, not fear. Pain in
relationships can be a perversely comfortable pain, in that it
is one we know. We’re used to it. I once hear d a tape by
Ram Dass, an American spiritual teacher, in which he told of
seeing a newspaper article about an abused baby being
taken away fr om his mother. As a police matr on tried to tak e
the baby, he k ept struggling to r emain in his mother’s ar ms. Although his mother was the one who beat him, she was the
one he knew. He was used to her. He wanted to r emain in
familiar ter ritory. This story illustrates our r elationship to our own egos. The ego is our pain, but it is what we know, and we r esist
moving out of it. The eﬀort it tak es to gr ow out of painful
patter ns of ten feels mor e uncomfortable than r emaining
within them. P ersonal gr owth can be painful, because it can
make us feel ashamed and humiliated to face our own
darkness. But the goal of personal gr owth is the jour ney out
of dark emotional patter ns that cause us pain, to those that
create peace. Psychotherapy : Purpose, P rocess and P racticesays that at their peak, r eligion and psychotherapy become
one. They both r epresent the r elationship between thought
and e xperience, and ar e used by the Holy Spirit to celebrate
one of the most glorious human potentials: our capacity to
change. There is a tendency these days to analyze our neur oses
ad inﬁnitum, yet use the analysis itself to justif y rather than
heal the wound. A fter a certain point, having seen why a
patter n developed (“My father was emotionally
unavailable,” or “My mother abused me”) and the eﬀect it
has had on our personalities (“I don’t know how to let a man
get close to me,” or “I now have a har d time trusting any
authority ﬁgur e”), actual change occurs because of a
decision on our part: the decision to heal, the decision to
change. It ultimately doesn’t matter so much why I become
angry or defensive. What matters is that I decide I want to
be healed, and I ask God to help me. Like an actor r eading lines fr om a script, I can choose a
new r esponse to life, a new r eading. Some people at this
point would yell, “ Denial!” But what we ar e denying is the
impostor within us. Just because we have an honest feeling,
that doesn’t mean it’s who we honestly ar e. My angry self is
not the r eal me. Does it have to be acknowledged? Y es, but
only in or der to go beyond it. Once I’ve seen my anger, I’m
ready, as they say in A A, to “act as if” I can do it diﬀer ently. Because I can. Our ego has made up a ﬁctional character
that we now think of as our personality. But we ar e
constantly cr eating that personality, and if we choose, we
are constantly r ecreating it. I was once talking to a friend and he made some
comment about how he was afraid that, if we got closely
involved, one of us might get hurt. “Which one of us ar e you
concer ned for?” I ask ed. He answer ed, “Y ou.”I felt an anticipatory r ejection. I was angry and I told him
so. “That’s what I mean,” he said. “Y ou obviously tak e things
so personally that I don’t think I could stand it for long.”
I knew that this was a moment I had r epeated in various
ways with various people, and I had ask ed for healing many
times. I was open. I ask ed him, “T ell me honestly : How could
I have done it diﬀer ently? What else could I have said?”
“You could have just smiled and said, ‘Don’t ﬂatter
yourself.’”
I was so e xcited. I was lik e an eager actr ess working with
a great dir ector. “Oh that’s so gr eat,” I said. “ Let’s go back
and do that scene one mor e time. Say what you said again.”
“You know, Marianne, I just have this awful feeling that if
we really got together, one of us would get hurt.”
“Which one of us ar e you afraid for?” I ask ed. “You.”
I look ed at him and smiled. “ Don’t ﬂatter yourself.”
He laughed and I howled with e xcitement. This had been
no small awak ening. It was a genuine empower ment, a
reprogramming of my emotional computer in an ar ea wher e
I had unconsciously gone for an unwork able r esponse
patter n every time. I now established a new gr oove, a new
set of possibilities. Initially I had chosen the way of anger. Now I chose the way of love. I did not have to be the
wounded animal. I could choose to identif y with my own
strength, which was in fact the mor e natural r ole for me to
play. I could choose to see others thr ough a gener ous,trusting natur e. My br other was not her e to attack me. He
was her e to love me. It was completely up to me whether to
trust that, and love him back. In accepting the A tonement, the cor rection of our
perceptions, we ar e returned to who we r eally ar e. Our true,
purely loving self can never be uncr eated. All illusions will
be undone. Although e xperiences such as childhood trauma
can lead us to deviate fr om our true natur e, the truth itself
is held in trust for us by the Holy Spirit until we choose to
return. 14. PRACTICING FORGIVENES S
“Forgiveness is the only sane r esponse.”
To the ego, love is a crime. It seeks to convince us that
forgiveness is a danger ous position that entails an unfair
sacriﬁce on our part. The ego claims that for giveness can
lead us into situations wher e we become someone’s
doormat. ‘T o the ego, love is weakness. T o the Holy Spirit,
love is str ength.’
I was dating someone several years ago when the
Olympic games wer e playing in L os Angeles. The opening
ceremonies wer e a marvelous theatrical pr esentation and it
was very diﬃcult to get tick ets. Because he was involved in
the media, Mik e was given, at the last minute, one pass that
would enable him to go. I was very e xcited for him. Everyone in town knew it was
going to be a wonderful event. W e decided that I would
watch the cer emonies on T.V. and we would meet
afterwar ds. A t the conclusion of the br oadcast, I started
getting dr essed and ﬁgur ed that it might be an hour or sobefor e I hear d from him, since the traﬃc ar ound the stadium
was bound to be hor rendous. An hour passed and then another. Well, he’s in T.V., I
thought, so maybe something came up. Another hour and
then another. Midnight came and went. I took oﬀ my clothes
and mak e-up. It was 2 A.M., then 3. A t times I fell asleep, at
times I lay in the dark and star ed at the ceiling, at times I
was livid, and at other times I was scar ed he was lying in a
ditch somewher e. I started calling his house. No answer. I’d
call again. No answer. Finally, har dly having slept at all, I
called at ar ound 6 A.M. and he answer ed the phone. “Hello,” he said. “Mike?” I said. “This is Marianne.”
“Oh, hi.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“We had a date yester day. Did you for get?”
“Oh, right,” he said. “I had a kind of late night.”
I don’t know what I said to get oﬀ the phone, but I know
how I felt and it wasn’t wonderful. I had been stood up and I
felt the kind of blow to my self -esteem that starts in your
gut and shoots emotional black ink thr ough all your veins. Dazed, I somehow fell asleep. When I wok e up, I had a
whole new tak e on the situation. I just knew that he was
going to wak e up feeling sor ry for how he had acted. He was
going to show up at my door any minute, car rying a dozen
roses and saying, “ Hi, babe, can I tak e you to brunch?” The
scenario in my head called for my being oh-so -gracious: “ Ofcourse you can, darling” would come out of my mouth in a
girlish melody


 “infinite, et ernally present, the
mother o f the universe.” Natural ly, women are closer to it than m en since
they virt ually “e mbody” the Unmanifested. What is more, all creatures
and all things must eventually return to the Source. “All things vanish
into the T ao. It alone endures.” Since the Source is seen as female, this is
represented as the light and dark sides of the archetypal fem inine in
psychology and mythology. The Goddess or Divine Mother has two
aspects: She gives life, and she takes life.When the mind took over and humans lost touch with the realit y of their
divine e ssence, they started to think of God as a male figure. Society
became male-dominated, and th e female was made subordinate to the
male. I am  not suggesting a return to earlier female representations of the
divine. Some people now use the term Goddess  i nst ead of God. They are
redressing a balance between m ale and female that was lost a l ong time
ago, and that is good. But it is still a representation and a concept,
perhaps tempora rily useful, just as a map or a signpost is temporarily
useful, b ut more a hindrance th an a help when you are ready t o realize
the reality beyond all concept s and images. What does rem ain true,
however, is that the ener gy frequency of the mind appears to be
essentially male. The mind resi sts, fights for control, uses, man ipulates,
attacks, tries to grasp and possess, and so on. This is why the traditional
God is a patria rchal, controllin g authority figure, an often angry man
who you  should  live in fear of, as the Old T estament suggests. This God
is a projection of the human mind. T o g o b eyond th e mind and rec onnect with the deeper reality o f Being,
very dif ferent qualities are needed: surrender, non-judgment, an openness
that allo ws life to be instead of r esisting it, the capacity to hold all things
in th e loving em brace of your knowing. All these qualities a re much
more closely related to the fem ale principle. Whereas mind-ener gy is
hard and rigid, Being-ener gy is soft and yielding and yet infinitely more
powerful than mind. The mind r uns our civilization, whereas Being is in
char ge of all life on our planet and beyond. Being is the very Intelli gence
whose visible manifestation is the physical universe. Although women
are potentially closer to it, men can also access it within themselves. At this time, the vast majority o f men as well as women are still in the
grip of the mind: identified with the thinker and the pain-body. This, of
course, is what prevents enlightenment and the flowering of love. As a
general rule, the major obstacle for men tends to be the thinking mind,
and the major obstacle for women the pain-body, although in certain
individual cases  the opposite m ay be true, and in others the tw o factors
may be equal. DISSOL VING THE COLLECTIVE FEMALE P AIN-BODYWhy is the pain-body mor e of an obstacle for women? The pain -body u sually has a col lective as well as a personal aspect. The
personal aspect is the accumula ted residue of emotional pain su f fered in
