no one is usually of one type alone. Further, there are variations during ones lifetime too, though one dosha usually remains predominant. However, we also have a constitution of the moment, called vikruti which reflects our present state of health. As Dr Ramesh points out, each persons prakriti or makeup is itself a complex area of study, and should be assessed by a practitioner after seeing the patients, asking questions about them, and their lifestyle and by examining them clinically. However, once the prakriti is known, there is a lot that can be done to heighten the positives, reduce the negative fall-outs and ensure a progress towards

balanced living. Know thy dosha, to know how you can evolve your personality. For, is it not true that to know oneself is the first step on ones spiritual journey?

Emotions - The Ethics of Emotions - by Swami Veda Bharati

In order to purify our minds we need to consciously choose pure emotions over impure ones, by rising above conditioning. In cultivating a saumya personality, we need to start working consciously and conscientiously on purification of the mind and emotions. We need to learn to choose purer emotions. How do we determine what are the purer emotions? Psychologically speaking, if a certain emotion causes pain in our minds and its expression evokes a painful feeling in those who are in relationship with us, these emotions are not pure ones. If an emotion leaves a smile in our or another's mind, then it is a pure emotion. Spiritually speaking, the emotions that are conducive to enlightenment are the pure ones. It must be remembered that our emotional choices are learnt ones; they are habits we have formed. In the same situation, one has access to multiple emotional choices. A brave man sees a tiger in the wild and his hunting instinct is activated. A coward sweats with fear and flees. A yogi stays neutral or is filled with non-violent, loving feelings for his fellow living being. The reaction we choose is from the habits created by our culture, education or personal circumstances. Here is an example from world cultures. Let us take anger. In certain schools of modern psychology, a therapist works on bringing to the fore our hidden anger and suggests to the client that he give himself permission to express anger. The question of the ethics of emotions plays no part in this. In India we are often advised to control our anger, but display of anger is still commonplace. In the cultures of SE Asia, anger is particularly frowned upon. You arrive after a long flight to a hotel where you had made a reservation and even reconfirmed it, only to be told by the receptionist that you have not made a booking. If, in your state of exhaustion and frustration you display anger, you will be completely ignored. No one will talk to you till you calm yourself down and become civil and gentle. These are examples of culturally and educationally generated emotional habits. But at a certain time in our lives we begin to examine ourselves. We can make conscious choices, which may be different from those of general culture or family patterns. or example, boys often see their fathers abusing their mother. As a child the boy's sympathy is with the mother. But as he grows to manhood, he identifies more and more with the father and emulates him. But one may choose to take a different path internally. One may dig deep and bring to the conscious mind, the unconscious memory of how painful it was, as a young child, to watch his mother being hurt; here one taps the 'son'personality rather than the 'domineering, insensitive and cruel male' personality. In USA and other western countries where jurisprudence increasingly takes into account the principles of psychology, it is common for the attorneys to argue that a certain person has abused and hurt his child helplessly because he was conditioned to do so through his own psychological trauma when abused and hurt as a child. The spiritual argument, however, would be based on an extension, a deepening, of the principle of free will. One is free to make one's choice if one is spiritually awake, to go beyond this psychological conditioning. One may thus make a conscious choice. One may make a resolve to cultivate within oneself the emotional states that create a saumya personality, generating a non-painful feeling and evoking the same in the person(s) in our relationship and opting for that which leads to enlightenment. Even if we ignore this last goal, the other three are worth pursuing in our quest for purification of emotions, bhavasam-shuddhi. Thus we need to begin to look at our emotions not as something that renders us helpless, whose 'accidental' presence

we have no choice over, but rather as acts of volition and we choose them on the basis of some moral principles. There you have an ethics of emotions. As one grows spiritually, one frees oneself more and more from psychological, educational and cultural conditioning. One no longer acts adversely towards women because 'everybody does so'. One does not cast aspersions at people of other ethnic, religious or caste groups just because one is conditioned to believe that he is the best, the highest and the noblest. Spirituality supersedes psychology. As we have shown, we then choose the noble emotions. We change our past habits and learn to react differently. Part of our spiritual journey consists of emotional de-conditioning of the ignoble and re-conditioning towards the noble. Spiritual guides have employed many internal tools to accomplish this purpose. Here is just a short explanation of the concept of the ethics of emotions. All through the history of philosophy, sages and philosophers have spoken of three levels of actions: mental, vocal and physical, from manas, vak and kaya, respectively. In the Zoroastrian tradition we are taught the same: manashni, gavashni, kunashni - to think, to speak and to act in a noble and peace-generating way. Mental acts are expressed in speech and physical actions. A majority of our mental acts are emotional ones, based not on logic but on feelings and conditioning. This is where the ethics of emotions begins, to discern between right and wrong mental acts and thereby heal your own mind.

Psychotherapy - The Stories of our Lives by Susan Varughese

Narrative therapy uses the stories we tell ourselves of who we are to bring hope and healing. Katie is 16 years old and a victim of 'anorexia nervosa'. She is at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Clinic in Norway for consultation with Geir Lundby. Geir begins the conversation by asking her, "What is anorexia trying to make you believe about yourself? What are the tricks it uses on you?" Encouraged by these unusual questions, Katie confides to Geir that she has been hearing voices in her head that make her stay away from food. She went on to identify these voices as Satan's Voice, calling it a death voice. What about her own voice? "Jesus's voice," standing for the life force. Geir asks what is important or precious to her. Katie talks of her love for her family - her nephews and nieces, her belief in Jesus, the church congregation, her friends and her desire to get back to her friends. Katie also talks of her walks in the woods. Sensing Katie's desire to live and its redeeming possibility, Geir asks her for exceptions or occasions when she has taken any initiative to out-trick Satan's Voice. Katie talks of eating a hot dog for lunch. "What kind of initiative is it?" "A little miracle," says Katie. Narrative therapy is a uniquely empowering and holistic approach to healing. Its therapeutic process guides one on an introspective journey through skillful questioning of one's life for simple truths as well as for answers to deeper questions of one's existential meaning. I attended three narrative therapy workshops between December 2005 and August 2006. All these workshops were organised by Mumbai-based psychiatrist, Dr.Dayal Mirchandani, and his artist-wife, Anjali Mirchandani, in collaboration with Dulwich Center, Adelaide, Australia. The first workshop in December was conducted by Mr.John Stillman of Kenwood Therapy Center, USA, the second in February by Mr.Geir Lundby from The Center for Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Norway, and the third, also the most recent, by MS.Maggie Carey of Australia. Narrative therapy was developed by Michael White of Australia and David Epston of New Zealand. Narrative ideas have come from literary sources, from the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, Jerome Bruner and Russian learning theorist Votosky. Story is intrinsic to narrative practice - stories of people's lives, their experiences. White says people are interpretive beings and that they interpret their experiences all the time. Stories convey the meaning of our lives, experiences that shape truths we come to believe, our belief systems and our identity. We are multistoried. There are many stories in people's lives and many stories that happen simultaneously.

Therapeutic Inquiry The therapeutic inquiry begins with naming the problem, its history and context, followed by its effects and consequences on a person's life and his relationships. This is followed by questions to the client for evaluation of his actions and its justification. The first concept we were introduced to is called Externalizing conversation. To understand this, we needed to familiarize ourselves with its premise - a problem is separate from the person or, as NT practitioners, would say, "the person is not the problem, the problem is the problem." It is common practice for people with problems to make them a part of their identity. For instance, a person suffering from depression will often refer to himself as a 'depressed person'. As Alice Morgan explains, "Externalizing practice in contrast to internalizing practice locates problems not within individuals, but as products of culture and history. Problems are understood to be socially constructed and created over time." Externalizing conversation creates space or distance between the problem and the person, liberating him from blame, guilt and shame. According to Geir, it raises hope and new strength and patients are more cooperative and articulate. His conversation with Katie, shown above, is an example of an externalizing conversation. It is completely free from blame - an NT virtue. There is no advice from Geir, either. The therapist is not the expert here. Therapists are influential in the way they get the client to think about his problem and in the language they use. With children, personifying a problem works very well. Their imaginary world is very real for problem-solving. Geir Lundby shared this example of a four-year-old who came in with the problem of soiling her pants. Geir externalized the problem through creating an imaginary friend, Winnie the Pooh, who is responsible for having put ideas in the child's head that resulted in her soiling herself. Pooh in the toilet is not trustworthy. She is sneaky and so what did such a friend deserve? She deserved to be tricked back. And it worked. As part of group exercise in all the three workshops, we worked in triads or pairs, practicing externalizing conversation. It seemed odd at first to use problems as nouns or to personify them. But soon, we discovered how much easier it was to open up. It was also less inhibiting, and insightful to list the strategies and tricks our specific problem played on us. And as we shifted gear to explore the exception or how we may have out-tricked the problem, we were witness to our capacity to transcend what seemed all-too-overpowering. I remember I relaxed for the first time and smiled - a new optimism was born. My problem was no longer etched in stone for posterity. What makes up a story? o Events o Sequence o Over time o Theme or plot that weaves or connects. The first part of a therapeutic inquiry will focus on the problem story. It does not end here. NT believes that the problem story is not the only story. There are other stories of significance, stories of value and self-worth. NT leverages alternative stories or preferred story to work its empowering magic on the healing process. Narrative therapists call this rich story development, or re-authoring conversations. Geir shared this story from Michael White's practice. Peter, a young boy in his teens, is brought for consultation for his aggressive behavior. Peter's mother is a battered wife, a victim of her husband's violent abuse. In the course of one such violent episode, Peter threw a brick across the window, shattering it. Peter throwing the brick is the action. What is its meaning? Peter's mother's interpretation of the event was that Peter showed courage in throwing the brick. He loved her and risked his own safety to help his mother. Michael White invited her to share more stories. His mother shared the story of Peter sharing his lunch with three other kids at school, an act of compassion and kindness. Another story followed of Peter being trustworthy, as he carefully safeguarded his cousin's secret of having been sexually abused. All this was a complete surprise to Peter, who was conscious only of being a bad boy. His mother's stories helped him to recognize the good side of himself. Problem stories inhibit and limit a person's capacities and blocks initiative. Alternative stories empower and uplift one's spirit. According to Alice Morgan, "As clients live out and inhabit alternative stories, results go beyond problem-solving. People live out new possibilities, new self-images and new futures." For rich story development, another narrative practice is the exploration of intentions, purposes, values, beliefs,

hopes, dreams, commitments and vision. Our intentions make our identity. The preferred story is the intentional part of us, what is important in our lives. With intentions at the center of his life, the client is at once placed as the one who is most knowledgeable about himself. In all the three workshops, we again worked in triads to practice the intentional state. Here again, we worked on real problems. This was tough. I realized how much practice is needed to take this conceptual understanding to skilled inquiry and rich story development. I have come to respect and greatly admire narrative therapy. The approach of using concepts, clinical examples, followed by practice sessions, made for very good learning in all the three workshops. I sat mesmerized throughout, as I listened to their language and cases, (especially Geir Lundby whose eloquent and lyrical words had the flourish of a poet). Their dramatic stories inspire me to practice narrative therapy.

