(Man is the only
creature, it is said, who will cross an ocean just to see what other men
there look like.) With a little exposure to meditation, Kaphas who were
content to watch the parade go by decide that what they really want is
to join it. Kaphas are tempted to be possessive about life, to store and
save everything that comes their way , whether it is money , ener gy,
status, or love. When they discover that they can let go and use their
solid strength as the fuel for change, they take a huge step forward intheir personal evolution. A Kapha’ s considerable capacity for loving
and being loved then becomes twice as strong. Eat a Kapha-pacifying diet—it is important not to overeat if you are a
Kapha type, because the tendency to become overweight is definitely
present. Hot ginger tea taken at meals helps sharpen dulled taste buds;
it also makes slow digestion more ef ficient, as does a teaspoon of
whole fennel seeds chewed after the meal. If there is a lot of
congestion, Ayurveda recommends favoring dry foods and astringent
(puckering) tastes. Dry toast, apples, crackers, turmeric, and many raw
vegetables are good for avoiding excess Kapha buildup and toning the
digestive tract. Reduce sweetness. Kapha is the only dosha strongly identified with a
taste—sweetness. Irrespective of calories, Kaphas will gain weight and
go out of balance if there is too much sweet food in the diet. Avoiding
ice cream, milk, sugary desserts, wheat bread, and butter (all
considered sweet in Ayurveda) will often make a dramatic dif ference
with the runny nose, blocked sinuses, aller gies, and lethar gy that
Kaphas suf fer from when out of balance. Over the long term, too much
sweetness may help promote diabetes, a serious Kapha disease. Fortunately , there is one natural sweetener—raw honey—that is
actually good for Kapha. Taking a tablespoon or two (but no more)
every day helps release excess Kapha from the system. Stay warm. Being a cold dosha, Kapha benefits from heat. Dry heat is
best if you are congested, a frequent Kapha complaint. Directing a
sunlamp at your chest or using a heating pad under your back often
helps with excess Kapha. Avoid dampness. Kapha is particularly sensitive to cold, damp
conditions. Be careful not to expose your nose, throat, and lungs to
cold winter air if you are feeling sick. Perform a dry massage on your body to stimulate circulation. This
procedure is called garshana (page 133) and is done with special raw-silk gloves (available by mail order). You do not want to use oil when
there is aggravated Kapha, since Kapha is an oily dosha. A brisk full-
body rubdown, taking five to ten minutes, is good enough; do not work
so hard that you tire yourself out. If you do not have gloves, a dry
loofah sponge can substitute. Drink warm fluids during the day , but take them in moderation, since
Kapha is already moist. To loosen congestion and ease sore throat, a
tea made by boiling one-quarter teaspoon of dry ginger and turmeric in
one cup of water is ef fective. A special Kapha-pacifying tea can also
be mail-ordered. You can drink up to four cups a day . Exercise regularly , preferably every day . This is one of the best ways
to avoid stagnation and the buildup of toxins in the body . Because they
are generally strong and well muscled, Kaphas tend to be natural
athletes when they are young; the arrival of adult responsibilities
makes most Kaphas sedentary . That is a pity , for Kaphas benefit from
exercise more than anyone else and should keep active at all ages. Be honest with yourself when you are sick and you need to recuperate. Kaphas have excellent stamina and enjoy physical activity; they also
have a high threshold for pain and do not take to their beds unless they
are very sick. If you are such a person, remember to take it easy when
you feel sick enough to be in bed. You are probably twice as ill as most
people. Kaphas can get quite gloomy unless they feel well cared for , so
let your friends and family pay extra attention to you when you are
low. Head congestion is a common Kapha problem, which can be
forestalled by using a simple technique: Dissolve one-quarter teaspoon
of salt in one-half cup of warm water . Standing over a sink, cup one
hand with a little salt water in it. Close your left nostril, lean over , and
inhale the water a few times through your right nostril so that it enters
the sinuses. Close your right nostril and repeat on the other side. Do
not inhale deeply (which will draw water into the lungs), or force your
breath if your sinuses are clogged. You may sneeze or start to drain,which is good. Repeat two or three times as needed. This treatment is
more ef fective after a warm shower has softened the sinus lining. If
you feel any pain or have been diagnosed with a sinus infection,
discontinue the treatment immediately . It is meant for keeping the
nasal passages toned, not for curing a condition once it has developed. HOW  TO PERFORM GARSHANA
This dry massage should be done in the morning for 3 to 4 minutes
before you take a bath and dress . Wearing the special silk glove s and using
both hands, rub your skin quickly and fairly vigorously . Over the long
bones of the arms and legs, use sweeping, back-and-forth strok es. Change
to small, circular movements when you reach the joints—shoulders,
elbows, wrists, etc. To begin with, 10 to 20 long strokes at a time are
enough; this can be increased over time to as many as 40 strokes. Start by massaging the head, using brisk circular motions, proceeding
to long strokes as you reach the neck and shoulders. Now alternate
these two movements as you continue down the arms: circular strokes
at the shoulder joint, long strokes down the upper arm, circular again
at the elbows, long down the forearm, circular at the wrist, long down
the hand, and finally circular strokes over the finger joints. Moving to the chest, massage horizontally with long strokes, but avoid
massaging directly over the heart and breasts. Massage horizontally on the stomach for two strokes, then give two
diagonal strokes. Using this alternating rhythm, proceed to the lower
abdomen, lower back, buttocks, and thighs, giving added attention to
any areas where there is extra fat. (This is to promote circulation in
these areas and to loosen toxins associated with excess Kapha and fat.) Stand up and massage the hip joints with circular motions. Now go
down the legs as you did the arms: long strokes on the long leg bones,
circular at the knees and ankles, ending with long strokes over the foot.Garshana in combination with yoga exercises is particularly useful for
getting rid of cellulite. OceanofPDF .comPART II
THE QUANTUM MECHANICAL HUMAN
BODY
OceanofPDF .comCHAPTER 6
QUANTUM MEDICINE FOR A QUANTUM BODY
On the never -ending journey of self-knowledge, the three doshas are an
important landm ark. They take us into the inner world, the only place where
intelligence in all its forms— thoughts, emotions, drives, instincts, wishes,
and beliefs—ca n be changed. But the doshas are only a halfway house. Beyond them lie even more profound revelations. In part II, I want to get to
these greater depths by exploring the quantum mechanical human body—
Ayurveda’ s term for the invisible software that shapes, controls, and creates
the physical self. In chapter 1 I stated some of the basic principles underlying the quantum
mechanical body: it is a netwo rk of intelligence, the collected know-how
not just of the brain but of the body’ s other 50 trillion cells;  it responds
immediately to our slightest thought and emotion, giving rise to the
constant flow and change that is basic to our nature; it is not localized in
space-time but is far more general, extending in all directions like a field. You cannot see your own quantum body , because it is made entirely of faint
vibrations, fluctuations in the field, but you can be aware of it—indeed,
your senses are keenly attuned to the quantum field, whose activity is more
basic than either matter or energy. The fact that you can be aware of a level
in natur e 10 to 100 million times more subtle than the atom seems so
surprising that I would like to expand on the notion. EXPLORING THE INNER WORLD
You already know that the doshas are like a switching station where
thoughts turn into matter . At first this seems impossible. Matter  is solid and
stable; it can be seen and touched, measured and weighed. Thoughts, on the
other hand, are fleeting and invisible; they cannot be seen or touched, andmeasuring them (as with an electroencephalogram, or EEG), is an
extremely crude  affair. As one witty physiologist put it, unders tanding the
brain with an EEG is like trying to understand the rules of football by
sticking electrodes to the outside of the Astrodome and listening to the roar
of the crowd. Readings taken by looking into the skull are also distinctly limited. Thanks to the ultra-modern technology called PET (positron-emission
tomography), it is now possible to image a single strong emotion or
perception while a person is experiencing it. (This involves tracing patterns
made by radiois otopes as the brain goes through the process of having a
thought.) But these patterns, revealing as they are, do not tell us what kind
of thoug ht is being processed. You cannot tell love from hate; you cannot
image the difference between a sane mind and an insane one, much less
decode the incredible subtlety and miraculous variety of the mind body
connection. The only way truly to penetrate this realm is subjectively , from inside the
quantum mechanical body . Here is where the trick of turning  mind into
matter is actually being managed. If meeting a snake in the woods frightens
you, your heart starts to pound, your throat becomes dry, and your knees
turn to rubber . By the time you jump back in fear, a split-second
transformation has taken place inside you. Your mental impul se— totally
abstract and nonmaterial—has manifested itself physically as molecules of
adrenaline, which are concrete and totally material. The decision that makes
this possible occurs subjectivel y; you choose to send a faint intention to
your quantum mechanical body , and without hesitation it carries out its
orders. Jumping back in fear is not your only option. If you were not afraid
of snake s, there would be no adrenaline; instead, you might generate the
chemicals that cause happiness and excitement, the thrill of discovery , or
you might have a much more casual reaction altogether . This opens the way for Ayurveda, which says that your mind gives you
control, the ability to have any reaction you want. The great misfortune is
that all of us are preprogramme d along extremely rigid lines; we have only
a few reactions instead of infinit e ones. Because of that, we pay a price. Themind body connection ceases to be effortless and natural; stress starts to
accumulate, and negative signal s from the mind begin to damage the cells. An old Indian saying goes, “If you want to see what your thoughts were like
yesterday , look at your body today. If you want to see what your body will
be like tomorrow , look at your thoughts today .” Most of us would be pretty
upset to apply this test to ourselves. The real medicine our bodies need is
medicine for our awareness. QUANTUM MEDICINE
Once you know that there is a quantum body paralleling your physical
one, many things make sense that were mysteries before. Here are two
tantalizing facts about heart attac ks. Fact 1: More heart attacks occur at nine
o’clock on Monday morning than at any other time of the week. Fact 2: The
people who are least likely to suffer a fatal heart attack are those who report
a high degree of job satisfaction. Putting these two facts together , you begin to suspect that an element of
choice is at work here. Although heart attacks are supposed to strike at
random, it looks as if at least some heart attacks are controlled by the
people having them. Certain people who hate their jobs get out of them on
Monday morning by giving themselves a heart attack, while those who love
their jobs do not. (Let’ s leave aside the question of why the job haters don’t
choose a less drastic outlet for their frustrations.) In conventional medicine,
there is no known mechanism for giving yourself a heart attack using your
mind. In Ayurveda’ s perspective, however , the heart is a printout of the
same impulses that fill the mind, including the mind’ s disappointments,
fears, and frustrations. At the quantum mechanical level, mind and body are
united; therefore, it comes as no surprise that a deep, smoldering
dissatisfaction lodged in the mind should express itself in a physical
equivalent—a heart attack. Indeed, any dissatisfaction must express itself physically , becaus e all our
thoughts turn into chemicals. When you are happy , chemicals in your brain
travel throughout your body , telling every cell of your happiness. Whenthey hear the message, the cells “get happy ,” too; that is, they begin to