one’ s ow n past. The collective one is the pain accumulate d in the
collective human psyche over thousands of years through disease,
torture, war, murder, cruelty, m adness, and so on. Everyone’ s personal
pain-body also partakes of this collective pain-body. There are dif ferent
strands in the collective pain -body. For example, certain races or
countries in which extreme forms of strife and violence occu r have a
heavier collective pain-body than others. Anyone with a strong pain-
body and not enough consciousness to disidentify from it will not only
continuously or periodically be forced to relive their emotional  pain but
may also easily become either t he perpetrator or the victim of violence,
depending on whether their pain-body is predominantly active or
passive. On the other hand, they may also be potentially closer to
enlightenment. This potential is n’ t necessarily realized, of course, but if
you are trapped in a nightmare you will probably be more strongly
motivated to awaken than som eone who is just caught in the ups and
downs of an ordinary dream. Apart fr om her personal pain-bo dy, every woman has her share in what
could be described as the colle ctive female pain-body — unless she is
fully conscious. This consists of accumulated pain suf fered by women
partly through male subjugation of the female, through slavery,
exploitation, rape, childbirth, child loss, and so on, over thousands of
years. T he emotional or physical pain that for many women precedes and
coincides with the menstrual flow is the pain-body in its collective aspect
that awakens from its dormancy at that time, although it can be triggered
at other times t oo. It restricts the free flow of life ener gy thr ough the
body, of which menstruation is a  physical expression. Let’ s dwell on this
for a moment and see how  it can become an opportu nity for
enlightenment. Often a woman is “taken over”  by the pain-body at that time. It has an
extremely powerful ener getic char ge that can easily pull you into
unconscious identification with it. Y ou are then actively possess ed by anener gy field that occupies your inner space and pretends to be you —
but, of course, is  not you at all. It speaks through you, acts through you,
thinks th rough y ou. It will create negative situations in your life so that it
can feed on the  ener gy. It wants more pain, in whatever form. I have
described this process already. It can be vicious and destructive. It is pure
pain, past pain — and it is not you. The number of women who ar e now approaching the fully c onscious
state already exceeds that of me n and will be growing even faster in the
years to come. Men may catch up with them in the end, but for some
considerable time there will be a gap between the consciousnes s of men
and that of women. W omen a re regaining the function that is their
birthright and, therefore, comes  to them more naturally than it does to
men: to be a bridge between the manifested world and the Unma nifested,
between physicality and spirit. Y our main task as a woman now is to
transmute the pain-body so that it no longer comes between you and your
true self, the essence of who you are. Of course, you also hav e to deal
with the other obstacle to enligh tenment, which is the thinking m ind, but
the i ntense presence you genera te when dealing with the pain-b ody will
also free you from identification with the mind. The first thing t o remember is t his: As long as you make an identity for
yourself out of t he pain, you cannot become free of it. As long as part of
your sense of self is investe d in your emotional pain, you will
unconsciously re sist or sabotage every attempt that you make to heal that
pain. Why? Quite simply because you want to keep yourself intact, and
the pain has become an essential part of you. This is an unconscious
process, and the only way to overcome it is to make it conscious. T o s uddenly see that you are or have been attached to your pai n can be
quite a shocking realization. The moment you realize this, you have
broken the attachment. The pain-body is an ener gy field, almos t like an
entity, th at has become tempora rily lodged in your inner space. It is life
ener gy that has become trapped, ener gy that is no longer flowing. Of
course, the pain-body is there because of certain things that happened in
the past. It is  the living past in you, and if you identify with it, you
identify with the past. A victim identity is the belief that the past is more
powerful than the present, which is the opposite of the truth. It is the
belief that other people and what they did to you are responsible for who
you are now, fo r your emotional pain or your inability to be your trueself. Th e truth is that the only power there is is contained w ithin this
moment: It is the power of your presence. Once you know that,  you also
realize that you  ar e responsible for your inner s pace now — nobody else
is — and that the past cannot prevail against the power of the Now. So identification  prevents you from dealing with the pain-body. Some
women who are already consc ious enough to have relinquished their
victim id entity o n the personal level are still holding on to a collective
victim identity: “what men did to women.” They are right — and they
are also wrong. They are right inasmuch as the collective female pain-
body is  in lar g e part due to male violence inflicted on women an d
repression of the female princip le throughout the planet over millennia. They are wrong if they derive a


 her life until that 1985 date. Then,
in Janua ry 1986, internist Bennett A. Horner, M.D., F.R.C.P. (C), also of
Nanaimo, using CAT scan guida nce, had a biopsy performed (tissue drawn
out with a fine needle) from a tumor site on Pat Ainey’ s pancreas. The
object of this scan and biopsy was to differentiate pancreatic cancer from
several other conditions: benign pancreatitis, pseudocyst, islet cell
carcinoma, or lymphoma. Dr. Horner confirmed the woman’ s diagnosis by
letter to her family physician in the same town, A. C. Baird, M.B., CH.B,
C.C.F.P. Dr. Horner ’s letter stated: “Mrs. Pat Ainey returned to see me
today, January 28, 1986. I inform ed her that she does have adenocarcinoma
of the pancreas; there is no specific treatment indicated presently... if she
has a lot of pain or discomfort, we’d be glad to help her any way we can.”Dr. Horner gave the patient and her husband Ron, who were one month
away from celebrating their thirtieth wedding anniversary, more personal
advice too. “The medical specialist told me, ‘Go home, get your life in
order, the cancer is so bad it is inoperable,” remembers Mrs. Ainey. “I went
through all the anguish, the crying, and I finally resigned myself to my own
death.”8
She had learned that the malign ancy had metastasized to her gallbladder,
liver, and spleen. In just a few weeks she lost more than forty- five pounds
and regularly vomited blood. She was classified as being in cytology class
(stage) III–IV pancreatic cancer (which has a projected five-year survival of
1 percent or less). There were no curative therapies and no proven adjuvant
treatment; only palliation could be offered by orthodox oncologists to
provide some pain control or ascites reduction. She did have ascites,
jaundice, pleura l (chest wall) effusion, alcoholic hepatitis, and pain. Any
chemotherapy probably would kill Pat Ainey faster than the cancer itself.9
“When you’re told by the medical profession that your days are done,
that’s who you believe,” admits Mrs. Ainey. But then she read in the
Nanaimo T imes newspaper about a Victoria, B.C., man who had been cured
of pancreatic cancer by engaging in the Gerson Therapy. “I decided I wasn’ t
going to just bugger around crying and dying. I was going to try to live the
last few months as well as I could for myself and for my family.”
While skeptical  at first, wondering if the Gerson hospital in Tijuana,
Mexico, was a scam designed to bilk desperate people, “It was the only
hope I had. What I needed was a miracle,” the woman says. ‘And my
husband stompe d his foot down and said, ‘Dammit lady, pack your bag,
we’re catching the eleven o’clock boat to the mainland and going to Mexico
to try this damn Gerson thing.’ ”
Ron and Pat Ainey spent two weeks at the Gerson hospital in Playas, a
suburb of Tijuana, where they learned to make her organic juices, what
kinds of foods were appropria te, and how to self-administer five coffee
enemas a day. She explains, “It wasn’ t any fun, especially those ‘coffee
breaks’ as we called them. But what choice did I have except to try?”
The Aineys had reserved two weeks to engage in the treatmen t, and in
ten days she began to feel considerably better than she had in months. Knowing that she would be required to live stringently on the Gerson
program for a minimum of two years, Mrs. Ainey took up the challenge to
conduct the Gerson therapy at home. And it worked well.“In December 1986 my docto r told me he thought I had the cancer
licked.”
A letter Dr. Baird wrote in Febru ary 1990 on another health matter states:
“Mrs. Ainey was diagnosed as having a malignancy of her pancreas. She
received treatment of her disease outside of Canada, and I am pleased to say
that as of the present time she has no evidence of recurrence of the disease,
and what evidence of malignancy was present in 1985 has now gone.”
In a follow-up letter he wrote to an insurance company’ s law firm on that
other matter, Dr. Baird added: “In conclusion, I would like to comment that
Mrs. Ainey has survived what is generally a fatal illness and now lives life
to the full.”
We spoke with Patricia Ainey on November 20, 1999, at which time she
acknowledged, “I feel good, excellent in fact. I’ve had these past fifteen
years to live happily and well, which I was not supposed to have. I’ve
watched my grandchildren grow  up and had a lot of good times in those
years.” While Mrs. Ainey has been free of pancreatic cancer for all of this
fifteen-year period, she still drinks lots of fresh, organic vege table juices
and takes a daily coffee enema. She also has regular blood tests and cancer
markers taken, which she sends to the Gerson hospital for evaluation. Friends and family sometimes ask why she continues these practices if
she is cured. Says husband Ron Ainey: “Pat had been looking for a lifeline
and once you’ve found one it’ s very hard to let go.”