Positive Thinking - The Good Word

- by Suma Varughese

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God Affirmations are powerful declarations that can transform your behaviour, attitude and nature. Affirmations help you to realize your highest potential. They are the easy path to self-realisation. Even as a youngster reading through the unfathomable mystery of the Bible, these lines quoted earlier would spring out at me and grip my imagination. Mystical and mysterious they may have been but I sensed in them a strange power. I repeated them frequently and wondered what they meant. But then I am a writer. Words are my stock in trade and since my very childhood they have fascinated and entranced me. The sound of words, the images they summon up, the emotions they arouse, the worlds they open up for me have held me in thrall all my life. How apt then, that my spiritual journey began with the word and has all through been strengthened and assisted by its potent magic. In the form of affirmations, it has been the indispensable third part of my path. The first two are awareness and acceptance. While these two have been deconditioning me, affirmations assist in reconditioning me, or, as I now recognize, in transforming me. It is only of late that I have begun recognizing the invaluable role of affirmations in my life. I see it as a tool that can change even the most recalcitrant. It is the common man's route to transformation. Swami Sivananda, founder of the Divine Life Society, Rishikesh, corroborates this view. In his fascinating book, Japa Yoga, he writes, "In this Kali yug, japa alone is the easy way to the realisation of God." Not all of us can meditate. Not all of us have the discipline to do spiritual practice every day. Certainly I didn't. But all of us can repeat a few words to ourselves. And from my own experience, I can testify that it is not even required to concentrate upon the words. You can mumble them even when your mind is racing like a horse. You can chant them absentmindedly. Just say them. Of course, the more force and intention you put in them the quicker they manifest. But the results will come as long as you persist, no matter how desultory your utterance. JUST DON'T GIVE UP! While this goes against received wisdom, which insists that affirmations must be said with intent in order to work, I am supported by the incomparable Swami Sivananda who stoutly declares: "Even simple mechanical repetition of a mantra has a powerful effect. It purifies the mind. It serves as a gate-keeper. It gives intimations to you whenever some worldly thoughts enter the mind." A Personal Path My tryst with affirmations and indeed spirituality began several years ago when a relationship broke up and in parting, I was told that relationships were meant to be beautiful and ours had not been. I was also told that I had not made the person happy. Fascinated by the concept of a 'beautiful relationship' and by the idea of happiness, I vowed that I would make this person happy, come what may. This was by no means easy to do as I found myself reacting to his behaviour with anger and jealousy. And then I hit upon the magic mantra, which was my passage to spiritual understanding. It occurred to me that if I really wanted this person's happiness, whatever he said or did should be

okay by me. I formulated the thought thus: "It's his happiness that matters and not mine". I found my anger and reactivity receding and in its place a vast reservoir of peace and goodwill arising. Unbelievingly, I said these words again and again, and each time they worked like a charm, freeing me of my thoughts and feelings and allowing me to focus fully on seeing and understanding the other's point of view. In my own way I was affirming, though I did not know it then. The words propelled me right out of my ego and into a state that I called 'absolute happiness'. For a full year, they retained their magic for me. I used to accompany their recitation by pressing my thumb and my middle finger hard. I later discovered that NLP called this anchoring, and recommended it as a way of recalling an experience intentionally. Alas, all good things come to an end and my year of grace faded away. However, it left me firmly entrenched on the spiritual path. Why did this mantra wield such power over me during that time? Why not before and why not after? Such things are cloaked in mystery and it is hard to say why. Grace for me, is a good explanation for the first question. As for the second, I think of it as a trigger that launched me on the journey. That job done, it left me so that I could embark upon the hard and long task of dissolving all that stood between me and that state of absolute happiness Explaining Affirmations So what are affirmations? They are positive declarations of intent. They are word seeds that germinate within us and recreate us. They encapsulate the power of thought which makes us who we are. Affirmations can be simple declarations like the 19th century French psychotherapist, Emile Coeu's sweeping assertion, "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better." They can be New Age statements that invoke everything from health, love, money, jobs, houses and other material and non-material visitations. Affirmations such as, "I am abundance and I attract everything I need," are typical of this genre. They can be power words that resound through our scriptures such as the great mahavakya, Aham Brahmasmi, the sufi saying, Al Haq, or mantras like Om Namaha Shivaye. They can be the prayers that we repeat ceaselessly such as the Gayatri mantra, the Mahamrityunjaya mantra, the Lord's Prayer or the Hail Mary. All good words and thoughts that we repeat continuously are affirmations in action. Whether we call it japa yoga or affirmations, we are invoking the power of the word to create us, regenerate us and transform us. All spiritual traditions everywhere have intuited the awful majesty and power of the word. Whether it is the karadjeru of Australia, the Dogon and Igbo communities of Africa, the Mayan community of Mexico, the Sumerians, or the Buddhist, Christian, Islamic or Judaic traditions, there is a clear understanding that language, or the word, is a manifestation of God. Many of them, including the vedic tradition of India, maintain that sound is the building block of the manifested world. For the Dogon, words uttered during religious ceremonies contain nyama (life-force), which is conveyed by the breath and flows through the mouth of the holy person. Even in the Christian tradition, God is said to have created the universe simply by uttering a command-surely an early example of affirmation in action? "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." (Genesis 1: 3) The Power of Sound In India, the power of the word has long been recognized and used for spiritual transformation and for the ultimate understanding of life. Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, head of the Himalayan Institute, USA, writes in his book, The Power of Mantra and the Mystery of Initiation, "According to tantric and Vedic sources, the world manifests from the Word, exists in the Word, and at the time of annihilation returns to the Word. They tell us that for those who are unaware of the power of the Word and its binding and releasing force, this world is the source of pain and misery. Yet, according to the Shiva Sutra, this same world is a wave of joy to those who have penetrated the mystery of the Word." According to Wayne Dyer, author of the book, Manifest Your Destiny, the sound aaah is common to almost all the names of God, ranging from Brahma, to Allah to Yahweh and Ahura Mazda. This is no coincidence, he believes, but is rather proof that it is the sound of creation. Therefore when we chant God's name we are invoking the power of creation. Many ancients would attribute the mantra om, with this power, but, says Dyer, "Whereas aaah is the sound of creation, om is the sound of that which is already created. Om expresses gratitude for all that has manifested." According to tantric adepts, the word is considered to be the Shabda-brahman, the Creative Source (Ashabdabrahman) embodied as sound. Scientists today confirm that the universe is actually composed of vibrational energies. Writes Wayne Dyer: "Every sound is a vibration made of waves oscillating at a particular frequency. The frequency range of the human ear is

approximately 16,000 - 40,000 vibrations per second. It is theorized that thoughts and the unknown etheric and spiritual dimensions are in the realm of increased vibrations beyond anything that is calculable at this point of time." He adds, "Sound is the intermediary between the abstract idea and the concrete form of the material world. Sounds literally mold the abstract world of thoughts and spirit into shapes." Swami Sivananda confirms this by writing about the experiments conducted by an Englishwoman called Mrs Watts Hughes, who sang into an instrument called the eidophone. The sound traveled through a tube and was received on a flexible membrane holding tiny seeds. The seeds formed entrancing geometric patterns depending on the notes she used. He says, "Once when Mrs Hughes was singing a note, a daisy appeared and disappearednow she knows that precise inflections of the particular note that is a daisy and it is made constant and definite by a strange method of coaxing an alternation of crescendo and diminuendo." Mrs Hughes apparently was able to summon up sea-monsters, forms of trees, and even landscapes of trees with a foreground of rocks, and the sea behind. Santosh Sachdeva, whose family owns the website indiayogi.com, affirms that when they conducted a yagna on behalf of one of their clients, the fire threw up images of om and the swastika, when invoked by the pundit. Why Affirmations Work Affirmations work because they embody the power of sound. Not just when you choose to utter them aloud, but even when expressed through thought, they create specific vibrations within. These vibrations have the power to write over the grooves of our subconscious mind. It is the thoughts that we feed into our subconscious mind that produces our habitual behavioural patterns and attitudes. Our unconscious thoughts have created our present persona. In order to recreate ourselves, we need to counter them with conscious positive thoughts. This is the central truth behind most spiritual philosophies. For instance, the opening verse of the Dhammapada, the core Buddhist scripture, states implacably, "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world. Speak or act with an impure mind and trouble will follow you as the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart." In order to rewrite the mind we need to understand its composition. The mind is composed of three parts, the conscious, the subconscious and the superconscious. The conscious mind is the part we are aware of - the part that does the thinking, worrying, planning and creating. It is a tiny part of the structure; it is the subconscious that is the looming bulwark, a massive entity with incredible powers and potentials. Its unique characteristic is that it can create anything that we command it to create, by virtue of the thoughts we think. Writes Dada Vaswani, head of the Pune-based Sadhu Vaswani Mission, "If you believe that you cannot achieve something, if you believe that you cannot have something, the subconscious will create conditions, so that your beliefs are proved. To transform your life, it is very important that you seek the help of the subconscious." Thus the negative thoughts that create our negative conditioning can be overthrown by affirming their opposite. The belief that we are lazy can be overwritten by the affirmation that we are hard working and industrious. Writes Dada Vaswani, " To transform your life you must have a picture of yourself as you wish to be The picture that we paint of ourselves is assimilated by our subconscious. The subconscious is there to obey you. It is a very obedient servant who takes orders from his master. Its decisions are to be made by you." Awareness of the incredible power of the subconscious, conveyed by writers such as Joseph Murphy, author of The Power of the Subconscious Mind, is behind the New Age deployment of affirmations to change oneself. Affirmations in this light cover the whole gamut of life, employed literally as a magic genie to create money, abundance, love, friendship, and even the acquisition of material objects such as a house, a car, etc. Louise L. Hay, author of You can Heal Your Life, one of the first books to shine a light on the spiritual and psychological causes of illness, uses affirmations extensively as a tool for creating better health. She writes in her website, www. Louisehay.com, "Our thoughts are creative. This is the most important law of nature that we need to knowthoughts are like drops of water-they accumulate. As we continue to rethink the same thoughts over a period of time, they become puddles, ponds, lakes or oceans. If they're positive, we can float on the oceans of life."