function more effectively by altering their own chemical processes. If you
are depressed, on the other hand, the opposite happens. Your sadness is
relayed chemica lly to each cell, causing a feeling of heartache, for example,
and your immune system to grow weaker . Everything we think and do
originates inside the quantum mechanical body and then bubbles up to the
surface of life. You have probably heard of experiments in which hypnotized subjects
make their hands warmer , cause red patches to appear on their skin, or even
raise blisters, just by the power of suggestion. This mechanism is not unique
to hypnosis. We do the same thing all the time, only we do not usually have
voluntary control over it. A typical heart-attack victim would be shocked to
discover that he gave himself his attack. Yet, if you look beyond the grim
implications, the really exciting  news is that we have enormous, untapped
powers. Instead of unconsciousl y creating disease, we could be consciously
creating health. Because he is a doctor himself,  Gerald Rice knows just how sick he is. After practicing internal medicine in Boston for twenty-five years, he was
diagnosed at age 50 with chronic leukemia, or cancer of the blood’s white
cells. Gerald has been living in a mounting sense of panic for several
months since he was diagnosed . Obsessed by his condition, he sits up at
night poring over medical journals. What he reads is very discouraging. Patients with his form of leukemia usually live only a few years after the
initial diagnosis. It is still early . Gerald has noticed almost no symptoms other than feeling
unusually tired during the day, but his white count is soaring above 40,000,
more than four times the normal level, which is between 4,000 and 11,000. A leading cancer institute in New York City has urged him to try some new
forms of chemotherapy , but he is apprehensive about exposing  himself to
the side effects of the medication when he currently has no symptoms. He
has decided to wait despite the fact that going without treatment frightens
him very much. A number of oncologists tell him the same thing: once hiswhite counts get above 50,000, he must do something. Gerald lies awake at
night fixated on this number; it is a frontier he dreads crossing. Recently , having read of cancer cases that had progressed well under
Ayurvedic treatm ent, he turned to us. Gerald’ s stance was very guarded, and
his initial questions betrayed considerable anxiety about what he was
getting himself into. “What’ s your protocol for treating chronic leukemia?” he demanded
immediately . “This isn’t a cancer clinic,’ ’ he was told. “All our seriously ill patients
begin with basically the same treatment.”
This shocked him, since by his standards of practice, every specific
variety of cancer merits its own intensive, narrowly focused approach. In
Ayurveda we follow a different logic. Our goal is to reach the level of
perfect balance  that lies within every patient, no matter how sick. Experiencing this level brings healing, in and of itself, using the body’ s own
methods. “Right now your condition is dominated by feelings of dread and panic,’ ’
he was told. “You are sending overwhelming signals of distress to your
immune system,  and you know as a physician that the immune response is
extremely sensitive to such messages.” He had to admit that this was true. “What we want is to pull your awareness back to a healthier level, to a
place where this disease is not so threatening. Ultimately , we would like
you to find the place where it does not even exist.”
Here he balked. “But it does exist; it is real. Are you asking me to be
blind to that fact? If I am panicked, it’s the leukemia that makes me feel that
way,” he protested. He began to become agitated. He had struggled to
remain comple tely in control of himself ever since his devastating
diagnosis. The prospect of changing his rigid, fearful stance was almost
more frightening to him than his illness. We moved quickly to reassure him. Other kinds of medical treatments, either Ayurvedic or Western, wouldalways be at his disposal. We would stay in consultation with his own
physician and with top specialists in the Boston area. Without any treatment
for his inner self, however , we did not consider that any outside medical
treatment based on drugs or radiation went far enough. In a serious or life-threatening illness, there can be many layers of
imbalance concealing the depths where healing exists. Each layer is like a
mask hiding the self from itself—one could spend a lifetime never
suspecting that the quantum mechanical body exists. Perfect health is a
reality at this deepest level, and it waits to be brought to the surface of life. The beginning of perfection, we tell our patients, is to let go of
imperfection. For that, the Ayurvedic tradition has handed down many
techniques, both physical and mental, for the physician to use. “If you can pierce the mask of disease and contact your inner self, even
for a few minutes a day, you will make tremendous strides toward healing,’ ’
Gerald was told. “No one can guarantee your recovery , but this view of
medicine is valid, and it works.”
Gerald greeted these statemen ts with a mixture of hopeful-ness and
skepticism. I am keenly aware of the vulnerability that patients  feel in this
situation. They are prone to severe attacks of anxiety and guilt. They
secretly wonder if they deserve their disease and therefore have unwittingly
caused it; they blame themselv es for not eating better , not visiting their
doctor often enough, or not living more healthfully in general; they curse
fate and yet beg it to reprieve them. All of this anguish is unnecessary , and therefore, it does not have to be
attacked head-on . The simple truth is that when a disease occurs, it brings a
diseased reality with it, and the more serious the disease, the more distorted
our view of reality is likely to become. For anyone in the grip of a truly
debilitating illness, fear becomes dominant. That does not make it
inevitable, however . Fear is the scenery you see when you are in a sick
reality . If you change that reality , which is born inside yourself, the scenery
will change, too.“Tomorrow you can start the treatments,’ ’ Gerald was told after his
interview and initial physical. “You don’t have to believe in them—all you
have to do is experience them.”
He sat quietly . “I’ll try anythin g,” he finally said in a low voice. He
immediately checked into our Center . Considering all that he had been
through, it was no surprise that Gerald’ s initial blood test, taken that
afternoon, was dismal. His white count had soared to 52,000, well beyond
what he had been led to think of as the point of no return. Several things happened next. As soon as he arrived at the Center , Gerald
was immersed in the routines for balancing the doshas that we covered in
chapter 5. He was diagnosed as a Pitta type and placed on a Pitta-pacifying
diet. Gerald’s diet was strong on salads, fruits, rice, bread, and cold dishes,
low on fats and salt, with an emphasis on sweet taste, all of which help
relieve Pitta. He learned meditation the first morning at the Center and began to
meditate twice a day, just before breakfast and dinner . As a physician,
Gerald was surprised by his surroundings. The Center is set in a very
nourishing and life-supporting atmosphere. There is nothing conventionally
medical about it. There is no somberness in the air, no antiseptic smells, no
stark critical-care units with constantly beeping monitors. Ayurveda encourages a natural  setting, preferably a beautiful one, for
recuperation. The five senses are constantly feeding signals to your
quantum mechanical body , and each signal gets metaboliz ed by you,
entering your storehouse of sights, sounds, smells, and so on. If what the
senses see, hear, touch, and smell reminds you of sickness, then something
unhealthy is getting absorbed. How can you renew your realit y if you are
always subtly reminding yourself of the old one? Gerald loved his long morning walks to the shore, but he was puzzled,
too. “I don’t see anything medic al going on here,” he protested from time to
time. We asked him simply to continue his treatment.The most active therapy Gerald underwent is called panchakarma
(Sanskrit for “the five actions” or “the five treatments”), an extensive
routine to purify the body of toxins that disease and improper diet have
deposited. In Western medicine we know that waste products are
continually build ing up in every  cell of the body . These residues, resulting
from oxidation caused by free radical molecules, are thought to play an
active role in causing DNA  to make mistakes (the cause of most cancers);
almost certainly these wastes impair cell function, lead to more rapid aging,
and ultim ately kill our cells. What is not understood is exact ly how this
debris gets into the cells. Ayurveda says that it is the litter that imbalanced
doshas leave behind, visible proof that some invisible process has gone
wrong. The Ayurvedic sages lumped all such toxic residues under the term ama,
which they perceived as a foul-smelling, sticky , noxious substance that
needs to be evacuated from the body as thoroughly as possible. Some
purifying measures can be administered at home (as we will discuss later),
but full-scale panchakarma is a specialized treatment, involving medical
supervision as well as labor -intensive methods administered by Ayurvedic
technicians. Panchakarma doesn’t push physical debris out of the cells, but it is said to
push out the excess doshas, along with the ama that “sticks” to them, using
the body’s own channels of evacuation (sweat glands, urinary tract,
intestines, and so on). From the patient’ s point of view , the daily massages
and oil baths are extremely pleasant and very relaxing; from the quantum
perspective, the channels that bring healing signals into our cells are being
cleaned and restored. Panchakarma, I repeat, is not a cancer treatment. It is
given to all patients in order to restore balance. Within a day or two, Gerald felt the accumulated fatigue pouring out of
his syste m, as if years of exhau stion were being drained away . Usually a
driven and highly motivated person, he found he desperately needed long
hours of rest and sleep. When he mentioned this, we told him that letting go
of fatigu e was the same as letting go of stress. Fatigue is the shadow of old
stresses that build up in the nervous system. Being a doctor , Gerald was nostranger to stress, but his medical training denied that stress had anything to
do with his illness. I explained to him that his cells were imprinted with the memory  of stress
and over time lose their ability to function perfectly . Loops of intelligence
get broken open, like disrupting an electrical circuit. The cell’s overall
intelligence weakens, and the final result is disease. In his case, the disease
was leukemia; it could have been thousands of other disorders. The point is
that the same intention applies to them all— restoring the body’ s own
intelligence. A week after he arrived, Gerald was ready to return home, still convinced
that nothing medical had happened to him. In his final interview , he was
presented with the results of a blood test taken that morning. According to
the lab report, his white count had dropped by over 40 percent, from 52,000
to 28,00 0. He was astounded. This was a dramatic improvemen t. If Gerald
had been taking conventional chemotherapy , a reduction of 10,000 in his
counts over a few days would have been considered very encouraging. Without any side effects, he felt healthier than he had in years, not just
since he had been diagnosed with leukemia. Another serious symptom of
his disease had disappeared entirely, the abnormal abundance of immature
white cells produced by the bone marrow of leukemia patients . The blood
smear taken on his first day had showed numerous abnormal  cells; now
there were none. “This could be a fluke, couldn’ t it?” he asked. “The blood test can be
wrong.” But he knew that such routine tests are highly likely to be right—
he relies on them every day in his own practice. THE POWER OF  AWARENESS
I believe the secret to Gerald’ s recovery was a change in his awareness. He learned that there is more self-control in letting go than in trying to
control one’s body by force. The follow-up period proved this pointdramatically . After he left the Center , Gerald threw himself back into his
work, subjecting himself to the usual heavy stress, and on his next visit
three months later, his white-cell count had zoomed back up to over 45,000. He plunged into depression, but with the Ayurvedic treatments his counts
came back down again. Immensely relieved and grateful, he went home and
pitched himself into his old life even more furiously . Not surprisingly , the
counts rose a third time. When he returned for another week of treatment, I said something he
didn’ t expect: “There’ s a lot of pain whenever you go home, isn’ t there?”
