 prosperity or abundance into your life,
you need to place all of your attention on what that feels like. You need to
be able to feel what that is like even before it materializes to your
satisfaction. By feeling those pleasant sensations in your body, you
reprogram your segment of subconscious mind to harmonize with the
infinitely prospe rous universal subconscious mind where all manifestation
originates. Your ability to wholeheartedly align with this energetic field
means that you simply never again produce thoughts like, I hope someday
to become pr osper ous.
Spend some time seriously considering the implications in this passage
from Neville’ s The Power of Awareness:  “‘I will be’ is a confession that ‘I
am not.’ The Father ’s will is always  ‘I AM.’ Until you realize that YOU are
the Father (there is only one I AM, and your infinite self is that I AM), your
will is always ‘ I will be.’”34
Chapter Three  in this book, on your highest self, introduced you to the
impossibility for the Source of all to say, “I will be,” because to do so is to
say, “I am not.”  How could God say, “I am not”? Wanting  to attract more
prosperity into your life is equivalent to sending the message of I am not.
As long as this is your conscious thought, you are unwittingly programming
your subconscious mind to offer you experiences that match your feeling. I
am not project s a state of lack. There  will be an avalanche of objective
thoughts and ideas thrown at you regarding the intention you have of
experiencing a life of prosperity. I know this personally becaus e I’ve heard
it all my life.
As a student of human nature, I long ago came to the conclusion  that most
people do not know how to make money or attract abundance. It’s a rare
person indeed who is the exception to this observation, although I amcertain that you—yes, you—ar e in the process of leaving that mind-set
behind. Many people feel that their life isn’t fulfilled because they do not
trust their own highest self. Quite likely this is so because they didn’ t
discover earlier in life that they even have a higher or highest self. When a
person knows that he or she is God and has awareness of his or her own
divinity, it is impossible to say, “I will be.” Why? Because “I will be”
means “I am not.”
Your subjective attention is how you choose to think, and especially feel,
about what you’ve placed in your imagination. The words that Srimati
Kashi Moni, the “sacred mother,” spoke to Paramahansa Yogananda in his
book Autobiography of a Yogi have stayed with me my entire adult life:
“Seek divine wealth, not the paltry tinsel of earth. After acquiring inward
treasure, you will find that outward supply is always forthcoming.”
Your inwar d treasur e is your feeling  of living in a world of unlimited
abundance. Refu se to allow any external data to deflect you from what you
have placed in your imagination. Always live from your subjective feelings
of I am pr osper ous; I am wealthy; I am content.  With your imagination, you
will then program your subconscious mind to align with experiences that
match what you feel in your body.
As a young boy living in a foster home, I always knew that I could attract
spending money into my world, even though most of the children around
me seem ed only to know scarc ity and that’s what they always  seemed to
attract. As a young man I knew  inwardly that money would chase me if I
acted on my feelings. As Param ahansa Yogananda’ s sacred mother ’s advice
relates, I seemed to seek the Divine wealth of inner feelings and knew that
the outward supply would find me.
I was told by objectified attention that being a schoolteacher ensured that
I’d neve r have wealth because it’s a low-paying profession, but I expunged
such silliness from my inner world. The same was true for my writing, my
lecturing, and all of my other professional activities. I feel prosperous, and I
know that I will continue to act on my inner experiences of abundance—
and that universal mind will also offer me the right people, events, and
circumstances guiding me on this spiritual path of extraordi nary higher
awareness.
My story concerning the manifestation of abundance throughout my life is
never allowing  anyone, no matter how persuasive, to infiltrate myimagination, which feels prosperous and able to attract unlimited
abundance. By holding this inner view as sacrosanct, and never allowing
anything to besmirch this inner knowing, I acted in ways that produced
prosperity—but the universe always seems to send me the assistance I
require to make my future dreams a present fact.
Here is Saint Germain in The “I AM” Discourses  on the power you
possess as a result of your very beingness: “The moment you say ‘I AM,’
you set in motio n this Power that has inherent within It all these faculties. It
has all substanc e, and must take on whatsoever form the attention of the
mind is fixed upon. The ‘I AM’ is the Fathomless Mind of God.”35 Use
this fathomless mind of yours to place your attention always  on what is
aligned with your Source of being—the unlimited abundance that is the
highest good for all concerned.
Your Intention Is to Live a Life of Happiness
Happiness isn’t some thing  in the material world that can be acquired and
stored and used when needed or wanted. If it were, I’d give you a lifetime
supply that would guarantee a happy life. No—happiness is an attitude that
comes from within you. It’s accessible when you place in your imagination
an I am statement that reflects your attunement with the simple truth that
happiness is indeed an inside job. Happiness is an inner belief that you
bring to everyone and everything you undertake, rather than expecting your
happiness to come to you from  others or from your accomplishments and
acquisitions. There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.
State your intention to live a happy, contented life; place it squarely in the
most prominent place within your imagination, and live from that place as if
it were your reality. When circumstances and/or your five senses try to
influence you that you’re wrong, gently and with loving confidence let the
fearful or nay-sa ying thoughts drift by like passing clouds as you focus on
your nourishing imagination, which cannot be altered without your
agreement. Neville speaks without hesitation on this matter: “The promise
is definite that if you are shameless in your impudence in assuming that you
already have  that which your senses deny, it shall be given unto you— your
desir e shall be attained. ”36Don’ t be dismayed when you encounter people and circumstances that
attempt to convince you the I am happy  assertion that you’ve placed in your
imagination is absurd. Don’ t let these objective attempts influence you to
assume the feeling of a wish for unhappiness  to be fulfilled! Persist in
stating your inner mantras of I am happy  and I am content  while assuming
the feeling in your body of this already fulfilled—or as Neville stated, be
“shameless in your impudence” in assuming the feeling of happy
contentment.
This means that you permit only your personal subjective attention to
align with your inner I am declaration. Y our subconscious mind understands
who you intend to be, and you will naturally discontinue inviting or
entertaining any form of “I have  a right to be miserable,” “How could I ever
be happy with the circumstances that define my life?” “My parent, spouse,
sister [any exter nal relationship ] make me unhappy,” and so on. How is it
ever possible for God to say, “I am miserable” or “I am unhappy”?
Remember, you have a highest self, and it is one with God.
Here is Saint Germain speaking  on this subject in a transmission received
on November 24, 1932:
I would suggest that those who have been having unpleasant experiences would
consciously withdraw  from those conditio ns all power they have been giving them, mostly
unknowingly. When it is necessary to discuss some condition to understand it, immediately
follow by withdrawi ng any power that has been given it, and then know, “‘I AM’ the
Harmonious Presence, ever pervading whatever the condition may be.”
When I say: “‘I AM’ the Governing Presence,’” “I AM” fully, consciously aware that I
have set in motion the Full Power and Intelligence of God producing the desired conditions,
and that they are thus Self-sustained.37
I urge you to read and sustain this message regarding your own happiness.
Be dedicated to your own subjective attention—always reminding it and
yourself that I am the harmonious and governing presence.  You will
activate the power of God because you are at one with your all-creating
Source.
Whether it’s your health, wealth, happiness, or any other element of your
entire life exper ience, it is essential to keep in mind the importance of the
movement of your attention. You must be obstinate and persistent in not