Affirmations have helped Usha Miglani, who lives alone, cope with fears of getting a stroke in the middle of the night. Says she, "I practise the nine positives taught by Brahma Vidya and they make me calm and peaceful. The affirmations that I am healthy, I am young, I am powerful, have stuck to me." Roxanne Marker, a psychic and seeker, makes use of words like love and peace for affirmatory practice. She says, "I am more at peace. The tendency to assert myself is decreasing. I will not try to prove a point at the expense of making someone else feel bad. I no longer want to be always right. What a boring individual that would make me. In fact these days I say when I falter, "Yippee dippee, I am wrong!" How to Affirm Dada Vaswani reveals that the subconscious is physically located at the back, where the base of the skull and the spine meet. He suggests that the best way to harmonize the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious (the divine potential) is to combine affirmation with meditation. He writes, "The peace of meditation filters not only into the conscious but also into the subconscious and the superconscious self." There can be little doubt that when affirmations are made in meditative stillness, they are more effective. Deepak Chopra, for instance, suggests that we release all intentions into the gap between thoughts, which is arrived at through meditation. Swami Sivananda, however, points out that dhyana is inherent in japa, "Name and the object signified by the Name are inseparableWhenever you think of the name of your son, his figure stands before your mental eye, and vice versa. Even so when you do japa of Rama or Krishna the picture of Rama or Krishna will come before your mind. Therefore japa and dhyana go together. They are inseparable." There are however, several guidelines to help us affirm more effectively, because the subconscious does not discriminate and takes what we say literally: o Construct your sentences positively. Choose 'I am slim' to 'I am not fat'. The subconscious does not recognize negatives and would translate the latter sentence as 'I am fat'. o Use the present tense. 'I am love, joy and compassion' is preferable to 'I will be' or 'I want to be' The subconscious lives in the moment and does not recognize future tense. The phrase 'I want' reflects powerlessness and all you will get is the state of 'want' and not the actual state. o Believe in what you say. Know that it will manifest for sure. o Put as much intensity as you can in your affirmations. Says Dada Vaswani, "You must develop the will to speak to it with magnetic determination." o Dada Vaswani also suggests repeating an affirmation loudly three times, softly three times and in a whisper four times. o The times before you go to sleep or immediately on waking up are when the subconscious is most receptive to commands. o If you can meditate, do so. When your conscious mind is peaceful and still, seeding the subconscious is a cinch. Raising Self-Esteem Affirmations are particularly effective in repairing and enhancing poor self-esteem. The website called Tools for Personal Growth has a detailed piece on the negative self-scripts that we operate under. These are caused by the beliefs we have of ourselves, the negative feedback we may have got from family, teachers, peers, spouse and colleagues and that we have internalized. These in turn create over-dependence on the approval of others, make it difficult for us to take risks in life, drown us in self-pity, cynicism and pessimism, and cause us to don a protective armour in our interaction with others. I should know about the pain imposed by negative self-scripts. When I launched into an inquiry on how to make this state of absolute happiness a permanent one, I realized that the chief impediment was a compulsive obsession with myself. And behind the obsession, I found, was an almost total lack of self-esteem. I didn't like myself at all. I was sure I would fail miserably in everything I did. There was, I discovered, a tyrant established in my head who watched me like a hawk. This personage viciously abused me each time I messed up, which I did all too often. Consumed by the unceasing internal warfare, there was just no mind space for others or indeed, for living. It was a disconcerting discovery. Help came when, for a moment, I got in touch with my true nature. That nature, I discovered, was whole, perfect and complete. I didn't have to be anyone or anything or get anywhere to be that. I already was that. The rest was conditioning.

However, unlike the earlier revelation that had an almost instantaneous effect on me, this one was not impacting the negative self-script running compulsively in my head. In the serendipitous way that life flows, an article came my way which explained about the power of the subconscious mind and why it is that we think the way we do. It gave suggestions on how to seed the mind afresh. Voila, I had discovered affirmations! Although my mind was a fevered rush of thoughts, I persisted in repeating the words, "I am whole, perfect and complete" to myself wherever and whenever I could. Within four months a shift happened. I can describe it best as an almost physical feeling near my heart region, where I felt as if a foundation had been laid, sealing off for keeps the dreadful pits of depression I would fall into. I understood that I had been given the ability to withstand whatever and however I manifested. I could, as Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, the talented writer of Women Who Run with the Wolves perceptively says, "stand to see what I had to see." Ever since then, the task has been to face and repair through awareness and acceptance, the ravages to my mind caused by years of depression. I could never have withstood the pain of this prolonged surgery had it not been for the comforting use of the affirmation that I was whole and perfect, even when I seemed entirely imperfect. Throughout the journey, I developed the habit of converting insights into affirmations, which I would repeat to myself. I had to. My mind was far too chaotic to attempt meditation or any form of spiritual practice. These affirmations would trigger changes which then would set off fresh insights. Among the most significant of these was the discovery that I was fully responsible for my states of mind and that the outside world had nothing to do with it. Affirming this took me deep within myself and I could sense that I was withdrawing the power I had invested in the external world. Taking my reactions within unleashed an enormous love of the self, for the self, and I found myself embarking on a fevered love affair with myself. I love myself, I would affirm passionately and in various different ways. I discovered that I did not need external support, endorsement and approval. I discovered that all the qualities I longed for were within me. I would warble out these affirmations through the day, particularly while traveling up and down the city in local trains! Right now I am in the throes of another insight, which is that I do not need to be anything other than who I am. As I affirm this to myself, the tottering stockpile of expectations that high ideals and low self-esteem have stacked on me is sliding away and I am finally learning to live with myself. I am learning to love myself. That feeling is a wonder only someone who has never experienced it before can truly appreciate. The internal warfare is waning. Ceasefire has been declared and amnesty papers are being drawn up. A lot more learning and a lot more affirmations await me still, I feel sure, and I cannot wait to discover what lies next. For my goal is enlightenment and I have not the slightest doubt that affirmations have the power to get me there. Japa Yoga Santosh Sachdeva, author of two books on Kundalini, including Kundalini Diary, was first exposed to the power of the word at age 13 when her guru gave her the Shiva mantra, Om Namaha Shivaye, to chant. By the time she was married she was chanting it diligently for half an hour every day. This steady practice for close to 40 years stood her in good stead when she decided to do a course in Brahma Vidya in 1995. The course is a combination of breathing exercises, affirmations and meditation. When Santosh began to repeat the affirmations, to her surprise she saw images of all that she affirmed vividly appear in her mind's eye. "Now I imagine a great light over my head," she would say and she would see a wing-like manifestation of light above her head. For Santosh too, affirmations, coupled with the other Brahma Vidya exercises, have had a transformatory effect. She says: "I have become more confident. I no longer worry about the future or regret the past. I live in the moment. I feel happy, which is a feeling whose meaning I didn't know earlier. Complaining and expectations have disappeared and there is no judgement left." She says: "The fact that I could see my thoughts in the form of images has proven to me the power of thoughts. It tells me that the parental advice to be good and to think good thoughts is based on sound reasoning." Kamala Jain, a designer in her 40s, was inducted into chanting the Shiva mantra by her father in order to moderate her strongly emotional temperament when she was around 12. She followed the advice sporadically and although she cannot quite figure which, if any, of the changes she has experienced within herself can be attributed to the practice, she admits that she is remarkably detached today. A serious seeker, she also finds herself powerfully drawn to the personage of Shiva.