“What do you mean?” he asked guardedly . “It’s true that I’m sick.”
“I mean beyond your being sick.”
He didn’t say anything. It seemed highly significant that his leukemia had
been diagnosed just four months after his wife had died of a heart attack in
her mid-fifties. Gerald missed his wife terribly . Moreover , when he came
home at night, there was friction with his divorced daughter , who had
moved in to take care of him. What he had to recognize was that his condition was related to his state
of awareness. His mind was deeply influencing his body . “Imagine that
your awareness is like a violin string. The string can play any kind of note,
high or low, depending on where you place your finger . Right now, you are
putting out all kinds of missed notes. Not just your runaway white counts,
but your mood swings, your nervous expectations, your pain and grief, are
all notes coming out of the same position. “In conventional medicine, only the notes count. A huge amount of
energy is spent killing the abnormal white cells. But it is equall y important
that you change  your position on the string. Then you would be creating a
new reality , complete with new notes. Isn’t that what we have been doing
all along? Think about it.”
Gerald admitted that he felt better every day he spent at the Center and
worse every day he spent at home. “But you’re not saying that feeling goodmakes leukemia regress, are you?’ ’ he demanded. “If feelin g good is part of healing, then yes, that is what I am saying. It’s
not really a matter of your moods. Naturally your moods swing during the
course of a serious illness—you can feel happy or despondent , hopeful or
hopeless without warning. “Underlying these unpredictable mood swings is your quantum  level of
awareness, which has become disturbed. Changes in this level of awareness
are what bring about changes in mood; if your deep awareness shifts, your
moods will follow like a weathe r vane. We should also expect to see similar
indications in your body , and your altered blood counts are a good example. Change in awareness is terribly  important. As a doctor , you can’t have it
only one way and say that negative emotions disturb the immune system. It
must also be true that positive  states of awareness will help you to get
well.”
Gerald thought that this was reasonable. Weighed against his
conventional medical training, which led him to be skeptical about any sort
of “mind over matter” in the healing process, he had to set his own vivid,
undeniable expe rience. Our conversation took place several months ago. He
continues to benefit from the approach outlined here, but it is taking time
for Gerald to break out of his old patterns completely . We think he has
turned the corner , though. There is much less evidence of a struggle on his
part. One of his most cherished beliefs, that he must fight for life with every
atom of his being, is giving way. Now he is starting to accept the possibility
of a very profo und Ayurvedic truth: if you can let go of imperfection,
perfection will appear by itself. OceanofPDF .comCHAPTER 7
OPENING THE CHANNELS OF HEALING
Getting back in touch with the quantum mechanical body is the most
important goal in Ayurveda. We call this process “quantum healing.” As
understood by modern medicine, the body’ s healing abilities are nearly
infinite, but quantum healing is infinite. The flow of intelligence  bubbling up
from the quantum mechanical body can be channeled in count less ways to
achieve any result in the physical body , including the cure of serious, life-
threatening diseases and the reversal of the aging process itself. All of these things will be laid out in detail in the following pages, as we
discuss the major healing techniques of Ayurveda. All are medical
techniques used in our Center , but most also have home versions that you
can learn from this book or from  a few hours of instruction from a qualified
Creating Health educator . The term “healing technique” should be
understood in its broadest sense, applying to anyone who wants to come
closer to perfect health, not just the sick. The seven techniques to be covered
are:
PANCHAKARMA—PURIFICA TION OF  THE BODYPhysical impurities play a large part in hiding our perfect nature from
ourselves, like dust on a mirror . But such impurities lie much deeper than
dust, and they have more than physical effects: one’s entire psychology is
linked to one’s physical condition. The value of panchakarma is that it offers
a system atic treatment for dislodging and flushing toxins from every cell,
using the same organs of elimination that the body naturally employs—
sweat glands, blood vessels, urinary tract, and intestines. The ancient texts praise panchakarma as a seasonal treatment for ensuring
balance year in and year out. Despite a high standard of health that keeps
most of us feeling healthy most of the time, Americans generally do not
reach old age free of disease. Indeed, less than a third of old people show no
sign of cancer , heart disease, arthritis, diabetes, osteoporosis, and other
degenerative disorders endemic to old age. All these diseases lack a specific
cause; in the eyes of a Western doctor , they are complex disorders that
accumulate over a lifetime, rather like a rolling snowball accumulating tiny
flakes of snow . No single snow flake is the cause of the snowball, yet with
each flake, the snowball gets bigger and bigger . In terms of the body , the
snowflakes are tiny bits of ama, and we cannot think of being in perfect
balance unless these are removed as fast as they are picked up. STEPS OF  PANCHAKARMA
Although literally translated as “the five actions,” panchakarma actually
involves a series of steps tailored to body type and requiring supervision
over the course of about a week. It has taken approximately five years to
clarify these procedures and adapt them for use in the West. As with other
aspects of traditional Ayurveda, panchakarma has been hampered by
confusion and by different modes of practice throughout India. At the
Chopra Center , panchakarma follows these steps:
Oleation (snehana). The patient takes sesame seeds or herbalized ghee
(clarified butter) for several mornings in a row to soften up the doshas and
minimize digestive action. (In Ayurvedic terms, one is temporarily quieting
down the agni, or digestive fir e.)Laxative (virechana). A gentle laxative, such as senna, is taken to flush out
the intestinal tract, lowering Pitta and further bringing down agni. Oil massage (abhyanga). Technicians administer a full-body abhyanga like
the one done at home in the daily routine but about twice as long and much
more thorough. The oil is herbalized accor ding to body type. More force is
used to loosen the excess doshas and direct them towar d the organs of
elimination. There is also a related treatment called shirodhara , in which
warm, herbalized sesame oil is dripped in a stream onto the forehead to
profoundly relax the nervous system and balance Prana Vata, the subdosha
of Vata that exerts major contr ol over the brain. Sweat treatments (swedana). Herbalized steam opens up the pores and
begins to rid the body of impurities thr ough the sweat glands. Enema (basti). Medicated enemas, of which Ayurveda lists well over a
hundr ed, are used for various specific reasons; in general, this treatment is
used to flush the loosened doshas out thr ough the intestinal tract. Nasal administrations (nasya). Medicinal oils or herbal mixtur es are
inhaled, clearing  the sinus passages, draining excess mucus, and decreasing
accumulated Kapha, which tends to build up in the head. The following two case studies may give you a better idea of how
effective these procedures can be:Shirodhara pr ofoundly soothes the nervous system. Daniel Frazier , a contractor in his late forties, began suffering recurrent
lower back pains ten years ago. As frequently happens, his doctors found it
difficult to isolate a cause for his pain; although agonizingly real to him, the
scans of his back revealed nothing problematic. After consulting a number of
specialists, he resigned himself to living with chronic pain. When an attack
occurred, he stayed home in bed and lived on muscle relaxants until it
passed. An Ayurvedically trained docto r examined Daniel and informed him that
his pain appeared to be due to an imbalance of Apana Vata, the subdosha of
Vata that controls the lower back and intestinal tract. A Vata-pacifying
routine was prescribed, along with a week of panchakarma and yoga classes.By the end of the treatment, his pain had disappeared completely  for the first
time in a decade. Since then, Daniel has suffered little or no pain at all; he
returns periodically for additional panchakarma to prevent any possible
recurrence of his condition. Cheryl De Luca  fell into a typical adolescent pattern when she began to
develop acne at age 17; when it was still present at age 31, however , it was
definitely not typical. Fortunately her skin outbreaks were relatively mild
and not permane ntly disfiguring . Still, living with chronic acne was difficult
for her and had made her feel very self-conscious. As often happens, over-
the-counter remedies had been of little use; curtailing chocolate, tomatoes,
fried foods, and other suspicious foods made little impact. When she was in her mid-twe nties, Cheryl’ s dermatologist put her on
tetracycline, an antibiotic widely prescribed for adult acne. She experienced
occasional, mild side effects, namely upset stomachs and sensitivity to bright
sunlight. These  were a small price to pay, her doctor reasoned, for
controlling the disease. On the other hand, Cheryl was bothered  by the idea
of taking daily antibiotics indef initely . When she consulted our Center her
condition was diagnosed as Pitta imbalance. (One of Pitta’ s five subdoshas,
Bhrajaka Pitta, gives luster to the skin when in balance, but is often
responsible for skin problems if out of balance.) Treatment was very simple. Cheryl was put on a Pitta-pacifyin g diet and
instructed in the Ayurvedic daily routine. She went through panchakarma for
a week at the Center . Her acne began to subside and disappe ared entirely
within six months. She has now been free of her condition and off
medication for a year . PANCHAKARMA  TODA Y
In India today , seasonal panchakarma treatment is the province of the rich
and of those few who have adhered faithfully to Ayurvedic tradition. The
classic texts, however , clearly state that everyone needs panchakarma. Three
times a year is best, ideally at the turn of spring, fall, and winter . Taking
