 “My name is I will be,” becau se to do so would be to admit that
God is lacking something now that he will ultimately become. He said, “I
am that I am.”  You too have been bestowed with the I am legacy. You can
make the choice to reprogram your imagination to take you where you
intend to be: in the now. Creation originates in the world of Spirit—or, to
say it differently, your imagination is the Source of all that has yet to
manifest for you. By staying only with what your senses tell you is your
reality, you place a barrier to letting your imagination create all that you
wish, all that you desire. Your imagination is unlimited. What is today, is
restricted by just that: what is today.
Albert Einstein made this astute observation: “Logic will get you from A
to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” Your logic—that is, the facts
that you’ve accepted as true—have gotten you to point B. Now you’re
going to reprogram  your imagination to take you everywhere— everywher e
that you are brave enough to envision for yourself.
In the quotation on success that I shared with you earlier, Henry David
Thoreau’ s last sentence is fitting for this first foundation for a wishes
fulfilled life: “[You] will meet with a success unexpected in common
hours.” Thoreau suggests that the universe will begin to conspi re with you
to fulfill your wishes. It isn’t just your imagination that will bring you what
you desire—it’ s the fact that you’re realigned with the I am that I am. When
you become it in your mind, you gain the same powers as that which you
are now casting your lot with: God or the T ao.
Your Highest Self and Y our Imagination
The essence of you—the you who is a spiritual being having a temporary
human experience—is cultivated in your imagination. The I am that I am—
that is, the you that is God— is impervious to the senses. There’ s an
invisible realm within and around you that is you, and your imagination is
your key to realigning with this I am presenc e, which Einstein said “will
take you everywhere.” Within this realm, guidance is alway s available
when (1) You are open to it, and most important, (2) You are aligned inbody, mind, and spirit. This means living in harmony with your own
personal dharma, feeling on purpose living the life you were intended to
live, and feeling the presence of your highest self at work.
This guidance comes in ways that you don’t experience when your life is
off purpose, or when you prefer negative emotions such as fear, anxiety,
worry, hatred, sadness, and the like. Each of these dubious emotional states
takes you away from your God-realized self. Remember, God’ s name is I
am, so how could God say, “I am afraid, I am worried, I am angry, I am
sad,” and still be God?! Impossible, because God is love and God is
oneness. In order for God to be afraid, worried, angry, or sad, She’d have to
divide Herself and have something other than self to fear, worry about, hate,
or be sad toward. This would make God two: that is, Herself as well as an
other to feel gloomy or angry toward, and God cannot do this and still be
God.
So it is with you as well. Every time you put a non-God descrip tor after I
am, you negate your Divine nature. The words I am are your sacred
identification as God—your highest self. Take care how you use this term
because saying anything after I am that’s incongru ent with God is really
taking the Lord’ s name in vain! Practice using imagination to define
yourself only in ways that are compatible with your highest self, and the
universe will supply the happiness, love, and success that you previously
imagined eluding you. This is the meaning of Thoreau’ s statement “meet
with a success unexpected in common hours.” Common hours  are the times
you spend in ordinary awar eness, unawa re of the nature of your God-
realized being. I emphasize this based on my own experience.
As I proceed through my seventies, I’m beginning to recognize more
readily the relationship between  my conscious invitation to the God within
me, and what the universe has in store for me. It is simply a sacred
imperative for me to live from the knowing that I am God  in the truest sense
of the word. The result is being fully aligned with my own dharma in ways
that often appear not to be connected. Carl Jung called this phenomenon
synchr onicity—  a collaboration with fate that seems to take place with
strange and wonderful “coincidences” happening.
There’ s a feeling of invisible beings taking the reins of my life in a
profound way. I can feel them, and they make themselves know n to me in a
variety of ways that I once would have labeled far-fetched and impossible.The presence of beings, including those who have passed on, has become
my reality. These angelic beings  steer me in ways that keep me aligned with
my dharma and with my highest  self. I feel I’m in a new state of awareness,
rather than being directed by unseen beings. Then I see how I’m being
influenced while still acting from my own treasured free will. A recent
example of this comes to mind.
I was aware on my evening walk that I was taking a slightly different
route as I turned in a different  direction than was normal for me. After
purchasing some food to take home, I chose to return home along a route
I’d never taken before. On the way I noticed a fountain and decided to stop
for a few moments. Then as I walked along a path in total darkness, a man
called out my name. Because I had done all of these new things, I was
aligned with someone who recognized me even in total darkness.
We chatted, and I invited this man and his wife and their two small
children into my home. Michael and Angela were on Maui to commemorate
the death nine years earlier of their two-and-a-half-year -old daughter. We
talked about their loss, and Angela said that she felt her first child’ s
presence every day. She describ ed it as a feeling of almost giddy joyfulness
that permeated her daily life. Angela knew  that her daughte r’s passing was a
Divine experience, and that her angelic daughter was with her family at all
times and also attempting to teach Angela something that remained elusive
but exciting to her.
How many unplanned moves did I take in order for us to meet and share
an eveni ng discu ssing just what I am writing about today? Was I in charge
or was I being guided? Were Michael and Angela also being guided to that
spot for this encounter to take place? I did not feel as if I was being steered
—what happened was that I was awar e just for a fleeting moment. I
proceeded to let myself be guided without any sense of listening to
extraterrestrial voices, anticipating something grand was going to show up.
It was only later that I looked back and saw how all my nonrou tine moves
were guidance of some kind that allowed that evening meeting to occur.
What transpired  in that meetin g is what prompted me to tell this story,
because it illustrates living from the place of allowing imaginati on to freely
function. Somet hing seems to kick in and generate circumstances to fulfill
our wishes.During our evening together I told Michael and Angela about my
experience of an orb (an opaque  circular feature that appears unexpectedly
in photo graphs) appearing on my left shoulder in a photo while I was giving
a lecture. The woman who took the photograph, Linda Millek, had this tiny
mark expanded, revealing a collection of what looked like human faces
right there with me as I was delivering a speech on The “I AM” Discourses.
It turns out that Linda’ s only son had passed away some 18 years earlier,
and he was communicating with her using I Am as his channeled calling.
Linda has thousa nds of photos of orbs that she picks up on her camera. She
feels her son’s presence in orbs that appear majestically in a variety of
forms. She is in the process of having her son help to reveal to her what
these appearances mean.
Linda took several photos of me on the island of St. Maarten, and these
megaphone-shaped orbs were visible on both my left hip and right side.
(See photo insert.) The shapes  are identical to those that appear on her
photographs taken from her bedroom window in Michigan where her son
once lived. Lind a has absolutely no doubt about the presence of these orbs,
at the same time she is in the process of learning what their presence means,
and how to best use this information in the fulfillment of a higher calling.
This subject of orbs and their purpose is fascinating. I’ve just completed
my first reading of a book by Dr. Klaus and Gundi Heinemann called Orbs:
Their Mission and Messages of Hope, comple te with 65 color photo s of
these rather mystical invisible critters, with convincing commentary and
visual evidence to convert the skeptic. I have the photos of these orbs and
their highly en