process and is fulﬁlled by sur rendering into it. This is not
weakness on her part; it is str ength. The Christ on earth is
father ed by God, and mother ed by our humanness. Thr ough
a mystical connection between the human and divine, we
give birth to our higher Self.
3. GIVING UP RESUL TS
“You will never lose your way for God leads you.”
When we sur render to God, we sur render to something
bigger than ourselves—to a universe that knows what it’s
doing. When we stop trying to contr ol events, they fall into a
natural or der, an or der that works. W e’re at r est while a
power much gr eater than our own tak es over, and it does a
much better job than we could have done. W e lear n to trustthat the power that holds galaxies together can handle the
circumstances of our r elatively little lives.
Surrender means, by deﬁnition, giving up attachment to
results. When we sur render to God, we let go of our
attachment to how things happen on the outside and we
become mor e concer ned with what happens on the inside.
The e xperience of love is a choice we mak e, a mental
decision to see love as the only r eal purpose and value in
any situation. Until we mak e that choice, we k eep striving
for results that we think would mak e us happy. But we’ve all
gotten things that we thought would mak e us happy, only to
ﬁnd that they didn’t. This e xternal sear ching—looking to
anything other than love to complete us and to be the
source of our happiness—is the meaning of idolatry. Money,
sex, power, or any other worldly satisfaction oﬀers just
temporary r elief for minor e xistential pain.
“God” means love, and “ will” means thought. God’s will,
then, is loving thought. If God is the sour ce of all good, then
the love within us is the sour ce of all good. When we love,
we ar e automatically placing ourselves within an attitudinal
and behavioral conte xt that leads to an unfoldment of
events at the highest level of good for everyone involved.
We don’t always know what that unfoldment would look lik e,
but we don’t need to. God will do His part if we do ours. Our
only job in every situation is to mer ely let go of our
resistance to love. What happens then is up to Him. W e’ve
surrender ed contr ol. W e’re letting Him lead. W e have faith
He knows how.
There’s a myth that some people ar e mor e faithful than
others. A truer statement is that in some ar eas, some of us
are mor e sur render ed than others. W e sur render to God
ﬁrst, of course, the things we don’t r eally car e that muchabout anyway. Some of us don’t mind giving up our
attachment to car eer goals, but ther e’s no way we’r e going
to sur render our r omantic r elationships, or vice versa.
Everything we don’t car e that much about—ﬁne—God can
have it. But if it’s r eally, r eally important, we think we better
handle it ourselves. The truth is, of course, that the mor e
important it is to us, the mor e important it is to sur render.
That which is sur render ed is tak en car e of best. T o place
something in the hands of God is to give it over, mentally, to
the pr otection and car e of the beneﬁcence of the universe.
To keep it ourselves means to constantly grab and clutch
and manipulate. W e keep opening the oven to see if the
bread is baking, which only ensur es that it never gets a
chance to.
Wher e we have an attachment to r esults, we tend to
have a har d time giving up contr ol. But how can we know
what r esult to try to achieve in a situation when we don’t
know what’s going to happen tomor row? What do we ask
for? Instead of, “ Dear God, please let us fall in love, or
please give me this job,” we say, “ Dear God, my desir e, my
priority is inner peace. I want the e xperience of love. I don’t
know what would bring that to me. I leave the r esults of this
situation in your hands. I trust your will. May your will be
done. Amen.”
I used to feel I couldn’t aﬀor d to r elax because God had
more important things to think about than my life. I ﬁnally
realized that God is not capricious, but is rather an
impersonal love for all life. My life is no mor e or less
precious to Him than is anyone else’s. T o sur render to God is
to accept the fact that He loves us and pr ovides for us,
because he loves and pr ovides for all life. Sur render doesn’t
obstruct our power; it enhances it. God is mer ely the love
within us, so r eturning to Him is a r eturn to ourselves.4. THE SURRENDERED LIFE
“Holy Child of God, when will you lear n that only
holiness can content you and give you peace?”
To relax, to feel the love in your heart and k eep to that as
your focus in every situation—that’s the meaning of spiritual
surrender. It changes us. W e become deeper, mor e
attractive people.
In Zen Buddhism, ther e’s a concept called “zen mind,” or
“beginner’s mind.” They say that the mind should be lik e an
empty rice bowl. If it’s alr eady full, then the universe can’t
ﬁll it. If it’s empty, it has r oom to r eceive. This means that
when we think we have things alr eady ﬁgur ed out, we’r e not
teachable. Genuine insight can’t dawn on a mind that’s not
open to r eceive it. Sur render is a pr ocess of emptying the
mind.
In the Christic tradition, this is the meaning of “becoming
as a little child.” Little childr en don’t think they know what
things mean. In fact, they know they don’t know. They ask
someone older and wiser to e xplain things to them. W e’re
like childr en who don’t know, but think we do.
The wise person doesn’t pr etend to know what it’s
impossible to know. “I don’t know” can be an empowering
statement. When we go into a situation not knowing, ther e
is something inside us which does. With our conscious mind,
‘we step back in or der that a higher power within us can
step forwar d and lead the way.’
We need less posturing and mor e genuine charisma.
Charisma was originally a r eligious ter m, meaning “ of the
spirit,” or “inspir ed.” It’s about letting God’s light shine
through us. It’s about a sparkle in people that money can’tbuy. It’s an invisible ener gy with visible eﬀects. T o let go, to
just love, is not to fade into the wallpaper. Quite the
contrary, it’s when we truly become bright. W e’re letting our
own light shine.
We are meant to be this way. We are meant to shine.
Look at small childr en. They’r e all so unique befor e they
start trying  to be, because they demonstrate the power of
genuine humility. This is also the e xplanation of “beginner’s
luck.” When we go into a situation not knowing the rules, we
don’t pr etend to know how to ﬁgur e anything out, and we
don’t know yet what ther e is to be afraid of. This r eleases
the mind to cr eate fr om its own higher power. Situations
shift gear and lights go on simply because our minds have
opened up to r eceive love. W e have gotten out of our own
way.
Love is a win-mode, a successful and attractive vibration.
We think that success is diﬃcult, and so, for us, it is.
Success in life doesn’t have to involve negative tension. W e
don’t have to be struggling all the time. If you think about it,
“taking the bull by the hor ns” would be a very danger ous
thing to do. In fact, ambitious tension actually limits our
ability to succeed because it k eeps us in a state of
contraction, emotionally and physically. It seems to give us
energy but doesn’t r eally, lik e the white sugar of mental
health; ther e’s a short high, followed by a crash. The
cultivation of mental r est, or sur render, is lik e eating healthy
food. It doesn’t give us an immediate rush, but over time it
provides a lot mor e ener gy.
This doesn’t r equir e sitting in a lotus position all day. We
still get e xcited


 “I knew he  was not
immortal.” Is that surr ender? If it is, I don’ t want it. Ther e ar e some
situations in which surr ender seems unnatural and inhuman.

Being cut of f from your feelings is not surrender. But we don’ t know
what his inner state was when he said those words. In certain extreme
situations, it may still be imposs ible for you to accept the Now. But you
always get a second chance at surrender.
Y our first chance is to surrender each moment to the reality of that
moment. Knowing that what is  cannot be undone — because it already is
— you say yes to what is  o r accept what isn’ t. Then you  do what you
have to do, whatever the situati on requires. If you abide in this state of
acceptance, you create no more negativity, no more suf fering, no more
unhappiness. Y o u then live in a state of nonresistance, a state of grace
and lightness, free of struggle.
Whenever you are unable to do that, whenever you miss that c hance —
either b ecause you are not generating enough conscious presence to
prevent some habitual and uncon scious resistance pattern from arising or
because the condition is so extr eme as to be absolutely unacceptable toyou — then you  are creating som e form of pain, some form of suf fering.
It may look as if  the situation is creating the suf fering, but ultim ately this
is not so — your resistance is.
Now her e is your second chance at surrender: If you cannot acc ept what
is outside, then accept what is inside. If you cannot accept the external
condition, accep t the internal condition. This means: Do not resist the
pain. Allow it to be there. Surrender to the grief, despair, fear, loneliness,
or whatever form the suf fering takes. W itness it without labeling it
mentally. Embrace it. Then see how the miracle of surrender transmutes
deep suf fering into deep peace.  This is your crucifixion. Let it become
your resurrection and ascension.
I d o not see how  one can surr ender to suffering. As you yoursel f pointed
out, suffering  is non-surr ender. How could yo u surr ender to non-
surr ender?
For get about surrender for a moment. When your pain is deep, all talk of
surrender will probably seem fu tile and meaningless anyway. When your
pain is deep, you will likely have a strong ur ge to escape from it rather
than sur render to it. Y ou don’ t want to feel what you feel. What  could be
more normal? But there is no escape, no way out. There a re many
pseudo escapes — work, drink, drugs, anger, projection, suppression,
and so on — but they don’ t fre e you from the pain. Suf fering does not
diminish in intensity when you  make it unconscious. When y ou deny
emotional pain, everything you do or think as well as your rela tionships
become contami nated with it. Y o u broadcast it, so to speak, as th e ener gy
you emanate, and others will pick it up subliminally. If they are
unconscious, they may even feel compelled to attack or hurt you in some
way, or you may hurt them in an unconscious projection of your pain.
Y ou attract and manifest whatever corresponds to your inner state.
When there is no way out, there is still always a way thr ough. So don’ t
turn away from the pain. Face it. Feel it fully. Feel  it — don’ t think  about
it! E xpress it if necessary, but don’ t create a script in your mind around
it. Give all your attention to t he feeling, not to the person, event, or
situation that seems to have cau sed it. Don’ t let the mind use th e pain to
create a victim identity for yourself out of it. Feeling sorry for yourself
and telli ng others your story wil l keep you stuck in suf fering. Since it is
impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change isto move  into it; otherwise, nothing will shift. So give your complete
attention to what you feel, and r efrain from mentally labeling it. As you
go into the feeli ng, be intensely alert. At first, it may seem like a dark
and terrifying place, and when the ur ge to turn away from it comes,
observe it but d on’ t act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain,
keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is.
Stay aler t, stay present — present with your whole Being, with e very cell
of y our body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness.
This is the flame of your consciousness.
At th is s tage, yo u don’ t need to be concerned with surrender anymore. It
has hap pened already. How? Full attention is  f ull acceptanc e, is
surrender. By giving full attentio n, you use the power of the No w, which
is th e power of your presence. No hidden pocket of resist ance can
survive in it. Presence removes time. W ithout time, no suf fering, no
negativity, can survive.
The acceptance of suf fering is a journey into death. Facing d eep pain,
allowing it to be, taking your attention into it, is to ent er death
consciously. When you have died this death, you realize that there is no
death — and the re is nothing to fear. Only the ego dies. Imagine  a ray of
sunlight that has for gotten it is an inseparable part of the sun and  deludes
itself int o believing it has to fight for survival and create and cl ing to an
identity other than the sun. W ould the death of this delusion not be
incredibly liberating?
Do you want an easy death? W ould you rather die without pain, without
agony? Then die to the past every moment, and let the light  of your
presence shine away the heavy, time-bound self you thought of as “you.”
THE W A Y OF THE CROSS
Ther e ar e many accounts of people who say they have found God
thr ough their deep suffering, and ther e is the Christian expr ession “the
way of the cr oss,” which I suppose points to the same thing.
 W e are concerned with nothing else here.
Strictly speaking, they did not find God through their suf fering, because
suf fering implies resistance. They found God through surrender, through
total acceptance of what is, into which they were forced by their intense
suf fering. They must have realiz ed on some level that their pain was self-
created.
How do you equate surr ender with finding God?
Since resistance is inseparable from the mind, relinquishment of
resistance — surrender — is the end of the mind as your master, the
impostor preten ding to be “you,” the false god. All judgmen t and all
negativity dissol ve. The realm o f Being, which had been obscur ed by the
mind, th en opens up. Suddenly, a great stillness arises within you, an
unfathomable sense of peace. And within that peace, there is great joy.
And wit hin that joy, there is lov e. And at the innermost core, there is the
sacred, the immeasurable, That which cannot be named.
I don’ t call it finding God, because how can you find that which was
never lost, the very life that you are? The word God is limiting  not only
because of thousands of years of misperception and misuse, but also
because it implies an entity other than you. God is Being itself, not a
being. There can be no subject -object relationship here, no duality, no
you and  Go d. God-realization is the m ost natural thing there is. The
amazing and incomprehensible fact is not that you can  become conscious
of G od b ut that you are not  conscious of God. The way of the cross that
you mentioned is the old way to enlightenment, and until recently it was
the only  way. But don’ t dismiss it or underestimate its ef ficacy. It still
works.
The way of the cross is a comple te reversal. It means that the worst thing
in your life, your cross, turns into the best thing that ever hap pened to
you, by forcing you into surren der, into “death,” forcing you to  become
as nothing, to become as God — because God, too, is no-thing.
At this time, as far as the unconscious majority of humans is concerned,
the w ay of the cross is still the only way. They will only awaken  through
further suf fering, and enlightenment as a collective phenomenon will be
predictably preceded by vast upheavals. This process reflects the
workings of certain universa l laws that govern the growth ofconsciousness and thus was foreseen by some seers. It is d escribed,
among o ther places, in the Boo k of Revelation or Apocalypse