panchakarma as an inpatient is also recommended, since the body getsdeeper rest if you do not have to travel to and from a clinic every day. However , outpa tient treatment is extremely effective. As a minimum, you
should try to take one week of panchakarma every year if you are in good
health. Sick patients should take outpatient panchakarma only under the
advice of a physician trained in Ayurveda. Also, unless a physician
recommends it, panchakarma is not routinely given to children under the age
of 12. MEDIT ATION—A  TECHNIQUE FOR “GOING BEYOND”
Physical impurit ies in cells have their equivalents in the mind: fear, anger ,
greed, compulsiveness, doubt, and other negative emotions. Operating at the
quantum level, they can be as damaging to us as any chemical toxin. As we
saw, the mind body connection turns negative attitudes into chemical toxins,
the so-called “stress hormones” that have been linked to many different
diseases. Ayurveda lumps all negative tendencies together as “mental ama,”
which needs to be cleaned from the mind. But how? It is not possible to purify the mind by thinking about it. An angry mind
cannot conquer its own anger; fear cannot quench fear. Instead , a technique
is required that goes beyond the domain where fear, anger , and all other
forms of mental ama hold sway . This technique is meditation . If properly
taught and used,  meditation allows a person to become unstuck from the ama
in his thoughts and emotions. In our Center , we prescribe Prim ordial Sound
Meditation, or PSM, as a simple, natural way of accomplishing this goal. As a young physician in the 1970s, I was attracted to meditatio n for two
reasons, one personal, the other professional. The personal reason was the
promise of inner growth, of reaching an expanded state of mental and
spiritual develo pment. The professional reason was the large body of
research on meditation that established that this meditation was “real,” that
is, it produced tangible benefits. Meditation is not forcing your mind to be quiet; it’s finding the quiet that
is already there. In fact, when you examine the background static of worry ,
resentment, wishful thinking, fantasy, unfulfilled hopes, and vague dreams inyour head, it becomes clear that the internal dialogue going on inside is
literally controll ing us. Each of us is the victim of memory— that’s how the
Ayurvedic masters diagnosed it thousands of years ago. Behind the screen of our internal dialogue, there is something entirely
different: the silence of a mind that is not imprisoned by the past. That is the
silence we want to bring into our awareness through meditation. Why is this
important? Beca use silence is the birthplace of happiness. Silence is where
we get our bursts of inspiration, our tender feelings of compassion and
empathy , our sense of love. These are all delicate emotions and the chaotic
roar of the internal dialogue easily drowns them out. But when you discover
the silen ce in your mind, you no longer have to pay attention  to all those
random images that trigger worry , anger , and pain. If you are going to pursue the full spiritual benefits of meditation, I
recommend you seek out a qualified teacher whose spiritual tradition you
respect. But at the same time, there are meditative techniques for reaching
your inner silence that you can learn right now, because they’re basically
physiological. They take advantage of the natural silence that exists in the
mind body system when it’ s relaxed. When you’re ready to begin, sit quietly holding your hands lightly at your
side or in your lap. Now , with your eyes closed, start to breathe lightly and
easily . Let your attention easily follow your breathing. Feel your breath
entering your nostrils and flowin g down into your lungs. Don’ t inhale deeply
or hold your breath, just breathe normally . When you exhale, let your
attention follow the air up out of the lungs and softly through the nostrils. Nothing is forced here. The breath is moving easily and gently, your
attention is following it softly as leaves swaying in the treetops. As your
breathing relaxe s, make it a little lighter . Again, don’t force this, but when
you feel that your breathing wants to get a bit shallower and lighter , just let it
happen. If you start to feel short of breath, don’t worry . This means that you
need a little more air and that deep stresses are coming out. Or you might
also be forcing your breathing to be lighter than it wants to be. Return to
whatever rate of breathing your body feels comfortable with.When you are comfortable with this effortless process, you can add the
mantra “so hum” to the procedu re, silently thinking the word “so” on each
inhalation and “hum” on each exhalation. Continue this exercise for two to five minutes, just closing your eyes and
focusing your mind on easy, natural breathing and silently repeating “so
hum” with each cycle of your breath. What is happen ing with this exercise? You probably noticed that just by
paying attention to your breathing you sank deeper and deeper into
relaxation, and as you did so, your mind naturally became quieter . Did you
sense that? If so, you probably  experienced a few glimpses of complete
silence, which you aren’ t likely to have noticed, because I didn’ t ask you to
be on the lookout. If you had looked for silence it wouldn’ t have appeared. Yet I imagine there were stretches where you lost track of time, which is a
good indication that you were getting very near to the goal. Most people
experience much fainter thoughts than usual, which is another good sign. As you gain experience with meditation, you’ll begin to feel the
reappearance of youthful energy and vitality that is being released from a
deeper level of the nervous system. This is a very profound change and the
real fountain of youth. Although medita tion has been wrapped in an aura of mysticism for many
centuries, at its heart lies this extremely practical and unmystic al process of
quieting the mind. It is the surest way to open a channel of healing. THE MIND HEALS ITSELF
Matt’ s life changed profoundly in his last year of high school, when his
parents began to go through an acrimonious divorce. All through school he
had been a high achiever , capab le of getting A’s with minimal effort; on the
strength of his academic record, he had won a full scholarship to MIT. His
parents had always doted on Matt. Their decision to divorce was difficult for
everyone in the family; Matt remembers lying in bed hearing his parents’
violent ar guments through the wall.As these arguments continued, he began to develop headaches. Instead of
feeling bright and focused all the time, Matt noticed that he fell into stretches
of depre ssion. He left for college, but separation from home made his
symptoms worse. His headaches became blindingly severe, causing acute
pain, dizziness, and vomiting. His depression deepened, and before the first
semester was over, he had to drop out. He could hardly conc entrate well
enough to read a newspaper or listen to music. Matt moved in with his father , a prominent lawyer who was bitterly
disappointed over what had happened to his son. He hired Matt to work as a
clerk in his firm and sent him to psychiatrists, who tried couc h therapy as
well as antidepressants. Nothing worked very well or for very long. Medical
treatment for the headaches was also unsuccessful. By the time he was 21
Matt was still so depressed that he had to struggle against thoughts of
suicide. At this point he heard about meditation through a friend; his doctor agreed
that it might be helpful and advised him to try it. Matt learned that
meditation is a purely mechani cal technique employed for twenty minutes
morning and evening. He was given a mantra , selected not for its meaning
but strictly for its sound. That sound alone attracts the mind and leads it,
effortlessly and naturally , to ever more subtle levels of the thinking process. As the mantra comes and goes in one’s awareness, it begins to seek still
subtler levels of thought until eventually all thought is left behind. At this
point we say that the mind has transcended. Because it is no longer caught
up in thoughts of any kind, the mind is exposed to its own deep est nature, to
pure awareness. The silence of pure awareness is extremely refreshing to the
mind, which finds it increasingly easy not to cling to old thought patterns;
rigid habits of thinking and feeling begin to fall away of their own accord. When this happens, the mind is actually learning to heal itself. The first few times Matt medit ated, he in fact began to notice a distinct
change in his mental state. Smal l islands of clarity began to appear , in which
he felt complete ly alert, free of dullness or depression, and infused with
happiness. Over time the islands grew bigger and bigger; Matt lived for the
moments when he found them. However , the islands of clarity wererestricted to his meditations. When he was active, his depression returned at
full force. After a few months he consulted me. “What you are experiencing,” I said, “are different levels of awareness. Your depression is on one level , your headaches on another , your islands of
clarity on another still. Meditation is taking you deeper and deeper inside
yourself, until you reach the area untouched by illness. This is a very real
part of yourself. “As you keep meditating, these moments of clarity will expand and
become the norm. Right now, you are fixated on certain patterns in your
awareness, and your body knows it. Your depression has captured your
attention, which  is why you find it difficult if not impossible to focus on
other things. “But as you have seen, you can let go. Meditation is a kind of letting go,
allowing yourse lf simply to be. And when you permit that to happen, your
attention will always fly back to the silent, peaceful, unchang ing level we
simply call the self. The self is home base for the mind, and by returning to
it, you infuse your mind with the same peace and silence.”
I drew a simple diagram. “Using the technique of meditation, one takes the mind out of activity into
silence. After a few seconds or minutes, the mind will naturally come back
up, like a diver bobbing back up to the surface of the water . What brings it
back? The same impulses that guide us every day—our desires. A faint
desire causes a ripple of activity inside the silence, this ripple expands, and
eventually you have a full-blown thought. “However , this thought is not the same as before. It will have an aura of
happiness and freshness, just because you have fetched it from a deeper level
of yourself.”