 1987.
Shelton, I-Ierbert M., D.C., The Science and Fine Art of Food and
Nutrition, Natural Hygiene Press, 1984.
Sidhwa, Keki R., N.D., D.O., The Quintessence of Natural Living,
British Natural Hygiene Press, 1994.
Tilden, John H., M.D., Toxemia Explained, Keats Publishing, 1981.
Tobe, John H., No-Cook Book, Provoker Press, 1970.
Yiamouyiannis, John, Ph.D., Fluoride the Aging Factor, Health Action
Press, 1983
t I highly recommend Improving on Pritikin, a superb book written by a
man who was once Nathan Pritikin's staunchest disciple. This book ex
plains in detail why the high-grain, low-fat vegetarian diet, renowned for
its phenomenal success in reversing heart disease, falls woefully short of
producing optimal overall health.
46 Other Authors Speak Out Against Grains
In the years since the frrst publication of Grain Damage, a shift in our
collective consciousness has begun to emerge, moving us away from a
grain-centered diet and guiding us toward a more healthful alternative.
This growing trend manifests itself in the form of low-carb diets, the
glttten-free lifestyle, some forms of raw veganism, and environmentally
centered food choices.
By their very nature, each of these dietary changes requires at least
some degree of understanding that grains are ecologically hazardous and
health-robbing "foods." This growing awareness of the grain damage
taking place in and around us is further evidenced by the following list of
corroborating titles, which have been published in recent years.
Health-Related Books/Gluten-Free Lifestyle Books
Braly, James M.D., Hoggan, Ron M.A. Dangerous Grains: Why Gluten
Cereal Grains May Be Hazardous to Your Health, 2002.
Smith, Melissa Diane, Going Against the Grain: How Reducing and
Avoiding Grains Can Revitalize Your Health, Contemporary Books,
2002.
Kom, Danna, Wheat-Free, Worry-Free: The Art of Happy, Healthy
Gluten-Free Living, Hay House, Inc, 2002.
Mercola, Joseph and Levy, Alison Rose The No-Grain Diet: Conquer
Carbohydrate Addiction and Stay Slim for the Rest of Your Life, -
Dutton Books, 2003.
Case, Shelley, Gluten-Free Diet: A Comprehensive Resource Guide,
Case Ntttrition Consulting, 2002.
47 Le Breton, Marilyn, Diet Intervention and Autism: Implementing a
Gluten Free and Casein Free Diet for Autistic Children and Adults:
A Guide for Parents, Jessica Kingsley Publisher s, Ltd., 2001.
Ries, Lynn Rae What? No Wheat? A Lighthearted Primer to Living the
Gluten-Free Wheat-Free Life, What? No Wheat? Publishing
Company, 2002.
Recipe Books
Bager, Jodi and Lass Jenny, Grain-free Gourmet: Delicious Recipes for
Healthy Living, Whitecap Books, 2005.
Ryberg, Roben, The Gluten-Free Kitchen: Over 135 Delicious Recipes
for People with Gluten Intolerance or Wheat Allergy, Prima
Publishing, 2000.
Stockton, Shreve, Eating Gluten Free: Delicious Recipes and Essential
Advice for Living Well without Wheat and Other Problematic
Grains, Marlowe and Company, 2005.
48 Grains Are for the Birds
In his excellent book Improving on Pritikin: You Can Do Better (see
bibliography), author Ross Home indicts grains on the same counts that I
mention in tbis shott book, and many more. Here, with permission, is the
summary to his chapter 10, "Grains Are for the Birds."
In brief, the objections to grains and grain products as foods suitable to the
human system are:
1. They are deficient in a number of· important nutrients.
2. They contain substances to some degree poisonous to the system.
3. They must be cooked in order to be digested which process further
depletes their value and increases their pathological effect.
4. They place strain on the digestive system causing hypertrophy of the
pancreas and unnecessary depletion of enzyme reserves while at the
san2e time resulting in flatulence.
5. They are capable of damaging the intestinal villi} causing them, to atrophy.
6. They are acid-forming in the bodyJ often to the extent of causing arthritis
and possibly cancer in the long term.
7. They are capable of causing allergy reactions such as dry skin,
subcutaneous cysts, exacerbation of multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia.
8. They are antagonistic to the body's immune system and increase
susceptibility to head colds and other infections.
9. They are the worst causative factor in tooth decay due to their tendency to
readily ferment between the teeth, so producing the acid which destroys
tooth enamel.
10. They are totally unsuitable for infants, causing in some cases permanent
damage to their digestive organs.
11. Of all foodstuffs, they contain the highest levels of calcareous salts which
gradually accumulate in the tissues and cells, including the arteries, to
accelerate the process of aging.
12. Apart from antagoni zing the digestive system and providing inadequate
nutrition, they are absolutely tasteless and unappealing to the senses,
being rendered edible only by cooking and artificial flavoring.
49 About the Author
Dr. Douglas Graham, a lifetime athlete and twenty-seven year raw fooder,
is an advisor to world-class athletes and trainers from around the globe. He
has worked professionally with top perforn1ers from almost every sport and
field of entertainment, including such notables as tennis legend Martina
Navratilova, NBA pro basketball player Ronnie Grandison, track Olympic
sprinter Doug Dickinson, pro women's soccer player Callie Withers,
championship bodybllilder Kenneth G. Williams, Chicken Soup for the
Soul coauthor Mark Victor Hansen, and actress Demi Moore.
Dr. Graha1n is the author of several books on raw food and health,
including The High Energy Diet Recipe Guide, Nutrition and Athletic
Performance, and the forthcoming Prevention and Care of Athletic
Injuries and The 80/10110 Diet. He has shared his strategies for success
with audiences at more than 4,000 presentations worldwide. Recognized
as one of the fathers of the modern raw movement, Dr. Graham is the
only lecturer to have attended and given keynote presentations at all of
the major raw events in the world, from 1997 through 2005.
Dr. Graham is a founder of and is cWTently serving his third tetrn as
president of Healthful Living International, the world's premier Nattrral
Hygiene organization. He is on the board of advisors of Voice for a Viable
Future, the Vegetarian Union of North America, Living Light Films, and
EarthSave International. He serves as ntttrition advisor for the magazine
Exercise, for Men Only and authors a column for Get Fresh! and Living
Nutrition magazines.
Dr. Graham is the creator of "Simply Delicious" cuisine and director
of Health & Fitness Weeks, which provide Olympic-class training and
nutritional guidance to people of all fitness levels in beautiful settings
around the world. He is living proof that eating whole, fresh, tipe, raw,
organic food is the nutritional way to vibrant health and vitality.
50 My speed, endurance, strength,
recovery, coordination, and
flexibility have all improved
tremendously since going on
the starchless diet. My overall
fitness has never been better.
I have been on Dr. Graham's
program for two years; I am
playing my best basketball,
and I am not looking back."
-Ronnie Grandison,
Age 34, New York Knicks
·"Having had extensive experience
working with hundreds of food
addicts, I know this to be the first
and only publication that exposes
the real physiological cause of
eating disorders. It belongs.· on..
the shelf of every healthcare
professional."
-Prof. R.ozalind Gruben,
AHSI,RSA <|eot_id|><|begin_of_text|>Article by Dr. Sergei Filonov from hi s website - Google
Chrome translated
Dry (a bsolute) therapeutic starvation
"Observe the nature, learn from it, take the best and improve,
there are no boundaries for perfection".
Dry therapeutic starvation is now considered one of the new ways of treatment. And yet this
method was born at the dawn of humanity. Moreover, it can be confidently asserted that from
the very beginning of the development of the existing forms of animal life, it was actively
used by all representatives of the animal kingdom. The process of starving without water has
been known for a long time, thousands of years, but, unfortunately, most people do not apply,
many do not even know about it. In nature, dry fasting is more common and more frequent
than wet starvation. All living matter uses varieties of dry starvation ( anabiosis, hypobiosis ,
hibernation) for survival, treatment and improvement of its species.
Let's discuss, is this process natural?
Yes, it is a natural process


plenished them selves and then enter the dormant stage. Until the next
time.
This is only one of an endless number of possible scenarios. Many
volumes have been written, and  many more could be written, about the
ways in which unconsciousness is brought out in male-female
relationships. Bu t, as I said earlier, once you understand the root of the
dysfunction, you do not need to explore its countless manifestations.
Let’ s briefly look again at the scenario I have just describe d. Every
challenge that it contains is actually a disguised opportunity for
salvation. At every stage of the unfolding dysfunctional process, freedom
from unconsciousness is possible. For example, the woman’ s hostility
could become a signal for the man to come out of his mind-identified
state, aw aken into the Now, become present — instead of becoming even
more id entified with his mind, even more unconscious. Instead of
“being” the pain-body, the woman could be the knowing that watches the
emotional pain in herself, thus accessing the power of the Now and
initiating the transmutation o f the pain. This would remove the
compulsive and automatic outward projection of it. She could then
express her feelings to her partner. There is no guarantee, of co urse, that
he w ill listen, b ut it gives him  a good chance to become present and
certainly breaks  the insane cycle of the involuntary acting out of old
mind pa tterns. If the woman m isses that opportunity, the man could
watch h is own  mental-emoti onal reaction to her pain, his own
defensiveness, r ather than being  the reaction. He could then watch hisown pain-body being triggered  and thus bring consciousness into his
emotions. In this way, a clear a nd still space of pure awarene ss would
come in to being — the knowing, the silent witness, the watcher. This
awareness does not deny the pain and yet is beyond it. It allows the pain
to b e an d yet transmutes it at the same time. It accepts everything and
transforms everything. A door would have opened up for her through
which she could easily join him in that space.
If you are consistently or at least predominantly present in your
relationship, thi s will be the greatest challenge for your partn er. They
will not be able to tolerate your presence for very long and stay
unconscious. If they are ready, they will walk through the door that you
opened for them and join you in that state. If they are not, you will
separate like oil and water. The light is too painful for some one who
wants to remain in darkness.
WHY WOMEN ARE CLOSER T O ENLIGHTENMENT
Ar e the obstacles to enlightenment the same for a man as for a woman?

Y es, but the emphasis is dif ferent. Generally speaking, it is easier for a
woman to feel a nd be in her body, so she is naturally closer to B eing and
potentially closer to enlightenment than a man. This is why many ancient
cultures instinctively chose female figures or analogies to represent or
describe the formless and transcendental reality. It was often s een as a
womb that gives birth to everything in creation and sustains and
nourishes it during its life as form. In the T ao T e Ching, one of the most
ancient and profound books e ver written, the T ao, wh ich could be
translated as Being, is described as “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