ilating dinner.
One way you can use this information is to tell whether your dosha
imbalance is related to the time of day. For example, if you find it difficult
to stay awake in the mornings without three cups of coffee, it could be
because you have been rising late — during the lethar gic kapha time. Try
waking up an hour earlier, and your mornings will be filled with verve.
The Doshas in a T welve-Month Y ear
Just as the doshas shift duties during a single day, they also govern the
rhythm of the seasons. Here’ s the Seasonal Dosha Chart:
Vata season:  mid-October to mid-February
Kapha season:  mid-February to mid-June
Pitta season:  mid-June to mid-October
Here are some tips that will help you through the seasons. They will
also balance your doshas in general. That is, the tips for cooling pitta in
summer are beneficial to pitta year -round, and similarly for vata and kapha.
How to Soothe Pitta in Summer
The humid, intense heat of summer makes it pitta season. At this time of
the year, the heat can make us more prone to irritability and temper
outbursts. This is when pitta-rela ted skin and digestion problems (acne, heat
rashes, acidity, heartburn) flare up, too. Even kapha-vata types can suffer
from heat rashes, dry skin, and excessive thirst in summer. Once you
understand this summer -pitta link, it becomes both important and easy to
find ways to beat the heat.
1. Eat as many sweet, ripe, juicy fruits as you can between July and
October: apples, pears, melons, and mangoes. Their cooling nectar
keeps the body hydrated and happy.
2. Get more vegetables such as broccoli, cucumber, zucchi ni, and
carrots in your diet; they are considered to have cooling prope rties,too.
3. Use spices such as mint, fennel, and coriander, which also have
cooling properties. In the summer season, they’re your best friends.
Mustard seeds and ginger, on the other hand, have a heating ef fect on
the metabolism — which is not desirable at this time.
4. Try to avoid such foods as yogurt, cayenne pepper, and sour cream
while summer lasts. A heat-distraught pitta does not enjoy sour,
salty, and very spicy foods — especially at this time of the year.
5. Resist the urge to ice your drinks. Though, in general,  liquid,
lukewarm, or cool foods are more comforting in summer than hot,
dry ones, the frigidity of ice douses digestive fire.
6. Take a swim, go ice skating, or stroll in the moonlight. Pick cooling
exercises like these to keep pitta from flaring up.
Wise W ays to Balance V ata in W inter
In winter, the air is dry and cool — both qualities of vata. Thoug h many
of us dread the winter months for the fat they pile up around  our waists,
Ayurvedic heale rs see winter as an excellent time to nourish the body and
build immunity through wholesome food and a healthy routine.
1. Eat foods that please the vata dosha: sweet, warm, lubricatin g foods
cooked in easy-to-digest oils such as olive oil or ghee (clarified
butter).
2. Cook with spices like cumin, ginger, and turmeric at this time. They
support digestion and boost immunity.
3. Combat the dryness of these vata months by regularly massag ing and
moisturizing your skin and drinking warm water (if you are a pitta
type, room-temperature water is fine).
4. Include plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables in your diet.
5. Take a warm bath or shower every winter morning; this is especially
energizing because it opens the pores, removing toxins. Preceded by
an herbalized oil massage, its benefits increase manifold.
Healing Things to Do in SpringIn spring, ice thaws, blossoms unfold, and spirits soar. At the same time,
accumulated toxins of winter start to liquefy naturally, too. With a little help
from you, this flushing out of impurities can be even more ef ficient.
1. Eat light, nongreasy foods that detoxify the body, thus appea sing the
kapha dosha that rules this season.
2. Include increased servings of whole grains and cooked leafy  greens
in your diet.
3. Maintain a good skin routine: cleanse, tone, and moisturize morning
and evening, and exfoliate twice a week to remove dead cells and
open pores. (See chapter 10  for specific recommendations.)
4. Regu late your bowel habits. If you have been irregular, now is the
time to pay special attention to this aspect of your day. Remem ber,
spring is detox season. Drink warm water before you attempt a
bowel movement. Don’ t worry if regularity does not return within a
day or even a week. Give it time, but don’ t give up.
The Seasons of Y our Life
The three dosha s are also progra mmed to govern the different phases of
your life in turns.
•   Kapha rules infancy and childhood — the formative years.
•   Pitta governs adulthood through middle age — the productive years.
•   Vata increases with old age — the years when sleep becomes  lighter
and erratic, the skin loses moisture, and the joints stif fen.
the doshas and their deputies
What makes the doshas slightly more complex is that each of them has five
deputies called subdoshas.  Each subdosha, according to Ayurvedic practice,
has a specific location and a specific set of duties. (Y ou can think of them as
state governmen ts.) At first glance, the sheer number of the subdoshas and
their unfamiliar names can seem confusing, but to a vaidya the subdoshas
are invaluable. When a dosha misbehaves, the vaidya can go deeper and tellexactly which aspect of that dosha is disturbed and how it can be brought
back on track.
Here is a list of the subdoshas and their jurisdictions. You do not need to
memorize them;  I’m enumerating them just to show you that they are less
complex than they first seem, but at the same time vital to Ayurvedic
healing:
Vata Subdoshas
Prana Vata
Prana means “life force.” That is why you could call the prana vata the
chief subdosha among all fifteen. Located in the head, heart, chest, and
sense organs, prana vata gove rns vision, hearing, smell, taste, creative
thinking, reasoning, and enthusiasm.
Udana V ata
Udana means “upward moving. ” Hence, udana vata is responsible for
quality of voice, memory, and movement of thought. A speech defect would
indicate a weakened udana vata.
Samana V ata
Samana means “balancing” or “equalizing.” This subdosha resides in
the middle region of the body, including the navel, stomach, and small
intestine. Therefore, its function  is to fan the fires of digestion or assist the
agni of pitta in the digestive process.
Apana V ata
Apana means “downward moving.” The apana vata sits in the nether
regions and regulates the flow of waste, ejaculate, and menstrual fluid.
Vyana V ata
Vyana (vi-ana) means the “diffusive” or “pervasive.” Vi is a prefix
meaning “apart” or “to separate.” Though this subdosha is indeed presentall over the body, its primary seat is the heart. Blood flow, heart rhythm,
perspiration, the sense of touch — all these are vyana vata responsibilities.
Pitta Subdoshas
Alochaka Pitta
Alochaka means “critic” — the fire that can “criticize,” or in another
sense, “perceive” visually. This subdosha is located in the eyes and governs
vision. In youth, the alochaka pitta is generally strong. Toward old age, it
becomes weaken ed, causing all sorts of problems ranging from eye strain to
cataracts.
Bhrajaka Pitta
A close meanin g of the word bhrajaka  is “to diffuse” — or “spread.”
This is the subdosha that lends radiance to your skin. On the other hand, a
disturbed bhrajaka pitta could lead to allergies, rashes, and skin
inflammation.
Sadhaka Pitta
Sadhaka means the fire that helps us recognize the truth or reality, from
the root sadh,  meanin g “to accomplish” or “to realize.” Fortunate is the
person whose sadhaka pitta is balanced, for this heart-based subdosha
metabolizes thought and feeling. Thus, key areas of your life, such as
desire, drive, decisiveness, and spirituality, are under the care of the
sadhaka pitta.
Pachaka Pitta
Pachaka comes from the root word pachan,  or “digestion.” How well