Japa yoga has a tried and tested place in the Indian tradition. Innumerable saints have danced their way to Godhead singing the name of God. Tukaram of Deo, Valmiki, Ramakrishna Paramahansa, Mahatma Gandhi and Swami Ramdas of the Anand ashram are among those who have surrendered to the intoxication of God's name. While affirmations are frequently used for inner healing and self-development, japa yoga is employed for one reason and one alone: to awaken one's inner divinity and unite with the Absolute. Swami Sivananda says ardently: "Japa ultimately results in samadhi or communion with the Lord." He adds, "The chanting of His name is but serving Him. You must have the same flow of love and respect in your heart at the time of thinking or remembering His Name as that you naturally may have in your heart at the time when you really see Him." According to the swami, japa purifies and cleanses one of lust, anger, greed and other defilements. He says firmly, "The repetition of a mantra destroys your sins and brings everlasting peace, infinite bliss, prosperity and immortality. There is not the least doubt about this." Mahatma Gandhi was an ardent practitioner of Ram Naam. At the time of his death, such faith came to his rescue for he died with the name of the Lord in his mouth, having uttered 'Hai Ram', when the assassin's bullet ripped through his spare frame. Considering that it is our state of mind on death that guarantees our future progress one assumes that the Mahatma has rightly attained the highest heavenly honors. Swami Ramdas, whose mantra Om Sri Ram Jai Ram Jai Jai Ram is the central spiritual practice advocated by the ashram, was so imbued with faith in the power of Ram, that he left his home and wandered into the wide world, surrendering entirely to the protection of his beloved Ram. Convinced that everyone and everything was a manifestation of God and that every event that befell him was the Lord's will, he accepted hunger, destitution, insults and rejection with utter faith. His account of the journey, In Quest of God, is an inspiring account of the spiritual strength that japa can inspire. How to do Japa While one can technically do japa anytime and anywhere, its efficacy is considerably heightened if we imbue it with a sacred presence. o Swami Sivananda suggests that it is best done facing the east or north, during dawn and twilight, that magical period betwixt light and darkness. o Sit in a steady pose; padmasana is highly recommended but sukhasana will also do. o Choose the mantra that you most resonate with or think of your ishta devta- the deity you give allegiance to. o Invoke the presence of the Lord with as much intensity as you can utter- though you can take comfort in the awareness that even mechanical repetition has its merit. o Repeat the japa steadily at a measured pace. o You can either repeat it aloud or mentally. The latter is considered to be more powerful. o You can do it with a mala or without. The advantage of the former is that it enables you to keep count and ensures that your attention is buttressed to something concrete. Desiree Punwani, housewife and Buddhist practitioner, swears by the practice of metta bhavna, or the state of loving kindness. The metta prayer goes thus: May all beings be well, peaceful and happy. Says she, "When I first started affirming it, I didn't know if I believed to what extent it would work. But whatever you give out you get, and I find that health and peace and happiness are coming my way". She also uses it to de-escalate contentious relationships. " I very rarely use the direct confrontation method these days, " she reveals. An example is the strained relationship she had with a family member that has taken a dramatic shift for the better ever since she began showering the person with metta. "We can discuss even sensitive issues with goodwill." The Zoroastrians say it all in a nutshell: "Good thoughts, good words and good deeds." It all begins with the thought, so be aware of what you put in there. Even better, choose to avail of the magic power of affirmations to pull out the weeds and sow fresh seeds of goodness, strength, love and joy, and total transformation. There is nothing you cannot think yourself into being, so aim for the Absolute.

Personal Growth - Living with passion

- by Anil Bhatnagar

Dont let the train of life pass you by. You are meant to board it even if it means having to run passionately just to get in. With passion, the obstacles, the challenges and the adversities only make the journey more exciting and accomplishments even more thrilling. God made the life eternal not because he wanted us to take it for granted or consider it without much value, or postpone it to tomorrow. He made it endless, so that we could dare to take risks, make mistakes to learn from, and live life to the hilt in the top gear. Life is not forever there are no tomorrows in itall that we have are this todayand more precisely, this moment! If you miss it, you miss it forever. Wake up Allow yourself to be taken over by the storm called passionand start tasting the joy of living! What would you do with your time if you were passionate about life? Fritter it away? Kill it somehow? No. Time would become extremely precious for you With passion, blood finds new joy in circulation, mind receives more oxygen, alertness level touches a new high, each cell of body displays happiness and gives rise to a more tolerant and caring Genuine passion takes you out of the confines of your narrow personal achievements and inspires you to contribute more to the larger self. This kind of passion makes you feel that you are a humble People who lack passion feel that if they could get this promotion, or get rid of that physical problem, they will be happy. But those whom they find extremely happy usually have similar problems, if Between the two zeros of what you possess at your birth and death, you have only one thing with you: the adventure of playing the game of life with utmost passion and with a progressively bigger Value of your own life comes not from your achievements, but from the quality of passion with which you are still making ceaseless efforts today to make it shine further Paradoxically, whenever we wish to hold on to life we lose it and when we tend to give it away to others we live on. Whatever and whenever we give, we, in fact, give to no one else but to ourselves There was a deafening silence seemingly an endless one till it finally broke, a few moments later... by the feeble words of Ujjwals father whose head was in his lap. I had seen only others dying. It is very different on this side of the experience. In the midst of several funerals that I attended, life always appeared to be an endless stretch to me. Forty-seven is not an age to have ones last breaths... to leave you all behind it is indeed painful, he tried to purse his lips in an attempt to suppress his cry, and then resumed: What I regret is not this death it had to come it is inescapable. Initially I thought that my pain is because I am going a little earlierbut now I realise that, honestly, it would not have been much different, had I been dying at 97. My pain, in fact, is because of a guilt yes, it is guilt! I am getting crushed under the weight of this regret... He paused and then burst into an uncontrolled wail of cry. I just allowed the life to pass by me like a train. I never boarded it I never lived it and if you dont care to board it, you dont board it it is immaterial whether for 47 years, or for 97 yeeeee. His head dropped dead abruptly in Ujjwals arms. It was all over! Isnt it ironical that how few among us remember to board the train! Most of us just allow life to pass us by, as if it was not meant for us as if we have another one in the bank. Many among us merely exist, as if doing a favour to lifeonly to arrive in life tomorrow at a place that may closely fit, at least emotionally, the above description. A few examples follow: If his friend had not introduced him, seeing his demeanour I would have taken him to be anything but a police officer. Dhiren (not his real name) walked into my room listlessly with a stoop. As he settled down in the chair in front of me, his posture evoked sympathy and he reminded me of a robust machine gathering rust and dust for want of repairs, having gone bad in its early years (Dhiren was 32). It was really hard to believe that he was once full of life madly in love with and passionate to the hilt for volleyball. Surrounded with kids from the neighbourhood whom he coached too, he spent his evenings playing volleyball. Today, Dhiren finds nothing interesting or joyful. Every day brings a burden of having to carry on with activities that he is least interested in. The volleyball court at the back of his house wears a deserted look. When Dhiren recalled how he was expecting to be selected into the police team but could not make it, anyone could easily see the pain in his eyes. It was a setback hard to take for Dhiren, and he, indeed, never touched the ball after that day. The little kid in him still yearned to play. But his ego, the senior and stronger boy in him, having been denied the label it was hungry for, wanted to punish the little kid by confiscating his object of joythe volleyball! Bhakti Madira, 49, wife of a busy executive, had everything a woman of her age would dream ofa big bungalow, a chauffer-driven car, children settled in the US and everything only a wish away. Madira, however, felt nothing but a

void in her life that was growing with every passing day. Earlier she managed to run away from this void by finding escapes in the kitty parties. But the very shallowness of the events had dried up all her willingness to attend them. She had probably arrived in life where she wanted to, only to discover its hollowness! She had visited almost every doctor she was referred to, but her depression was there to stay. Aarti, 27, was intelligent, ethical and creative, and worked for a company that dealt in brassware exports and other gift items. When she first met me, she appeared to be full of joy, at least till her mask fell off. She confessed how her job and her unpleasant interactions with her boss were killing her slowly. Faxes, emails, files, notes, meetings, favouritism, backbiting and office politicsshe was sick of it all now. Beneath the apparent neck-breaking speed of activities, things were actually moving at a pace that could be frustrating even to a snail. She felt that there was a lot that needed to be changed but despite suggestions, there was hardly anything substantial ever done. Aarti found life abysmally hollow and a practical joke that was too dirty to take. Luckily for Dhiren, Madira and Aarti, I could give them much in advance a glimpse of the end like Ujjwals fathers that awaited them. Dhiren called me up only a week later to share with me that he had resumed playing volleyball and though he would still continue to contest for a place in the police team... a rejection would only feel like a bad shot nothing more. Passion and joy had returned in his life and so had the children. Today, Madira, with the help of like-minded ladies, runs a free school for the children from slums in day-time and for the illiterate adults in the evening. Once a year, she visits her children in the US and sometimes even without her husband. She says she showers love on them as if there will never be a second time. Aarti, a few months down the line, surprised her boss by walking out of the job. She began by selling her paintings, artefacts, ideas and guidance to several gift-item galleries and big brassware exporters. Today, she herself owns a rapidly growing export business. She admits her courage came by meeting her cowardice head-on. Initial setbacks and failures did not frighten her she had mentally prepared herself for them. Tough times dont last, but tough people do! is the phrase that she often repeated to herself. What has brought life back to these people? It is obviously passion! And it can bring life back to you too! Why passion? Index of life: Whether you are an ordinary person or a celebrity, you can do without passion only if you can do without life because it is passion alone that determines the extent to which you are alive. People say every cigarette reduces your life span by an hour. That could indeed be true. But truer is the fact that an hour spent doing something unwillingly has already subtracted an hour from your life. Life is not a collection of days you manage to live through, but of todays that you live passionately to the hilt. People who lack passion feel that if they could get this promotion, or that kind of a bank balance or get rid of some health problem, they will be happy. But the fact is that those whom they find extremely happy usually have similar problems, if not more serious ones. We human beings, like any piece of iron, can propose to finish ourselves in two ways: we may rust ourselves out or we may simply wear ourselves out. Rust looks ugly; wearing out brings shine! Value of life: How valuable would diamonds be, if they were as common as pebbles on the road? Their value is only because they are rare and need the ceaseless effort required to mine and cut them to shape. Value of your own life, in a similar way, comes not from your achievements, but from the quality of passion with which you are still making ceaseless efforts today to make it shine further. Musicians, painters, scientists, inventors, authors and others who are creatively living their lives are cut off from thoughts of any monetary concerns, like how much will this fetch me? or is it worth the royalty I am going to eventually earn? The mind is instead focused on enjoying the excitement of responding to the challenge at hand. Under James Camerons original deal, he was to receive an $11.5 million fee for his role as writer, director and producer of the movie, Titanic. However, as costs for Titanic soared out of control to more than $200 milliontwice its original budget, not ready to compromise with his passionate vision, he volunteered to forgo most of his fees and profit-participation except for his $1.5 million writers fee. Cameron also agreed to forgo half of his profitparticipation on the next movie he would make for Fox.