 978-1-57731-234-5
Printed in Canada on acid-free, partially recycled paper
Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group W est
10 9 8 7 6 5
OceanofPDF.comdedication
This work is dedicated to two of the most important people in my life: one
who made me, and one who made it possible for me to realize my dream.
To my father, an ocean of insigh t. I stroll on the wind-washed shores of
his memories, drinking in the knowledge and love he left me.
And, to Anandj i, a mountain of inspiration, who will always tower on
the horizon of my consciousness.
OceanofPDF.comCONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
The Lunch That Changed My Life
Chapter 1
Ayurveda Is a V erb
Chapter 2
Ayurveda Spells Health B-A-L-A-N-C-E
Chapter 3
How A yurvedic Healing W orks
Chapter 4
“Elementary” A yurveda
Chapter 5
Learning the Language of the Elements
Chapter 6
Routine Matters — and How!
Chapter 7
The Delicious Route to HealingChapter 8
The When-What-How-and-Why of Food
Chapter 9
Fresh, Flavorsome, Fulfilling A yurvedic Recipes
Chapter 10
Be A yurveda Beautiful
Chapter 1 1
Simply Stress-Free
Chapter 12
Yoga: An Exercise in Bliss
Chapter 13
Living A yurveda, Giving A yurveda
Chapter 14
Surfing the A yurvedic Ocean
Appendix
Dosha-W ise Food Guide
Glossary
Resource List
Index
About the Author
OceanofPDF.comFacknowledgments
irst and foremost, I have my mother to thank for raising me to believe in
myself and always putting my needs before her own. How truly she
lives up to her name “Mamta,” which means “motherly love.”
I am also deepl y grateful to my brother, Sachin, for his you’d -better -
write-a-book admonitions that finally worked; my husband, Hemant, for
being my friend and unflatteri ng critic; my son, Harshvardhan, and my
dearest friends, Shirin, Chetna, Bena, Prita, and Sylvia, for filling my life
with their affection; Vasu Nargundkar for her tips, advice, guidance, and
tremendous support throughout the writing of this book; Vaidya Ramakant
Mishra for sharing with me his infinite Ayurvedic wisdom; Bob Rose for
his insig hts on yoga, and his generosity with resource mater ial; Geor gia
Hughes for lifting my proposal of f the slush pile, giving me this chance, and
encouraging me throughout the writing of this book; and Katie Farnam
Conolly for her incisive editing, kind words, and infinite patience.OceanofPDF.comAINTRODUCTION
the lunch that
changed my life
It’s a helluva start, being able to r ecognize what makes you happy.
— Lucille Ball, June 22, 1993
Boeing 747 rises off the runway  at London’ s Gatwick Airport. Gazing
down at the rapidly diminishing carpet of cool green meadows, I feel
my eyes mist over. It has been an exhilarating English summer, spent
among beloved friends.
By contrast, walking through the hallway of New Delhi’ s Indira Gandhi
International Airport is like swim ming through a custard of melted sun. The
heat threatens to liquefy my eyeballs inside their sockets. Every nerve in my
skull is dissolving. But, ah, it is so good to be back home.
In the airport lounge, my mothe r wraps her soft arms around me, and I
can smell musta rd oil and curry leaves in her hair. Curry and rice — yum!
My stomach rumbles happily in anticipation of the wond erful lunch
awaiting me at my mother ’s home.Each time I think back to that lunch, my heart fills with gratitude. Of
course it was delicious, warm, welcoming. But what made it unforgettable
was that it changed my life.
We had just sat down to lunch when the doorbell rang. An elderly man
stood at the door, wearing a cotton kurta-pajama and an affable smile. My
father introduced  him as Vaidya Divakar Sharma, our new neigh bor. Vaidya
Sharma had stopped by to give my mother an herbal formulation for her
cough, but at our insistence he stayed for lunch.
I was, of course, familiar with the word vaidya. It comes from the
Sanskrit word vid, or “knowledge,” and means “one who knows.” I knew
that Ayurvedic physicians were called vaidyas, but I had never met one
before.
Over lunch, the vaidya remarked  I looked more than exhausted from my
journey; I looked unwell. “You look like you need some hydration therapy”
were his exact words. “Really,” I smiled politely, helping mysel f to another
ladleful of curry.
By evening, I was decidedly ill: fever, shivering, abdominal cramps, and
a horrib le burni ng sensation in my urine. I rushed to the nearest hospital,
and they diagnosed me with acute urinary tract infection.
The doctor advised me to stay off coffee and spices, and to start a
seven-day course of Norfloxacin. And, yes, “Drink lots of water,” he said.
Water. Hydration. The vaidya’ s words floated back into my
consciousness. How had he known?
The next morning, I downed my first dose of antibiotic and phoned
Vaidya Sharma for a formal appointment.
Sitting in his verandah-turned-clinic, the vaidya wore starched snow-
white clothes reminiscent of the Ganges-bathing, mantra-chanting sadhus of
the Himalayan foothills. His wife, pleasant and petite, brought me a tall
glass of cool rose-water sherbet.
I opened my mouth to tell the vaidya about my condition, but his hand
waved me into silence. Sitting close to me, he placed three delicate fingers
on my wrist, supporting it with the ball of his thumb. Then he leaned back
and closed his eyes. It was as if, in that one silent minute, he was drawing
on his lifetime of training to hear the inside story of my body.When Vaidya Divakar Sharm a opened his eyes, he asked me an
unexpected question: “Have you had persistent throat problems?” I nodded,
stunned. He was right, but how could holding my wrist tell him about my
throat? And weren’t we supposed to be addressing a totally different region
anyway?
As his fingers pressed slightly harder, his questions began to come more
rapidly: “Do you tend to clench your teeth?” “Do you often miss lunch?”
Then, most curiously — and accurately — “Do you have a tendency to
suppress your real feelings most of the time?” I remember thinking what a
Sherlock Holme s–like situation this was; here was a man I had barely met,
piecing together  fragments of my personality from clues I had no idea I was
giving out.
Vaidya Sharma caught the questions as they darted from my eyes.
Holmes would have chided Watson for his lack of perception. The vaidya
only smiled. “It’s really quite  simple. The human pulse is intimately
communicative, and we vaidya s are trained to pick up its signals, both
superficial and deep. Ah, the things your pulse can tell me — and even your
face, your skin, your eyes! Some day, I shall sit and talk to you about it all.”
He then asked me to pull out a piece of paper and a pen. “Write down
your prescription,” he said.
I opened my mouth to ask how I could write my own prescription, but
decided against voicing the question. After all, nothing in this session was
going quite conventionally.
The prescription V aidya Sharma dictated to me read as follows:
•  Give yourself a warm sesam e-oil full-body massage befor e your
daily bath.
•  Drink a cup of warm water every half hour.
•  Make generous use of coarsely pounded coriander seeds in cooking.
•  Eat a spoonful of rose-petal preserve at noon.
•  Practice twenty minutes of quiet reflection every morning and
evening.I hesitated, then asked, “And the medicines?” He smiled. “My dear girl,
your pulse tells me you are blessed with very strong immunity. I feel certain
that my prescrip tion will heal your infection quite easily. But to make sure
you don’t encounter these minor illnesses, use the medicines that are sitting
on your spice rack, and those that are waiting inside your heart.”
The good vaidya’ s words kindled in me a keen curiosity about
Ayurveda. How I wished he would take the day off and talk to me about his
methods, but his next patient was already at the door. I decided that my
next-best source  of information on this system of healing would be a good
book. So off I went to the neares t public library, and fished out all the books
on alternative healing that I


fth element in
Aristotle's ether; while in the Hermetic and Rosicrucian
teachings the four elements are represented by the cross,
with the point of intersection, the centre, as the
quintessence. A. K. Coomaraswamy draws attentio n to the
idea of the four elemen ts as demonstrating one of the
many assoc iations between alchemy, masonry and
architecture. The four elements are symbolized by the four
cornerstones, or foundation stones of a building, ‘since it
is upon them that the whole corporeal world, represented
by the shape of the square, is constructed... in fact there
are not only the four basic elements, but also a ﬁfth
element or the “quintesse nce,” that is to say the ether, this
latter is not on the same level as the others, for it is not
simply as a base, as they are, but indeed the principle
itself of the world.’ Here we have the ﬁfth element taking
on much of the same importance as the Earth in Chinese
symbolism, except that in the latter the Earth is also a
base. In Buddhist archite cture the stupa takes the form ofthe ﬁve elements, the square at the base is the Earth,  the
union of the other four elements, with the circle as the
waters, the triangle as ﬁre, the crescent as air and ether
represented by the jewel at the top. The symbolism of the
stupa form of the elements, which marked sacred places
or tombs, was that the dead have been re-absorbed into
their original elements.
The Five Elements in Stupa form
The Five Elem ents of Chinese tradition, ﬁrst propo unded
systematically by T sou Y en, about 350 B C, were believed to
be that from which all forms were derived. From this it
followed that the body and its organs also proceed from
those ﬁve forms, each associated with its particular
element. The Five Elements and their properties are:
WOOD. East. Spring. V itality. Production. The solid
but workable. Sour. Blue or green. Controls liver
and gall. The Dragon. Jupiter.
FIRE. South. Summer. Brilliance. Heat. Bitter. Red.
Controls heart and small intestines. The V ermilion
Bird (Phoenix). Mars.EARTH. Centre. End of Summer. The Nourishing.
Sweet. Y ellow. Controls stomach and spleen. Ox or
buﬀalo. Saturn.
METAL. W est. Autumn. Destruction and decline. The
solid but moulded. Acrid. White. Controls lungs
and larger intestine. The White Tiger. Venus.
WATER. North. W inter. The Hidden. Cold. Fluid. Salt.
Black. Controls kidneys and bladder. The Black
Tortoise. Mercury.
An alternative arrangement is sometimes used in which
the order is: Water, Fire,  Wood, Gold or Metal, Earth. But
Earth in the central position is more traditional.
The Elemen ts also have their yin-yang  aspects as
associated with plants, metals and planets:
WOOD. Yang. The Pine—Y in. The Bamboo. Jupiter.
Tin. Air. Salt.
FIRE. Y ang. Burning wood—Y in. Lamp ﬂame. Mars.
Iron. Realgar.
EARTH. Y ang. A Hill—Y in. A Plane or V alley. Saturn.
Earth. The Retort.
METAL. Y ang. A W eapon—Y in. A K ettle. V enus.
Copper. Sublimate of mercury.
WATER. Y ang. A W ave—Y in. A Brook. Mercury,
Quicksilver. Aqua fortis. V itriol.
These ﬁve agents, powers, or elements, also known as
‘the Univers al Quintet,’ are, as Professor Needha m says,
‘ﬁve powerful forces in ever-ﬂowing cyclical motion, and
not passive motionless fundamental substances.’ They are
both creative and destructive; they predominate
alternatively and each is followed by the one it cannot
destroy; they are thus bound up with the cyclical view ofNature as the round of birth, death and rebirth, everything
inﬂuencing and in relationship with everything else. This
process of both giving rise to and destroying each other
binds the ﬁve elements together and makes them totally
interdependent, each having in itself the potentiality of the
other and being united in the cosmos.
This is known as ‘the cyclic conquest.’ The ﬁve yin and
ﬁve yang  elements make up the Ten Celestial Stems (a
cycle of ten characters or ideographs). Tung Chung-shu, a
second-century neo-Confucianist, wrote:
The Five Elements move  in a circle in proper order,
each of them perform ing its proper functio ns.
Therefore Wood is located in the East and
characterizes the ch'i of Spring. Fire is located  in the
South and characterizes the ch'i of Summer. Metal is
located in the West and characterizes the ch'i of
Autumn. Water is located in the North and
characterizes the ch'i of Winter. Earth dwells in the
Centre and is called the Heavenly Nourisher...
Water is that which soaks and descends; Fire that
which blazes and ascends; Wood that which  is
straight and crooked; Metal that which obeys and
changes; Earth that which is used for seed-time and
harvest.
There is also this transforming feature in western
alchemy. Alphidius says:The Earth becomes liquid and is transformed into
Water; Water becomes liquid and is transformed into
Air; Air becomes liquid and is transformed into Fire;
Fire becomes liquid and is transformed into gloriﬁ ed
Earth, and this eﬀect is what Hermes meant when he
said in his secret: “Thou shalt separate the earth
from ﬁre and the subtle from the dense.”
The Emerald  Tablet says that all things proceed from the
One, the One divides into the elements and then
recombines in unity.
In the West, too, the elements maintain the yin-yang
quality of being contrary but complementary. Their duality
exists in the hot and moist and the cold and dry. Fire is hot
and dry; Air hot and moist; Water cold and ﬂuid; Earth
cold and dry.
The Five Elements are, in every respect, associated with
the cyclic view of the universe, which in turn aﬀected
Chinese history also, since it was held that the dynasties
rose and fell according to the dominance of the Five
Powers. The dynasties also followed the Five Elements in
taking the Five Colours in turn for use for oﬀicial dress
and occasions. (The last dynasty, the Ch'ing, was yellow.)
These ﬁve colours also appeared on the pre-co mmunist
Chinese ﬂag.
The elements played a vital role in alchemy, medicine
and astrology; they were associated with the metals in
alchemy; in medicine it stood to reason that they had to be
taken into account since they control the bodily organs
and each part of the body is aﬀected by the others. Being
connected with the planets they related to astrology, which
was also closely tied to the cyclic viewpoint. Divinities of
stars were also divinities  of cycles, each having control of
a sixty-year cycle. This ‘cycle of Cathay’ is calculated from
the Ten Celestial Stems and the Twelve TerrestrialBranches. Each stem has a yin and yang  aspect, counting
as one: hence 5 × 12. Also the lowest common
denominator of 10 and 12 is 60 (the year 1984 starts the
next cycle, which continues until 2043). Years are yin or
yang  according to whether they are even or odd numbers,
but cycles always start with a yang  number and end with a
yin. The Ten Celestial Stems with the Twelve Terrestrial
Branches together form a cycle of days, months and years.
The cyclic standpoint is fundamental to all alchemy and
is symbolized  by the Ouroboros as the dragon in the East,
the serpent in the West, swallowing its own tail; it
represents the whole alchemical work. It is the cycle of
disintegration and reintegration, the power that
perpetually consumes and renews itself; it is also the
latent power of the prima materia, the undiﬀerentiated in
which the end is implicit in the beginning, or ‘the never-
ending begin ning,’ or, again ‘my end is my beginn ing.’ The
symbol appe ared early in both eastern and western
alchemy and in Chinese, Egyptian and Greek iconography.
In the latter the serpent  was depicted as encircling the
words ‘All is One.’ In Chinese alchemy it is expressed thus:
‘The ends and origins of things have no limit from which
they began. The origin of one thing may be considered the
end of another; the end of one may be considered the
origin of the next.’ The neo-Confucianist Chou Tun-i wrote
that there always have been ‘successive periods of growth
and decay, of decay and growth, following each other in an
endless round. There never was