��iculties to be overcome and, in the
ﬁnal stages, for the so-far successful aspirant, the
Philosophers' Stone, the ﬁnal prize, is in the centre
guarded by a dragon which has to be overcome before
winning through.
In Chinese alchemy the exoteric side, the wei tan, dealt
with tangible  ingredients, such as mercury, lead, realgar
and cinnabar; it was a laboratory alchemy concerned with
the transmutation of metals and the preparation of
medicines and the drug, or elixir, of immortality. It was
involved in scientiﬁc expe riments and ultimately gave rise
to the modern science of chemistry, making many
interesting discoveries on the way. Esoteric alchemy, the
nei tan, on the other hand, was only interested in the ‘soul’
of these substances and with the workings and operations
of the body and soul of the aspirant, using yogic
disciplines and methods and psychological practices. The
wei tan was concerned with the material, the nei tan with
the spiritual; the latter thus associated with religion rather
than science. A Taoist alchemist of the ﬁrst century AD
said that the true lead is not the vulgar lead, but may be
found in every house. ‘If the secret is disclosed it will be so
simple that everyone may get a good laugh.’ In other
words the lead is the psychological quality present in
everyone.
Even though regarded as exoteric, the wei tan kept its
recipes and instructions secret in that they were couchedin symbolic terms and were withheld from the ignorant.
Examples of esoteric names are ‘Young-woman-along-the-
river is not a female; Peach-male-lightness is not a male’
(both are terms for mercury). Lead is ‘Metal Lord,’ or
‘River Chariot.’ Su Tung  Po, who wrote a treatise on the
Dragon and Tiger in AD 1110, said ‘The Dragon is
mercury; it is semen and blood. The Tiger is lead, it is the
breath and bodily strength. Lead is also sperm and the
blood mercury.’ Among plants used Dragon's gall is
gentian; Tiger's paws, jack-in-the-pulpit; Chicken heads,
euryale; Rat tail, sage; Sky Dog, ginseng, and so on. As Ko
Hung said, ‘if we can be so confounded by common plants,
how can we expect to comprehend arcane, recondite
prescriptions?’ This complaint was echoed centuries later
in Europe by the French metallurgist Buﬀon, who said that
in spite of reading and studying all the books on alchemy
they had oﬀered him ‘nothing but obscurities and
unintelligible processes.’
The disadvan tage of esoteric knowledge and of keeping
it secret is that it can be lost with the passing of the adept
or custodian of that lore and the greater the knowledge or
powers of the adept, the less likely it is that these will be
handed down intact, it being unlikely that there would be a
disciple of his own stature to fall heir to it.
When the esoteric is ignored or misunderstood,
exotericism takes over completely and proliferates in
outward form s; rituals and rites become meaning less and
are performed mechanically for their own sake, providing
spurious and superstitiou s conditions, which, having lost
their value, merely make the performer feel safe in the
protection of the congregation or crowd. The symbol then
becomes a sign, having lost its inner signiﬁcance. So, too,
do science and techno logy now concentrate on the
outward: machines, space travel, endless gadgets, instead
of the inner study of mankind which, if developed, wouldreveal inner powers capable of achieving the same eﬀects
without the disadvantage s of outward fragmenta tion and
the consequent breakdown of human relat ionships.
Humanity displays a genius for technical knowledge and
mechanical invention, the exoteric, combined with an
almost complete failure of adjustment and develop ment in
the character and understanding of the inner, the esoteric,
world. The result is total frustration; conﬂict and war in
national life, and in the personal sphere nervous illness,
tension, imba lance and disharmony. The yin, esote ric, and
the yang, exoteric, here as everywhere, require each other
and must work together with Nature, not against  her; co-
operating, not ‘conquering.’
OceanofPDF.com– 16 –
THE TWO GREAT POWERS
The primar y theme in creation mythology is the
emergence from the One of the Two, the creation of the
primordial pair and the beginning of duality. This male-
female symbolism is basic to alchemy, since the male
sulphur and the female quicksilver must work on and with
each other in balanced relationship. They are diﬀerent but
complementary, seeking out each other to bring about the
restoration of original wholeness. They must continually
stimulate each other. In alchemy everything is growing
and divided into sexes; the whole universe is a living being
working towards perfection. The eternal reactions of
humanity and Nature upon each other, the alternating yin
and yang  in growth and decline, the fusion of the objective
and subjective, all give rise to the cyclic powers of change
and produce the rhythms of the cosmos.
Duality is the very essence of life in the manifest world;
the light and dark following earth's turning away from the
sun and returning to the new dawn. Its opposite is present
in every thing: little is harder or more solid than the ﬂint
that gives birth to the spark of ﬁre, the most unstable and
volatile of elements. In man and woman the two powers
manifest themselves in duality not only in sex, but in each
sex. Woman,  the yin, is negative externally and positive
internally; man, the yang, is positive externally and
negative internally: each incorporate both powers. De
Groot says: ‘The hard and soft match and contain one
another, yang  gives and yin receives. The male and female
need one another. It is this need that brings about
creation-procreation, so that the essential ch'i may haveits proper play.’ He calls the two powers ‘the Great
Regulators of the cosmos which cause the phenomena of
creation, evolution and destruction.’ They are also called
the Contraries, the Contending Dragons, the Great
Extremes. The breath, vital essence, or ch'i of the yin and
yang  is necessary  for creation of any form. The Ts'an T'ung
Ch'i says that ‘creation is dependent on the fusion of the
breath of yin and yang ... if a thing does not contain yin
and yang  it repudiates its origin. Baby chicks do not come
from infertile eggs.’
In alchemy yin is coagulation and yang  is solution; in
metals yin is quicksilver and silver  and yang  is Sulphur
and gold; yin the moon and earth, yang  the sun and
heavens, while in the work yin represents the esoteric and
yang  the exoteric. The processes of heating and cooling
are also related to yang  the sun and yin, the moon; they
bring about change by balancing each other with their
hardness and softness. In the Ts'an T'ung Ch'i the sun and
moon are said to reach out for one another; they are ‘the
two great luminaries which arose from the Great Ultimate,
the T'ai Chi. The yang  evolved as air and formed the
heavens, the yin coagulated to form the earth; particles
from the yang  formed the sun and yin particles the moon;
between them they begat the stars. Thus the yang  and yin
are also known as T'ien  and Ti, Heaven and Earth.’
All metals were regarded  as the result of the union of
the two powers, male and female, sulphur and quicksilver,
spirit and soul; their union produced perfection: cinnabar.
There is, however, a dual nature in quicksilver or mercury,
which is consonant with the two natures of the feminine
power, at once the nourisher of the embryo within the
womb, the hermetic vessel, the vase, etc., and the death-
dealing disso lvent, so that it brings life or death according
to its particu lar situation. This lunar material is also the
‘water of life,’ which nourishes in the womb, and thedestructive humid dissolution of death; but that which
decomposes is also the medium for generation. As
Synesius said: ‘It is indeed that which decomposes and
that which makes to generate.’
Metals were divided into the two sexes in smelting
processes and young men and maidens took part in the
rituals in which the ‘marr iage of the metals’ was involved.
In a memorial ode, on Ch'u Yuan, by Chia I, c. 170 BC, we
read: ‘Heaven and Earth are like a smelting furnace, the
forces of natural change are the workmen, the yin and the
yang  are the fuel, and the Ten Thousand Things


 to have taken place. Even today many thousands of people in remote places eat
the same primitive foods as early men ate and such people commonly have full size,
well developed jaws and facial bones similar to our remote ancestors.
   The past speaks for itself, so let none be lieve that we must have artificial vitamins,
or "polyunsaturated" refined oils, or bread, flour, sugar, or any of the other
manufactured foods which the advertisers would have us think we must eat to be
healthy. Quite the contrary, the facts are that the use of refined stored foods leads to
physical deterioration, weakness, and disease as so well shown by the studies of Dr. Weston Price among primitive peoples living on the fringes of the civilized world.