Matt mentioned that recently a new phenomenon had begun. When he felt
a mome nt of clarity , he would suddenly envision lines of verse. These
formed a complete poem, whic h was not coming to him word by word or
even by the ordinary process of thinking. It simply appeared. “That’ s a good sign,” I said. “As you get closer to your own creative
center , your whole style of thinking is changing. In place of bits and pieces,
things appear as a whole. In place of troubling conflicts, there is no conflict. The self is a different landscape, new scenery for the mind to absorb. As
long as you are in that landscape, you will experience yourself as completely
different.”
In a gentle tone I added, “The intense suffering you experience in your
mind is a distraction from reality. The reality is that you can go to these
peaceful islands anytime you want. They are permanent parts of yourself; if
you lived on them permanently , there would be no way for depression to
touch you. Wha t meditation is teaching you is that reality , in the sense of
wholeness, has a powerful pull. It is trying to call you home. You are already
beginning to trust this process, aren’ t you?”
Matt admitted that he was, adding that his headaches had decreased
considerably , and that he had begun to see the possibility of actually turning
his attention to his lifelong dream of becoming a writer . “That trust is another good sign,” I said. “You are remembering yourself. Finding your true self is a very profound process, which has no end. Your
body is listening  to healthier signals now, and as long as you continue to take
your mind back to its source,  over and over, the signals will get even
healthier . You’ve made a breakthrough; getting well is just a matter of time.”
MEDIT ATION AS MEDICINEThis is an enco uraging story from one patient, but the application of
meditation to large-scale disorde rs is also highly promising. One of the best
examples is high blood pressu re, or hypertension, the infamous “silent
killer” that has almost no symptoms and yet is implicated in the vast
majority of heart attacks and strokes. As many as a third of American adults fall into the borderline
hypertensive range; an estimate d 30 million have already been warned by
their doctors and yet take no treatment. Borderline hypertension often
responds extrem ely well to meditation. This was first established by a 1974
study conducted at Harvard Medical School. Twenty-two hypertensive
patients were measured twelve  hundred times, both before and after they
learned to meditate. Over a period ranging from one month to five years,
their average readings dropped from 150/94 to 141/88. This was enough to
bring the lower number (diast olic pressure) back from borderline to an
acceptable readi ng; it did not lower the upper number (systo lic pressure)
quite enough—120 or 130 is considered normal here—but at least there was
significant improvement. These results, subsequently repeated in many other
studies, were independent of whether the subjects took blood-pressure
medication. You may think that reducing mild hypertension is not a great achievement,
yet even a small  rise in blood pressure is considered extremely dangerous in
the long run. Half of all death s associated with hypertension fall into the
borderline range. Insurance companies use blood pressure as the most
significant indic ator of life expectancy . A middle-aged man with normal
blood pressure (120/80) is expected to live sixteen years longer than
someone with moderate hypertension (150/100). Just by practicing
meditation, most people under the age of 40 could expect to fall below the
limit set for borderline hypertension, which is 130/90. Meditating can also lower abnormally high cholesterol levels. Cholesterol
is a primary risk factor for heart attacks, because excess cholesterol in the
blood is directly  linked to the fatty plaque deposits that clog the arteries
leading to the heart. On the surface, it seems amazing that the mind could
control serum cholesterol. Your serum cholesterol is determined by acomplex interplay of diverse factors, all of them physical: diet, age, heredity ,
digestive efficiency , and liver function all play an important part. Several
years ago two researchers in Israel, M. J. Cooper and M. M. Aygen, selected
twenty-three patients with elevated cholesterol levels; twelve were taught
meditation and practiced it for eleven months, while the remaining eleven
did not. At the end of that time, the meditating group showed a marked drop in
their cholesterol levels, from an average of 255 to 225 (a readi ng of 200 is
considered ideal for adults in the United States). The nonmeditators did not
show a significa nt decrease. The subjects were screened so that age, diet,
weight, and exercise were not factors. Similar reductions were obtained in a
separate study by the same team, this time showing that cholesterol could be
lowered in people who had more normal cholesterol readings. These findings suggest that the entire mind body system can be influenced
by a single mental technique, and indeed the encouraging results with
hypertension and cholesterol were recently expanded to cover many other
diseases. Dr. David Orme-Johnson, a research psychologist, examined the
health of two thousand meditators. All the subjects Orme-Johnson selected
belonged to a group health insurance policy for meditators. To qualify , each
person signed a piece of paper stating that he practiced meditation regularly;
they also agreed to be check ed periodically to ensure that they were
meditating correctly . A major national carrier who covered hundreds of other
groups underwrote this policy . There were no prerequisites about diet or
lifestyle. Orme-Johnson wanted to see how often a typical meditator went to the
doctor compared to the average person. The difference turned out to be quite
startling. Meditators went for outpatient treatment:
46.8 per cent less often if they wer e childr en (0–19 years)
54.7 per cent less often if they wer e young adults (19–39 years)
73.7 per cent less often if they wer e older adults (40 and over)This represents a striking improvement in health. A middle-aged
meditator , for example, would visit his doctor once for every four times an
average person went. The fact that older people benefited most is also highly
significant. Turning to specific illnesses, the study found that heart attacks
and cancer, the two leading causes of death in America, were reduced far
below the norm. Meditators had:
87.3 per cent fewer admissions to the hospital for heart disease
55.4 per cent fewer admissions for benign and malignant tumors of all types
No one has seen reductions like this with the use of conventional
prevention techniques. If a cholesterol-reducing drug could decrease heart
attacks by 50 percent it would make worldwide headlines (obviously , this
has not happened). This is doubly true for the cancer figures. Any reduction
in this field would be a major breakthrough. After fifty years of massively
funded research, the average cancer rates in the United States remain
essentially unchanged, and the length of time that patients survive their
diagnoses of cancer has barely budged for most types of malignancies. (This
speaks for all patients as a whole; individuals of course may do better than
indicated by the statistics and with certain types of cance rs, such as
childhood leuke mia and localized breast cancer , medicine has made great
progress.) To get a fair comparison, Orme-Johnson used 600,000 memb ers of the
same health insurance carrier . He examined all the claims filed over a five-
year period to ensure that he was not seeing a short-term deviation from
normal. In all, the average meditator , whether child, young adult, or elderly ,
saw a doctor half as often as the average American. HOW  TO LEARN TO MEDIT ATE
Because it is a subtle and specialized technique, meditation is best learned
from a qualified instructor; it is not as easy to learn it properly from a book. Through the Chopra Center , we have certified over five hundred teachers of
Primordial Soun d Meditation. The cost of instruction is $225 for adults, inline with other self-development programs. Qualified instruction ensures that
the technique is taught correct ly in every detail and is tailored to your
individual needs. I recommend that you start with the simple breathing awareness
meditation techn ique described on page 158. Once you taste the benefits of
quieting the mind, seek out a qualified meditation teacher so you are certain
you are practicing meditation correctly . Information on how to locate a
certified Primordial Sound Meditation teacher is provided in Appendix A.
HEALING SOUNDS—NA TURE’S FINEST  VIBRA TIONS
Nature provides a wide variety of vibrations to remind us of our essential
nature. Any sound that helps to quiet and expand the mind can be considered
a healing sound. According to Ayurveda, these subtle sounds are not
incidental: all of nature is made  up of them. In the complete stillness of the
quantum mechanical universe, primordial sounds are born, form patterns,
and in time blossom into matter , energy, and all the infinite variety of things
made of matter and energy— stars, trees, rocks, and human beings. The calls
of wild birds, the buzzing of bees, the crash of waves against the shore, the
rustling of leaves in a summer breeze—all of these sounds can be healing. Make it a point to spend time in nature and listen to the healing  sounds that
surround you. If you live in a dense urban environment where  you cannot
regularly access natural sounds,  bring nature to you with recordings of rain
forests, ocean waves, or waterfalls. The theory behind healing sound
treatment is that the mind can return to the quantum level, intro duce certain
sounds that may have become distorted somewhere along the line, and thus
have a profound healing influence in the body . Connecting to these healing
sounds on a regular basis is good medicine. QUANTUM REALITY
Since this is such a foreign concept to people rooted in material  reality , as
all of us are, let’s take a moment to put primordial sound into perspective.Western physici sts already acknowledge that at the deepest level of the
natural world we find the quantum field. A quantum is defined as the
smallest unit of light, electricity , or other energy that can possibly exist. (The
word quantum comes from the Latin for “how  much?”) Quantum reality
defies our comm onsense notion s. There is no solid matter in it, for example. An atom  used to be considered the smallest particle of matter in creation. The word atom in fact comes from the Greek for “not able to be divided.”