A G ERSON  PATIENT  WHO THOUGHT  HIMSELF  “PERFECT ”
(Retitled from the Gerson Healing Newsletter,
vol. 14, no. 5, Sep.-Oct., 1999)
by Charlotte Gerson

It has frequently occurred to me that, in order to really be sure Gerson
patients underst and and follow the Gerson Therapy exactly, I ought to
follow them around their house and kitchen for twenty-four hours. A
situation that arose recently for a particular Gerson patient amply illustrates
this point. Pleas e allow me to tell you of my experience, for it’s my desire
to have you learn from it for doing the Gerson Therapy right. I was
surprised and shocked by certain deviations from the program.The patient in question (whom I’ll call “Phillip”) was not only very much
interested in the Gerson Therapy for his own recovery; he believes so
strongly about spreading the word of healing that he organize d a Gerson
Convention Day. Phillip also invited me to stay at his lovely home
overnight so that I could be spoiled with good, organic Gerson food and
juices. Truly, he is a delightful  person to be around, and Phillip’ s wife is
too. Their house is located in a wooded area, with beautiful huge trees, and
sitting at the edge of a small lake. In other words, the air is clean and fresh
and the atmosphere relaxing—no problem there. This patient’ s business is
organized and runs quite well with minimal attention, allowing him to get a
lot of rest and live on a fine income. There is help in the household, so no
pressures exist relating to juice and food preparations. Even so, there are at
least four major problems in Phillip’ s application of the Gerson Therapy
which I shall describe:
1. The water piped into his home is “hard”; it contains minerals. Like
other people in the area, theref ore, the patient’ s home is equip ped with
“water softener ” equipment. Phillip’ s very warm, concer ned and
cooperative wife is doing everything in her power to help her husband
fully recover from melanoma with metastases to the liver; yet, she told
me that she brings in “sacks of salt” for adding to the water softener! As
part of the proce ss of removing the unwelcome hard water minerals, such
water -softening equipment replaces these with sodium. What happens as
a result is that the patient washes and bathes in “softened water,” loaded
with salt. Salt is very easily absorbed through the skin and should never be used
by a Gerson patient. The sodiu m in salt is an enzyme inhibitor and the
Gerson Therapy  is designed to remove excess sodium. Salt, in fact, is
needed for fast growth of tumor  tissue. It is also the basis for the “tissue
damage syndro me,” when normal cells lose their ability to hold
potassium while sodium penetrates their protoplasm, causing edema and
loss of function. This tissue damage is, according to my father ’s findings,
the beginning of all chronic disease. Naturally, for a cancer patient,
bathing in salt water (even in the ocean) must be avoided at all costs. 2. At Phill ip’s home we were served a very delicious and attractiv e lunch
which included a lovely salad loaded with avocados. I immediately asked
if the patient, too, was eating them. He was! This was anothe r seriousmistake, since avocados contai n a fairly large percentage of fat. The
reason avocados and other fat-containing foods are forbidden is that fats
tend


 eyes of
God, we are innocent. In the eyes of God, we are never guilty, because our
innocence is Real and our mistakes are not. But if the real me is eternally innocent, then what about the times when
I did something wrong? How do I have a good relationship with myself if I
hate something I did? What about the ghostly memories that haunt us in the
middle of the night, obsession over mistakes we made years ago, the “ifonly I’d done this or that” with which we frequently torment ourselves? “If
only I hadn’ t been so stupid” is one of the biggest guns in the ego’ s arsenal. One of the absurd faux-spiritual  truisms out there is that you can’t make
a mistak e. Oh, yes, you can, and some of us have made enough of them to
know it. Telling yourself that a mistake was not a mistake, if in fact it was,
is not the way to dissolve the guilt you feel because of it. There is a far more functional, successful way of dealing with this than
through trying to suppress our obsessive thoughts. The way to dissolve the
self-hatred we feel at such times is through the power of the Atonement. The Atonement is God’ s greatest gift, but the choice is given to us
whether to activate its power in our lives. This is how it works. You go back
to the moment when you made  the mistake, and you own it. You look it
squarely in the eye; you realize what a lack of love for yourself or others
such a moment entailed. You’ll  see more clearly what was going on with
you when you made the mistake. In such momen ts in my own past I’ve come to realize that in those
moments I was scared; but I also realized that in those moments I was
irresponsible. I either did not know yet or was not practiced yet at asking
the Holy Spirit for direction before making my decisions. And in that, I
betrayed myself. God was there, but I didn’ t turn to Him. Even when we have been most mistaken, the person who we might have
been—the way we might have behaved, had the ego not held us in its grip
—is an image that has remained in God’ s mind. Jesus holds this image safe
in his hands until we are ready to express it. “I have saved all your
kindnesses and every loving thought you ever had. I have purified them of
the errors that hid their light, and kept them for you in their perfect
radiance”* (T -83). Living in this world, it can be hard. The ego speaks first and the ego
speaks loudest, which is why cultivating our capacity to listen to the small
inner Voice for God is so important. I’ve spent years of my life regretting
decisions I would not have made if I had simply given it the weekend to
think things through. The miracle of the Atonement is that you can go back to that moment
now. In any situation in which we failed to go for the love—failing to allow
the miracle that might have occurred and deflecting a miracle instead—the
miracle is held in trust for us until we are ready to receive it. Go back tothat moment now. Admit that you made the wrong decision, admit that you
didn’ t let the Holy Spirit guide your thoughts, and ask that it happen now. Contrition is miraculous. In ways you can’t imagine, life will catch up
with your change in consciousness. You will have a chance to play life
correctly where  you might have failed to do so before. A situation will
occur that shows you clearly that when you atoned, you were heard. God is an infinitely merciful God. Yes, we are accountable; but through
the grace of God we can begin again. The section from A Course in Miracles  that follows is one of its most
powerful tools in rewiring the way we perceive the past.... the first step in the undoing is to recognize that you actively decided wrongly, but can as
actively decide otherwise. Be very firm with yourself in this, and keep yourself fully awar e that
the undoing process, which does not come from you, is nevertheless within you because God
placed it there. Your part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was
made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace. Say this to yourself as sincer ely as you can,
remembering that the Holy Spirit will r espond fully to your slightest invitation:
I must have decided wr ongly, because I am not at peace. I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise. I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace. I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong
decision if I will let Him. I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me. * (T -90)
All of us have been there. And having made mistakes, of course we
suffer. But remorse is a positive thing; only sociopaths are without it. Conscience is an aspect of the heart. The ego wants to stretch things out, to take the healthy processing of
our regrets and turn it into a permanent emotional bludgeon. Once again,
the ego is a trick. That does nothing more than delay the day when we go
about the business of acting now in a way we didn’ t act before. If you really
want to show God you’re sorry, go be a dif ferent person now. Another reason  we’re sometimes hard on ourselves, of course, is
because of the projections of other people. It might be an adult who told
you that you were worthless when you were a child, and you’ve internalized
their voice. It might be people who don’t even know you, but have created
or bought into a false narrative about who you are. Either way, their voices
are now inside your head convincing you of your lack of worth. One of my favorite Christmas carols is “O Holy Night,” containing this
extraordinary lyric: “Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He
appeared and the soul felt its worth.” It doesn’ t matter who other peoplethink you are. Your inestimable  worth is established by God. Yes, we have
all made mistakes. But who we are, the innocence in which we were
created, is an inviolable essence. What God created cannot be altered. We
are perfect ideas in the Mind of God. Dear God,
I give to you the mistakes of my past. I recognize that in those moments I did not let love pr evail. May Y our Spirit enter my mind, as I surr ender those moments to Y ou. May my mistake be somehow useful in making me a better person now. Amen
OceanofPDF.comRelationship to Others
God loves all of us as one, for He created us as one. Our purpose is to
think as God thinks so we can love as He does. We cannot find right
relationship to God, or to ourselves, without right relationship to others. The
only way we can find peace or love is by giving it to each other, for we are
each other. It’s impossible for me to remember who I am unless I am
willing to remem ber who you are, and it’s impossible for me to remember
who you are without remembering who I am. When I told a friend, Andrea, about my experience viewing Salvator
Mundi, she told me of a similar experience she had had many years ago at
Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It was similar to mine in that she too felt
transported beyond the piece of art, but whereas I saw the realms of
tenderness and power, she saw the entirety of the human race. She saw that
Jesus was everyone. She saw that we are one. Relationships are assignments made by the Holy Spirit, part of an
intentional plan by which all beings will ultimately be reconciled with God. To be reconciled with God means to be reconciled with the love that is
within us. We don’t get to God simply by learn ing to love ourselves. We get
to God by learning to love each other. Relationships are temples of the Holy Spirit* (P-6). They are part of a
highly individualized curriculum by which we are each given maximal soul
growth opportunities, assigned to those with whom we can both teach and
learn. Relationships are where our strengths are strengthened, and our
weaknesses brought up for review. They are where we salute  the soul of
others or do battle with the soul of others. In intense relationships, we often
do both. Relationships are growth experiences, and life is simply a series of
lessons destined to be rehearsed until we learn them fully. You either let goof the past, or string it out and deny yourself and others the chance for a
different kind of future. The Holy Spirit brings us togeth er with people who are perfect matches
in terms of not just complementary strengths, but also complementary
wounds. That’ s why relationships are hard. Growth is messy, relationships
are messy, and love is messy. An intentional universe nourishes  the growth
of all living things, and often it’ s relationships that challenge us to grow. If we behave unlovingly, we shouldn’ t expect others to be okay with
that. We are responsible for how we present ourselves. Spiritual  growth is a


mind. 115  3. When money is circulating freely in your life, you are eco-
nomically healthy. Look at money like the tide and you will always
have plenty of it. The ebb and flow of the tide is constant. Wh en the
tide is out, you are absolutely sure that it will return. 4. Knowing the laws of your subconscious mind, you will al-ways
be supplied regardless of what form money takes. 5. One reason many people simply make ends meet and never have
enough money is that they condemn money. What you condemn takes
wings and flies away. 6. Do not make a god of money. It is only a symbol. Remem-ber
that the real riches are in your mind. You are here to lead a ba lanced
life—this includes acquiring all the money you need. 7. Don’t make money your sole aim. Claim wealth, happiness,
peace, true expression, and love, and personally radiate love a nd good
will to all. Then your subconscious mind will give you compound
interest in all these fields of expression. 8. There is no virtue in poverty. It is a disease of the mi nd, and you
should heal yourself of this mental conflict or malady at once. 9. You are not here to live in a hovel, to dress in rags, or to go
hungry. You are here to lead the life more abundant. 10. Never use the terms “filthy lucre” or “I despise money.”  You
lose what you criticize. There is nothing good or bad, but thinki ng of
it in either light makes it so. 11. Repeat frequently, “I like money. I use it wisely, construc-tively,
and judiciously. I release it with joy, and it returns a thousand fold.”
12. Money is not evil any more so than copper, lead, tin, or iron
which you may find in the ground. All evil is due to igno-rance and
misuse of the mind’s powers. 13. To picture the end result in your mind causes your subcon-
scious to respond and fulfill your mental picture. 116  14. Stop trying to get something for nothing. There is no such thing
as a free lunch. You must give to receive. You must give mental
attention to your goals, ideals, and enterprises, and your deeper m ind
will back you up. The key to wealth is application of the la ws of the
subconscious mind by im-pregnating it with the idea of wealth. 117  11
Your Subconscious Mind as a Partner
in Success
Success means successful living. A long period of peace, joy, an d
happiness on this plane may be termed success. The eternal
experience of these qualities is the everlasting life s poken of by Jesus. The real things of life, such as peace, harmony, integrity, secur ity, and
happiness are intangible. They come from the Deep Self of ma n.