orr ows that r emain.
Please place Y our hand upon me
And miraculously heal me,
That I might rise fr om the ashes
Of my past
And experience new life.
Amen.DA Y 292
A l l  m y  t a l e n t s  a r e  o f  u s e  t o  G o d.
W hatever talents I have, however  seemingly insignificant, can be of
use to God. Eve n if I think I ha ve none, if I of fer my life to Him, then
new talents will emer ge. T oday I share my gifts with others as a way of
sharing them with God.
I re alize no gift is too lar ge or too small to be used for divine
purposes, to bring joy to someone, to help bring healing somewhere. I do
not underestimate the magnitude of my gifts today. Through God, their
potential for good is infinite.
I am  not ashamed of my gifts t oday, however meager they ma y
appear. For that which is surr ender ed to God is lifted to its
highest cr eative potential, miraculously transforming fr om what
might seem to be a tiny gift to become a mighty for ce.DA Y 293
N o  l i m i t s  o f  t h e  w o r l d  c a n  l i m i t  m e.
N othing in my wo rldly circumsta nces defines me or limits me. As my
mind is lifted ab ove the fear of the world, I am delivered to the field of
miraculous poss ibilities. I am fully loved, fully blessed, and fully of use
to God at all times.
While the world might see my life as less than, no child of God is
less than  gloriou s. My spirit is abundant, though my worldly c up might
be empty. And my mind is radiant, though the thinking of the world
might confound me. T oday I a ccept that I am a child of a boundless
universe.
Dear God,
Remove the chains that bind me,
In my mind and in my life.
Fr ee me of any false beliefs
That limit my ability
T o see.
Open my eyes
T o my fr eedom
In Y ou.
Amen.DA Y 294
I  b l e s s  t h e  a b u n d a n c e  o f  o t h e r s,  i n  o r d e r  t o  i n c r e a s e
m y  o w n.
T he ego’ s world is limited, but God’ s is not. On the material plane,
there are only so many pieces of pie. But on the spiritual plane, there are
an infin ite num ber. My having a piece doesn’ t mean there is less for
others, and others having a piece doesn’ t mean there is less for me.
There is enough for everyone. T here is enough room for everyone to
be beautiful. There is enough room for everyone to be successful. There
is enoug h room  for everyone to  be loved. I generously wish for others
what I most wish for myself, fo r what I bless in their lives I will allow
into my own.
I wil l not jealously constrict my heart today, seeking to keep fr om
others what I would keep to myself. For only what I give away d o
I keep, and what I seek to guar d as my own I will lose. Such
r eversal of material law is the truth of the spiritual universe.DA Y 295
FOR REFLECTION
O n  M o v i n g  B e y o n d  C o m p e t i t i o n
E ach of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world. Each of
us is assigned by God a function that only we can fill. At the level of the
divine, none of u s are in compe tition with each other. W e do not have to
compete for a piece of the cosmic pie, for the universe has an infinite
number of pieces of pie. Mine d oesn’ t take away from yours, a nd yours
doesn’ t take away from mine. There is more than enough space in the
ultimate universe for all of us to prosper.
Just as the cells of the body are p rogrammed each to do what the y are
supposed to do, collaborating with other cells to foster the health of the
or gan of  which they are part, so each of us is divinely programm ed to do
what is best for us to do to contribute our greatest gifts to the world. As
we celebrate other people’ s gifts, we increase the value of our own.
Whatever we approve of in ano ther ’ s life, we allow ourselves to have.
Whatever applause we give another, we are attracting to ourselves.DA Y 296
L o v e  i s  n o t  m y  w e a k n e s s,  b u t  m y  s t r e n g t h.
S ometimes I feel that if I’m loving, vulnerable, and ener ge tically
unguarded, othe rs will take adv antage of me. In fact, it’ s my love and
defenselessness that provide me with divine protection. My love attracts
my greater good.
Love gi ves me strength. It gu ides me to clearer thinking, more
meaningful refl ections, a kinder way of being, and a more attractive
personality. It opens me to a creative flow. It is the key to my success in
life, and the source of my inspiration.
Love is the power of God flowi ng thr ough me. It is my privilege
in life to channe l His power for the good of the entir e world. W ith
every th ought I think, I have the opportunity to extend the for c e
that ble sses all things. I am grateful and humbled befor e His
power within me.DA Y 297
M a y  m y  w o r d s  e m e r g e  f r o m  t h e  s i l e n c e  o f  m y  s o u l.
I f I speak  with my mouth, others will hear me with their ears. But only
if I speak from my heart will others hear me with their hearts. T oday may
my word s emer ge from somewhere deeper than my intellect—and never
from anger or defensiveness. May my words emer ge from the silence of
my soul.
W ords have power to heal or to harm; I dedicate mine to the healing
power of love. May I become a healer of the spoken word.
Dear God,
May Y our spirit
Be upon me when I speak,
Infusing my wor ds with
The ener gy of love.
May my wor ds convey Y our power
And Y ours alone.
Amen.DA Y 298
I  s t e p  b a c k  a n d  l e t  G o d  l e a d  t h e  w a y.
I  st and humbly b efore a power th at is in me but not of me. I am  not the
divine so urce, b ut merely a fauc et through which its waters flow  into the
world. I find power as a human being as I defer to the power of the spirit.
Placing myself in service to God, I pray that His love move through
me to bless the w orld. I take a step back today with my personality, that I
might more clearly reflect His gentleness and love. As I step back, He
leads the way for me to follow.
Meekness and mildness carry invisible power. The meek shall
inherit t he earth  because of the ir str ength, having stepped back
and allowed a gr eater power to flow thr ough them. T oday I
choose t o step back with the for ce of my personality, that I might
step forwar d with the for ce of my spirit.DA Y 299
I  g r e e t  e v e r y o n e  I  m e e t  t o d a y  w i t h  t h e  l o v e  t h a t ’ s  i n
m y  h e a r t.
T oday I will not  be tempted by the thinking of the world. M ay I
remember that everyone I see, or meet, or even think of is an innocent
child of God. Silently and invisibly, I greet them with love.
Though my ego might tell me otherwise, I will remember that my
only purpose is to love and for give. There, within that space of
consciousness, I  will find my power as well as my joy in living. May
neither fear nor judgment divert me from my chosen path.
Dear God,
Post angels ar ound my mind today,
T o r emind me of love
And pr otect me fr om fear.
May Y our light surr ound each person I see
And show itself to me.
Amen.DA Y 300
FOR REFLECTION
O n  N o t  T u r n i n g  A w a y