Overjoyed with the success of the movie, the two studiosViacom Inc.s Paramount Pictures and News Corps Twentieth Century Fox that produced the filmlater agreed to jointly restore Camerons original deal. He eventually ended up earning much more than his original deal! Sudha Chandran, the Bharatanatyam dancer, who lost her right leg below the knee, and persevered with her passion for dancing through pain, blood, tears and doubts, stormed back to life as a well-known dancer and television actress. In spite of nature denying him the use of his physical body, Stephen Hawking, the author of the seminal book, A Brief History of Time, is considered the most important theoretical physicist since Albert Einstein. So severely handicapped is his body that he takes eight to 15 minutes to compose his answers to audiences questions by using a computer cursor with his crippled right hand, spelling out each word letter by letter. The world is replete with examples of people who have kept the flame of passion alive against all odds. Fuel for fulfillment: Anyone who finds circumstances unfavourable, has in fact only found what he has all along been looking foreven though only subconsciously. Those who find pursuing meaningful goals difficult, settle for the next bestthey pursue nice and convincing excuses. And what you look for usually finds you before you can find it. If you focus on results, you achieve them; if you focus on having explanations for failures, that is precisely what you will find. However, people pursuing their goals rarely notice any unfavourable circumstances on their way. The goals that burst forth from your soul, if noticed with intense feelings, pull you towards them the way a rubber band pulls a loose object towards the fixed end on being released. Secret of physical and spiritual fitness: The word inspiration means to be one with the spirit, and the word enthusiasm composed of the two roots en + theos, means to be one with God. Passion both stems from and causes spiritual fitness. Lack of passion therefore stems from spiritual poverty and can be overcome by placing everything you do in the wider context of meaning, values and ethics. And passion, in turn, helps you search for the deeper meaning in everything you do. It is a chain reaction that once triggered feeds on itself and goes on growing bigger and bigger progressively. With passion, blood finds new joy in circulation, mind receives more oxygen, alertness level touches a new high, each cell of the body displays happiness and gives rise to a more tolerant and caring attitude. Sleep deepens, helping the body to repair its worn out cells, and diseases suddenly find themselves out of place in any part of the body. Passion is therefore the most precious and vital tonic that you alone can produce for your body, and that too free of cost! Improves learning ability: Learnacy is the initiative and ability to learn what is really required to be learnt, and consistency with which one applies the appropriate kind of knowledge to real life situations. Interestingly enough, it does not come with opportunities but with passion. People who have a big enough why to achieve something, learn and do all that it takes to do so, anyhow. In contrast to this, all opportunities and facilities provided to someone who lacks passion shall go down the drain. As a corporate trainer, I always find that the resulting passion helps participants learn better when I help them connect to their own spiritual essence. Deepens relationships: When one dares to lay oneself bare spiritually, giving away all that one has, and making oneself totally vulnerable, most of the relationships lack this passion. With passion, a relationship moves deeper from dealing merely in clichs, facts, distortions and opinions to the sharing of needs and feelings. Most of the relationships fail to go beyond the first four levels and find it difficult to reach the deeper two levels wherein both sides can express, understand and fulfill each others feelings and needs with concern, respect, fearlessness and honesty. Inculcates value for time: What would you do with your time if you were passionate about life? Fritter it away? Kill it somehow? No. Time would become extremely precious for you. It will make you ceaselessly aware of how you spend each moment of yoursclearing away the fog of absent-mindedness. Passion is a powerful tool to inculcate mindfulness. And mindfulness will make you proactive, more centred and less stressful. Cues for developing passion Focus on today from the window of tomorrow: You need to look back at all the facets of your today, from the window of that tomorrow when the changed scenario in the respective areas would have pleased you to the hilt. See

this gap between what you will be in that tomorrow and what you are today. Also see the journey involved to bridge this gap. Lethargy, fear of failure, low self-esteem and lack of trust in your self in the name of spirituality and fake contentment shall dissuade you from it. Own responsibility: Between your potential and performance flows a river of hesitation. You cant cross the river merely by staring at the water. You either need an inferno at your end to escape from, or a glimpse of the treasure awaiting across the river, or both. In other words, we need pain to run away from, a pleasure to go towards, or both. Nature ceaselessly provides us both intermittently, so as to ensure our ceaseless movement towards growth. However, it also provides us with the freedom to turn our backs on them. We usually settle for the latter because we at first imagine a threat and then, as our response to it, want to play safe. Dont you think we take life and ourselves too cheaply? Dont we deserve more love, respect, commitment and care towards our lives? If you dont care for yourself, who else will? Be a responsible gardener to your life. Timely action is the key: There are two ways to manage your life; to cope with its problems and consequent stresses, or to work towards overcoming them. None of the two is sufficient in itself. We need the first while we are in the process of the second. But for some, the first may sometimes be tempting enough to get stuck in, which may allow the stresses to increase till they go beyond ones coping abilities. For example, it may often be tempting to get stuck in your religious rituals to run away from the desired actions to avert an unpleasant happening. Though this may distract you from the problems in life and help you in protecting your inner peace from stressful thoughts of impending threat, but in the absence of the desired action, you are losing the opportunity to put into practice the wisdom of a stitch in time saves nine. Review your dreams: There are only two emotions: pain and pleasure. And passion is an offspring stream that flows between the two. It feed-forwards into pleasure the lessons it learns from the pain. When we fail in either of these two constituent abilitiesreceiving and rightly interpreting the lessons from the pain, and persistently feeding them forward as an investment in intended pleasureswe fail to strike the fire of passion within. So being ceaselessly awake to the gap between ones potential and intentions (the idea of a dream life complete in all its facets) and ones performance and pains (the reality of ones present life circumstances) is the key to strike passion. And striking passion is akin to striking gold. The only fundamental wealth we have is that of passion. You can create anything with it and also lose anything without it. However, an insecure man feels too secure with his present to allow himself to try any experiments with it. Learn from sorrows: The real sorrow in life is not getting sick, old or having to die, for we often come across sick, old and dying people who are happy. The real sorrow of life is to lose the ability to feel the sorrowsand hence that of doing the needful. Pain is a message from Nature that you should pay attention to and address. If you put a frog in boiling water he will leap out immediately. However if you put him in water at room temperature but slowly heat it, he will get roasted in it and wont come out. Most of humans do get roasted in their suffering, having lost their sensitivity to the pain they are going through. You need to develop awareness of the pain, track it down to the learning hidden in its roots and persevere to take appropriate action to leap out of it. Whenever you lose, at least do not lose the lesson involved, says His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Sorrow and pain must be accepted with grace but not as a punishment meted out to us for our past deeds that we cannot even remember. It should be seen as a signal towards the necessity of looking within to discover and correct where we are continuing to flaunt any of the laws of nature. You and I, as a parent, would not like to keep an account of our childrens wrongs and punish them for mistakes that they have forgotten and corrected since. God is surely wiser than us and kinder too. So dont believe if you ever hear: Suffering is the nectar that washes away our sins. The nectar is in learning, not in suffering. You deserve it!: The universe has only one purposeto plant desires in our mind and help us fulfill them. It helps us progressively recover our divinity in the process. Paula Horan, the well-known reiki master, says: It is indeed not the oceans fault if we approach it with a teaspoon. There is only one thing that you can do to be able to askredefine your goals in terms of giving and connect yourself to whatever kind of giving inspires you. Convince yourself that you deserve to give and be given whatever you ask for. Have a role model in your lifea person who has already arrived in an area of your interest both in terms of contribution and achievement. And you will be surprised that he could reach where he has, on the strength of only those qualities that you possess or can develop even today. The secret of the existence of a gap that exists between your role model and you is that he ceaselessly believed even in times of adversity that he deserved and hence was highly willing to make efforts to hone his talents.