4. ARTERIOSCLEROSIS — A DISEASE OF CIVILIZATION
   The cover picture shows ( in the internet version, the picture a few paragraphs
above, following the subhead "LUNCHES)  genuine human arteries from collections
made by doctors at hospital autopsies. The hose-like arteries have been slit open to
reveal interior surfaces and have been lightly stained to make the diseased spots show in the photograph. They are the main arteri es (aortas) leading from the heart and are
typical of collections totaling nearly a hundred thousand taken from people of all ages
dead of random causes. Every artery  in these immense collections from persons over
the age of three years is diseased, and th is picture shows only average condition,
many arteries being much worse. Few people realize the gross and shocking
conditions which are thus shown to exist in the arteries of all civilized people. These
are not just arteries from sick people, but are a fair sample of what all of us  are
carrying in our bosoms. Arteriosclerosis is a universal  disease of civilization.
   And yet the arteries of most wild an imals and primitive humans are as perfect and
clean as a pearl button. Why, oh why are we civilized people afflicted by this cruel
scourge? This is the agonizing riddle which science has been studying for three
hundred years. And now at last the long sought answer has been found and is here made available so that those who wish to ca n rid themselves of this ancient curse by
diet alone.
   Arteriosclerosis is basically the collection of fatty waxy materials and minerals
within the walls  of the arteries, including not only cholesterol but also many other
materials. These deposits cause spectacular lumps and ridges which choke small arteries. They also occur in finely distributed form throughout the artery walls and
cause an abnormal hardening, thickening, and growth both in diameter and length so
that the artery grows longer and wider and forms contorted serpentine patterns.
Hardened arteries can be seen in the temples of many older persons, and can be seen inside the eyes when eye examinations are made.
   The lumpy deposits in the arteries ulcerate and turn into open sores as shown that
bleed and form blood clots which may suddenly break loose and clog the smaller arteries which branch off downstream, resul ting in heart attacks, brain strokes, sudden
blindness, blocked circulation, etc. These sores sometimes eat through the thin arteries
in the head and spill blood into the brain, causing the cerebral hemorrhage type of
stroke. They weaken spots in the arterial walls and start the bulges and blowouts known as aneurysms.
   The coronary arteries supplying blood to the heart muscle become partially clogged
and cause the chest pain known as angina.
   The walls of the tiny arterioles smaller than a hair become thickened by these
deposits, reducing the flow passages so that the heart has to pump harder and harder to force the blood through to feed our cells, and this is high blood pressure or
hypertension.    Similar material collects in and floats along in our bloodstream resulting in high
blood cholesterol.
   Abnormal fatty deposits also occur in many other parts of the body, and are called
"atherosclerosis" or "atheroma." This atheroma material collects in the skin and causes it to become gradually thickened, overgrown and deadened, so in older people
the skin becomes too big for the body and forms the folds and wrinkles of old age. It
causes the veins to overgrow and knot up as seen on the backs of the hands, and
causes varicose veins.
   It collects in the gall bladder forming gallstones, which are mostly hardened
cholesterol.
   It causes overgrowth and fibrous hardening of the prostate gland and fibrous
tumours of the womb.
   It collects in the cartilage of the joints, causing the overgrowth, inflammation, and
calcification which bring the agony of arthritis.
   These deposits form in the kidneys and cause Bright's disease.
   They form with calcium around the tiny sounding bones in the ears and cause most
cases of deafness.
   They collect in the colored part or ir is of the eye and cause the grayish white ring
often seen in older persons, called "arcus senilis" or "white arc."
   The list of misery and death known to be caused by arteriosclerosis and
atherosclerosis is almost endless, and no doubt more effects will be discovered.
   Atherosclerosis is the leading cause of death and disease in the civilized world, the
arterial aspect of it alone causing more deaths than all other causes combined.

5. STALE FOOD — THE TRUE CAUSE OF ARTERIOSCLEROSIS
   By feeding experiments with animals and human beings consuming nearly a quarter
million dollars in labor and materials over a period of seven years I finally determined
that the true cause of ar teriosclerosis is simple: STALE FOOD.
   When food is processed and stored in certain ways, some of the fatty substances and
cholesterol change into a chalky non-food material which our bodies cannot utilize.
When we eat these stale type foods, some of this chalky material becomes semi-permanently lodged in our arteries. These deteriorated spurious fats are highly
resistant and durable, being similar to drie d paint and soap, and to the hard chalky
cakes which clog kitchen grease traps.
   Food materials readily change into durable non-food forms when processed. For
example, some of the drying oils used in pa ints are extracted from soybeans, fish, etc.
Until recent years all furniture glue was made by boiling down fish, meat and bones, and milk. White of egg dries quickly into a hard glue.
   The exact chemical nature of these chalky fatty materials is as yet unknown, and
they have no name, so for the present I refer to them as fatty rubbish.  Plumbers and
sewage men are familiar with similar material in kitchen grease traps, and call it
"cake" or "greaseballs." At the present time (September 1971) world-famous
university scientists are working with us to determine the chemistry of this material.
Present indications are that it is similar to soap and glue. It will be interesting to know
more of the theory, but for practical health purposes we only need to know which
foods contain this material so we can avoid them.
   In general, food which has been ground up like flour; salt-pickled or smoked like
corned beef, bacon, ham, and sausage; long soaked in water like canned food; or
overheated and browned, is likely to cause choked arteries. See pages 39-43 for
detailed food chart.
   Most of the fatty rubbish in these stale foods passes on through our intestines and
out of our bodies without causing much more than indigestion, but some of it and particularly the finely ground small particles and semi-fluid portion is absorbed into
our bloodstream and is carried throughout the body. It accumulates mostly in the
artery walls, joint cartilage and fibrous parts of the body because these parts have a
very dense structure and poor blood supply so that the material is filtered and trapped
therein. The particles tend to clump and stick to one another, so there is a tendency to form large deposits in certain spots. They also accumulate faster at branches and
curves in the arteries, due to the increase d filtering or trapping action of the denser
fibrous structure which Nature has provided to reinforce against the concentrated
stresses occurring at these points.
   The body has the ability to get rid of this fatty rubbish very slowly, but we eat it
faster than it can be removed, so gradually as we get older it builds up more and more
throughout the body. It insidiously weakens us and makes us old before our time, dulls our brain and saps our vital powers, long before any outward sign of actual
disease appears.
   This stale food theory explains many heretofore puzzling facts, for instance why
such people as the Masai and the Mongols have practically no arteriosclerosis although they eat high cholesterol milk, fat, and meat in great quantity. Yet the
admirable Finnish people on a high cholesterol diet have the highest incidence of
arteriosclerosis in the world. The explanation is simply that the Masai and the
Mongols live close by their animal herds and eat their meat and milk fresh, while the
Finns have to eat their food mostly in a stale form due to their long cold winter, in the
form of bread, bacon, ham, smoked fish, etc.
   It also explains why arteriosclerosis is sometimes found in wild animals and fish,
for they often have to eat