, look at your thoughts and
feelings today. Benign neglect isn’t good enough—once you
see that mind and body form a continuous, all-embracing
feedback loop, there is nothing that doesn’t  have an eﬀect.
The cell mem brane of all 50 trillion cells in the body is a
vast communication center that is responsive to every
aspect of your life. Although the brain has traditionally
been considered the seat of mind, there is intelligence in
every cell, with an equal complexity and ability to respond
to the environment.These are the themes I broached in Quantum Healing,
and they have become only more potent over time.
OceanofPDF.comTo climb to Machu Picchu, the fortress city of the Incas, is a
formidable task. One crosses a sixteen-thousand-foot pass
in the high Andes, where the oxygen is already low enough
to cause giddiness, and once the city is in sight above the
clouds, its walls are reach ed by three thousand stone steps.
This was the last stronghold captured by Pizarro  when he
conquered Peru in 1532. One is astonished to think that
foot-runners connected Machu Picchu with every village
along the two thousand miles of the Incan empire. They
were swift messengers of almost inhuman endurance. They
ran barefoot, covering immense distances every day—at
times the equivalent of two or three Olympic marathons.
Some of their trails began at the height of a mountain peak
in the Colorado Rockies  and ascended more than a mile
higher.
It must have been these runners, the eyes and ears of the
emperor Atahualpa, who warned him of the approaching
Spanish. By treachery, Pizarro collected a fortune in
ransom when he kidnapped (and later murdered)
Atahualpa. One hopes the legends are true which say thatthe most priceless Incan  gold was secreted away in time.
(Pizarro, who was unusually greedy, even for a
conquistador, was himself murdered by jealous rivals in
1541.)
If you think of the human brain as the fortress at Machu
Picchu, then it too must have runners to carry its
commands to the farthest outposts of its empire—in this
case, the big toe. The physical routes are certainly visible—
the central nervous system runs down the spinal column,
branching out on either side at each vertebra in the
backbone; these major nerves then branch into millions of
tinier pathways that communicate to every region of the
body. The early anatomists saw the major nerves in the
sixteenth century, but the nervous system kept a secret.
Who were the runners that took the messages to and from
the brain?
Many people still think that the nerves work electrically,
like a telegraph system, because until ﬁfteen years ago,
that is what medical texts contended. However, in the
1970s, a series of impor tant discoveries began, centering
on a new class of minute chemicals called
neurotransmitters. As their name implies, these chemicals
transmit nerve impulses; they act in our bodies as
“communicator molecule s,” whereby the neuron s of the
brain can talk to the rest of the body.
Neurotransmitters are the runners that race to and from
the brain, telling every organ inside us of our emotions,
desires, memories, intuitions, and dreams. None of these
events are conﬁned to the brain alone. Likewise, none of
them are strictly mental, since they can be coded into
chemical messages. Neurotransmitters touch the life of
every cell. Wherever a thought wants to go, these
chemicals must go too, and without them, no thoughts can
exist. To think is to practice brain chemistry, promoting a
cascade of responses throughout the body. We have alreadyseen that intelligence, as know-how, pervades the
physiology—now it has acquired a material basis.
That gives away the plot of this chapter, but with none of
the drama. In truth, no other recent event in biomedicine
has been as revolutionary as these discoveries. The arrival
of neurotransmitters on the scene makes the interaction of
mind and matter far more mobile and ﬂowing than ever
before—far closer to the model of the river. They also help
ﬁll the gap that apparently separates mind and body, one of
the deepest mysteries that man has faced since he began to
consider what he is.
—
At ﬁrst, around 1973, it seemed that only two
neurotransmitters were needed, one to activate a distant
cell, such as a muscle, and the other to slow down the
activity. Two brain chemicals, acetylcholine and
norepinephrine, do just that; they are the “go” and “slow
down” signal s of the nervous system. They were considered
revolutionary at the time, because they proved that the
impulse sent from one nerve cell to the next was not
electrical but chemical in nature. All at once, the accepted
notion of tiny sparks jumping from neuron to neuron was
rendered obsolete. But the new chemical model at ﬁrst
continued to preserve the basic theory that only two signals
were necessary. Man-made computers operate using just
this kind of binary switch, and apparently so did the brain.
Then, as molecular biologists around the world began to
investigate more deeply, numerous new neurotra nsmitters
cropped up, each with a diﬀerent molecular structure and
apparently a diﬀerent message to deliver. Structurally,
many of them were related, being built up as peptides,
complex chains of amino acids of the same kind as those
which appea r in the proteins that make up every cell,
including brain cells.A great many riddles began to be solved, directly or
indirectly, as these discoveries emerged. If you take a
sleeping cat, remove a tiny portion of its spinal ﬂuid, and
inject it into a cat that is awake, the second  cat will
immediately fall asleep. This is becau se a cat’s brain puts
its body to sleep chemically, with its own internal sleeping
potion. In order for the animal to wake up again, the
opposite chemical, a wake-up signal, must be injected into
the spinal column.
In humans, where the same chemical mech anisms
operate, the body is awakened in the morning not by a rude
internal alarm but by a series of timed signals, at ﬁrst mild,
then progressively stronger, that lift us from deep  sleep by
stages. The whole process involves a gradual transition, in
four or ﬁve waves, from the biochemistry of sleep to the
biochemistry of wakefulness. If this process is interrupted,
you do not come as fully awake as you should—the
biochemistry of two distinct phases has been mixed. That is
why parents  of newborns, having to get up several times
during the night, feel that they are never quite normal
during the day. Alarm clocks also jolt us out of our natural
wake-up patterns, giving rise to grogginess that may
persist all day, until the next round of sleeping-and-waking
readjusts the mind-body chemistry.
Here is a related example. All camels exhibit an unusual
tolerance for high levels of pain—they can calmly chew on
thorns while  at the same  time being beaten with a stick by
an irate camel driver. Curious researchers examined
camels’ brain cells and found that they produce large
quantities of a speciﬁc biochemical that, if injected into
other animals, causes them to ignore pain, too. Sleep and
pain toleranc e, it is now known, thus depend on precise
chemical messengers produced in the brain.
One by one, various other functions that were once “all in
your head ” have been connected to speciﬁcneurotransmitters. Schizophrenics suﬀering acutely from
hallucinations and psychotic thoughts often improve
dramatically if put on a kidney dialysis machine, which
ﬁlters impurities from the blood. As we saw, brain
researchers have established that a neurotransmitter called
dopamine exists in abnormally high levels in the brains of
schizophrenics. Current chemical treatment of the disorder
entails using psycho-active drugs that suppress dopamine;
perhaps the dialysis machine is actually removin g it, or a
related by-product, from the bloodstream.
By the mid-1980s, barely ten years after the original
breakthrough, more than ﬁfty such neurotransmitters and
neuropeptides were known. All ﬁfty can be manufactured
on one side of the synapses between our neurons, and once
they cross the synapses, all ﬁfty can be received by the
receptor sites on the other side. This implies an incredible
ﬂexibility to communicate from cell to cell. The individual
neuron was now seen to be a producer of messages that did
not just say “yes” or “no,” as a computer does. The brain’s
vocabulary is far larger, encompassing thousands of
combinations of separate signals, with no end in sight,
since new neurotransmitters continue to be discovered at a
fast rate.
What kind of messages do nerve cells exchange with one
another? The answer is tantalizing, for certain segments of
our chemica l vocabulary  seem to be just as speciﬁc as
ordinary


Simple Steamed Rice
Almond Cookies

IT ALIAN
White Bean and V egetable Soup
Spinach and Eggplant Layer ed Pasta with Pesto
Garbanzo and Gr een Bean Stew
Roasted Carr ots with Fr esh Rosemary
Raspberry T ofu Sorbet

MEXICAN
T ortilla Soup with A vocado and Cilantr o
Black Bean and Sweet Potato Enchiladas
Spanish Rice
Mango and T omato Salsa
Baked V anilla Flan with Maple Syrup

FRENCHCr eamy Asparagus Soup
Spinach, Leek, and Potato T art
Braised Gr een Beans Amandine
Swiss Char d and Arugula with Lemon T arragon Dr essing
Poached Pears with Blackberries

AMERICAN BISTRO
Carr ot Coriander Soup
Roasted V egetable Barley Risotto
Cranberry and Sweet Potato Chutney
Or ganic Field Gr eens with Apple V inaigr ette
Cocoa T ofu Mousse with Almond Praline

MIDDLE EASTERN
Spinach and Lentil Soup
Hummus
Quinoa T abouli
Cr eamy T ofu Cucumber and Mint Raita
Ratatouille Stew
Maple W alnut Filo T riangles