Meditating on these qualities builds these treasures of heav en in our
subconscious. It is where moth and rust do not consume, and where
thieves do not break through and steal. MATT. 6:20. • The three steps to success
Let us discuss three steps to success: The first step to  suc-cess is to
find out the thing you love to do, then do it. Success is in loving your
work. Although, if a man is a psychiatrist, it is not adequate for hi m to get
a diploma and place it on the wall; he must keep up with the t imes,
attend conventions, and continue studying the mind and its workings. The successful psychiatrist visits clinics and reads the l atest scientific
articles. In other words, he is informed in the most advanced m ethods
of alleviating human suffering. The successful psychiatrist or doctor
must have the interest of his patients at heart. Someone may say, “How can I put the first step into opera-t ion? I
do not know what I should do.” In such a case, pray for guidance as
follows: “The infinite intelligence of my subcon-scious mind r eveals
to me my true place in life.” Repeat this prayer quietly, positively, and
lovingly to your deeper mind. As you persist with faith and
confidence, the answer will come to you as a feeling, a hunch, or a
tendency in a certain direction. It will come to you clearl y and in
peace, and as an inner silent awareness. 118  The second step to success is to specialize in some part icular branch
of work and know more about it than anyone else. For example, if a
young man chooses chemistry as his profession, he should concentra te
on one of the many branches in this field. He should give all of hi s
time and attention to his chosen spe-cialty. He should become
sufficiently enthusiastic to try to know all there is avai lable about his
field; if possible, he should know more than anyone else. The young
man should become ardently interested in his work and should desire
to serve the world. He that is greatest among you, let him become your serv-ant. There
is a great contrast in this attitude of mind in com-parison t o that of the
man who only wants to makes a living or just “get by.” “Getti ng by”
is not true success. Man’s motive must be greater, nobler, and more
altruistic. He must serve others, thereby casting his brea d upon the
waters. The third step is the most important one. You must be sure that t he
thing you want to do does not redound to your success only. Your
desire must not be selfish; it must benefit humanity. The pat h of a
complete circuit must be formed. In other words, your idea must go
forth with the purpose of blessing or serving the world. I t will then
come back to you pressed down, shaken together, and running over. If
it is to benefit yourself exclusively, the circle or complete circuit  is not
formed, and you may ex-perience a short circuit in your life w hich
may consist of limita-tion or sickness. •The measure of true success
Some people may say, “But Mr. James made a fortune in selling
fraudulent oil stock.” A man may seem to succeed for a while, but the
money he obtained by fraud usually takes wings and flies away. When
we rob from another, we rob from our-selves, because we are in a
mood of lack and limitation, which may manifest itself in our body,
home life, and affairs. What we think and feel, we create. We create what we believe. Even
though a man may have accumulated a fortune fraudulently, he is not
 119  successful. There is no success without peace of mind. What good i s
man’s accumulated wealth if he cannot sleep nights, is sick, or has a
guilt complex? I knew a man in London who told me of his exploits. He had been a
professional pickpocket and had amassed a large amount of money. He had a summer home in France and lived in a royal fashion in
England. His story was that he was in con-stant dread of being
arrested by Scotland Yard. He had many inner disorders, whic h were
undoubtedly caused by his constant fear and deep-seated guilt
complex. He knew he had done wrong. This deep sense of guilt
attracted all kinds of trouble to him. Subsequently, he volunta rily
surrendered to the police and served a prison sentence. After  his
release from prison, he sought psychological and spiritual couns el and
became transformed. He went to work and became an honest, law-
abiding citizen. He found what he loved to do and was happy. A successful person loves his work and expresses himself fu lly. Success is contingent upon a higher ideal than the mere accumula tion
of riches. The man of success is the man who possesses great
psychological and spiritual understanding. Many of the great
industrialists today depend upon the correct use of their subconsc ious
minds for their success. There was an article published some years ago about Flagle r, an oil
magnate. He admitted that the secret of his success was hi s ability to
see a project in its completion. For instance, in his case, he c losed his
eyes, imagined a big oil industry, saw trains running on track s, heard
whistles blowing, and saw smoke. Having seen and felt the fulf illment
of his prayer, his subconscious mind brought about its realizat ion. If
you imagine an objective clearly, you will be provided with the
necessities, in ways you know not of, through the wonder-working
power of your subconscious mind. In considering the three steps to success you must never forget t he
underlying power of the creative forces of your sub-conscious mi nd. This is the energy in back of all steps in any plan of succe ss. Your
 120  thought is creative. Thought fused with feeling becomes a subje ctive
faith or belief, and according to your belief is it done unto you. MATT. 9:29. Knowledge of a mighty force in you, which is capable of bringing to
pass all your desires, gives you confidence and a sense of peac e.


does take place, but it is also evident that low-grade painful infections run concurrently with the progress of the disease. The most apparent of these infections take place in the mouth. The person with scurvy
has infections existing in the gums, and the infections are those of the common pus-producing types of microorganisms. In other words, here as in deficiency diseases of the
eye, there are innumerable evidences of inf ection eagerly crowding in on tissues which
have lost their defenses on account of certain vitamin starvation. Lack of vitamin A and vitamin B and vitamin C opens the door to the entrance of infectious disease of, the eye,
the nervous system, and the mouth. Apparently the processes move up and down like
the arms of a scale. As vitamin and mineral intake is up, infection is down. As vitamin
and mineral intake is down, infection is up. Vitamin D is the substance necessary to the proper building of teeth and bones. Whether a lack of vitamin D is accompanied by some sort of low-grade infection, we do
not know. Apparently the disease produced by lack of vitamin D is purely a chemical reaction; but while vitamin D has been thought of as simply a protector of bone and
teeth, its effect is apparent in other parts of the body. Undoubtedly there is a relation
between this vitamin and protection from infections. This was one of the earliest facts
discovered in connection with vitamins. It is now well known that exposure to sunshine protects the individual from
tuberculosis. Exposure to sunshine is the best way of getting vitamin D. The short
waves of light from the sun acting on the ergosterol in the skin produce vitamin D.
These short waves penetrate the cornea and the other transparent structures of the eye;
impinge directly through the transparen t blood vessels of the retina, and produce
vitamin D by direct action on the blood stream in that manner. So even with the body completely covered up with clothing, a person outdoors in sunshine will receive some
vitamin D through the eyes. Tuberculosis is a virulent and stubborn infection. However, early cases treated with
vitamin D alone (exposure to sunshine) may be cured. Apparently the only persons who
do develop tuberculosis are those who are lacking in vitamin D. We must conclude,
then, that the effect of vitamin D is not comple tely a chemical effect, but that it is also a
highly infection-resisting life element. In the breaking up of the vitamin B complex, several new vitamins. have been
discovered. The first of these is riboflavin. It has been found to be necessary for the existence of every cell in the body. Clinically, the reduction in the amount of riboflavin
results in sores developing in and around the mouth. These sores are actually small
ulcers, and are associated with infectious mi croorganisms. In other words, infections of
the lips and mouth occur in the persons who are deficient in riboflavin. Some kind of a
barrier has been broken down in the person who is deficient, which allows these germs to flourish and to produce ulcers and sores in this part of the anatomy. Here again is
illustrated in a specific way infection intruding itself immediately when the general resistance is lowered. Another part of the vitamin B complex is niacin (nicotinic acid) which relieves the
symptoms of pellagra. The insanity is relieved; the digestive symptoms are improved, and the skin inflammation disappears. The person who is afflicted with pellagra and
who has an inflammation of the skin has this infection as a result of the resistance of the
individual's skin being lowered. His brain function is disturbed because resistance has
been lowered. His digestive tract is diseased because resistance in this part of the body
has been lowered. The taking into the body of a certain amount of niacin-amide raises the general resistance of the individual to this particular type and kind of infection, so that the symptoms disappear. Here again is demonstrated in a spectacular way a lack of
resistance to certain specific infections coincident with a lack of a certain vitamin. For many years it has been known that the effects produced by yeast and liver extract
can not be completely duplicated by giving the then known elements of vitamin B 2
along with vitamin B 1. It was apparent that there we re undiscovered vitamins which had
the ability to produce profound effects in the human organism. In dealing with
laboratory animals, it was known that the combination of riboflavin, vitamin B 1 and
niacin-amide would not provide the animal with as good health as when the whole B
complex, as represented by yeast, was used. Drs. Jeans and Zentmeyer, of the
University of Iowa, found that animals could be made so ill that their hair turned gray or that bald spots could be produced while giving all the synthetic vitamins and necessary
minerals, but leaving out the undiscovered part of vitamin B
2 complex. For a time this mysterious element in the vitamin B 2 complex which had to do with
the color of hair (gray or not gray) and which also had to do with the glossiness and
beauty of hair, in some cases producing baldne ss, was referred to as the filtrate factor
(or factors). It was not known whether this was a single or a multiple vitamin. Recent
work has shown the filtrate element to be pantothenic acid. In nature it is found associated with vitamin B
6, since identified as pyridoxine. Apparently pantothenic: acid has a relati vely specific effect on the hair, nails, and the
skin epithelium, and the integrity of the nervous system and brain. In the animals well
supplied with pantothenic add, the skin glands appear to remain in better health, and the
skin does not take on the wrinkling and aged appearance which occurs in those who are deprived of this vitamin. In human subjects, the same thing seems to be true--that a
good appearance of skin, hair, and nails is s preserved in those who have a sufficient
amount of pantothenic acid in the diet. It has been called the vitamin which prevents old
age; but this statement is of course in error. No one vitamin prevents old age. Earlier in our studies of vitamins, Sherman of Columbia University was convinced
that the vitamin which we now call riboflavin was an important element in preventing
old age. Only by a judicious combination of all vitamins, combined with sufficient
minerals, do we have the answer to the problem of old age. The vitamin which had first been called B
6 and is now referred to as pyridoxine has a
pronounced effect on the nervous system. Animals who are deprived of this vitamin are
unable to sleep; are extremely nervous and irritable. The same symptoms occur in
human subjects in whom the amount of pyridoxine is restricted. In addition to these, the
human subject has difficulty in walking, weakness, and abdominal pain. These
symptoms manifest themselves in a decided manner in persons who are starved for pyridoxine, even though all of the other vitamins and minerals be given in sufficient