 case inoperable, her surgeons closed the
incision without taking further action. Because the
woman’s daughter pleaded with me not to tell her mother
the truth, I informed my patient that the gallstones had
been succes sfully remov ed. I rationalized that her family
would break the news to her in time, and that in all
likelihood she had only a few months to live—at least she
could spend them with peace of mind.
Eight months later I was astonished to see the same
woman back  in my oﬀice. She had returned for a routine
physical exam, which revealed no jaundice, no pain, and no
detectable signs of cancer. Only after another year passed
did she confess anything unusual to me. She said, “Doctor, I
was so sure I had cancer two years ago that when it turned
out to be just gallstones, I told myself I would never be sick
another day in my life.” Her cancer never recurred.
This woman used no technique; she got well, it appears,
through her deep-seated resolve, and that was good
enough. This case, too, I must call a quantum event,
because of the fundam ental transformation that went
deeper than organs, tissu es, cells, or even DNA, directly to
the source of the body’s existence in time and space. Both
of my patients—one with positive thoughts, the other with
negative—managed to dip into the? realm, and from there
they dictated their own reality.
—
As mysterious as these two cases are, are they really
examples of quantum events? A physicist could object that
we are just making metaphors here, that the hidden world
of elementary particles and fundamental forces explored by
quantum physics is very diﬀerent from the mind’s hidden
world. Yet, one can argue that the inconceivable region
from which we fetch the thought of a rose is the same as
that from which a photon emerges—or the cosmos.Intelligence, we will discover, has many quantum
properties. To make this clear, we start with the familiar
textbook scheme that arranges the body vertically, as a
hierarchy of systems, organs, tissues, and cells:
In this picture, each level of the body is logically related
to the next—as long as you remain above the line, the
processes that appear as life unfolds happen in a deﬁnite
sequence. This is exhibited by a fetus in the womb: a baby
begins as a speck of DNA sitting in the middle of one
fertilized egg cell; over time, that cell multiplies until a ball
of cells is formed, large enough to begin to sort itself out
into the be-ginnings of tissues and eventually organs, such
as the heart, stomach, spinal cord, and so on; then the
entire nervous system, digestive system, respiratory
system, and so on emerge; and ﬁnally, at the moment of
birth, the trillions of cells in the newborn are precisely
coordinated to sustain the life of the whole organism
without the mother’s help.
But if DNA is the bottom  rung of this neat stepladder,
what makes DNA unfold in the ﬁrst place? Why does it
initially divide on the second day after conception and
begin to make a nervous  system on day eighteen? As with
all quantum  events, something inexplicable happens
beneath the surface to form the all-knowing intelligence of
DNA. The point is not that DNA is too complex tounderstand, being a super-genius molecule; what makes
DNA mysterious is that it lives right at the point of
transformation, just like the quantum. Its whole life is spent
creating more life, which we have deﬁned as “intelligence
tied up in chemicals.” DNA is constantly transferring
messages from the quantum world to ours, tying new bits
of intelligence to new bits of matter.
Sitting by itself in the middle of every cell, completely
oﬀstage, DNA manages to choreograph all that happens
onstage. It can spin out parts of itself to travel through the
bloodstream as neuropeptides, hormones, and enzymes,
while at the same time attaching other bits of itself to the
cell wall as receptors, setting up antennae to listen for
answers to a ﬂood of questions. How does DNA manage to
be the question, the answer, and the silent observer of the
whole process at the same time?
The answer is not at the level of matter. Molecular
biologists long ago broke DNA down into its ﬁner
components, but the whole operation still remains above
the line in the Newtonian world:
As we saw before, DNA is not made out of anything
special. Its strands of genetic material can be subdivided
into simpler molecules like sugars and amines, and these
into atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and so on. When it
is not tied into DNA, a hydrogen or carbon atom doesn’thave anythin g like timing built into it. In billions of other
combinations, hydrogen and carbon simply exist; yet in
DNA, they contribute to a mastery over time, an ability to
produce something new every day, which lasts, in a human
being, more than seventy years—every stage  of life
develops according to DNA’s timetable. (In a bristlecone
pine, DNA is timed for more than two thousand years.)
No matter how closely you look, the ground for the
stepladder is not very ﬁrm. When you get beyond atoms
and start subdividing DNA into electrons, protons, and
smaller particles, a quantum event must take place.
Otherwise, you are left in the embarrassing position of
claiming that life is made out of nothingness—empty space
devoid of matter and energy—which is all you get if you
divide solid particles beyond a certain point.
At the quantum level, matter and energy come into being
out of something that is neither matter nor energy.
Physicists sometimes refer to this primordial state as a
“singularity,” an abstract construct that is not limited in
time and space but is a compression of all the expanded
dimensions of the universe. In the Big Bang, the whole
universe jumped out of a singularity—so it is theorized—
which we can think of by analogy as a point smaller than
the smallest thing in existence. Yet, that stupendous event
of creation happens on another scale every time you think
the word rose.
There is no piece of matter existing in a deﬁnite place
that holds this word for you—it springs into existence from
a region that simply knows how to organize matter and
intelligence, mind and form. The atoms in your brain come
and go, but the word rose does not disappear. Now we are
at a very exciting point. The singularity is quite explorable
today: it did not exist before  the Big Bang, since it is
outside time and space; therefore, it must be here now—in
fact, it is everywhere and has no conﬁnes in past, present,or future. Quantum physics uses mammoth particle
accelerators and other arcane equipment to wrest from the
? zone even one minute glimpse of this hidden world. The
track of a new elementary particle whizzing by for a
millionth of a second is a major ﬁnding, because it means
that the unknown zone has been reached and a bit of its
reality brought into ours. Can it really be that we are doing
the same thing just by thinking, feeling, dreaming, and
wishing?
What would the quantum  level inside us be like? It would
simply be the logical extension of something we are very
familiar with by now, the neuropeptide. The neuropeptide’s
great ability is that it can respond with lightning  speed to
the mind’s commands. It does this, I believe, by sitting on
the borderlin e of the quantum zone. Science has already
discovered that hundreds of neuropeptides exist and are
manufactured all over the body. It is just another step to
ﬁnd that every one of our cells can make every one of these
substances. If that turns out to be true, then the whole
body is a “thinking body,” the creation and expression of
intelligence. Here is another diagram that sketches the
situation:
We already know that intelligence can take the form of a
thought or a molecule; this is represented in the diagram
by having “mind” and “body” as the two choices thatintelligence can make. The two are always matched to each
other, even when they appear to be separate. To coordinate
them, I have inserted a quantum level, called the “quantum
mechanical body.” This is not a physical artifact but a layer
of intelligence, the layer where the body as a whole is
organized and correlated. This is where the know-how
comes from that makes molecules “smart” instead of inert.
We should not assume that thoughts turn into messenger
chemicals one at a time. It is well known that in many ways
all the billion s of bits of DNA in our systems act like one big
DNA molec ule, as when the incredibly complex
development of a fetus is coordinated in the mother’s
womb—from the ﬁrst day to the ninth month, all the DNA in
an unborn child acts as one. The same holds true for us
today.
Perhaps quantum events are not exclusively “out there”
in space, but “in here” as well.


 vessels and is essential in your
regulation of body temperature a nd hydration. The skin is literally your face
to the world.
Following a few basic skin care principles can reverse the appearance of
aging. There are three important steps you must take as part of an age-
reversing skin care program: (1) purify, (2) revitalize, and (3) replenish.
PURIFY
Y our ski n reflects the purity of your entire body. The principles of a healthy
diet, nutritional supplementation, and detoxification will pay their rewards
in the quality of your skin. In addition to generally healthy lifestyle choices,
you mu st carefu lly clean your skin once or twice daily to re move local
toxins that block your skin pores and predispose you to infections.
It is generally best to avoid soap s that contain harsh deter gents and to use
natural cleansers. A yurveda recommends the use of herbal cleansing
powders that remove toxins an d excessive oils while reestablishing acid-
base bal ance. An  easily mixed f ormula that you can make at home includes
equal parts dried chickpea flour,  dry milk powder, nutmeg, lemo n peel, and
ground c oriander. Use about half a teaspoon with water to make a paste and
gently a pply it to your moistened face. As it begins to dry, rinse of f the
powder.If you wish to e xperiment with traditional A yurvedic cleansing herbs, try
adding neem, manjistha, or sandalwood powder. A basic principle regarding
the cleansing product is not to u se anything on your skin that you wouldn’ t
be comfortable putting into your stomach.
Moist herbalize d steam treatments are also helpful in opening clogged
pores an d releas ing toxins. Once a week, treat yourself to a f acial steam
bath to which you add a few drops of essential oil. Lavender, juniper,
rosemary, ber gamot, or sage all have purifying ef fects on the body.
REVIT ALIZE
The second step to reverse the appearance of aging is skin re vitalization.
Stimulating the collagen fibers that support the skin can improve its tone
and appe arance. Many modern skin care products contain natural acids that
stimulate the cells that produce collagen, such as glycolic acid, azelaic acid,
and lactic acid. Skin care produ cts with these acids in higher concentration
will cause some peeling and should be used under the supervision of a
skilled s kin care specialist. Milder revitalizing treatments can be applied at
home using readily available natural products.
Y ogurt, lemon juice, and grape fruit juice can have a mild stimulating
ef fect. Fresh yogurt can be applied directly to your skin and left on for five
minutes before rinsing. Dilute le mon juice or grapefruit juice with an equal
part of aloe vera juice and apply to the skin. Leave on for two minutes and
then rinse. If your skin is oily, you can do this every day. If your skin tends
to be dry or reactive, dilute the  solution further and use every  second or
third day.
REPLENISHAfter cleansing and revitalizing, the skin needs to be replenished. Use a
pure veg etable or nut oil to which a few drops of an essential flo wer or herb
oil has been add ed. T ry mixing almond, jojoba, avocado, or sunflower oil
with ros e, lavender, sandalwood, jasmine, geranium, or lemon essential oils.
Apply a small a mount and allow it to be absorbed naturally. Use more if
your skin is on the dry side. Sou rce books on natural beauty ca re are listed
in the references for this chapter.
SUN PROTECTION
Always use sunscreen when you  are outdoors. Ultraviolet radiation leads to
collagen damage, wrinkling, and skin cancer. Prevention is much better than
cure, so be awa re of the potentially damaging ef fects of sun on your skin.
This is particularly important if you live in a hot climate or at higher
altitudes. T each your children to use sunscreen to prevent unnecessary skin
problems later in their lives.
Every day in every way,
I am incr easing my mental and physical capacity.
My Biostat is set at a healthy ____ years of age.
I look and feel a healthy ____ years old.
I am r eversing my biological age:
By changing my per ception of my body, its aging and time;
Thr ough two kinds of deep r est—r estful awar eness and  r estful sleep;
By nurturing my body thr ough healthy foods;
By using nutritional complements wisely;
By enhancing mind/body integration;
Thr ough exer cise; andBy eliminating toxins fr om my life.
9
Y ou Can Reverse Y our
Biological Age by Cultivating
Flexibility and Creativity
in Consciousness

ACTION STEP # 8
I am  r eversing my biological ag e by cultivating flexibility and  cr eativity in
my consciousness.
I put flexibility into practice by:
Learning to let go when things don’ t seem to go my way.
Practicing the wisdom of uncertainty—not being attached to outcome
and letting go of the need to control.
Learning to for give by relinquishing grievances, resent ments,and
r egr ets.
I put cr eativity into practice by:
Learning the nine-step cr eative r esponse.Applying the cr eative r esponse to all the challenges and/or problems in
my life.
Helping others to solve their problems by teaching them the cr eative
r esponse.
Aging is associated with rigidity and decay.
Y outh is associated with flexibility and cr eativity.
Both flexibility and cr eativity ar e learned behaviors.
By cultivating flexibility and cr eativity in consciousness,
you r enew yourself in every moment and
r everse the aging pr ocess.
An ancient V edic aphorism says,
“Infinite flexibility and cr eativity
ar e the secr ets to immortality.”