Yet, up close an atom is composed of tinier bits of matter whirling at
lightning speed around a huge empty space—so empty that it rivals the void
of intergalactic space; the interval between two electrons is proportionately
wider than the one separating the earth and the sun. If you zero in on these bits of subatomic matter , they are not material at all
but rather mere vibrations of energy that have taken on the appearance of
solidity . This discovery , that matter is a fluctuation of energy dressed up in a
different guise, fueled the quantum revolution led by Einstein and his
colleagues at the beginning of the last century . Instead of relying on solid
particles that move around like billiard balls on a table, physicists were
confronted with ghostly vibrati ons that looked substantial one minute and
abstract the next. The quantum revolution made it inevitable that our world-view would
change. Quantum  physics proved that the infinite variety of objects we see
around us—star s, galaxies, mountains, trees, butterflies, and amoebas—is
connected by infinite, eternal, unbounded quantum fields, a kind of invisible
quilt that has all of creation stitched into it. Objects that look separate and
distinct to us are in fact all sewn into the design of this vast quilt. The hard
edges of any object, such as a chair or table, are an illusion forced upon us
by the limits of our sight. If we had eyes tuned to the quantum world, we
would see these edges blur and finally melt, giving way to unlimited
quantum fields. Finding this quantum level of nature has had practical
applications; it gave us X rays, transistors, superconductors , and lasers,
things that were inconceivable until science delved deeper into the fabric of
creation.It is now believe d that a single superfield, called the unified field, exists; it
is the ultimate reality that underlies all of nature. Like a tree whose twigs
lead to stems, stems to branches, and branches to one main trunk, the whole
multiplicity of nature comes together in this one all-embracing field. Since
we too are part of nature, we must be part of the unified field. It is in and
around us all the time. It is possible to experience this all-encompassing field in your own mind,
via meditation. A meditator describes the experience:
I feel the bounda ries of the mind  being pushed out, like the ever-widening
circumfer ence of a circle, until the circle disappears and only infinity
remains. It is a feeling of great freedom, but also one of naturalness, far
more real and natural than being confined to a small space. This is surely a dramatic shift of awareness, which causes the mind to
grasp a new, profound truth—th at a human being is more than a package of
flesh and blood localized in time and space. In fact we have two homes, one
local, the other infinite. If you turn to physics, you find that in the world of
our senses, electrons, quarks, and other elementary particles also appear to
be localized in time and space. But once you venture over the quantum
threshold, each particle is the tip of a wave that extends infinitely in all
directions throu gh space-time. This means that you cannot see yourself
accurately until you become aware of both your identities. The same meditator continues:
Sometimes the sense of infinity  is so strong that I lose the sensation of
body or matter in an infinite,  unbounded awar eness, an eternal, never -
changing continuum of consciousness. It is highly unlikely that this description is just a subjectiv e illusion. Countless other s like it have been recorded in every spiritual  tradition of
man, both Eastern and Western. SOUND AS MEDICINEThe obvious question arises: How are we connected to the unified field? By invisible “threads” compos ed of faint vibrations, what Ayurveda calls
primordial sound. This again is plausible from the viewpoint of a modern
physicist. It is obvious that when two electrons are held together in a helium
atom despite the immense void that separates them, an invisible but
extremely strong  bond is presen t. This bond must also have an element of
design in it, since every atom in the universe is perfect and remains perfect
forever . The sages of Ayurveda claimed to have detected these bonds, which act as
the glue of the universe, through sounds that came into their own awareness. Having heard them, the sages could also reproduce these sounds and pass
them on to others. A primordial sound can be spoken or chanted aloud; it is
more powerful still if used internally , as a mental sound. The proof that
primordial soun d is real lies in its application. If the body is basically glued
together by sounds, as the sages contend, then the presence of a disease
means that some sounds must have gone out of tune. Not until she turned 75 did Molly Sanders have any trouble with her heart. She began to suffer from recurrent bouts of dull chest pain that were
diagnosed as angina pectoris. Molly did not have to exert herself to bring on
an attack—one might come when she was sitting still, or it might wake her
up in the middle of the night. Her diary records fifteen episodes between January and May when the
angina began, or about three attacks per month. Some were mild and passed
after one or two minutes, others were more severe, emanating pain from the
center of her chest for up to ten minutes, leaving her panting  and feeling
faint. “I didn’ t live this long by worrying about my problems,” she told her
friends. Nonetheless, the experience frightened her . When she went to her cardiol ogist, Molly’ s tests disclosed no serious
blockage in her coronary arteries. Like most elderly people, her arteries had
hardened somewhat, but there were no large fatty plaque deposits starving
the heart muscle of oxygen. However , there is a second kind of angina that
results from spasms of the coronary vessels, and Molly had that. Her arterieswere just narrow enough that mild, even unnoticeable stress tightened them
sufficiently to bring on an angina attack. “We don’t know everything about this condition,” her doctor said. “Just
take it easy from now on.”
“When you’re seventy-five years old,” Molly snapped, “all you do is take
it easy .”
Although she began taking a standard medication to stabilize her blood
vessels, she wanted to do everything possible to avoid taking medicines on a
long-term basis. Early in June, on the advice of her son, Molly became our
patient. After taking a compl ete medical history , we instructed her in
meditation and encouraged her to begin listening to the sounds of nature on a
daily basis. We then taught her to chant aloud the sound associated with the heart
center . According to Tantra, a spiritual tradition that is close ly related to
Ayurveda, we each possess seven energy centers known as chakras . These
chakras can be thought of as junction points between mind and matter . The first center at the base of the spine is associated with basic survival
issues. The second center in the reproductive area governs creativity . The
third located in the solar plexus is concerned with personal power . The
fourth center in the heart is important in relationships. The fifth chakra,
located in the throat, is responsible for expressing ourselves. The sixth
chakra is located between the eyes (usually known as the “third  eye”) and is
the cente r for insight and intuitio n. Finally , the seventh center is at the crown
of the head and is said to open when we experience higher states of
consciousness. Each chakra has a mantra associated with it.
Perfect_Health_-_The_Complete_Mind_Body_Guide_by_Deepak_Chopra.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        (Man is the only
creature, it is said, who will cross an ocean just to see what other men
there look like. ) With a little exposure to meditation, Kaphas who were
content to watch the parade go by decide that what they really want is
to join it. Kaphas are tempted to be possessive about life, to store and
save everything that comes their way, whether it is money, ener gy,
status, or love. When they discover that they can let go and use their
solid strength as the fuel for change, they take a huge step forward intheir personal evolution. A Kapha’ s considerable capacity for loving
and being loved then becomes twice as strong. Eat a Kapha-pacifying diet—it is important not to overeat if you are a
Kapha type, because the tendency to become overweight is definitely
present. Hot ginger tea taken at meals helps sharpen dulled taste buds;
it also makes slow digestion more ef ficient, as does a teaspoon of
whole fennel seeds chewed after the meal. If there is a lot of
congestion, Ayurveda recommends favoring dry foods and astringent
(puckering) tastes. Dry toast, apples, crackers, turmeric, and many raw
vegetables are good for avoiding excess Kapha buildup and toning the
digestive tract. Reduce sweetness. Kapha is the only dosha strongly identified with a
taste—sweetness. Irrespective of calories, Kaphas will gain weight and
go out of balance if there is too much sweet food in the diet. Avoiding
ice cream, milk, sugary desserts, wheat bread, and butter (all
considered sweet in Ayurveda) will often make a dramatic dif ference
with the runny nose, blocked sinuses, aller gies, and lethar gy that
Kaphas suf fer from when out of balance. Over the long term, too much
sweetness may help promote diabetes, a serious Kapha disease. Fortunately, there is one natural sweetener—raw honey—that is
actually good for Kapha. Taking a tablespoon or two (but no more)
every day helps release excess Kapha from the system. Stay warm. Being a cold dosha, Kapha benefits from heat. Dry heat is
best if you are congested, a frequent Kapha complaint. Directing a
sunlamp at your chest or using a heating pad under your back often
helps with excess Kapha. Avoid dampness. Kapha is particularly sensitive to cold, damp
conditions. Be careful not to expose your nose, throat, and lungs to
cold winter air if you are feeling sick. Perform a dry massage on your body to stimulate circulation. This
procedure is called garshana (page 133) and is done with special raw-silk gloves (available by mail order). You do not want to use oil when
there is aggravated Kapha, since Kapha is an oily dosha. A brisk full-
body rubdown, taking five to ten minutes, is good enough; do not work
so hard that you tire yourself out. If you do not have gloves, a dry
loofah sponge can substitute. Drink warm fluids during the day, but take them in moderation, since
Kapha is already moist. To loosen congestion and ease sore throat, a
tea made by boiling one-quarter teaspoon of dry ginger and turmeric in
one cup of water is ef fective. A special Kapha-pacifying tea can also
be mail-ordered. You can drink up to four cups a day. Exercise regularly, preferably every day. This is one of the best ways
to avoid stagnation and the buildup of toxins in the body. Because they
are generally strong and well muscled, Kaphas tend to be natural
athletes when they are young; the arrival of adult responsibilities
makes most Kaphas sedentary. That is a pity, for Kaphas benefit from
exercise more than anyone else and should keep active at all ages. Be honest with yourself when you are sick and you need to recuperate. Kaphas have excellent stamina and enjoy physical activity; they also
have a high threshold for pain and do not take to their beds unless they
are very sick. If you are such a person, remember to take it easy when
you feel sick enough to be in bed. You are probably twice as ill as most
people. Kaphas can get quite gloomy unless they feel well cared for, so
let your friends and family pay extra attention to you when you are
low. Head congestion is a common Kapha problem, which can be
forestalled by using a simple technique: Dissolve one-quarter teaspoon
of salt in one-half cup of warm water. Standing over a sink, cup one
hand with a little salt water in it. Close your left nostril, lean over, and
inhale the water a few times through your right nostril so that it enters
the sinuses. Close your right nostril and repeat on the other side. Do
not inhale deeply (which will draw water into the lungs), or force your
breath if your sinuses are clogged. You may sneeze or start to drain,which is good. Repeat two or three times as needed. This treatment is
more ef fective after a warm shower has softened the sinus lining. If
you feel any pain or have been diagnosed with a sinus infection,
discontinue the treatment immediately. It is meant for keeping the
nasal passages toned, not for curing a condition once it has developed. HOW  TO PERFORM GARSHANA