quantities. The symptoms mentioned are very quickly relieved on taking sufficient doses of this vitamin. In considering the substance formerly known as vitamin B, the first division was one
which was thought to explain the chemistry of the vitamin, and the terms used were vitamin B
1 and vitamin B 2. Vitamin B 1 was later found to be an entity which could be
manufactured in the laboratory. The accepted name for vitamin B 1 at the present time is
thiamine. A vast amount of work has been done on vitamin B 2. It was broken down by chemists into vitamins B 2, 3, 4, 5  and 6. Vitamin B 2 has come to be called riboflavin. It
may be manufactured artificially in the laboratory. Vitamin B 3 now bears the name of niacin. Niacin as a chemical entity is not new. It
has been known for many years, but the identity of niacin as a vitamin is new. It also may be produced synthetically in the chemical laboratory. Vitamin B
4, formerly called the filtrate factor or factors, now known as pantothenic
acid may be artificially produced in the laboratory. Vitamin B 5 is a still unknown factor, and may be single or multiple. It has to do with
the health of the skin in chicks. This means that it has something to do with the
resistance of the skin to infections. Vitamin B 6, pyridoxine, may be produced in the laboratory. A study of the chemistry of the vitamin B elements shows that all but one are now
well understood, and this one may turn out to be plural instead of singular. We must
depend on extracts from yeast, or liver, for this unknown substance. The administration
of the synthetic elements as stated - thiamin, riboflavin, niacin-amide, pantothenic acid,
and pyridoxine--does not give the optimum result in treating vitamin B deficiencies. Although the amounts may be measured with great exactness, there exists in extracts
made from the wheat germ and extracts made from yeast a certain unknown factor or
factors which cannot be disregarded in vitamin therapy, and which we must classify as
one of the essential needs of the human organism. An attempt to provide treatment by
simply using the synthetics in the vitamin B group cannot furnish optimum results. The
unknown vitamins still have a dominating influence in the picture. Pyridoxine is the most effective remedy  in the rather common disease of old age--
Parkinson's disease


 the number of people in the world, but
the accepted  estimate is 50 trillion, or about 10,000 times
the Earth’s present population. Isolated and placed under a
microscope, the various kinds of cells—heart, liver, brain,
kidney, et cetera—look rather alike to the untrained eye. A
cell is basically a bag, enclosed by an outer membrane, the
cell wall, and ﬁlled with a mixture of water and swirling
chemicals. At the cente r of all but the red blood cells is a
core, the nucleus, which safeguards the tightly  twisted
coils of DNA. If you hold a speck of liver tissue on your
ﬁngertip, it looks like calf’s liver; you would be hard-
pressed to discern that it is speciﬁcally human. Even a
skilled geneticist would detect only a 2 percent diﬀerence
between our DNA and a gorilla’s. Of the liver cell’s many
functions, over ﬁve hundred at latest count, you would not
have a clue simply by looking at it. As clouded as the mind-body issue has become, one thing
is indisputable: somehow human cells have evolved to a
state of formidable intelligence. At any one time, thenumber of activities being coordinated in our bodies is
quite literally inﬁnite. Like the Earth’s ecosystems, our
physiology appears to operate in separate comp artments
that in fact are invisibly connected: we eat, breathe, talk,
think, digest our food, ﬁght oﬀ infections, purify our blood
of toxins, renew our cells, discard wastes, vote for
Republicans, and much more besides. Each of these
activities weaves its way into the fabric of the whole. (Our
ecology is more plane tlike than most people  realize. Creatures roam our surface, as unmindful of our hugeness
as we are of their minuteness. Colonies of mites, for
example, spend their entire life cycle in our eyelashes.) Within the body’s vast array, the functions of any single
cell—such as one of the 15 billion neurons in the brain—ﬁll
a good-sized medical text. The volumes  devoted to any one
system of the body, such as the immune system or the
nervous system, take up several shelves in a medical
library. The healing mechanism resides somewhere in this overall
complexity, but it is elusive. There is no one organ of
healing. How does the body know what to do when it is
damaged, then? Medicine has no simple answer. Any one of
the processes involved in healing a superﬁcial cut—the
clotting of the blood, for example—is incredibly complex, so
much so that if the mechanism fails, as it does with
hemophiliacs, advanced scientiﬁc medicine is at a loss to
duplicate the impaired function. A doctor can prescribe
drugs that replace the missing clotting factor in the blood,
but these are temporary, artiﬁcial, and have numerous
undesirable side eﬀects. The body’s perfect timin g will be
absent, as well as the superb coordination of a dozen
related processes. By comparison, a man-made drug is a
stranger in a land where everyone else is blood kin. It can
never share the knowledge that everyone else was born
with.The body, we must admit, has a mind of its own. Once we
understand this mysterious aspect of our basic nature, then
the miraculous nature of curing cancer should disappear. Everyone’s body knows how to heal a cut, yet apparently
only a few people have  bodies that know how to cure
cancer. —
Every doctor realizes that it is nature who cures disease, a
statement ﬁrst written by Hippocrates two thousand years
ago. What is the diﬀerence, then, between natur e’s
ordinary form of healing and unusual or “miraculous”
healing? Perhaps the diﬀerence is small and exists only in
our heads. If you are peeling potatoes and cut your ﬁnger
with a slip of the knife, the cut heals by itself, and obviously
you are not wonder-struck, because the process of healing
—the clotting of the blood to close the wound, the
formation of a scab, and the regeneration of new skin and
blood vessels—seems altogether normal. Yet, we should be aware that this feeling of normalcy is
not the same as knowing what healing is or how to control
it. It is sobering to consider  how much of the knowle dge in
medical books pertains not to life but to death. By
performing autopsies on cadavers, examining tissue slides
under a microscope, and analyzing blood, urine, and other
isolated by-products of the body, the majority of medical
knowledge has been obtained. True, patients are examin ed
when they are alive, and tests can be run on many isolated
functions in their bodies. But the knowledge so acquired is
rudimentary compared to the volumes of super-
sophisticated data devoted to death. The poet Wordsworth
wrote this memorably terse line: “We murder to dissect.”
No truer statement has ever been made about the
limitations of medical research.The ﬁrst thing that is killed in the laboratory  is the
delicate web of intelligence that binds the body together. When a blood cell rushes to a wound site and begins to
form a clot, it has not traveled there at random. It actually
knows where  to go and what to do when it gets there, as
surely as a paramedic—i n fact, more surely, since it acts
completely spontaneously and without guesswork. Even if
we break down its know ledge into ﬁner and ﬁner bits,
looking for the secret in some minute hormone or
messenger enzyme, we will not ﬁnd a protein strand
labeled “intelligence,” and yet there is no doubt that
intelligence is at work. Part of this intelligence devotes itself to healing, and it
seems to be a very powerful force. Every fatal disease has
its mysterious survivors, not just cancer. Although I know of
no spontane ous cures of AIDS, there are long-term
survivors—those who remain alive after ﬁve years—whose
immune systems have somehow defended themselves
against a disease that under normal conditions is totally
devastating. Researchers tend to approach such
extraordinary physiologie s as biochemical freaks of nature. By taking samples of their blood and isolating any unusual
components that can be detected in the immune cells,
molecular biologists hope to discover the unknown
ingredient that is protecting these people. If that can be
accomplished—it is an extremely tedious, diﬀicult task,
given the complexity of the immune system—then after
years of testing and millions of dollars, a new drug may
emerge that can beneﬁt the population as a whole. Yet, what everyone really  needs is the ability to make this
wonder drug himself, just as the person who ﬁrst produced
it did, and that ability cannot be synthesized. Isn’t buying
the drug as good as making it? Not by a long shot. The so-
called active ingredient in a man-made drug contains very
little know-how compared to the original chemicalproduced by the body. It would almost be fairer to call the
drug an inert ingredient. The reason for this lies at the level of our cells. The outer
membrane of each cell, or the cell wall, is outﬁtted with
numerous sites called receptors. The cell wall itself is
smooth, but these receptors are “sticky”—they are made of
complex molecular chains whose last links are open-ended,
each one waiting for another molecule to come along and
bind with it. In other words, receptors are like keyholes
into which only very speciﬁc keys will ﬁt. For a drug to
work—whether morphine, Valium, digitalis, or almost
anything else—it must be the key that ﬁts some precisely
chosen receptor on the cell wall and no other. The hormones, enzymes, and other biochemicals
produced by our bodies  have superb knowled ge about
which receptors they should ﬁt into. The molecules
themselves actually seem able to pick and choose among
various sites—it is uncanny to follow their tracks under an
electron microscope as they make a beeline to where they
are needed. Also, the body can release hundreds of
diﬀerent chemicals at a time and orchestrate each  one with
regard to the whole. If you hear a hot rod backﬁre on the street outside your
window and jump in your chair, your insta ntaneous
reaction is the outcome of a complex internal event. The
trigger for the event is a burst of adrenaline from your
adrenal glands. Carried into the bloodstream, this
adrenaline signals reacti ons from your heart, which starts
to pump blood faster; from your blood vessels, which
contract and force up your blood pressure; from your liver,
which puts out extra fuel in the form of glucose; from your
pancreas, which secretes insulin so that more glucose can
be metaboliz ed; and from your stomach and intestines,
which immediately stop digesting food so that more energy
can be shunted elsewhere.All this activity, happeni ng


 the
slower, 80-se cond ﬂy a long day of 28 to 30 hours. The
conventional interpretation is that the per gene establishes
the insect’s daily rhythm. A similar eﬀect is seen in us; if
conﬁned to a cave where  he cannot see the sun and is not
allowed to look at a clock, a man will sleep and wake up on
a regular cycle, not of 24 hours but generally of 25 hours—
this seems to be the daily, or circadian, rhythm that our
DNA has built into us. Similarly, the fruit ﬂy does not carewhen the sun rises or sets; when its song changes, the day
changes. That means that its sense of time comes from
within, activated by the per gene. This is a far more stunning conclusion than the
conventional one. The convent ional one says that DNA is
controlling a rhythm inside the cell, but I am saying that it
controls time itself. The per gene is the link between time
“out there” and DNA “in here”; it literally creates time as
the fruit ﬂy knows it. In physics, Einstein demonstrated
that there is no ﬁxed yardstick for time in the relative
world; a space traveler would think that the clock on his
spaceship is ticking norm ally, just as it does on Earth. But if
he attained a velocity near the speed of light, the clock
would in fact be going slower than Earth-bound clocks. This
would not be an illusion; every biological process, including
how fast the space traveler ages, would also slow down. Aren’t these fruit ﬂies the insect equivalent of Einstein’s
space travelers. They are experiencing time as either slow
or fast, not from travel ing near the speed of light but
simply from their own internal signals. A fast-singing fruit ﬂy would have no way of knowing that
it is living in “fast time” (assuming that it is isolated from
the other kinds of ﬂies). It emits the same number of calls
per “day” as either the normal or the slow singers, without
realizing that its day (18 to 20 hours) is entirely determined
inside itself. But what is the per gene actually doing. Another investigator, Michael Young of Rockefeller
University, joined Konop ka and discovered that the per