Heal your self-esteem: One reason why a common man has difficulty in believing that he deserves or can achieve what he wants to is that his self-esteem is usually damaged. The good news is that it can be revived. The baby elephant is tied with a strong steel chain, which it ceaselessly attempts to break away from, but fails. The result? The elephant owner doesnt need to use the metallic chain to tie it any longer when it grows into a powerful adult. Why? Because as a result of the thousands of unsuccessful attempts it made as an infant, the elephant developed an unshakeable conviction about its inability to break away from whatever it is tied with. Unfortunately, parents and teachers, though only unknowingly, let a similar process run through our own children as well. A person with low self-esteem cannot think beyond mere survival. His ability to dream has already been forfeited by the society. And since he cannot dream, he doesnt feel challenged. In the absence of challenges, he cannot feel the need to mobilise his dormant inner resources. In reply to a teachers advice, Hard work never kills, a student replied: But why take a chance? Jesus said: Knock and it shall be opened unto you. But we, like this student, ask ourselves: Why try, when I am not sure that it will. Grow step by step: The tree is complete and perfect at every stage of its growth so that it can allow and enjoy its growth every moment. A baby tree may compare itself with another that is fully-grown and feel incomplete, not realising that it is already that if only it allows itself to grow as per the information programmed in its seed. So realise that your role model too was once a baby tree but he realised that Mount Everest can only be climbed step by step. It cannot be reached in one go just as you cannot eat the whole chapati in one go. Your role model systematically divided the whole journey into baby steps that he could take every day with 100 per cent attention and stayed alert towards the best possible use of the coming moments. Examine your subconscious vision: There is no one among us without a vision; though consciously we may not be aware of it. You arrive in life where your vision takes you. And where you are now can help you discover the subconscious vision that you had been carrying all this while. And if this is true, you can easily determine where you would find yourself tomorrow, if you ruthlessly examine your hidden vision. There are three kinds of vision. Examine which one is yours: V1 vision that stems from the fear of losing what one has acquired already, and hence is more concerned about maintaining a status quo. V2 vision, that stems from the fear of failure, and hence weighs up what is possible and what is not on the basis of past evidence. V3 vision, that stems from not fear but from love that seeks to fulfill ones dreams about how the world should be. A person with V3 vision is committed to giving whatever it takes to fulfill his/her vision. It requires a quantum leap of faith, courage, and passion for one to shift to a V3 vision. But it is possible. Balance being and doing: Being and doing are inseparable parts of the whole we call Nature. We do not need to drop action in order to just be, for both being and doing constitute an inseparable whole just as mango and sweetness do. If you are truly in your being, you cannot live without doing. The more you are with your being, the more clarity you will have about what you are. And the more clarity you develop about who you are, the more conviction you will grow about why you are here, and what you ought to be doing with your life. Identify genuine passion: A sure sign of genuine passion is the fact that it takes you out of the confines of your narrow personal achievements and inspires you to contribute more to the larger self. This kind of passion fills you with a feeling that you are a humble servant but with a heroic mission. Your goals are in terms of giving, not getting, grasping or achieving. Lord Mahavira said: The end of all desires is the end of all sorrows. Follow this great teaching when you arrive at it (with your emotional and spiritual maturity), not before (with your intellect alone), otherwise you will be trying to pluck the flower without reaching close enough to it. Desires indeed have no endmore so when we do not dare to acknowledge them honestly and do not seek their fulfillment. Let inner peace prevail: There are three kinds of people. One, who are so deeply satisfied with themselves and sing glories of the virtue of contentment that they stop growing; two, who are so discontented that they see no point doing anything; and three, who are so obsessed with speedy results that their impatience consumes them. All these three

kinds of people immobilise themselves and instead of growing, begin to decay. Contentment or frustration of the kind that makes us stagnate in life can hardly be spiritual. You cannot focus on your work whole-heartedly unless there is peace in your mind and contentment in your heart. You cannot look at frustration and draw the necessary passion to dream and do what is possible if you allow yourself to become it, i.e., allow it to consume you or get consumed by it. Keep distance from itthe way you keep distance from fireso that you use it without getting burnt. Make a habit of returning to evaluate your days actions and performance and to refuel yourself every night with frustration and passion for the next day. You should not only be contented but grateful too for what God has given you and where it has helped you arrive. However, you should have enough frustration to keep you from stagnating where you have arrived. And this frustration becomes even more powerful when its focus progressively shifts from narrow personal achievements to a purpose of contributing to a cause much bigger than yourself. Be here and now: The solution of life does not lie in finding a permanent end to it, imaginary or real. It lies in learning to live it correctly, joyously and ceaselessly with passion. In order to be happy, you need to feel happiness. If you are living in a sea of happiness but dont know how to feel what you are in touch with, I am sure there will be no happiness for you. Nirvana or moksha, like happiness, are no different. The road to moksha, nirvana or God, therefore, is an inward journey of progressively deeper awareness of what you already are. It is strewn with carrots of intentions planted within you by Nature, as milestones, in order to inspire and guide you further on the path. When you dont trust your ability to learn how to live correctly or to live without creating progressively more and more problems, then with your wishful thinking you invent a distant moksha, or distant nirvana and such escapist stuff! Who knows nirvana or moksha is your todays reality you may be turning your back on? Flow with life mindfully: One of the greatest spiritual qualities is that of being aware of what and why one is doing what one is doing at any moment. Lack of goals or passion in achieving them is certainly what would not necessitate or help one develop this quality. Most of the people dont realise that flowing with life is not the same as living irresponsibly, absentmindedly, passively and purposelessly. Life is an exciting journey if it traverses through the progressively meaningful goals that you set for yourself. Like Ujjwals father, the realisation that what we were going through so far was life and what all we could have done with it dawns on us just a few minutes before death. How pathetic, painful, and regretful! I wonder, if only we could get to live those last five minutes of realisation somewhere towards the early or even the middle part of life, how much life it could inject in our lives. I also wonder what possibly would happen, if once introduced to them, you could live every five minutes of life like those last five minutes. Aim high: The answer-sheets of the toppers when compared to those of the average or not so good students are not necessary long with extra pages attached. However, a typical toppers answer sheets have more marks per inch of the page. It has almost no paragraph that is without compliments or rich marks. We can make our life like a toppers answer-sheet. Each month, week, day and hour of our life is akin to the page, para and line of our answer-sheet. And each small or big piece of job or project that we undertake is like each answer on our answer-sheet. Our attempt should be to undertake only those jobs/projects that are high-scoring and highly meaningful from Natures point of view and attempt them in a way that each month, week or day spent carrying them out secures us rich compliments and marks from the universe. Conserve passion: Some people are passionate while planning their life, if at all they ever do it, but the passion gets dissipated on its own very soon. It fails to percolate down from their filofax into their daily living. To have momentto-moment passion in our lives we not only need to ignite passion but conserve it too. A great day does not begin in the morning; it begins the night before with the chalking out of a plan for it. It is pursued the next day as planned while maintaining the tempo by allowing yourself to contemplate on the desired means and ends pertaining to every new activity before starting it with your best of attention and intention. Look for sustainable pleasure: Everything we do, we do for one of the two reasons; we are either running away from the pain or moving towards the pleasure. But life is not all that simple. Take the case of cigarette smoking. It is a combination of bothit gives instant pleasure to a smoker but there is a pain too lurking somewhere beneath. Had we been loving ourselves we would instead of focusing on the taste of it (or the instant pleasure) or on the

difficulty involved in having to give up the habit (or the instant pain), we would be focusing on the painful consequences if we dont give up smoking (or the distant pain) and the joy of giving it up (or the distant pleasure). Present moment living does not mean living irresponsibly without taking consequences into consideration. Responsible present moment living means recognising the fact that the person going to suffer as a consequence of your present act(s) will be no one else but you. The focus on distant set of pain and pleasure makes us realise the urgency of change and inspires us to grow in life. The focus on instant set of pain and pleasure reinforces our inertia and sucks us deeper into the quagmire of decay. So stop yourself from time to time and check which of the two sets of pain and pleasure your thinking is focused on at that point of time. Live life king-size: There are two kinds of pain in life: The pain of hard work or of other sacrifices necessary to materialise your dreams and the pain of not being able to do so. The former kind is any day more desirable than the latter. Your subconscious mind and nature conspire to make you taste a life that you find most acceptable considering your present perception of the pain-pleasure equilibrium. Between the two zeros of what you possess at your birth and death, you have only one thing with youthe adventure of playing the game of life with utmost passion and with a progressively bigger and still bigger heart till there is nothing left outside it. The heart cracks only when it resists becoming bigger. Have worthwhile goals: Like physics that teaches us that the electric current flows in proportion to the potential difference, the metaphysics throws light on the secret of our own life current. It teaches us that life current flows in proportion to the intensity with which we feel the potential difference between where we are and where we can be, and between what we are doing and what we are capable of doing. Beware: achievements, success and money can give you a lot to live with, but nothing to live for that gives you hope, joy, meaning, happiness and purpose. Take obstacles in right spirit: Apart from indicating that we are flouting certain laws of nature, or pursuing a path not meant for us, we may encounter obstacles for any or both of the following reasons as well: We are being made stronger and better prepared for the future. Obstacles on our way may come when God feels too happy with us and wants us to grow even stronger. A river looks beautiful when it flows serenely under a moonlit night. It, however, looks even more beautiful and mightier when it lashes out at the rock that she meets on her way. The only way to grow stronger is to believe that you are a river that no rock can stop from flowing. We lack clarity, conviction and consistency in what we are attempting. When the river meets a rock as an obstacle on its way, it recedes while evaluating with clarity the real effort required to climb and conquer the rock. It prepares itself with conviction and then charges again. It makes better progress this time but still fails to touch the peak before its fall. It goes backwards mentally measuring an even longer run-up this time and gathering itself together towards its goal. And this time, it surges ahead with full force and courage, telling herself that failure is not an option. And it indeed makes the rock look too short in its presence, this time. It climbs and dances on the head of the rock, as if celebrating its victory. Notice your wishes: How do you pluck a flower? You notice it, you wish to have it, you walk towards it and then pluck it when it is in your hands reach. Similar is the case with achieving anything in life. If there is something that you are feeling pained about or a pleasure you want to move towardsnotice your wish, begin to walk towards it, keep at it till you arrive at it, and pocket it when you arrive close enough to it. However, we fail to take these simple steps. We often dont notice our wishes. Often our attention is not on our dreams but on something else or on just getting by. If at all we notice what we want, we often simply dont acknowledge and honour our wishes or dreams. If at all we acknowledge it as a wish, we dont begin our journey towards it because we doubt whether it is worth doing sowe either secretly fear the hard work involved and/or doubt our ability and luck to be able to do so. What we find easier is to disown our responsibility, and instead expect what we want from others and/or criticise and blame others for not giving us what we want. We dont keep at it even if we care to begin. And among those who do begin and manage to walk towards it, many

dont care to see whether their efforts will be enough to make them reach the goal. We stretch our hand to pluck the flower before arriving at it. Often people dont show persistence and lose patience and abandon their efforts when they, in fact, may only be just a few steps away. Or they may become too complacent thinking that they have almost arrived and relax their efforts. We ignore the feedback we are getting from the universe in terms of thoughts and feelings from within, and the circumstances from without. Accelerate growth: Growth comes from making yourself progressively more and more passionate and competent, and by stepping up your contribution to society. Life is indeed meant for giving and enjoying that too. It has absolutely no other purpose because whatever we try to take from it will have to be given back some day. It will not stick to us. Everything is bound to be given back; but when we give it willingly we do not miss the joy of doing so. Paradoxically, whenever we wish to hold on to life we lose it and when we tend to give it away to others, we live on. Whatever and whenever we give, we, in fact, give to no one else but to ourselves only. Discover and live your passion! This is the only thing you are here for. Anil Bhatnagar, founder of Thrive! is a corporate trainer, motivational speaker, career and personal growth coach, author of five books, and a Reiki teacher. Besides Life Positive, he also writes for Personal Excellence and Executive Excellencetwo magazines brought out by Stephen Coveys Covey Leadership Centre, USA. E-mail: thrive@anilbhatnagar.com

What is Good Health?