This dry massage should be done in the morning for 3 to 4 minutes
before you take a bath and dress. Wearing the special silk glove s and using
both hands, rub your skin quickly and fairly vigorously. Over the long
bones of the arms and legs, use sweeping, back-and-forth strok es. Change
to small, circular movements when you reach the joints—shoulders,
elbows, wrists, etc. To begin with, 10 to 20 long strokes at a time are
enough; this can be increased over time to as many as 40 strokes. Start by massaging the head, using brisk circular motions, proceeding
to long strokes as you reach the neck and shoulders. Now alternate
these two movements as you continue down the arms: circular strokes
at the shoulder joint, long strokes down the upper arm, circular again
at the elbows, long down the forearm, circular at the wrist, long down
the hand, and finally circular strokes over the finger joints. Moving to the chest, massage horizontally with long strokes, but avoid
massaging directly over the heart and breasts. Massage horizontally on the stomach for two strokes, then give two
diagonal strokes. Using this alternating rhythm, proceed to the lower
abdomen, lower back, buttocks, and thighs, giving added attention to
any areas where there is extra fat. (This is to promote circulation in
these areas and to loosen toxins associated with excess Kapha and fat. ) Stand up and massage the hip joints with circular motions. Now go
down the legs as you did the arms: long strokes on the long leg bones,
circular at the knees and ankles, ending with long strokes over the foot. Garshana in combination with yoga exercises is particularly useful for
getting rid of cellulite. OceanofPDF. comPART II
THE QUANTUM MECHANICAL HUMAN
BODY
OceanofPDF. comCHAPTER 6
QUANTUM MEDICINE FOR A QUANTUM BODY
On the never -ending journey of self-knowledge, the three doshas are an
important landm ark. They take us into the inner world, the only place where
intelligence in all its forms— thoughts, emotions, drives, instincts, wishes,
and beliefs—ca n be changed. But the doshas are only a halfway house. Beyond them lie even more profound revelations. In part II, I want to get to
these greater depths by exploring the quantum mechanical human body—
Ayurveda’ s term for the invisible software that shapes, controls, and creates
the physical self. In chapter 1 I stated some of the basic principles underlying the quantum
mechanical body: it is a netwo rk of intelligence, the collected know-how
not just of the brain but of the body’ s other 50 trillion cells;  it responds
immediately to our slightest thought and emotion, giving rise to the
constant flow and change that is basic to our nature; it is not localized in
space-time but is far more general, extending in all directions like a field. You cannot see your own quantum body, because it is made entirely of faint
vibrations, fluctuations in the field, but you can be aware of it—indeed,
your senses are keenly attuned to the quantum field, whose activity is more
basic than either matter or energy. The fact that you can be aware of a level
in natur e 10 to 100 million times more subtle than the atom seems so
surprising that I would like to expand on the notion. EXPLORING THE INNER WORLD
You already know that the doshas are like a switching station where
thoughts turn into matter. At first this seems impossible. Matter  is solid and
stable; it can be seen and touched, measured and weighed. Thoughts, on the
other hand, are fleeting and invisible; they cannot be seen or touched, andmeasuring them (as with an electroencephalogram, or EEG), is an
extremely crude  affair. As one witty physiologist put it, unders tanding the
brain with an EEG is like trying to understand the rules of football by
sticking electrodes to the outside of the Astrodome and listening to the roar
of the crowd. Readings taken by looking into the skull are also distinctly limited. Thanks to the ultra-modern technology called PET (positron-emission
tomography), it is now possible to image a single strong emotion or
perception while a person is experiencing it. (This involves tracing patterns
made by radiois otopes as the brain goes through the process of having a
thought. ) But these patterns, revealing as they are, do not tell us what kind
of thoug ht is being processed. You cannot tell love from hate; you cannot
image the difference between a sane mind and an insane one, much less
decode the incredible subtlety and miraculous variety of the mind body
connection. The only way truly to penetrate this realm is subjectively, from inside the
quantum mechanical body. Here is where the trick of turning  mind into
matter is actually being managed. If meeting a snake in the woods frightens
you, your heart starts to pound, your throat becomes dry, and your knees
turn to rubber. By the time you jump back in fear, a split-second
transformation has taken place inside you. Your mental impul se— totally
abstract and nonmaterial—has manifested itself physically as molecules of
adrenaline, which are concrete and totally material. The decision that makes
this possible occurs subjectivel y; you choose to send a faint intention to
your quantum mechanical body, and without hesitation it carries out its
orders. Jumping back in fear is not your only option. If you were not afraid
of snake s, there would be no adrenaline; instead, you might generate the
chemicals that cause happiness and excitement, the thrill of discovery, or
you might have a much more casual reaction altogether. This opens the way for Ayurveda, which says that your mind gives you
control, the ability to have any reaction you want. The great misfortune is
that all of us are preprogramme d along extremely rigid lines; we have only
a few reactions instead of infinit e ones. Because of that, we pay a price. Themind body connection ceases to be effortless and natural; stress starts to
accumulate, and negative signal s from the mind begin to damage the cells. An old Indian saying goes, “If you want to see what your thoughts were like
yesterday, look at your body today. If you want to see what your body will
be like tomorrow, look at your thoughts today. ” Most of us would be pretty
upset to apply this test to ourselves. The real medicine our bodies need is
medicine for our awareness. QUANTUM MEDICINE
Once you know that there is a quantum body paralleling your physical
one, many things make sense that were mysteries before. Here are two
tantalizing facts about heart attac ks. Fact 1: More heart attacks occur at nine
o’clock on Monday morning than at any other time of the week. Fact 2: The
people who are least likely to suffer a fatal heart attack are those who report
a high degree of job satisfaction. Putting these two facts together, you begin to suspect that an element of
choice is at work here. Although heart attacks are supposed to strike at
random, it looks as if at least some heart attacks are controlled by the
people having them. Certain people who hate their jobs get out of them on
Monday morning by giving themselves a heart attack, while those who love
their jobs do not. (Let’ s leave aside the question of why the job haters don’t
choose a less drastic outlet for their frustrations. ) In conventional medicine,
there is no known mechanism for giving yourself a heart attack using your
mind. In Ayurveda’ s perspective, however, the heart is a printout of the
same impulses that fill the mind, including the mind’ s disappointments,
fears, and frustrations. At the quantum mechanical level, mind and body are
united; therefore, it comes as no surprise that a deep, smoldering
dissatisfaction lodged in the mind should express itself in a physical
equivalent—a heart attack. Indeed, any dissatisfaction must express itself physically, becaus e all our
thoughts turn into chemicals. When you are happy, chemicals in your brain
travel throughout your body, telling every cell of your happiness. Whenthey hear the message, the cells “get happy,” too; that is, they begin to
function more effectively by altering their own chemical processes. If you
are depressed, on the other hand, the opposite happens. Your sadness is
relayed chemica lly to each cell, causing a feeling of heartache, for example,
and your immune system to grow weaker. Everything we think and do
originates inside the quantum mechanical body and then bubbles up to the
surface of life. You have probably heard of experiments in which hypnotized subjects
make their hands warmer, cause red patches to appear on their skin, or even
raise blisters, just by the power of suggestion. This mechanism is not unique
to hypnosis. We do the same thing all the time, only we do not usually have
voluntary control over it. A typical heart-attack victim would be shocked to
discover that he gave himself his attack. Yet, if you look beyond the grim
implications, the really exciting  news is that we have enormous, untapped
powers. Instead of unconsciousl y creating disease, we could be consciously
creating health. Because he is a doctor himself,  Gerald Rice knows just how sick he is. After practicing internal medicine in Boston for twenty-five years, he was
diagnosed at age 50 with chronic leukemia, or cancer of the blood’s white
cells. Gerald has been living in a mounting sense of panic for several
months since he was diagnosed. Obsessed by his condition, he sits up at
night poring over medical journals. What he reads is very discouraging. Patients with his form of leukemia usually live only a few years after the
initial diagnosis. It is still early. Gerald has noticed almost no symptoms other than feeling
unusually tired during the day, but his white count is soaring above 40,000,
more than four times the normal level, which is between 4,000 and 11,000. A leading cancer institute in New York City has urged him to try some new
forms of chemotherapy, but he is apprehensive about exposing  himself to
the side effects of the medication when he currently has no symptoms. He
has decided to wait despite the fact that going without treatment frightens
him very much. A number of oncologists tell him the same thing: once hiswhite counts get above 50,000, he must do something. Gerald lies awake at
night fixated on this number; it is a frontier he dreads crossing. Recently, having read of cancer cases that had progressed well under
Ayurvedic treatm ent, he turned to us. Gerald’ s stance was very guarded, and
his initial questions betrayed considerable anxiety about what he was
getting himself into. “What’ s your protocol for treating chronic leukemia. ” he demanded
immediately. “This isn’t a cancer clinic,’ ’ he was told. “All our seriously ill patients
begin with basically the same treatment. ”
This shocked him, since by his standards of practice, every specific
variety of cancer merits its own intensive, narrowly focused approach. In
Ayurveda we follow a different logic. Our goal is to reach the level of
perfect balance  that lies within every patient, no matter how sick. Experiencing this level brings healing, in and of itself, using the body’ s own
methods. “Right now your condition is dominated by feelings of dread and panic,’ ’
he was told. “You are sending overwhelming signals of distress to your
immune system,  and you know as a physician that the immune response is
extremely sensitive to such messages. ” He had to admit that this was true. “What we want is to pull your awareness back to a healthier level, to a
place where this disease is not so threatening. Ultimately, we would like
you to find the place where it does not even exist. ”
Here he balked. “But it does exist; it is real. Are you asking me to be
blind to that fact. If I am panicked, it’s the leukemia that makes me feel that
way,” he protested. He began to become agitated. He had struggled to
remain comple tely in control of himself ever since his devastating
diagnosis. The prospect of changing his rigid, fearful stance was almost
more frightening to him than his illness. We moved quickly to reassure him. Other kinds of medical treatments, either Ayurvedic or Western, wouldalways be at his disposal. We would stay in consultation with his own
physician and with top specialists in the Boston area. Without any treatment
for his inner self, however, we did not consider that any outside medical
treatment based on drugs or radiation went far enough. In a serious or life-threatening illness, there can be many layers of
imbalance concealing the depths where healing exists. Each layer is like a