gene works by coding certain proteins in the cell that
regulate rhythm. It is these proteins, coming and going in
cycles, that make the day seem long or short to the ﬂy. Similar genes and coded  proteins have also been found in
mice, chickens, and human beings. This brings us
remarkably close to seeing how the DNA is creating all of
reality. It is manipu lating the molecules into rhythms, orvibrations, that we decode into time. Other vibrations are
decoded into light, sound, texture, smells, et cetera. Sir
Arthur Eddin gton calls all of these “fancies of the mind,”
for essentiall y none of our sensory input is anything but a
signal transmitted to us via DNA—pure, abstract vibrations
that we turn into “real” events in time and space. If a gene
can regulate  time, then it is only a step away from
regulating space, too. There is nothing to time and space,
from a subjective point of view, except one’s own
participation in it. Like the fruit ﬂy, we measure an hour by
the clock, and the clock is in us. Here we come to a fork in the road. Biologists realize that
if the protei ns in a cell regulate the cell’s rhyth ms, then
something must regulate them. What is it. One road leads
to a materialistic explanation. Naturally, this is the one
science prefers. Some biolog ists believe that the cell wall
lets chemicals through only at a certain rate, and this rate
is our yardstick for time, our molecular clock. Others say
that the clock is actually a chemical code imprinted on the
DNA, which  is read in sequence from the moment of
conception until death. Neither explanation has been
worked out in satisfactory detail. If the rishis are right, they
never will be—no answe r exists on the level of molecules
alone. As is obvious by now, the rishis would take a diﬀerent
road and say that the clock inside us is intelligence. The
per gene is just a mechanical part, a wire or tube in DNA’s
radio. Through it, time expresses itself, just as an emotion
expresses itself through a neuropeptide. Time is riding on a
molecule, and once again we mustn’t mistake the rider for
the horse. The signals for time, space, motion, texture,
smells, sights, and all the rest of the world come  from the
level of silent intelligence. That is wher e we really live, and
the miracle of DNA is that it can turn so many totally
abstract messages into life itself. If you go walking through the woods on a warm autumn
day, feeling the fallen oak leaves under your feet, smelling
the ripe, dank earth, and watching the October light as it
plays in the branches overhead, you are experiencing the
world through your DNA. It impo ses a deﬁnite selection on
things. You are not smelling the argon and xenon gases in
the air or seeing the sun’s ultraviolet emissions. You can
walk through leaves but not through the wood of the trees. The incredible complexity of green moss registers on your
mind as a patch of fuzz; and of the pollen, spores,  bacteria,
viruses, and other microb es that ﬁll the air by the hundreds
in every cubic centimeter, you register nothing. The reason
for this special focus resides in you. Those are humanized
leaves, trees, smells, and light. If your sense s were reﬁned enough, you would go even
further and realize that you are the woods. It is not just
sending signals to you from “out there”; rather, you are
blending your own signals with its. None of your sense
organs is separated from nature’s continuum. Your eye is a
specialized light receptor that merges into the light it
perceives. If the light failed, your eye would atrophy as
surely as the blind cave-ﬁsh’s eye; if your eye’s structure
changed—for example, if each eye swiveled independently,
like a chame leon’s—every object would acquire completely
diﬀerent relations in space. That would be your experience,
and nothing in the relative world exists outside experience. A bee approaching a ﬂower sees the nectar and blocks
out the petals—as far as the bee’s eye is concerne d, this is
what exists. For us, to see a bar magnet means seeing the
sharp outline of the iron but not the radiating magnetic
ﬁeld around it. Therefore, the iron is what exists, as far as
vision goes. Add in all the other senses, and you have the
world that you are creating. It was built up over 600 million
years by your DNA; ultimately, however, this world
expresses your inner intelligence, with DNA the adroitservant. It serves you in your way, as it serves other
creatures in theirs. DNA turns the vibrations of light into eyes and sound into
ears. It turns time into a matin g song for fruit ﬂies and into
the march of history for man. It gives bats their sonar and
snakes their sensitivity to infrared light. In each  and every
case, however, the DNA is merely the radio. One will never
discover the secret of space-time looking at DNA, or any
other materi al thing. The attempt is just as doomed as
tearing apart a radio’s wiring to ﬁnd where the music is. The rishis found the level of music—it is bliss. Bliss is the vibration that intelligence sends into the
world. In fact, we can map our existence in terms of a
single diagram that compresses mind, body, DNA, and bliss
into one undivided whole:
With good reason one could call this picture the circle of
life. In it we see bliss as a continuous signal, a loop thatconnects mind, body, and DNA in a lifelong conversation. All three participants share equally in what gets said—what
the mind knows is also known by the body and DNA. Your
experiences resonate on all three levels. You cannot be
happy or sad, sick or well, awake or asleep,  without
sending a message everywhere in inner space. You may not think that you can “talk” to your DNA
(another prejudice that comes from seeing DNA as only a
material blueprint), but in fact you do continually. The
ﬂeeting chem icals that race through you at the touch of
thought, the receptors hanging out on the cell wall waiting
for their messages, and every other speck of life are
manufactured by DNA. (I realize that I am truncating a
long process. DNA directly manufactures only genetic
material, but using its active twin, RNA, it gives rise to all
the proteins, cells, and tissues we have. ) Thinking happens
at the level of DNA, because without the brain cell sending
out a neuropeptide or other messenger, there can be no
thought. The Ayurvedic technique called primordial sound takes


 our naturalimmunity. When  ojas is deplete d you become susceptible to d egenerative
disorders includ ing cancer. Therefore, protecting and incre asing your
supply of ojas is key to reversing the aging process. Ojas can  be depleted by excessive release of reproductive flui d. This is
important in men and forms the  basis of the idea that as you age, reducing
the frequency of ejaculation ca n improve your vitality. This su ggestion is
not base d upon morality; rather, it is an expression of the con servation of
ener gy. As a general principle, i f you are male, see if you can increase the
ratio of sexual experiences to ejaculation. If you are accustomed to
releasing sexual  tension every time you have sex, see if you c an go to an
every ot her time  pattern. Then try going to every third time. Although at
first you  may feel some sense of frustration, you will most lik ely quickly
begin to appreciate the enhanced ener gy and passion that you feel
throughout the day. If you are a woman, play with your partner to keep his
sexual ener gy aroused without immediately releasing it. When lovers
consciously direct their powerful sexual ener gy, they become more
attractive to each other. All aspects of lovemaking, in and outside of its
sexual expression, become more ecstatic. Nutrition for Ojas
According to A yurveda there are special foods and herbs  that have
distinctive ojas-enhancing ef fects. Fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains,
nuts (particularly almonds), honey, and dairy derived from well-cared-for
cows are all enh ancing to ojas. Substances depleting ojas include alcohol,
tobacco, canned foods, highly processed foods, fried foods, and those
containing artificial sweeteners. Make your healthier choices without being
overly compulsive or rigid. Compulsivity and rigidity deplete ojas. Simply
be m ore conscious of your choices so that to the extent po ssible, you
increase the ojas in your life. HERBS AND OJASThere are many classical rejuvenative herbs from healing systems around
the world that can be considered ojas-enhancing. Ginseng from the Chinese
and Korean systems is the most popular herb in the world and has been
classically used to augment sexual potency. Scientific studies have
suggested that ginseng can enhance sexual appetite and erectile function in
both animals and men. It can enhance your general sense of well-being and
vitality. Ginseng is available in many forms including capsules, teas, and
even chewing gum. A yurveda has an entire branch o f medicine dedicated to maintaining and
regaining optimal reproductive tissue. Known as V ajikarana,  these herbs are
sometimes refer red to as aphrod isiacs. Although you most likely think of an
aphrodisiac as something that arouses sexual desires, according to
A yurveda, these aphrodisiac herbs also improve your reproductive essence. In other words, t hey enhance ojas. The three most commonly recommended
ojas-enhancing substances in A yurveda are ashwagandha, shatavari, and
amalaki. Ashwagandha (W ithania somnifera)
Sometimes know n as winter cherry, this potently fragrant herb has long
been kn own as the primary masculine rejuvenating substance. Its Sanskrit
name means “smelling like a stallion,” implying that it infuses the user with
the pow er of a horse. Although its long-standing reputation is as a sexual
potency herb, most research has  focused on its stress-reducing a nd immune-
enhancing properties. A recent experiment with animals found that
ashwagandha influences the pituitary chemicals that regulate sex hormones. A yurveda recommends taking a  teaspoon of ashwagandha in warm milk
sweetened with  honey or brown sugar before bedtime. This is highly
encouraged on days when the man has ejaculated, with the intention of
helping to replenish lost ojas. It is equally valuable for women to enliven
their passion and sexual ardor. Ashwagandha is now readily available from
a number of herbal distributors in the W est.Shatavari (Asparagus racemosus)
This wild form of asparagus is considered to be the feminine e quivalent
of ashw agandha in that it supports the nurturing, receptive, creative
feminine ener gy that both men and women possess. Not known for
understatement, A yurveda gives this nourishing plant the Sanskrit name
shatavari, which can be translated as “capable of supporting one hundred
husbands.” It is a classical tonic with several indications includ ing relief of
premenstrual sy mptoms, enha ncement of milk flow in breastfeeding
mothers, and the smoothing of the transition through menopause. Scientific
studies on shatavari have been  limited to date, primarily look ing into its
traditional role in relieving stomach upset and improving lactation. Considering its long-standing history of value in strengthening  a woman’ s
physiology, shatavari is worthy of further scientific exploration. Although most commonly recommended for women, shatavari is also
considered a valuable tonic for men. Like ashwagandha, it is usually taken
in h ot milk sw eetened with honey or raw sugar. The com bination of
shatavari and ashwagandha (one  teaspoon of each) in a cup of hot milk with
a pinch of saf fron and a little honey or brown sugar makes a n excellent
tonic for both men and women and is a traditional ojas restorer. Amalaki (Emblica officinalis)
The powerful little fruit is one  of nature’ s most abundant s ources of
antioxidants. Ounce per ounce, amalaki juice carries twenty times the
vitamin C content of orange juice. Amalaki is considered the most powerful
general A yurvedic tonic, benef icial for both men and women. It is most
readily available  in the W est in the form of an herbal jam that combines
amalaki with a number of other tonic herbs and spices. The mythology around this ancient rejuvenating substance describes an
elderly sage, Chavan, who wa s asked by a king to marry h is daughter. Chavan was concerned that he would not be able to satisfy the needs of his
young b ride, but in meditation cognized the herbal formula that wouldrestore his youthful vitality. This subsequently became know as
Chavanprash or the jam of Chavan. Scientific resear ch on amalaki has shown it to have measurab le health-
enhancing properties, including the detoxification of c arcinogens,
protection of DNA, lowering of cholesterol levels and relief of heartburn. Amalaki-based herbal jams are becoming increasingly available in the
W est. W e recommend a teaspoon or two each day as a natural, general ojas-
enhancing tonic. Sources of ashwagandha, shatavari, and amalaki jam are