Y ou can reverse your biological  age by cultivating flexibility an d creativity
in c onsciousnes s. When we consider growing older we usually think of
becoming less flexible and cre ative. Our language of aging reflects this
view. W e use expressions like “Y ou can’ t teach an old dog new  tricks,” or“I’m too old to change,” or “He’ s just too set in his ways.” In b oth modern
and V edic sciences, the loss of flexibility and creativity is a result of
increasing inertia, entropy, and disorder in the body/mind system.
According to V edic theory there  are three fundamental forces a t work in
the universe: Sattwa, Rajas, and T amas. Sattwa is the force of creativity,
evolution, and transformation. T amas is the force of stability, resistance, and
inertia. Rajas is the tension between the forces of creativity and inertia. As
children and adolescents we are dominated by change, flexibility, and
creativity and have a preponder ance of natural Sattwa. Our bra ins and our
behavior reflect our tremendous  capability to expand, adapt, transform, and
evolve and our willingness and  desire to experience and learn new things.
As adult s we see the rise of Rajas. This is a result of the everyday stresses
of life and our attachment to outcomes, as we seek to prove ourselves in the
world. A s we age we become increasingly concerned about s ecurity and
stability and T amas begins to predominate. This stability is refl ected in our
behaviors and in the connections between the neurons in our brains.
Stability leads to stagnation, s tagnation leads to decay, decay leads to
disorder and entropy, and ultimately to death.
Death i s the soul’ s response to the loss of flexibility. When your
physiology has lost the flexibi lity and creativity to further i ntegrate the
ener gy and information of your life experiences, the soul goes into
incubation. Acc ording to V edic wisdom, when the soul needs t o digest the
experiences of a lifetime, it first incubates and then takes a qu antum leap
into a new context and a new body/mind. In Eastern wisdom traditions this
is the process of reincarnation—incarnating into a new life experience.
Rather than waiting for death to take a quantum leap into a new life
experience, why  not take the quantum leap while you are alive? This way
you can incarnate (literally reincarnate) on an ongoing basis. This requires
learning two basic and fundamental behavior patterns: (1) flexibility, which
comes from letting go, and (2) cr eativity, which involves intention,
incubation, and incarnation. By learning to incorporate flexibility and
creativity as your evolving behavioral pattern, you will master on a daily
basis wh at most  people have to  literally die for—to incarnate a nd create anew bod y/ mind. Let’ s explore t hese two qualities that are the foundation of
eternal youth.
By cultivating flexibility and cr eativity in consciousness,
you r enew yourself in every moment and r everse the
aging pr ocess.

Flexibility
The essence of flexibility is  the willingness to let go. Surveys of
centenarians (people who have lived at least one hundred years ) often ask,
“What d o you believe are the reasons that account for your long and healthy
life?


 away your pride and
revealing yourself as you really are. Your relationship will always be
new, regardles s of how well you think you know each other already.
All masks must fall, not only those on the surface, but even those
deeper down that you may not even have been aware of. Then your
love will rema in alive. It will never be static; it will never stagnate.
You will never  have to search elsewhere. There is so much to see
and discover in this land of the other soul you have chosen, whom
you continue to respect, but in whom you seem to miss the life-
spark that once brought you together. You will never have to be
afraid of losing the love of your beloved; this fear will be justied
only if you refrain from risking the journey of self-revelation
together. This, my friends, is marri age in its true sense, and this is the
only way it can be the glory it is supposed to be.Separateness
Each of you should think deeply about whether you are afraid to
leave the four walls of your own separateness. Some of my friends
are unaware that to stay separate is almost a conscious wish. With
many of you it is this way: You desire marriage because one part of
you yearns for it—and also because you do not want to be alone.
Quite superci al and vain reasons may be added to explai n the deep
yearning within your soul. But aside from this yearning and aside
from the supercial and selsh motives of your unfullled desire for
partnership, there must also be an unwillingness to risk the journey
and adventure  of revealing yourself. An integral part of life remains
to be fullled by you—if not in this life, then in future lives.
Should you nd yourself alone, you may, with this knowledge and
this truth, repair the damage that you have done to your own soul
by harboring wrong concepts in your unconscious. You may
discover your fear of the great adventurous journey with another,
which will explain why you are alone. This understanding should
prove helpful and may even enable your emotions to change
suciently so that your outer life may change too. This depends on
you. Whoever is unwilling to take the risk of this great adventure
cannot succeed in the greatest venture humanity knows—marriage.
Choice of Partner
Only when you meet love, life, and the other being in such
readiness will you be able to bestow the greatest gift on your
beloved, name ly your true self. And then you must inevitably
receive the same gift from your beloved. But to do that, a certain
emotional and spiritual maturity  has to exist. If this matu rity is
present, you will intuitively choose the right partner, one who has,
in essence, the same matur ity and readiness to embark on this
journey. The choice of a partner who is unwilling comes out of the
hidden fear of undertaking the journey yourself. You magneticallydraw people and situations toward you that correspond to your
subconscious desires and fears. You know that.
Humanity, on the whole, is very far away from this ideal of the
marriage of true selves, but that does not change the idea or the
ideal. In the meantime you have to learn to make the best of it. And
you who are fortunate enough to be on this path can learn much
wherever you stand, be it only in understanding why you cannot
realize the happiness that a part of your soul yearns for. To discover
that is already a great deal and will enable you in this life or in
future lives to get nearer to the realization of what you yearn for.
Whatever your situation is, whether you have a partner or are alone,
search your heart and it will furnish you the answer to your conict.
The answer must come from within yourself, and in all probability it
will relate to your own fear, unwillingness, and ignora nce of the
facts. Search and you will know. Understand that God’s purpose in
the partnership of love is the complete  mutual  revelation of one soul
to another—not just a partial revelation.
Physical revelation is easy for many. Emotionally you share to a
certain degree— usually as far as eros carries you. But then you lock
the door, and that is the moment when your troubles begin.
There are many who are not willing to reveal anything. They
want to remain alone and aloof. They will not touch the experience
of revea ling themselves and of nding the soul of the other person.
They avoid this in every way they can.
Eros as a Bridge
My dear ones, once again: Understand how important the erotic
principle is in your sphere. It helps many who may be unwilling and
unprepared for the love-exp erience. It is what you call “falling in
love,” or “romance.” Throug h eros the personality gets a taste of
what the ideal love could be. As I said before, many use this feeling
of happiness carelessly and greedily, never passing the threshold
into true love. True love demands much more of people in a
spiritual sense. If they do not meet this demand, they forfeit the goalfor which their soul strives. This extreme of hunting for romance is
as wrong as the other, where  not even the potent force of eros can
enter the tightly locked door. But in most cases, when the door is
not too tightly  bolted, eros does come to you at certain stages of
your life. Whether you can then use eros as a bridge to love depends
on you. It depends on your development, your willingness, your
courage, your humility, and your ability to reveal yourself.
Are there any questions in connection with this subject, my dear
friends?
QUESTION : When you talk about the revela tion of a soul to another, do
you mean that, on a higher level, this is the way the soul reveals itself to
God?
ANSWER : It is the same thing. But before you can truly revea l
yourself to God, you have to learn to reveal yourself to another
beloved human being. And when you do that, you reveal yourself to
God too. Many people want to start with revealing themse lves to the
personal God. But actually, deep in their hearts, such revelation to
God is only a subterfuge because it is abstract and remote. No other
human being can see or hear what they reveal. They are still alone.
One does not have to do the one thing that seems so risky, requires
so much humility, and thus threatens to be humiliating. By
revealing yourself to another human being, you accomplish so much
that cannot be accomplished  by revelation to God who knows you
anyway, and who really does not need your revelation.
When you nd the other soul and meet it, you fulll your destiny.
When you nd another soul, you also nd another partic le of God,
and if you reveal your own soul, you reveal a particle of God and
give something divine to another person. When eros comes to you, it
will lift you up far enough so that you will sense and know what it
is in you that longs for this experience and what is your true self,
which is longing to reveal itself. Without eros, you are merely aware
of the lazy outer layers.Do not avoid  eros when it wants to come to you. If you
understand the spiritual idea behind it, you will use it wisely. God
will then be able to lead you and enable you to make the best of
helping anoth er being and yourself on the way to true love, of
which purication must be an integral part. Although your
purication work through a deeply committed relationship
manifests dierently than it does in the work on this path, it will
help you toward a purication of the same order.
QUESTION : Is it possible for a soul to be so rich that it can reveal itself
to more than one soul?
ANSWER : My dear friend, do you say that facetiously?
QUESTION : No, I do not. I am asking whether polygamy is within the
scheme of spiritual law.
ANSWER : No, it certainly is not. And when someone thinks it may
be within the scheme of spiritual development, that is a subterfuge.
The personality is looking for the right partner. Either the person is
too immature to have found the right partner, or the right partner is
there and the polygamous person is simply carried away by eros’
momentum, never lifting this force up into the volitional love that
demands overcoming and working in order to pass the threshold I
mentioned before.
In cases like this, the one with an adventurous personality is
looking and looking, always nding another part of a being, always
revealing himself or herself only so far and no further, or perhaps
each time revealing another facet of his or her personality.
However, when it comes to the inner nucleus, the door is shut. Eros
then departs and a new search is started. Each time it is a
disappointment that can only be understood when you grasp these
truths.Raw sexual instinct also enters into the longing for this great
journey, but sexual satisfacti on begins to suer if the relationship is
not kept on the level I show you here. It is, in fact, inevitably of
short duration.