Optimizing Digestion
W e b uild our bo dies from the food we eat, so it is important that we receive
the f ull range of  nutrients required to sustain our best health. A ccording to
A yurveda, it is e qually importan t that we have ideal digestive power if we
are to make the  best use of the food we ingest. The Sanskr it word fordigestive power  is Agni. The Eng lish wo rd ignite is derived from Agni.
Agni can be thought of as the transformational principle of the body. T o
ensure optimal digestion, we rec ommend you pay attention to a few simple
principles that apply to how we eat. W e call these the Eating  A wareness
T echniques (EA T s).
EA TING A W ARENESS TECHNIQUES
Listen to Y our Appetite
Y our body sends messages to y our mind to meet its needs. One of the
most important signals the bod y sends is that of hunger. Although many
people who have struggled to ke ep excessive pounds of f view th eir appetite
as a n ad versary, listening to and honoring its message is one of the most
important aspects of a healthy nutritional plan. The rule is simple: Eat when
you are hungry and stop when you are satisfied. If you think of your
appetite as a gauge ranging from empty (0) to full (10), our
recommendation is to eat when you are really hungry (at a level  2 to 3) and
stop wh en you are comfortably  full but not stuf fed (6 to 7). By not filling
your sto mach to  capacity, you allow your digestive power to work at an
optimal level. Just as your clot hes do not get fully clean if you overstuf f
your wa shing m achine, your food will not be fully digested if y ou overstuf f
your stomach.
Many people eat because it is time to eat, not because their bodies are
asking for food. Y ou wouldn’ t f ill up your gas tank if it was still half full,
yet many people eat even when they are still full from the previous meal.
Start listening to your body. Its wisdom mirrors the wisdom of the cosmos.
Pay Attention
It is  easy to overeat if your e nvironment distracts you while  you are
eating. Although many of us were conditioned to eat while watchingtelevision, it is easy to lose aw areness of your body and overeat when an
engaging drama or exciting adventure story captures your attention.
Similarly, eatin g while working on an intense project or business
transaction will often result in missing the signals that your body has had
enough food. Have the intention  to protect your mealtimes so you can enjoy
your fo od in a relaxing env ironment. If you suf fer with digestive
imbalances such as heartburn or irritable bowel syndrome, creating a calm,
comfortable mealtime will improve your digestion.
Favor Fr esh Foods
There are foods that accelerate aging and entropy and others that renew
and revitalize the body. General ly, “dead” foods contribute to degeneration
and decay, while fresh foods e nhance regeneration and vitalit y. For most
foods, the less t ime between harvesting and consumption, the more ener gy
and inte lligence it provides. This means minimizing canned, frozen, and
packaged foods  to whatever extent possible. W e also discourage eating
leftovers or microwaved meals.
Use Food to Feed Y our Body, Not Y our Emotions
From th e day we are born, we associate food with safety and comfort.
The breast or bo ttle of fered us when we were uncomfortable soothed both
our phy sical an d emotional distress. It is natural then that, as adults, we
resort to  food when we are feelin g stressed or anxious. Unfortunately, if you
are t rying to fill  your need for love with food, you are unlikely  to be very
successful, and the unnecessary calories will be stored as fat. Use food to
satisfy the ener gy needs of your  body and develop nourishing r elationships
to satisfy the needs of your emotional heart. Both will thank yo u for being
aware of the dif ference.
Eat Mor e at Lunch, Less at DinnerY our digestive power is strongest at noontime. Y ou secrete stomach acid,
bile salts, and pancreatic enzym es in cycles throughout the day that support
the absorption and metabolism  of essential nutrients from th e food you
consume. Until the industrial rev olution, most people ate their main meal in
the midd le of the day with a lighter meal in the evening. Respecting this
time-honored pattern can improve digestive function and enhance sleep. T ry
eating a lar ger lunch and a s maller dinner and see if you notice an
improvement in your vitality and well-being.
Kindle and Balance Y our Digestive Fir e
A yurveda compares your digest ive processes to a fire in a fire- place. T o
have the best possible heat and light, the fire needs to be kindled and
stoked. The same can be said  for your digestive fire. W e recommend
kindling your digestive fire before each meal with an herbal aperitif. This
simple recipe helps awaken the first stage of digestion, ensuring a good start
to metab olizing your food. T ry taking a shot glass full prior to each meal
and you will notice a healthy boost to your digestive function
Herbal Aperitif
Mix equal parts of lemon juice, gingerroot juice, water, and honey.
Add a pinch of black pepper.
T ake a two-ounce shot of this herbal elixir right before your meal.
After each meal, we recomme nd a spice blend to help balance your
digestive fire. This is easily p repared by mixing equal parts of roasted
fennel seeds, cardamom seeds, cumin seeds, and a pinch of m aple sugar.
Chew on one-half teaspoon of this spice blend at the end of each meal to
enhance your digestion.
In addit ion to the herbal aperitif before and the spice blend a fter each
meal, tr y sipping on gingerroot tea throughout the day. Grate one-half
teaspoon of fresh gingerroot per  pint of hot water and try to consume two tothree pin ts per day. Ginger has a general toning ef fect on the  alimentary
tract, enhancing  digestion, absorption, and elimination. Ginger is known in
A yurveda as the universal medicine. If you have a tendency toward
heartburn or indigestion, use ginger cautiously at first to ensu re that your
symptoms do not worsen.
How you eat is as important as what you eat.
Keep It Simple
Don’ t make nutrition complicated. It is not dif ficult to eat in a w ay that is
nourishing and delicious. W e ca n reduce this entire chapter into  five simple
principles:
Eat when you are hungry; stop when you are satiated.
Chew your food until it is liquid or semi-liquid before swallowing.
Don’ t put the next bite of food into your mouth until you’ve swallowed
the previous one.
Don’ t put the next meal in your stomach until you’ve digested the
previous one (usually at least three hours).
Eat food with all six tastes during the day.
Eating as Celebration
It is  eas y to become confused when considering the best diet to help you
live a long and healthy life. Th ere is a tremendous amount of  conflicting
information on nutrition with experts advocating a wide variety of
approaches. Although every dietary program of fers some nuggets of
wisdom, for any approach to be truly successful, it has to be sustainable,
delicious, bala nced, and practical. T ry following our nutritionalrecommendations for a month and observe the infusion of vitali ty into your
body and mind. This program will help you grow younger and live longer.
Every day in every way,
I am incr easing my mental and physical capacity.
My Biostat


ling and often frightenin g question: “Who am I really?”  This is
the result of the discrepancy and struggle between the real and the
false self. Only upon solving  this most vital and profoun d question
will your live center respond and function to its full capacity, will
your intuition begin to function to its full capacity, will you become
spontaneous, free of all compulsions, will you trust in your feelings
because they will have an opportunity to mature and grow. Feelings
will become every bit as reliable to you as your reasoning power
and your intellect.
All this is the nal nding of self. Before this can be done, a great
many hurdles have to be overcome. It seems to you that this is a
life-or-death struggle. You still believe you need the idealized self inorder to live and be happy. Once you understand that this is not so,
you will be able to give up the pseudo-defense that makes the
maintenance and cultivation of the idealized self seem so necessary.
Once you understand that the idealized self was supposed to solve
the particular problems in your life above and beyond your need for
happiness, pleasure, and security, you will come to see the wrong
conclusion of this theory. Once you go a step still further and
recognize the damage the idealized self has brought into your life,
you will shed it as the burden it is. No conviction, theory, or words
you hear will make you give it up, but the recognition of what
specically it was supposed to solve and what damage it has done
and is continui ng to do will enable you to dissolve this image of all
images.
Needless to say, you also have to recognize most particularly and
in detail what your idealized  self’s specic demands and standards
are, and, further, you have to see their unreasonableness, their
impossibility. When you have a feeling of acute anxiety and
depression, consider the fact that your idealized self may feel
questioned and threatened, either by your own limitations, by
others, or by life. Recognize the self-contempt that underlies the
anxiety or depression. When you are compulsively angry at others,
consider the possibility that this is but an externalizatio n of your
anger at yourself for not living up to the standards of your false self.
Do not let it get away with using the excuse of outer problems to
account for acute depression  or fear. Look into the question from
this new angle. Your private and personal work will help you in this
direction, but it is almost impossible to do it alone. Only after you
have made some substantia l progress will you recognize that so
many of these outer problems are directly or indirectly the result of
the discrepancy between your capacities and the standar ds of your
idealized self and how you deal with this conict.
So, as you proceed in this particular phase of the work, you will
come to understand the exact nature of your idealized self: Its
demands, its requirements of self and others in order to maintain
the illusion. Once you fully see that what you regarded as
commendable is really pride  and pretense, you will have gained amost substantial insight that enables you to weaken the impact of
the idealized self. Then, and then only, will you realize the
tremendous self-punishment you inict upon yourself. For whenever
you fall short, as you are bound to, you feel so impatient, so
irritated, that your feelings can snowball into fury and wrath at
yourself. This fury and wrath  are often projected on others because
it is too unbea rable to be aware of self-hate, unless one unrolls this
whole process and sees it entire, in the light. Neverthele ss, even if
this hate is unloaded upon others, the eect on the self is still there
and it can cause disease, accident, loss, and outer failur e in many
ways.
Giving Up the Idealized Self
When you make the very rst steps toward giving up the idealized
self, you will feel a sense of liberation as never before. Then you
will be truly born again; your real self will emerge. Then you will
rest within your real self, centered within. Then you will truly grow,
not only on the outer fringes that may have been free of the
idealized self’s dictatorship, but in every part of your being. This
will change many things. First will come changes in your reactions
to life, to incidents, to yourself and others. This changed reaction
will be astounding enough, but, little by little, outer things are also
bound to change. Your dier ent attitude will have new eects. The
overcoming of your idealized self means overcoming an important
aspect of the duality between life and death.
At present you are not even aware of the pressure of your
idealized self, of the shame, humiliation, exposure you fear and
sometimes feel, of the tension, strain, and compulsion. If you have
an occasional glimpse of such emotions, you do not as yet connect
them with the fantastic demands of your idealized self. Only after
fully seeing these fanta stic expectations and their often
contradictory imperatives will you relinquish them. The initial inner
freedom gained in this way will allow you to deal with life and to
stand in life. You will no longer have to hold on frantic ally to theidealized self. The mere inner activity of holding on so frantically
generates a pervasive clima te of holding on in gener al. This is
sometimes lived out in external attitudes, but most often it is an
inner quality or attitude. As you proceed in this new phase of your
work, you will sense and feel this inner tightness and gradually you
will recognize the basic damage it causes. It makes the letting go of
many an attitude impossible. It makes it unduly dicult to go
through any change that would allow life to bring forth joy and a
spirit of vigor. You keep yourself contained within yourself and
thereby you go against life in one of its most fundamental aspects.
The words are insucient; you have to sense rather what  I mean.
You will know exactly when you have weakened your idealized self
by fully understanding its function, its causes and eects. Then you
will gain the great freedom of giving yourself to life because you no
longer have to hide something from yourself and others. You will be
able to squander yoursel f into life, not in an unhealthy,
unreasonable way, but healthily as nature squanders herself. Then,
and then only will you know the beauty of living.
You cannot approach this most important part of your inner work
with a general concept. As usual, your most insignicant daily
reactions, considered from this viewpoint, will yield the necessary
results. So continue your self-search out of these new considerations
and do not be impatient if it takes time and relaxed eort.
Coming Home
One more word: The dieren ce between the real and the idealized
self is often not a question of quantity, but rather of quali ty. That is,
the original motivation is dierent in these two selves. This will not
be easy to see, but as you recognize the demands, the
contradictions, the cause-and-eect sequences, the dierence in
motivation will gradually become clear to you. Another important
consideration is the time element. The idealized self wants to be
perfect, accord ing to its specic demands, right now. The real self
knows this cannot be and does not consider this fact painful.Of course you are not perfec t. Your present self is a complex of
everything you are at the moment. Of course you have your basic
egocentricity, but if you own up to it, you can cope with it. You can
learn to understand it and therefore diminish it with each new
insight. Then you will truly experience the truth that the more
egocentric you are, the less self-condent you can be. The idealized
self believes just the opposite. Its claims for perfection are motivated
by purely egocentric reasons,  and this very egocentricity makes self-
condence impossible.
The great freedom of coming home, my friends, is nding your
way back to the real you. The expression “coming home” has often
been used in spiritual literature and teachings, but it has been much
misunderstood. It is often interpreted to mean the return into the
spirit world after physical death. Much more is meant by coming
home. You may die many deaths, one earth life after another, but if
you have not found your real self, you cannot come home. You may
be lost and remain lost until you do nd the way into the center of
your being. On the other hand, you can nd your way home right
here and right now while you are still in the body. When you muster
the courage to become your real self, even though it would seem
much less than the idealized self, you will nd out that it is much
more. Then you will have the peace of being at home within
yourself. Then  you will nd security. Then you will function as a
whole human being. Then you will have broken the iron whip of a
taskmaster whom it is impossible to obey. Then you will know