listed in the appendix. When we have r estor ed the sexual experience
to the r ealm of the sacr ed,
our world becomes divine, holy, and healed. The Soul of Love
Love ser ves the soul. W e learn our life lessons and awaken our memory of
wholeness through love. Our soul is the weaving of our memories and
desires, providi ng the template for all our aspirations, ch oices, and
experiences in life. W e can look at the soul as a confluence of contexts and
meaning. Conte xt entails a set of relationships and meaning is the way we
interpret the relationships. Ou r lives are a river of relationships and
meaning. Each of us is con tinuously reena cting one of the perennial them es of love
—trust a nd betra yal, unrequited  love and forbidden lust, uncond itional love
and calc ulating neediness. From Adam and Eve to Judas and  Jesus, the
most po werful s tories we tell e ach other across time and cultu re are love
stories. Love is the primal force on earth and beyond all the obvious and
stated re asons, behind every action is love. Striving for good grades in
school, doing well in a job, c reating a great work of art, composing abeautiful symph ony, writing a great novel, winning the Nobel P rize—if you
dig deep ly enough you will se e that all these stories are love stories in
disguise. In actuality, the only reason we do anything is for more love,
although we may go to co nsiderable lengths to concea l our true
motivations. Our disc ussion of love leads to  a simple conclusion: For the benefit of
your ph ysical, emotional, and spiritual well-being, generate m ore love in
your life. Each morning when you awaken, ask yourself, “How can I create
more love today? How can I ex press more love today? How can I be open
to recei ving more love today?” In every interaction ensure that some
exchange of love takes place. Whether it is chatting with your landscaper,
paying f or your groceries, talkin g with your children or being intimate with
your bel oved, co me from an in ner dialogue of love. When you  make love
the m ost important


 be the positive, life-arming response. He will also act
toward others in a way to which they will respond negatively and
conrm his false belief. In this way he deprives himself of pleasure
and restricts the ow of the life force, creating inner tensions and
further feeding his image. Thus negative compulsive patterns, or
self-perpetuating vicious circles, are created. Or, a baby cries because she is hungry, but the mother does not
respond. However, when she does not cry, the mother will come and
feed her. So the little girl draws the conclusion that if she shows her
need, she will not be heard, but if she does not, she will get
attention. Then the following conclusion is drawn: “In order to have
my need fullled, I must not show that I have a need.” With thisparticular mother, perhaps not showing the need actually did work
for a while, but, obviously, in later years such an attitude will
produce the opposite result. Since no one will know that this woman
has any specic needs, no one will fulll them. However, since she
is comp letely ignorant of her “image,” that is, the wrong conclusion
about showing  needs, because it has long ago sunk into her
unconscious, she will go through life showing her needs less and
less, hoping that eventually someone will reward her for being so
unassuming, and not understanding why she is so unfullled. She
does not know that it is her behavior that makes life conrm her
wrong belief. For images have a magnetic power. The wrong conclusions that form an image are drawn in
ignorance or half-knowledge and therefore cannot remain in the
conscious mind, and could actually have been carried over from
previous incarnations. As the child grows up, his or her newly
learned intellectual knowledge contradicts the old emotional
“knowledge.” The person pushes the emotional knowledge down
until it disappears from conscious sight. Yet the more the emotional
knowledge is hidden, the more potent it becomes. These unconscious
images then restrict the unfolding of the person’s potential. Therefore, a conscious eort has to be made to bring these images
into awareness and learn how to inactivate them. To nd out if such unconscious images exist in you on a deeper
level you can use an infallible key that will give you faultless
answers. This key is: How do you feel about yourself and about your
life? How meaningful, fullled, and rich is your life? Do you feel
secure with others? Do you feel comfortable about your most
intimate self in the presenc e of others, or at least with certain
people with whom you have a goal in common? How much joy are
you capable of feeling, giving, and receiving? Are you plagued with
resentments, anxiety, and tension, or with loneliness and a sense of
isolation? Do you need a lot of overactivity in order to alleviate
anxiety? Actua lly, the fact that you do not consciously feel anxious
by no means proves that you are without anxiety. Many start out on
the path without awareness  of their anxiety, but they feel dead,
numb, listless,  and paralyzed. This may be a sign that the anxietywas overcome through an articial deadening process. This path
cannot skip the step of making you rst feel your anxiety and then
feel whatever the anxiety hides. Only then can real aliveness come. Exhilaration, enthusiasm, joyousness, and the unique blend of
excitement and peace that connotes spiritual wholeness are a result
of inner  truthfulness. When these states are absent, then truthfulness
must be absent. It is as simple as that, my friends. So if you are prepared to embark on the journey into yourself to
nd, acknowle dge, and bring out whatever is in you, if you summon
all your inner truthfulness and commitment for the journey, if you
nd the courage and humility not to appear other than you are even
in your own eyes, then you have indeed every right to expect that
this path will help you realize your full life, and fulll your longing
in every conceivable way. This is a realistic hope. You will
increasingly know it to be so. Progress on the Path
Little by little you will begin to function from your innermost
center, which is a very dierent experience from functioning from
your periphery. You are now so accustomed to the latter that you
cannot even imagine how else it could be. Now you are constantly
dependent on what happens around you. You depend on
appreciation and approval from others, on being loved, and on
being successful in terms of the outside world. Whether you are
aware of it or not, you inwardly strive to make sure you will obtain
all this outer support so as to have peace and fulllment. When you function from your center, security and joy spring from
a deep well within you. This does not by any means imply that
when this happens you are condemned to live without  approval,
appreciation, love, or success. This is another dualistic
misunderstanding. You think: “Either I experience my center and
then must forfeit all love and appreciation from others and be alone,
or I must forfeit my inner self because I cannot contemplate such a
lonely life.” In reality, when you function from the liberated centerof your innermost self, you attract all the abundance of life to you,
but you do not depend on it. It enriches you and is a fulllment of a
legitimate need, but it is not the substance of life. The substance is
within. In the healthy life of every human being there must be exchange,
intimacy, communication, sharing, mutual love, mutual pleasure,
and the giving as well as the receiving of warmth and openness. Also, every human being needs recognition of what he or she does. But there is an enormous dierence between wanting this
recognition in a healthy way and depending on outside recognition
to such an extent that you are unable to do without it at all times. In
the latter case, the self begin s to sacrice its integrity in tragic ways
that cost much too much. Then the real self is betrayed and the
seeking of recognition defeats itself. This path is geared to nding
your center, the deep, inner spiritual reality, and not some illusory
religious escape. Quite the contrary, this path is immensely
pragmatic, for the true spiritual life is never in contradiction to
practical life on earth. There  must be a harmony between these two
aspects of the whole. Forsaking everyday living is not true
spirituality. In most cases, it is merely another kind of escape. For
many it is easier to sacrice something and to chastise themselves
than to face and deal with their dark aspects. The guilt for the latter
is constantly atoned for by self-deprivations that are supposedly
doorways to heaven. Yet this guilt cannot be wiped out unless the
personality deals directly with the darkness within. Then sacrice
and deprivation become not only unnecessary but even
contradictory to true spiritual unfoldment. The universe is abundant
in its joy, pleasure, and bliss: Human beings are supposed to
experience them, not forsake them. No amount of forsaking will
wipe out the guilt for avoiding the purication of the soul. I would  like to mention another specic feature of the inner
obstructions that must be met so they can be transcended. It is
necessary to rst understan d that all thoughts and feelings are
powerful agents of creative energy, regardless of whether the
thoughts are true and wise or false and limited. Likewise, whether
the feelings are loving or hateful, angry or benign, fearful orpeaceful, their energy must create according to their nature. Thoughts and opinions create feelings, and both of them  together
create attitudes, behaviors, and emanations, which in turn create
the life circumstances. These sequences must be connected with,
understood, and fully recogn ized. This is an essential aspect of the
pathwork. Your fear of your negative feelings is unjustied. The feelings in
themselves are not terrible or unbearable. However, your beliefs and
attitudes can make them so. This process is constantly being veried
by those who follow this path, because they nd that the deepest
pain is a reviv ifying experience. It releases contracted energy and
paralyzed creativity. It enables people to feel pleasure to the degree
they are willing to feel pain. The same applies to fear. To experience fear in itself is not
devastating: once experienced, the fear instantly becomes a tunnel
through which you travel, not letting go of the feeling of fear until it
carries you to a deeper level of reality. The fear is a denial of other
feelings. When the original feeling is being accepted and
experienced, the knot dissolves. Thus, it is never the feeling itself
that is unbearable. However,  your attitude has the power  to make it
so. Fear of your feelings makes you cut them o. Thus you cut
yourself o from life. Your spiritual center cannot evolve and
manifest and unify with your ego self unless you learn to fully
embrace all your feelings, allow yourself to be carried by them, and
learn to


 translating as “pouch” and
swedanam  meaning “fomentation” or “s weat therapy”. Theintegrated medical center called Soukya, just outside Bangalore, is
known for its extensive herb gardens — so their  potla  makes full
use of plants grown on site. Leaves f rom the  castor oil plan t (Ricinus communis ), rich in
oil, are combined with  Datura alba  leaves (this plant is widely
used by A yurvedic and Siddha practitioners in oil-based
preparations for  dressings on w ounds), skin tonifying  nirgundi  or
Vitex nigundo  leaves, and leaves from the  moringo  or drumstick
tree. The se latter leaves are a well-known natural antibiotic. In fact,
all thes e leave s contain anti-inflammatory and pain-reducing
properties, so are useful in arthritic conditions. T o prepare the  potla,
they are washed, torn up and m ixed with crushed garlic, lime and
shredded coconut flesh, then fried with medicated oil in a w ok,
before being knotted up into small pouches. Sand, like clay and mud, has the ability to retain heat or cold, so is an ideal filler
for a heated compress. When dipped in warm, medicated oil, these bundle s of
goodness spread warmth and healing deep into tense or knotted muscles. At the
tranquil Spa Village  in the Pangkor Island Resort in Malaysia, pretty batik cottons
are used to further the pouch’ s appeal. At Soukya, patients who have been prescribed this therapy are
on a  course of seven to 21 day s, and the pouch is combined with
other th erapies. It may be gi ven to people with sciatica, disc
prolapse or lower back pain, and  is usually applied after an external
massage with medicated oil. T w o therapists administer the  potla :
one war ms two of the pouches  in medicated oil, while the other
massages the other two on to af fected areas. Movements include
gentle thudding and rubbing away from the heart. Navara Kizhi