In my backyard, I once noticed a bare, lonesome rosebud leaning against the wall, trembling at the slightest waft of breeze. It sought help, and I decided to lend a hand. Day after day, I nurtured it-faithfully watering it, tending its soft thorns, and cheering it to blossom. On the seventh day, I noticed a glorious full-bloomed rose, dancing to the soft breeze, blushing in the warm sun, generously offering itself to the butterflies. It seemed to be saying 0a soft 'thank you', in its distinctly splendoured stance. For each of us, our body is like a rosebud that wanes for lack of love, nourishment and attention. If we give it what it wants, it responds with robust, full-bloomed appearance. Health is our natural state, and it is within all our capacities to maintain good health at all times. So, what is it to be healthy? Louis Prato, in Self Healing, describes it thus: "When we are experiencing well-being, our bodies feel alive and full of energy, our state of mind is positive, problems don't oppress or depress us. We're able to enjoy our work, to concentrate and be effective, and switch off, relax and play when the work routine is over. A positive self-image and love for yourself are the essence of well-being..." Hari Sharma, in Awakening Nature's Healing Intelligence on the vedic approach to health says, "Health is much more than the absence of disease. It is a state of complete balance on the level of body, mind, and consciousness; a state of optimum happiness, an integrated state of emotional balance and well-being, psychological flexibility and energy. It is an active state of self-realisation, where individuals live and breathe their full potential." Ancient Perspectives We are all familiar with the vedic aphorism, 'yatha pinde, tatha brahmande', meaning that the body and the cosmos are made of the same elements and components. Our bodies could well be said to be made up of the stars. The Buddha once stated, "In this six-foot body the entire universe is contained." To understand this statement, let's take a brief look at the esoteric constitution of the human body. Dr P.G. Kurup, in Drugless Therapy, propounds human existence at two levels-the lower self (body) and the higher self (soul). The lower self has a quadruple nature, constituting physical, mental, emotional and etheric body. The physical body comprises various organ systems, and is discernible by the panchendriya (five sense organs). The emotional plane acts like a bridge between the physical body and the mind, translating gross body vibrations into perceptions comprehensible to the mind. The mind, on the other hand, is the vehicle for thoughts, memory, imagination, and consciousness. Of its several sub planes, the spiritual mind is the highest and the purest. The Bhagavad Gita ponders on the existence of the etheric body that contains the physical body, but is imperceptible

to the sense organs. This is the individual energy complex that serves as the mode of energy exchange between the lower self and the five universal elements, the panchamahabhoota (earth, air, fire, water and ether). The etheric body helps revitalize the physical, mental and emotional bodies. It absorbs and transforms cosmic energies, redirecting them to various organs of the body. The energy exchange also continues on mental and emotional planes. Perspectives on Disease Contrary to popular understanding, disease is not the converse of health. According to Park's Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine, a manual of modern medicine, health and disease is explained to "lie along a continuum, with no single cut- off point. The lowest point on the health-disease spectrum is death, and the highest point corresponds to positive health. The health of an individual is a dynamic phenomenon and a process of continuous change There are degrees or levels of health as there are degrees of severity of illness. As long as we live, there is some degree of health in us." While alternative medicine does not deny this view altogether, it delves deeper. The human body is seen to work in harmony with nature. Since the etheric plane forms the most integral link with the physical plane-connecting the gross with the subtle-any fluctuation or disorder in the functioning of this unit plays a key role in understanding disease patterns. Dr Kurup explains that when subjective factors (like anxiety, depression, worry, stress); objective factors (like toxins, physical anomalies, environmental pollutants); or any incongruence between the etheric and the physical plane disturbs the energy balance, disease pattern sets in. The energy is then likely to either accumulate or deplete in the chakras, thus impairing functioning at the physical, emotional and/or mental level. Diseases manifest first at the subtle level. If we become aware of these early warnings, before they surface on the physical plane, a lot of discomfort, pain and anxiety can be easily averted. This is the groundwork of alternative therapies-to witness the subtle workings of the body, identify and invoke its self-healing power, each time making more space to connect with the ever-pure Brahman. And when the ground shifts, learn the lessons, take charge once again, and move on. Health is thus not a form in stasis, but an ongoing process. The Body's Healing Wisdom Our body, with its multitude of cells forming the various organs is a dynamically changing organism-constantly dying and renewing. At the sub-atomic level, our body is at a high convergence point of energy fields influencing each other. The functioning of all organs, cells and systems is interwoven within a network of phenomenal complexity. But what is the controlling factor? Science has no satisfactory answer. Sharma tracks it down to "intelligence." Borrowing from Vedic wisdom, he explains this intelligence as "that which gives direction to change It is the source of orderthe unseen force that aligns the functioning of the parts to the system as a whole." In other words, an innate understanding that we are the wholeness in which everything is contained. And that it manifests in each of our fleeting sensations, thoughts, and experiences. The loss of this intelligence is the loss of focus-of being externally driven rather than integrally connected. And the moment this happens, disease occurs. The buddhi aspect-the intellect or discriminating value of the consciousnessthen gets lost in the complex, ever-changing vision of the world". When individual consciousness becomes 'objectoriented' instead of 'self-attuned', losing sight of the fundamental wholeness of which both object and subject are a part, it forgets its essential nature, and commits 'pragya aparadh' (sinning against innate wisdom). This is the fundamental reason for disease. Saurabh can then said to be committing pragya aparadh. According to modern medicine, his physical imbalances are sub-clinical, that is, they still haven't reached the stage where they produce any clinical signs of dysfunction. But according to the alternative systems, disease has already begun to manifest in him on the etheric plane. Healing is an effort to revive the body's inherent wisdom of the self. And this self is not the limited ego, but the expansive pure consciousness, the healthy whole. Paula Horan and Narayan Choyin Dorje, in their book, The 9 Principles of Self-Healing, beautifully explain the body's healing wisdom by citing a quote from Master Hua-Ching Ni's translation of the I Ching (Book of Changes), "There is no incurable disease, there are only incurable people. To heal we have to take the responsibility for our own life and health, with the attitude of loving kindness and selfrespect."

The Compassionate Healer within Dr Neelam Verma, who is a consultant physician and cardiologist, and has successfully integrated alternative approaches with mainstream medicine, offers a classic model of the body's natural healing energy: "Human body is a pulsating universe. It's a symphony of innumerable rhythms. Our heartbeat, breathing, sleep, hunger, and all other physiological processes follow their rhythmic cycles throughout life, mutually interdependent and scrupulously balanced." Whenever there is an alteration in the rhythm of life, a wave of reorganization is spontaneously generated. This is the 'healing rhythm of life', or the body's healing wisdom. It is a combination of the corporeal-comprising biochemical, hormonal, immunological components-and the incorporeal-comprising the supreme intelligence, all of which must be visualized in its vital integrity. And it is this very rhythm that swings into action as and when any part of our body suffers from sickness or disease. The healing rhythm of life originates from an immense reservoir of therapeutic energy that lies dormant at the core of our heart (the Brahman), and corresponds to the eternal vibration (spanda). Our structural, functional and energy planes are traditionally represented as concentric circles around this center-the inner level being more refined than the outer. At the core of the consciousness (E0), one senses immense peace, silence, bliss, and a state of pure health. The divine radiance reflects both within and without, purging all impurities and toxins of the body and the mind. This divine radiance, the Brahman, she explains, is our 'Compassionate Healer'. Self-Healing Energy: A Model Dr Neelam's self-healing model is not new. The idea of the Compassionate Healer was already pronounced in the Prashna Upanishad as the Brahman whose essence is "knowledge, and he is the immortal self, the Supreme. He who knows that immutable self, wherein lives the mind, the senses, the Prana (life-force), and the elements" The centripetal movement from (E5 to E0) is explicated in the Prashna Upanishad, "As birds fly to the tree for rest, all these things fly to the self-earth and its essence, water and its essence, air and its essence, fire and its essence, the eye and what it sees, the ear and what it hears, the nose and what it smells, the tongues and what it tastes, the skin and what it touches, the mind and what it perceives, the intellect and what it understands, the energy and what it binds together. It is the self, which sees, hears, smells, touches, thinks, knows and actsand this self is the immortal, the Brahman." Furthermore, what Dr Neelam describes as the Compassionate Healer, many others identify as a rich and vibrant reality of our Being. It is experienced in the body as the zest and the spirit for life, in the heart as faith, hope and love, and in the mind as wisdom. All we have to do, as conscious human beings, is to open ourselves to this energy, allow it to grow on us, heal us, renew us, and liberate us. To access this Compassionate Healer, we need to change the protocol-from the intellect to something subtler. Dr Neelam prefers to call this the "divya drishti," or the vision of the soul, which cuts like a laser beam through the veils of illusion, piercing deeper until it meets with the truth within, enshrined in its stark reality. The Innate Natural Wisdom We've heard it, we know it, and we believe that the body is connected with the mind and spirit. And yet, we consider recovery as being solely limited to the body. Moreover, we forget that it is our body's innate healing wisdom and not the physician that nurses us back to health. At best, therapeutic interventions help us to overcome abnormal situations that might otherwise prove too great for the healing system to manage. While the physician must harness aspects of medical resources that promise optimum benefit to the sick, ultimately, we are responsible for our own sickness. Dealing with sickness involves taking responsibility of our body with awareness of its connections with the mind, soul and environment. This includes wisdom about healing as a holistic, objective, yet profoundly intuitive, compassionate process. Listen to Your Body Our body, mind and spirit are constantly interacting with each other, and with the surroundings, giving rise to a mindboggling symphony of subatomic sensations. However, in our civilizational numbness to this mechanism, we tune out important messages that our body wishes us to hear. "Pain for instance," explains Anita Anand, hypnotherapist, "is the body's call to attention. It is an insistent message from the body that forces us to comprehend the need to rest." To work with your body is to be compassionately and wholly attentive to it in the present moment. The art of