 may
add, by the way, that although  doctors  do not realise the full value of
urine, there  are those who have pointed  out that if only men would
micturate  immediately  after coitus, the risk of contracting  venereal
disease would be minimised.  The late Mr. Baxter,  J.P., was right when 76
 he published  the fact that among other  things  urine possessed  strong
antiseptic  properties.

 77
 CHAPTER  XIII.
THE CURE OF WOUNDS  WHICH WOULD NOT  HEAL:
THE TREATMENT  OF BURNS.

I was destined  to prove  the value of urine‐therapy  in the treatment  of
wounds, when some years ago  through an accident  I suffered a grave
laceration  and injury to my toes, ankle and foot.  The toe‐nails were torn
off and  the toes forced back into the fleshy part of the foot.  Naturally
the shock and pain were very severe. All the same I rejected the help of
a medical friend, as I was resolved once  again  to prove  the effects of
urine‐treatment  on wounds.
After having the damaged  portions of my foot put into place by some
Physical Culture practitioners  who had  witnessed  the accident, I fasted
four days for the  shock (an approved  method) and  applied  cloths
saturated  in old urine to the affected parts. These bandages  were kept
moist  by repeated soakings; but were not unwound  until the fifth day.
When finally removed,  the results were astonishing;  all trace of the
injury had disappeared,  and the foot was healthy and supple as it had
been in early  youth. Incidentally  a corn  which  had troubled  me was
dissolved  by the treatment.
I have frequently  observed  similar effects even un wounds which  had
refused to heal, whether under  the  treatment  of common  medical,
herbal or other  remedi°s,  and  even where  amputation  had been
seriously discussed  as the only remaining  course to pursue.
 78
 From among the large  number of cases I have treated. I will now give
the history of a particularly  bad one, which  came under  my care in 1918.
In that year, I was  introduced  to a man  in the early  forties who at the
time was attending  the local Infirmary as an out‐patient  every week for
a bullet‐ wound in the fore‐ arm. Although the patient had  received the
wound a year previously,  it had  shown no signs  of healing, was about
10 inches in length, about three‐ eights  of an inch  in width, and at times
ulcerous and  suppurating.  His medical advisers were afraid it might
ultimately  turn gangrenous,  to avoid which, poisonous  ointments  and
dressings  were applied, with many changes in the  ingredients  and
proportions  in the mixings. Having got sick of orthodox methods,  the
patient had also resorted to Fletcherism  and the Salisbury Treatment,
from which, admittedly  he had  derived some benefit;  but even so that
wound refused to heal.  In spite of objections  from  his wife, he
eventually  became my patient.
My assistants  first set about ripping off all the dressings.  Then we
washed the wounded  arm three  times a day with old urine, giving the
rest of the body lengthy periods of massage with the bare  hands  and
the same species of urine. The patient  was fasted for three  days on his
own urine plus cold water,  short spells  of sunbathing  were advocated ‐
and at the end of seven more  days nothing remained  of the fissure but
a very slight scar as thin as a gold thread. In short, after a whole year's
"interference  treatment"  the patient  was cured by Nature  in ten days!
Since the date of this  cure  I have observed  scores of cases of
"miraculous"  healing by identically  the same method; these include the
healing of painful and  disabling wounds, cuts, sores, ill‐effects from
rusty nails, fishbones,  etc., also poisonous  wounds and blood‐ poisoning  79
 generally.  As a rule a long penance was not required. Cases taken early
have responded  to three  or four days'  treatment,  whilst  those which
have been medically  interfered  with and  almost rendered  gangrenous
have taken  from ten to eighteen days.
With regard to burns, one reads that in a given year 7,900 Americans ‐
almost half the Lumber of which  were children under  five, died of burns.
(Or did they  die of the treatment  or of both combined?)  As to
thousands  of Americans  who survived the effects of burns  they were
destined  to suffer from unsightly scars, tight puckered  skin, stiffened
limbs  or useless limbs  and fingers.
For years the standby among remedies  for burns  was the application  of
wet tea‐leaves. Then in 1925, Dr. Davidson  of Detroit placed the old
wives' remedy  on a quasi scientific basis. Instead of the boiled tea‐
leaves, he applied the element derived therefrom  which as we all know
is called  tannic acid.  This poisonous  substance  literally tans  the tissues,
and  a thick, hard  crust then  forms over the exposed nerve ends. But
although it relieves the pains it checks the activity and flow of the body
fluids to the parts, the while it acts as a covering under  which


 For women,  it is
really  control  of the pelvic- floor muscles.
     All I reall y need  to do is contract  my pelvic- floor muscles in the
direction  of my cocc yx and tilt my pelvis  slightly  and the ener gy will
just begin  to move up.  Sometime I wi ll stroke  up my  partner’s  spine
with my hand  or he w ill stroke  up my back as  we are beginnin g to
go into the  resting  phase.  This gives us  both  the clear  sense  that
we are directing  the energy  up. Som etimes we  touch  each  other’s
heads  on the crow n, and this helps  focus  the energ y there.  The
energy  then begins  to show er dow n. One  of the  most delicious
and exquisite  qualities  of the Valley  Orgas m is that the  energ y moves
up the w hole body and throu gh the cro wn, som etimes mo ving out
of the  body and then  showers dow n like an exquisitely  delicious
nectar  showering down throug h all the  cells and all the  atoms of
the body.
     Question:  Have y ou found  the practice  has increased  or
decrease d your sexual  desire?
     Answer:  My sexual desire  is about  the sam e, but  I feel  much
more satisfied.  Also,  my percepti on of sex and  sexual  relations hips
has continued  to expand.  I feel  I am very  slowly moving toward my
goal of being  totally  alive,  making love  with the whole universe  in
- 295  -Interview
every  movement. I feel  immensely  grateful  to have  a partner  with
whom to practice  loving.
   We feel that we are always together  and whether we are
physicall y together  or apart,  we can make love  and share  our
energies.  Our transformed  sexual and emotional  energies  nourish
our spirits and are shared  with others  as love.
Fig. 9.1 Loving  Couple
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- 297  -
- 298  -<|eot_id|><|begin_of_text|>IN THE BEGINNING
Robina and Mali Adamson
My name is Robina  and I have a wonderful daughter, her name is Mali.
My name is Mali and I have a wonderful mother. We are closely intertwined and shall remain so, always.
It all began I suppose, long before my mother and father met each other, and before my ﬁrst two sisters were born. When my mother
was young she worked as a nurse in a psychopaedic  hospital. In this hospital my mother was looking after elderly people and young
children. This was a very sad place. In those days many children lived from the time they were tiny, in these types of hospitals. When
these babies were born, their mothers and fathers were told that they could not care for their children at home, and that the best thing
for the child and the whole family, was to leave their children in these special Government hospitals. Many parents were told by the
doctors, that it was better for them to forget about their children. All these children had some type of disability. Some were extremely
disabled and some were not so disabled. Some were crippled, some were deaf and some could not speak, and some were blind.
Some were big and some were very little people, who never grew very big at all.
Usually about thirty children slept in one big room, with their beds in rows, each bed the same, all with white bed covers. The window
glass was painted white on the inside, and the children could not see the sky or the garden. There were no pretty curtains on the
windows. There were no pictures on the grey concrete block walls, there  were no carpets on the ﬂoors, no music, no books, and no
toys for the children to play with. In winter it was very cold, and on frosty nights, ice formed on the inside of the window glass.
One night when my mother walked between the beds and looked at the children, she was so sad she cried. She cried because all
these children were so lost. They had never had the love of their mothers. They had never had their mother ’s arms around them
when they were sick or afraid, and had never had the love of brothers or sisters, and had never known the love of a grandmother or a
grandfather. No-one had ever read them bedtime stories, or allowed them to look at picture books. They had never had a ride in a
car, been on a picnic, or to the park or a beach, or had a pet, or had a birthday party, and they had never seen Santa at Christmas, or
had any gifts. And they had never seen ﬂowers or trees. On such nights my mother heard children cry, and call out when they had
bad dreams, and were frightened, or when they were wet, or uncomfort able. Usually no-one came to them, and if they cried out too
much, and made too much noise, the doctor would soon be told, and the next day the children would be given more medicine to
make them sleep deeper, so they would not make these sounds again.
Every night and every day when my mother worked in this ward, she felt sad as she thought of all these things. Often she tried to
cuddle and comfort the children, but there were too many of them, and the work she had to do there, did not include spending any
real time with the children. When she tried to give them more attention, she ran out of time for her other duties, and the head nurse
would become angry with her. One night when my mother walked between the beds and looked at the children, her sadness was too
hard for her to bear, so she had to stop walking, and talk to God. “God “– she said, “if you ever gave me a baby with any problems, I
know