Definitely worth a try is the intriguingly named Navara  kizhi, a
Keralan treatment of fered at many spas and clinics throughout
India. A t Oberoi Spa at Udaivilas, Navara rice (a type of dehus ked,red rice)  is mixed with milk a nd a decoction of  bala  root (Sida
cordifolia ) and  boiled for half an hour until it achieves a gruel-like
consistency. It is then wrapped into a loosely spun cotton cloth that
allows t he mixture to come through easily, and applied on to the
body. The excess liquid is kept i n a reserve pan on a warmer, so that
the pouches may be periodically re-warmed. Bala  root is a powerful cell nourishing and regenerating herb,
and is used in m any A yurvedic  treatments to maintain youth and
vitality. It means “youth” in Sanskrit, and is considered analge sic,
diuretic and stimulating as well. When mixed with Navara rice and
milk, the  proper ties “go quite de ep”, according to A yurvedic doctor,
Dr Y oge sh, who recommends the treatment to develop muscles and
improve muscle tone. “The pouch nourishes the skin, alleviates
vata  problems, improves blood circulation, reduces stif fness and
strengthens both the quantity and quality of the muscles,” he says. V ariations on the Navara  kizhi  include  podi kizhi (podi  means
“powder”;  triphala  or  dashmool  are often used);  dhanya kizhi
(dhanyam  translates as “grains”, so a combination of processed
grains is  used here;  naranga kizhi  using a cloth pouch filled with
lemon and herbs dipped in medicated oils; and  elakizhi (ela  means
“leaves”. All are designed to ac t as a potent anti-rheumatic, so are
helpful for stif fness in the joints. The spa at Amanbagh uses  dashmool  powder (das  means ten,
mool  translates as roots) in its specialized  kizhi  treatment. T ied
securely in immaculate linen pouches, the pretty little bundles are
dipped into warmed, medicated sesame first boiled with handpicked
aak  leaves (Calotropis gigantea ) before application. Aak  is a
plant in the milk weed family that grows profusely in the immediate
locality; known as swallow-wort,  aak  is useful in the treatment of
paralysis, swellings and fever, and it is anti-inflammatory when
applied externally. The Sand Bundle
At the spa at R ajvilas and Spa V illage spas in South East Asia,
fomentation with  small linen pouches filled with sand are the norm. The sand bundle is classified un der  ushema swedanam  therapies,
which translates as “to warm up (bundles) to sweat”. At Rajvilas, sulphur sand from Simla (it can hold its
temperature for a long time) is tied in small linen pouches, w hichare then  dipped in warm medic ated oil chosen according to one’ s
dosha  and pounded on the body. Accompanied by massage, the
therapy is soothing for inflammatory conditions, stif fness of joints
and aching muscles; it also pro motes general wellbeing. The heat
speeds up blood circulation and promotes sweating, which in turn
helps to eliminate toxins from the body. Plucked from the organic garden, Soukya’ s leaves are washed and chopped, then
mixed with lime, coconut and garlic and fried in a wok with medicated oil chosen
according to a patie nt’s health status and  dosha  imbalance. After frying for 10 to
15 minute s, the ingredients are transferred into soft cotton pouches, before being
administered, wonderfully warmed in oil, on problem areas. The gorge ous property in Udaipur known as Udaivilas not only boasts tranquil
surrounds on Lake Pichola, it offers numerous sites for therapy. Built to resemble
a Mewari palace, scallop-edged arches,  jaali  windows, cool sandstone and marble
decorations, as well as abundant gardens, offer a delightful backdrop to a spa
suite. beauty
Ancient beauty  -enhancing rituals are
experiencing a renaissance globally, as
people look towards “natural” rather than
“chemical” solutions to the symptoms of
aging. India is well placed to cater to
such needs, as it is home to a rich
selection of hair, skin and body
treatments, all of which work both
internally and externally to create a
glowing complexion, soft skin andlustrous locks. In addition, we consider
some wonderful de-toxing and
beautifying baths and some inspiring
therapies that employ gems, crystals,
metals and minerals for healing. ayurvedic facial care
Indian women have been harnessing herbs and plants for
skin care for centuries. Nu merous Sanskrit texts outline
facial and other beauty treatments, and evidence of natural
cosmetics dates back to at least 3,000  BC  in excavations of
the In dus V alley civilizat ion in present-day Pakis tan. Instructions for extracts of flowers, leaves, barks and herbs
for both medicinal and cosmetic purposes are plentiful in the
V edas — and the flawlessn ess of Indian women’ s skin is
captured in countless paintings from the past. Some of  the more common Indi an beauty products that have found
a w orldwide market include  kajal  or kohl eyeliner and  mehndi
(henna), as well as various per fumes and oils. Kajal  found fame
with the  Moghul Empress Nur Jehan; it is traditionally made from
triphala, alm ond, camphor and cabbage, all burnt in the oil of rose,
and has been exported for decades. Oils of sandalwood, musk and
rose hav e been traded along w ith India’ s cotton and spices for
centuries, and the Rajput combination of rose and milk for facial
scenting and cleansing is well documented. More recently, as
people h ave become aware of th e potential pitfalls of chemical and
synthetic skin, hair and beauty products, Indian herbal recipes have
become increasingly popular in global markets. In addition to formulating, manufacturing and selling facial
products, India is starting to capitalize on some of its ancient be auty
treatments too. Threading, the ancient art of facial hair extraction, is
finding favor in London and New Y ork day spas, and henna hairtreatments are increasingly pr omoted in high-end hair salons. Marma  massage on the vital ener gy poi nts of the face is a therapy
of fered in many South East Asian spas and the Indian head mass age
is widely used as a “filler” whilst a client is resting with a face
mask, fo r example. These, along with some of the more medicinal
A yurvedic treatments,


 the ovaries,  but maintain an
awareness of the  perineum to  retain  the energ y that you have
brought  there. Practice Ovarian  Breathing  by opening  and closing
the vagina  slightly  in order  to collect  the energy  in the Ovarian  Palace. (2) Drawing  Energy  to the Jade Pillow
    Once  you feel that enough  ovaries’  energ y has been  collected,
inhale  a short  sip and  close  the vagina,  pulling  the ovaries’  energ y
downward to the  perineum, and  then  contract  and pull the front
part of the  perine um upw ard to bring  energ y to this  area. Rest  for a
while and be aware of the energy  that travels  from the ovaries  dow n
to the  vagina,  clitoris  and perine um. Inhale  anothe r short  sip and
bring  the energ y up to  the sacru m, T-11,  and C-7,  and then  slightly
push  the chin do wn and pull it back,  moving it to ward the back of
the neck at  the base  of the  skull. (Fig. 5.23)  Feel  this push  create  a
force  that activates  the Cranial  Pum p, which will help  to pump the
dense  ovaries’  ener gy. Hold  the energy  at this point  for a while,
feeling  it being  stored  and transformed. Exhale,  then  perm it your
sacru m, T-11  and neck  to relax  in their  normal positions. This action
will help  to activate  the Adrenal,  Sacral  and Cranial  Pum ps again. Retain  the energy  at the base  of the  skull. Repeat  this entire  process
nine times. - 103  -Cultivating  Ovarian Power
Jade Pil low
Fig. 5.23  Guiding  Energy up to  the Jade Pill ow. F. Sixth Stati on: Crown Point, Larger St orage Point  For Se xual
Energy
   Your next stopping  point  is called  the Pai-Hui,  located  at the
midpoint or cro wn, of your head  and is the  center  housing  the pineal
gland. This point  is a large r storage  point. - 104  -Chapter  V
((1) Collecting Energy in  the Ovarian Palace
    IPractice  in the same m anner:  only  this ti me yo u will fill the  “stra w”
to the  top. Collect  the ovaries’  energy  at the Ovarian  Palace. Close
the vagina  with a minimal movement of  the Chi Muscle,  pulling  the
ovaries’  energ y dow n to the  perineum, and feeling  the sensation
as the  vagina  closes:  contract  and pull do wn the front  part of the
perineum to  bring  the energ y there. Hold  your breath  and retain  the
energy  at the  perineum. Be aware of the  Ching  Chi that  has been
brought  to this  place. Exhale and return  to the ovaries,  but maintain
an awareness at the perineum to  retain  the energ y that you have
brought  there. Practice Ovarian  Breathing  by opening  and closing
the vagina  slightly  in order  to collect  the energy  in the Ovarian  Palace. (2) Drawing  Energy  to the Crown Point
    Once  you feel that enough  ovaries’  energ y has been  collected,
inhale  a short  sip and  close  the vagina  by pulling  downward to
bring  the ovaries’  energ y to the  perine um, and  then  contract  and
pull up  the front  part of the perineum to  bring  energ y to this  area. Rest for  a while and be aware of the  energ y that travels  from  the
ovaries  down to the vagina,  clitoris and  perin eum. Inhale  and tilt the
sacru m and  T-11  to the  back  in order  to straighten  the spinal curve
out a little bit  and thereb y help  activate  the lower Sacral Pum p. At
the same ti me push  the sternu m in toward the back,  tuck y our chin
in a little, and squeeze  the back of  your skull: this  will activate  the
upper  Cranial  Pump. Continue  pulling  up to  the point  at the  top, the
center  of the head. (Fig. 5.24)  As yo u continu e to inhale,  bring  the
energy  down to the perineum, up  to the sacrum, T-11, C-7, lade
Pillow, and then  turn your eyes and other  senses  upward to help
guide  the energ y up to  the point  of the  Pai-Hui, or  crow n point,  and
the pineal  gland. (3) Resting and using your mind to guide energy  to the Brain
   Once  the energy  finall y has completed  its course  up into your
head,  use your eyes and other  senses  to help  retain  it in the  brain,
holding  it at the top of your brain  as co mfortably  as possible. Exhale,
then let y our sacrum, T-11 and neck relax,  retur ning to their  normal
positions. This wi ll help  to activate  the three  pumps: Sacral,  Adrenal
and Cranial. Use y our mind to guide  the energ y station- to-station
up the spine  to the top of the  head. Fix your attention  and eyes at
- 105  -Cultivating  Ovarian Power
the crow ·n point. Remember it is the  resting,  period  that is the
strongest  in guiding  the ener gy to the brain. Repeat  this process
nine times. Crown
Jade Pil low
C-7
T-11
Ovarian Palac eSacrum
Fig. 5.24 Guiding  Energy up to the Crown  Point. - 106  -Chapter  V
G. Circulating  the Energy  in the Brain
(I) Filling the  Brain  Cavity with Creative Sexual Enengy
    When you have  finished  practicing  nine  times, and  can feel the
ovaries’  sexual  energ y fill the brain,  start  to circulate  the ener gy in
the brain  for nine,  eighteen,  or thirty -six counterclock wise revolutions. There  is a ver y distinct feeling  of spinning  outward. (Fig. 5.25(a) )
When this circulation  is co mpleted,  turn the energ y back into  the
center  of the brain  for nine,  eighteen,  or thirty -six clockw ise
revolutions. (Fig. 5.25(b )) This should  feel pleasan t and energ etic
and will help to balance  the left and  right  sides  of the  brain,  vitalizing
it to increase  memory and think  more clearl y, and it will introduc e
you to the  beginnin g stages  of the ability  to control  sexual  energ y
and emotional  frustratio ns. As people  age and use up mu ch of
their Chi, the y gradu ally drain  them selves  of brain  energ y and spinal
fluids, drying them up  and leaving  a cavity. Ovarian  Breathing
transports  creative  sexual  energ y to refill this cavity  and thereb y
revitalize  the brain. Taoists rega rd sexual ener gy as similar to  brain
energy. (2) Touchi ng the Tongue to the  Palate to Permit the Energy
to flow down to the Navel for Storage. Be sure  the tongue  is touching  the palate  (behind  the front  teeth
will suffice),  so that  the warm ovaries’  energ y can flow dow n to the
third eye, to the  inside  of your nose,  and through  the tongue  from
which it is no w able  to travel  down the throat  to the  heart  center. - 107  -Cultivating  Ovarian Power
(a) Circ ulate the ener gy in the brain
nine, eightee n or thirty -six times
counterc lockwise  (Spin ning outward). (b) W hen the co unterclockwise  turns
are complete d, circu late the energy
nine, eig hteen or thirt y-six times
clockwise  (Spinning i nward). Fig. 5.25 Circulating  Energy in  the Crown
- 108  -Chapter  V
(Fig. 5-26) Retain  the energy  in the heart  center  for a while, filling  it