listening to your body is astutely explained by psychotherapist and spiritual guide Robert A. Masters (robertmasters.com) as, "We only need to shift from having a body to 'being' a body, and from being a body to 'Being'. Then we can feel right down to the tips of our toes, how natural it is to be whole." What we identify as symptoms and expect the physician to diagnose, can then be easily deciphered by us. By tuning into the language of the body, we can re-learn the functional lessons of the whole-body, mind and spirit. Movement therapies like Rolfing and bioenergetics not only concentrate on releasing blocked energy by stretching and manipulating tissues, but also open us up to a whole range of emotional nourishment-love, faith, hope, and compassion. As each door opens, we advance towards the Compassionate Healer, slowly but steadily. Touch is the mother of all sensations. The baby first knows its mother by the sense of touch. As a little finger crooks into that of the mother, 'safety and support' are at once understood, even before it learns the meaning of these words. This is the groundwork of all touch therapies. Paula Horan says in The Ultimate Reiki Touch, "The human capacity to be touched manifests in many different forms. We can be touched physically, emotionally and spiritually. Reiki supports and helps you appreciate touch in all of these forms, ultimately transforming them into a deep sense of inner peace-the supreme touch of freedom." Work With your Emotions Citing another passage from one of Robert's works, "To work with our emotions is to become increasingly intimate with them. We need to know what we're feeling, and when we're feeling it. On the way, we learn to find the balance between containment and expression. We learn how to regulate our emotions, how to directly express them, how to ride, guide, and ultimately just be with them." And once this is learnt, there are more lessons to be learnt: that our feelings are only feelings; they do not define us. Choosing to let them go or holding them is in our hands. The moment we realize this, we gather an incomprehensible strength and ability to deal with life and its lowdowns. This is the hallmark of almost all alternative-healing systems, particularly laughter therapy, and art therapy. Disease is understood as blockage in energy flow. So the moment we let go, we automatically allow ourselves to go with the flow, unclogging jammed routes. Bernie Siegel's Prescriptions for Living expounds the three-pronged approach for dealing with one's illness: accept, retreat, and surrender. He says, "Once you 'accept' that the disease exists in your life, and that you are a participant, you can marshal your forces to eliminate or alter it. If you avoid thinking about it, deny it or feel hopeless, you cannot play a part in changing it and your life. When I say 'retreat,' I don't mean withdrawing in the face of a more powerful opponent. For me a retreat means withdrawing to a quieter place where I can be aware of my thoughts and feelings. Once you have accepted, retreated and prepared yourself to fight, then you are ready to 'surrender'. Again, you do not surrender to outcomes but to events. When you surrender to the illness, you continue to receive your treatments, explore your feelings, repair your relationships and do all the other work of healing. But while you are working, you are saying, 'Thy will be done' and not 'My will be done.' Surrender the pain, fear and worries and you'll be able to keep love, hope and joy in your life." Work With your Mind Says Robert, "The mind is a marvelous servant, but a poor master." And yet, we need to serve it with humility. Thoughts, anxieties, fantasies raid the mind every quarter of a second. Working with the mind is then to work at a healthy distance from its inner quarters. How to do this? Robert answers, "Discipline is needed-particularly in the form of sustained concentration, but so too is relaxation. Initially, we make the effort to stay focused on a particular objectand once the chatter of our mind quiets-we let our effort lessen, and then even disappear." When purpose and pleasure fuse together, all work becomes play. But play ceases to be play when there is fatigue or strain. Rejoice like birds after the first spell of rain, or like sunflowers opening their hearts out to the warm sunshine. This is the spirit of wellness-oriented therapies and meditation practices. Just like the physical body demands regulation and moderation, the mind also requires exercise, nourishment and relaxation. And when this is done, the mind heals and renews its forces, swinging back into action. Work With your Spirit Hermes Trismegistus in his aphorism, 'as above, so below', utters the supreme cosmic truth, a simple message from the emerald tablet that is the navigating message on our way home. For the unseen cosmic swirl of energy that we

must tap into for all our answers, comes from above. For all of us have come from above, to learn special earthly lessons that cannot be generated unless we connect with that which lies below. From his work, Meditation: Achieving Inner Balance, Dr Syed Abdullah observes, "Meditation's well-known calming effects on the central nervous system are often quite dramatic. There has been some success in the treatment of cancer patients with the combined use of meditation and imagery Meditation can serve as a valuable aid to the process of psychotherapy. The appearance of flashes of memory, images out of the unconscious, unexplained emotional experiences during meditation are well known Most of these reports have been anecdotal in nature and await further authentication, but they seem most promising." Re-Tune your Eating Habits Food nurtures not just the body, but also the quality of our mind, intellect and soul. Fruits and vegetables are potpourris of pharmacy- tranquillizers, antidepressants, laxatives, cholesterol regulators, and even painkillers. With more and more breakthroughs in research, the healing properties of food celebrated from time immemorial, are now finding empirical evidence. Hippocrates had said centuries ago, 'Let food be thy medicine, thy medicine shall be thy food.' Ayurvedic practitioners had also pronounced the truth ages ago, 'When diet is wrong, medicine is of no use. When diet is correct medicine is of no need.' Eat the heaviest meal at noon, when the digestive fire is strongest, and prefer a lighter meal in the evening. Natural foods, says Sharma, "are packets of nature's intelligence, which our body can use to counterbalance disruptive influences from the environment." However, the modern food bazaars are stockpiled with preservatives, bleaching agents, flavorings, dyes, and artificial fertilizers and pesticides. Consuming these, Sharma explains, "interferes with the normal operation of our physiology by generating free radicals, and interfering with our metabolism." Life begets life. Eating fresh foods with minimum processing and in their natural form animates our entire being. Sharma says, "If you like non vegetarian diet, don't force yourself to become a vegetarian-just give yourself a chance to experience the psychological and physiological benefits of healthier lifestylesdon't try to eliminate old habits, just build an alternative habit and allow it to grow." Be your own Healer Disease is a state of crisis. It's a crisis in your state of good health and well-being. Like all trials in life, lessons are to be learnt from the disease. Recovery is then a process of re-examining and re-fashioning your priorities. Disease then is just another one of those complex messages on life's path. Bernie S. Siegel notes, "Physicians call the most dramatic healings 'spontaneous remissions.' But we cannot afford to ignore these remarkable successes. We need to learn from people who recover and people who stay healthy." He continues, "In his novel Cancer Ward, Solzhenitsyn wrote of self-induced healing, which is a much better term than 'spontaneous remission.' Solzhenitsyn chose a rainbow-colored butterfly to symbolize healing. The butterfly represents change, and the rainbow represents our feelings and emotions. We need to let the butterfly of change and emotional growth, touch our lives if we are to heal." Modern medical schools invest a great deal on the immune system. Medication is prescribed only when symptoms of disease manifest in the individual. The natural healing system is allowed to take its course only after the end of the recovery stage. Contrary to this, the alternative therapies domain inverses this process-the body's self-corrective mechanism is revoked and boosted at a much earlier stage to prevent or delay the onset of disease. The Future is Now The intention is not to reject scientific health inquiries, but to envision and welcome the emergence of a new spiritually oriented science-a science that coexists with God, nature, and the human being. The future begins now. Its imminent pulsations can already be felt. Current research on the power of thought has opened gateways to biofeedback research-that clearly exhibits the body's healing wisdom, and its control over the body functions. Kirlian photography offers empirical evidence of energy fields, apart from the phenomenal presence of auras. Studies in chronobiology and biorhythm are pouring fresh insights into the interpenetrating levels of the emotional, intellectual, and physiological planes.

While the vital interactions between the body, mind and spirit are beginning to be discovered, there are still many more secrets that continue to be shrouded in mystery. The obvious course of action is then to see science and spirit as one-to evolve a new protocol-a combination of researchers and seekers, the practitioners of integrated medicine. Dr Anil Patil of Guruprasad Aarogyadham, an integrated medical center in Mumbai, has successfully blended his modern medical science with the classical alternative systems. He argues, "No single medical modality is a panacea for all ailments. There are limitations in every science that can be trounced by adopting integrated medicine that inspires us to be more whole and integral, but in the spirit of science." Dr Suchindra Sachdeva, a Delhi-based consultant homoeopath agrees, "As medical physicians, we need to realize our sacred goal-to make aware and strengthen the belief in the individual of his/her own self-corrective mechanism, till the time comes when no medication is required. This involves a judicious 'handing over' and 'taking over' of the various medical disciplines." The point then, to be made again and again is to be self-reliant. Elliott M. Goldwag in Inner Balance rightly concludes, "The more we are taught to rely on outside explanations and solutions for our health problems, the less confidence we have in our own innate abilities to heal. If the thought processes that produced the need for illness persist, the illness will return in another form." So take the cue, dear reader, and hail thy Compassionate Healer!