learning problem.”My feeling is that this is not true. People with ADHD have no135 ADD AND ADH D—THE SILENT EPIDEMIC  trouble focusing on things that interest them; however, they
will not focus on anything that they have no interest in. Inother words, ADHD is not a learning disorder; it is, morecorrectly, an interest disorder.
Interestingly, most of the patients I see in my practice are
adults with unrecognized ADHD.
CHARACTERISTICS OF ADHD
The typical adult with ADHD has a history of increased
physical activity as a teenager, being slim during his or heryouth, never opening a book in high school or college untilthe night before an exam, and possibly becoming a type-Apersonality or workaholic. They usually have a history ofbeing easily irritated and quick to anger, and they might havehigh expectations of other people. As they approach theirmiddle years they start putting on weight around the waist.They have symptoms of hypoglycemia: sleepiness in the lateafternoon or while driving or after eating. They commonlydisplay restlessness—tapping their hands or feet during theday, and manifesting restless leg syndrome or tossing andturning at night. All of these symptoms and behaviors canbe linked with the high adrenaline levels and high-insulin,low-blood-sugar syndrome of ADHD.
There is often a strong family history of associated
hormonal problems—a mother with breast cancer, a sister withendometriosis, a brother with bi-polar disorder, children ornephews and nieces who are hyperactive (ADHD). Othercommonly associated conditions are type II diabetes andalso fibromyalgia.
Please keep in mind that adrenaline is not only a hormone
but also acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain. Adults with136 THE MIRACLE OF BIO-IDENTICAL HORMONES  ADHD are often extremely intelligent as well as extremely
successful. I suspect that most of the CEOs of the largestcompanies in the world are diagnosable as having ADHD.They use their adrenaline to become workaholics—they put in14-hour days and rise to the top of their businesses. Likewise,I suspect that many Hollywood stars have ADHD—classicexamples might include T om Cruise, Mel Gibson, and thecomic actor Michael Richards, who played Kramer on
Seinfield. Again, most professional athletes probably have
ADHD—they use their adrenaline to excel in sports.
On the other end of the spectrum, I would not be
surprised if most drug addicts and alcoholics would turn outto have ADHD. They turn to drugs and alcohol to deal withthe anger caused by an excess of adrenaline. Similarly, a highnumber of people in prison might be diagnosable as havingADHD, also people with road rage and people who abusespouses. Certainly, anger management classes would be largelyattended by ADHD sufferers.
People are sometimes characterized as left- or right-brain
dominant. People who are right-brain dominant tend to becreative. I suspect that if you take right-brain dominance andadd adrenaline, you wind up with a creative genius. AlbertEinstein, for instance, is well-known as having a classic case ofADHD (he failed a number of subjects in school). It may havebeen high levels of adrenaline that made the brains of Einsteinand other creative geniuses such as Da Vinci and Beethovenfunction so brilliantly. I also wonder whether people withautism or with T ourette’s syndrome could also have anoverload of adrenaline in the brain. In autism, the excessadrenaline might be manifesting as sensory overload, and sothe person shrinks back from the world to decrease the amountof stimulus.137 ADD AND ADH D—THE SILENT EPIDEMIC  It should also not be surprising that many conditions
associated with adult ADHD are considered incurable by themedical community, since, in my view, the cause is hormonesout of balance—an unfamiliar concept for many physicians.These conditions include: restless leg syndrome, fibromyalgia,type II diabetes, endometriosis, menstrual migraines, andasthma, to mention a few. Yet utilizing natural bio-identicalhormones, altering the patient’s eating habits, and helpingthem gain insight into their condition often lead to a “mirac-ulous” resolution of these very problems.
A WIDESPREAD PHENOMENON
My point is that the medical system has failed to appreciate the
influence of hormones on our behavior and how they affect usclinically. I suspect there are well over 200 million adultsnationwide with unrecognized ADHD. Obviously, this israther a bold statement. But consider the people you interactwith on a daily basis—those who are quick to anger, thepeople with nervous energy, those who are restless at night,who tap their hands or legs, who have cold hands when youshake hands with them (due to vasoconstriction of bloodvessels caused by high adrenaline levels), who drink too muchor use drugs. Look at the millions of women with estrogen-dominant conditions—menstrual cramps, migraines, fibroids,endometriosis—all related to low progesterone levels. Howmany of these women are hypoglycemic from increased insulinand put out adrenaline to bring their sugar levels up so thebrain can function?
Since hormone patterns are genetically inherited, people
with ADHD will have at least one parent with ADHD—possibly a workaholic mother or father, who may have had a138 THE MIRACLE OF BIO-IDENTICAL HORMONES  tendency toward anger and perhaps drank too much. If they
have children, each child has a 50 percent chance of havingADHD. If their spouse also has ADHD (a fairly commonoccurrence, by the way) then their children are 100 percentlikely to have ADHD. And then there are the grandchildren.139 ADD AND ADH D—THE SILENT EPIDEMIC  HORMONAL IMBALANCES
IN CHILDREN
chapter SIXTEEN
I want to begin this chapter by noting that the relationship
between childhood illness and hormonal influence has to dateessentially been ignored. What I have to say here is based onlogic and my own clinical observations; there are no studies tofall back on.
Before we start, I want to remind the reader of a few well-
established medical facts:
• Hormones control every system of the body.
• Males and females have the same hormones but
their levels differ.
• Hormones are inherited from either parent.• At different stages in life, hormone levels vary.
It is also worth mentioning that, as in adults, an imbalance
of one hormone in children often leads to an imbalance ofother hormones as the body tries to adjust to the deficiency.
Girls who have started their periods may experience irregular
menses, severe cramps, migraines, or other symptoms. Inaddition, most people are aware that we have a nationwideproblem with over-weight and obese children. We are also
141beginning to see a significant increase in attention deficit
disorder (ADD) among children. This chapter discusses allthree of these problems. I’ll begin with ADD.
THE MISSING LINK
It is apparent to me that the over-production of a single
hormone, insulin, is associated with many metabolic problems.Insulin is the number one hormone that creates fat, especiallyaround the middle of the body. It is the number one hormonethat causes type II diabetes, and, in my opinion, it is thehormone that precipitates ADD and ADHD. (See chapter 15for the hormonal difference between the two.)
If too much insulin is creating problems, then let’s go one
step further: Why is the body producing excess insulin?Although the over-production of insulin in children can bedue to many factors, its causes can probably be reduced to two:The first, and not necessarily the most important, is the typeof food children are exposed to. T oo many carbohydrates, inthe form of fruit juice, soda, cereal, chips, fries, candy, cookies,and similar foods, leads to high sugar levels and subsequentlyto over-production of insulin, which then puts the sugar intothe fat cells.
The other factor, which may be the root cause for all the
problems discussed in this chapter, is a deficiency of proges-terone. I consider this the missing link.
Low progesterone is almost always associated with the
over-production of insulin. If a parent is low in progesterone,they can pass this trait on to their child. A mother low inprogesterone will have a medical history that shows estrogendominance—with symptoms that include cramps, PMS,breast tenderness, nausea with pregnancy, fibroids, fibrocystic142 THE MIRACLE OF BIO-IDENTICAL HORMONES  disease, and migraine headaches. The father may have a history
of hypoglycemia, increased fat around the middle, type IIdiabetes, or symptoms of ADHD.
My own mother was estrogen dominant and wound up
dying of breast cancer because of it. She had thin arms and legsand a large abdomen—classic for hyperinsulinemia secondaryto low progesterone. I inherited a progesterone deficiency fromher. I had ADD as a child—I used to get up and walk out ofclass and could not focus. They didn’t diagnose ADD backthen; they thought I was bored. I wasn’t bored—I just couldn’tpay attention. I was continuously hypoglycemic—I cravedsweets. I rarely studied in high school or college, except thenight before exams. I could only focus on things that interestedme, like early rock and roll in high school, and bridge andpoker in college. (I studied 4 hours every night once I got tomedical school—but I was interested in medicine.)
I have fought with my weight all my life because