mask hiding the self from itself—one could spend a lifetime never
suspecting that the quantum mechanical body exists. Perfect health is a
reality at this deepest level, and it waits to be brought to the surface of life. The beginning of perfection, we tell our patients, is to let go of
imperfection. For that, the Ayurvedic tradition has handed down many
techniques, both physical and mental, for the physician to use. “If you can pierce the mask of disease and contact your inner self, even
for a few minutes a day, you will make tremendous strides toward healing,’ ’
Gerald was told. “No one can guarantee your recovery, but this view of
medicine is valid, and it works. ”
Gerald greeted these statemen ts with a mixture of hopeful-ness and
skepticism. I am keenly aware of the vulnerability that patients  feel in this
situation. They are prone to severe attacks of anxiety and guilt. They
secretly wonder if they deserve their disease and therefore have unwittingly
caused it; they blame themselv es for not eating better, not visiting their
doctor often enough, or not living more healthfully in general; they curse
fate and yet beg it to reprieve them. All of this anguish is unnecessary, and therefore, it does not have to be
attacked head-on. The simple truth is that when a disease occurs, it brings a
diseased reality with it, and the more serious the disease, the more distorted
our view of reality is likely to become. For anyone in the grip of a truly
debilitating illness, fear becomes dominant. That does not make it
inevitable, however. Fear is the scenery you see when you are in a sick
reality. If you change that reality, which is born inside yourself, the scenery
will change, too. “Tomorrow you can start the treatments,’ ’ Gerald was told after his
interview and initial physical. “You don’t have to believe in them—all you
have to do is experience them. ”
He sat quietly. “I’ll try anythin g,” he finally said in a low voice. He
immediately checked into our Center. Considering all that he had been
through, it was no surprise that Gerald’ s initial blood test, taken that
afternoon, was dismal. His white count had soared to 52,000, well beyond
what he had been led to think of as the point of no return. Several things happened next. As soon as he arrived at the Center, Gerald
was immersed in the routines for balancing the doshas that we covered in
chapter 5. He was diagnosed as a Pitta type and placed on a Pitta-pacifying
diet. Gerald’s diet was strong on salads, fruits, rice, bread, and cold dishes,
low on fats and salt, with an emphasis on sweet taste, all of which help
relieve Pitta. He learned meditation the first morning at the Center and began to
meditate twice a day, just before breakfast and dinner. As a physician,
Gerald was surprised by his surroundings. The Center is set in a very
nourishing and life-supporting atmosphere. There is nothing conventionally
medical about it. There is no somberness in the air, no antiseptic smells, no
stark critical-care units with constantly beeping monitors. Ayurveda encourages a natural  setting, preferably a beautiful one, for
recuperation. The five senses are constantly feeding signals to your
quantum mechanical body, and each signal gets metaboliz ed by you,
entering your storehouse of sights, sounds, smells, and so on. If what the
senses see, hear, touch, and smell reminds you of sickness, then something
unhealthy is getting absorbed. How can you renew your realit y if you are
always subtly reminding yourself of the old one. Gerald loved his long morning walks to the shore, but he was puzzled,
too. “I don’t see anything medic al going on here,” he protested from time to
time. We asked him simply to continue his treatment. The most active therapy Gerald underwent is called panchakarma
(Sanskrit for “the five actions” or “the five treatments”), an extensive
routine to purify the body of toxins that disease and improper diet have
deposited. In Western medicine we know that waste products are
continually build ing up in every  cell of the body. These residues, resulting
from oxidation caused by free radical molecules, are thought to play an
active role in causing DNA  to make mistakes (the cause of most cancers);
almost certainly these wastes impair cell function, lead to more rapid aging,
and ultim ately kill our cells. What is not understood is exact ly how this
debris gets into the cells. Ayurveda says that it is the litter that imbalanced
doshas leave behind, visible proof that some invisible process has gone
wrong. The Ayurvedic sages lumped all such toxic residues under the term ama,
which they perceived as a foul-smelling, sticky, noxious substance that
needs to be evacuated from the body as thoroughly as possible. Some
purifying measures can be administered at home (as we will discuss later),
but full-scale panchakarma is a specialized treatment, involving medical
supervision as well as labor -intensive methods administered by Ayurvedic
technicians. Panchakarma doesn’t push physical debris out of the cells, but it is said to
push out the excess doshas, along with the ama that “sticks” to them, using
the body’s own channels of evacuation (sweat glands, urinary tract,
intestines, and so on). From the patient’ s point of view, the daily massages
and oil baths are extremely pleasant and very relaxing; from the quantum
perspective, the channels that bring healing signals into our cells are being
cleaned and restored. Panchakarma, I repeat, is not a cancer treatment. It is
given to all patients in order to restore balance. Within a day or two, Gerald felt the accumulated fatigue pouring out of
his syste m, as if years of exhau stion were being drained away. Usually a
driven and highly motivated person, he found he desperately needed long
hours of rest and sleep. When he mentioned this, we told him that letting go
of fatigu e was the same as letting go of stress. Fatigue is the shadow of old
stresses that build up in the nervous system. Being a doctor, Gerald was nostranger to stress, but his medical training denied that stress had anything to
do with his illness. I explained to him that his cells were imprinted with the memory  of stress
and over time lose their ability to function perfectly. Loops of intelligence
get broken open, like disrupting an electrical circuit. The cell’s overall
intelligence weakens, and the final result is disease. In his case, the disease
was leukemia; it could have been thousands of other disorders. The point is
that the same intention applies to them all— restoring the body’ s own
intelligence. A week after he arrived, Gerald was ready to return home, still convinced
that nothing medical had happened to him. In his final interview, he was
presented with the results of a blood test taken that morning. According to
the lab report, his white count had dropped by over 40 percent, from 52,000
to 28,00 0. He was astounded. This was a dramatic improvemen t. If Gerald
had been taking conventional chemotherapy, a reduction of 10,000 in his
counts over a few days would have been considered very encouraging. Without any side effects, he felt healthier than he had in years, not just
since he had been diagnosed with leukemia. Another serious symptom of
his disease had disappeared entirely, the abnormal abundance of immature
white cells produced by the bone marrow of leukemia patients. The blood
smear taken on his first day had showed numerous abnormal  cells; now
there were none. “This could be a fluke, couldn’ t it. ” he asked. “The blood test can be
wrong. ” But he knew that such routine tests are highly likely to be right—
he relies on them every day in his own practice. THE POWER OF  AWARENESS
I believe the secret to Gerald’ s recovery was a change in his awareness. He learned that there is more self-control in letting go than in trying to
control one’s body by force. The follow-up period proved this pointdramatically. After he left the Center, Gerald threw himself back into his
work, subjecting himself to the usual heavy stress, and on his next visit
three months later, his white-cell count had zoomed back up to over 45,000. He plunged into depression, but with the Ayurvedic treatments his counts
came back down again. Immensely relieved and grateful, he went home and
pitched himself into his old life even more furiously. Not surprisingly, the
counts rose a third time. When he returned for another week of treatment, I said something he
didn’ t expect: “There’ s a lot of pain whenever you go home, isn’ t there. ”
“What do you mean. ” he asked guardedly. “It’s true that I’m sick. ”
“I mean beyond your being sick. ”
He didn’t say anything. It seemed highly significant that his leukemia had
been diagnosed just four months after his wife had died of a heart attack in
her mid-fifties. Gerald missed his wife terribly. Moreover, when he came
home at night, there was friction with his divorced daughter, who had
moved in to take care of him. What he had to recognize was that his condition was related to his state
of awareness. His mind was deeply influencing his body. “Imagine that
your awareness is like a violin string. The string can play any kind of note,
high or low, depending on where you place your finger. Right now, you are
putting out all kinds of missed notes. Not just your runaway white counts,
but your mood swings, your nervous expectations, your pain and grief, are
all notes coming out of the same position. “In conventional medicine, only the notes count. A huge amount of
energy is spent killing the abnormal white cells. But it is equall y important
that you change  your position on the string. Then you would be creating a
new reality, complete with new notes. Isn’t that what we have been doing
all along. Think about it. ”
Gerald admitted that he felt better every day he spent at the Center and
worse every day he spent at home. “But you’re not saying that feeling goodmakes leukemia regress, are you. ’ ’ he demanded. “If feelin g good is part of healing, then yes, that is what I am saying. It’s
not really a matter of your moods. Naturally your moods swing during the
course of a serious illness—you can feel happy or despondent, hopeful or
hopeless without warning. “Underlying these unpredictable mood swings is your quantum  level of
awareness, which has become disturbed. Changes in this level of awareness
are what bring about changes in mood; if your deep awareness shifts, your
moods will follow like a weathe r vane. We should also expect to see similar
indications in your body, and your altered blood counts are a good example. Change in awareness is terribly  important. As a doctor, you can’t have it
only one way and say that negative emotions disturb the immune system. It
must also be true that positive  states of awareness will help you to get
well. ”
Gerald thought that this was reasonable. Weighed against his
conventional medical training, which led him to be skeptical about any sort
of “mind over matter” in the healing process, he had to set his own vivid,
undeniable expe rience. Our conversation took place several months ago. He
continues to benefit from the approach outlined here, but it is taking time
for Gerald to break out of his old patterns completely. We think he has
turned the corner, though. There is much less evidence of a struggle on his
part. One of his most cherished beliefs, that he must fight for life with every
atom of his being, is giving way. Now he is starting to accept the possibility
of a very profo und Ayurvedic truth: if you can let go of imperfection,
perfection will appear by itself.
Not specified in the text, but it is mentioned that it typically takes a week to complete.
What is the recommended duration of a panchakarma treatment?
Not specified in the text, but it is mentioned that it is recommended to take panchakarma three times a year.
What is the recommended frequency of panchakarma treatments?
The text describes the procedure as using both hands, rubbing the skin quickly and fairly vigorously, with a focus on the long bones of the arms and legs, and then changing to circular motions.
What is the recommended way to perform a dry massage, also known as garshana?
The text describes a technique where one should breathe lightly and easily, with a focus on the sensation of the breath moving in and out of the body.
What is the recommended way to perform meditation?
The text does not explicitly recommend a specific treatment for high cholesterol levels, but it suggests that meditation can help lower it.
What is the recommended way to treat high cholesterol levels?