  authorities  on diet are agreed that it is sufficiently
extensive  to constitute  the most  serious danger to health at the present
time... Lack of money is unquestionably  responsible  for a large  part of
malnutrition,  but a good deal is due to the ignorance  which  results in
certain foods  of low nutritive  value being consumed  in excess."  112
 Precisely.  All of which  can be reduced to one sentence:  "The prime
cause of disease is the absence of substances  which should be in the
body and the presence of substances  which  should not be in the body.  "
(Doctors, Disease and Health, by Cyril  Scott.) The gist of it iras been put.
even more  tersely  by Major  C. Fraser Mackenzie,  C.I.E., viz.: "We are
made of what we eat, so if many organ becomes diseased,  it generally
means the food was wrong."  Reduced to even still further conciseness:
The cause of disease is an ill‐balanced diet.
Yet, provided  this is kept in mind, it is an unwise procedure  to lay down
any specific rules anent what precise foods  people should or should not
eat, for climate,  environment  and  personal "idiosyncrasies"  have to be
taken into account. The Eskimos  cannot be expected to live on the
same aliments as the Brazilians,  for example. As to personal
idiosyncrasies,  they are numerous  and some of them very peculiar.  The
case  could be mentioned  of a man  to whom fish is so violent a poison
that even if he licks  a postage  stamp  (the sticky  side contains fish‐glue)
his whole face  swells  up to such an extent that he cannot see out of his
eyes. There  are also persons to whom eggs in any form whatsoever  are
poison. Yet sometimes  such persons grow out of these peculiarities.
The writer knows of a woman  who could not touch  an egg, whether by
itself  or in a pudding or cake, until she had turned 70, and then, strange
to say,  eggs ceased t o disagree with her.
Rabid vegetarians,  as we know, would have us believe that meat‐eating
is virtually the cause of all human  ills. I differ  from them  entirely,  on the
best  of all grounds ‐ personal experience  and what I have observed  in
others. If vegetarians  had  declared that a meatless  diet would be the
best  regime  for everybody  if for years man  had  not acquired the food‐113
 habits  of an omnivorous  animal, then I would agree with  them. But as it
is, my observations  have taught  me that sudden changes of diet from
zoophagous  to meatless  can have disastrous  results. In short, the
average man  has not as yet attained to that state of health when he is
ready  for complete  vegetarianism  however desirable this may be as an
ideal.  Neverthe  less, I will make the following  reservation:  it may  be
different with persons who have been brought  up from  i nfancy  on a
meatless  diet, provided  that diet is not merely  meatless,  i.e., it must be
a well‐ balanced vegetarian  dietary and  not just an excess of "starchy
rubbish."
After all this, it will now be asked what sort of a diet do I personally
advocate in general for people living in the  temperate  zones? My
answer is a dietary consisting  of a proper proportion  of meat, poultry,
eggs, fish. salads, steamed vegetables,  whole‐wheat bread, fresh  fruits
in season, brown unpolished  rice, butter  in moderation  and  honey‐
which  is the best sweetening  agent there  is. To be avoided  are all
tinned foods, twice‐ cooked foods, all processed  (de‐natured) foods
such as white bread, white sugar, polished rice and pasteurised  milk.
Condiments  should also be avoided. In my opinion tinned meats,
processed  foods  and pasteurised  milk  are the evil, commercial  products
of what we are pleased to call civilization.  White sugar  and white bread
were simply invented  to put money  into the hands  of respectively  the
sugar  refiners and  the flour refiners. White  sugar  is merely  an acid
producing  aliment, seeing that all the alkaline properties  have been
refined  out of it. Last  century  an unscrupulous  doctor was paid to
declare  that he had found a "bug"  in brown sugar, and therefore  it was
unfit for human  consumption  in its natural  state. (See  McCann's  Science 114
 of Eating.) As to pasteurised  milk, Dr. Marie Stopes is not the only one
who has forcibly condemned  it. She calls  it, as we, have seen, "that  foul
poison." This may  be going a bit too far, but the fact remains that the
pasteurisation  of milk, apart from other considerations,  enables it to be
sold when it is not fresh, its lack of freshness  not being detectable  as it
would be with unpasteurised  milk.
Which  reminds me what the late Mr. F. A. MacQuisten,  K.C., M.P., said
of that commodity,  viz.., "Some  people think pasteurised  milk is milk
from the  pasture. It is nothing but  half‐ boiled milk  lacking in
nourishment.  If you give it to calves they  die. If you give it to rats  they
fail to reproduce  their species. It is a form of birth control." (Daily


 lake. Your great-great-great-
grandmother was a descendent of the Mayaimi, and your great-great-great-
grandfather was visiting the small Spanish settlement. One day while it was
pouring rain around the lake, your great-great-great-grandfather was
drinking in the local saloon. He was so drunk when he stepped out of the
saloon, he never noticed your great-great-great-grandmother walking by
sopping wet. Just as he stumbled down the stairs falling drunk to theground, your great-great-great-grandmother slipped in the mud and fell right
on top of him. Well, they looked at each other, started laughing, and it was
love at first sight. The rest is history.
In other words, if the dinosaur hadn’ t walked there millions of years
ago, and if the Mayaimi tribe hadn’ t settled there, and if the Spaniards
hadn’ t built a town there, and if it hadn’ t been raining that day, and if
grandpa hadn’ t fallen down drunk at the exact spot where grandma slipped
in the mud—you’re not here, and neither are a lot of other things. Every
single thing is the result of every single thing that ever happened throughout
time and space. Y ou’re not the doer; you are the experiencer of reality.
If this is true, and it is, then it’s pretty silly to think, “It took 13.8
billion years for this moment to get here, and every single thing had to
happen exactly as it did—but I don’t like it.” That’ s funny. It’s like saying
that you don’ t like that Saturn has rings.
Now do you see why we took the time to explore where what’ s in front
of you came from? It has nothing to do with you; it is the result of trillions
of factors that caused it to be the way it is. This is our first encounter of
what surrender and acceptance really mean. You don’t surrender the outside
world—you totally accept it. What you surrender is your personal, made-up
judgment of it. If you were asked whether it’s okay with you that Saturn has
rings, you would probably look very puzzled and say, “What’ s it got to do
with me? That’ s a crazy questi on.” The truth is every single thing is that
way. It has nothing to do with you. It has to do with the forces that caused it
to be the way it is, and those forces stretch back billions of years. The total
acceptance of this truth is surren der. You must let go of the part of you that
thinks it has the right to like and dislike the result of billions of years of
interactions. Surrender is letting go of the part of you that is not living the
truth. That is true surrender.
Eventually, you will come to realize that the moment in front of you is
a very holy thing. Our scientific exploration of where that moment came
from is actually  very spiritual. Quantum physicists are exploring how the
entire universe is emanating from an omnipresent, undif ferentiated field of
energy—the quantum field. They are showing us how everythin g is made of
light. That used to be a strictly spiritual concept. Our scientists are our
priests. They are teaching us how the underlying force of creation created
creation. Science shows us that every moment before us is worthy of greatrespect. A spiritual person unde rstands these truths, ingrains them into their
being, and lives their life accordingly.
If it took 13.8 billion years for the moment in front of you to get there,
and it took 13.8 billion years for you to end up in front of that moment,
every moment is indeed a matc h made in heaven. Nobody else is standing
there experiencing exactly what  you’re experiencing. Truth is, no one ever
did, and no one ever will. That exact moment will never be here again. All
moments just keep passing through time and space. You are being given a
unique show that took billions of years to create—it’ s right in front of you,
and you’re complaining about it. We all think we have very good reasons to
complain. The intention of this journey we are on together is to take away
those reasons, whatever they are.
The mom ent in front of you is a gift from creation. There are shapes,
colors, and sounds. There are people and lots of things to do. It’s not that
way on Mars, nor on any place we have seen thus far in studies of the
universe. But we don’t live our lives with a constant sense of awe and
appreciation. That’ s why these discussions about cosmology and quantum
physics are spiritual. They are taking away your right to make everything
personal when it’s not personal. Your consciousness may be aware of the
moment in front of you, but you did not create that moment. You are simply
being given this wonderful opportunity to experience a moment in creation.
It took billions of years to get here—be sure you don’ t miss it.
People make such a big deal out of science versus God, as if the two
are at odds with each other. The real problem is that people don’t truly
believe in either. If you believed that science explains the creation of all
things, you would live your life with the constant awareness that everything
you are interacting with is emanating from the quantum field, pulling itself
together into atoms and molecu les, then appearing as the form before you.
You would not like it or dislike it; you would be in awe of it. Likewise, if
you really believed God was the creator of all things, you would live in awe
and appreciation of the marvel of the Divine Creation. You would not like it
or dislike it; you would be blown away that it even exists.
You live in a world where a seed falls on the ground, and it has a built-
in chemist that knows how to break down the molecules of dirt and water,
mix them  with sunlight, and combine those substances into a cornstalk or a
tree. You’re taught that this “intelligent chemist” is the complex DNA
molecule. Wher e did this amazing molecular structure come from? All itselements were forged in the stars and then naturally got pulled together into
the DNA structure by the four fundamental forces (gravity,
electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces). Human
intelligence had nothing to do with the creation of DNA, yet DNA is
responsible for all the plant and animal life on Earth. We live in a world that
is so perfect it should constant ly blow our minds. But we are so lost in
making it all personal that we miss both the greatness of science and the
greatness of God.
We began this exploration by asking what it’s like for you in there. You
know you’re in there—what is the nature of the experiences you’re having?
To answer this, we explored the origin and nature  of the outside world in
which you live. Hopefully, you have more respect and apprec iation for it
right now. That moment in front of you is special. You might want to
practice appreciating it and notice the ef fect that has on your life.
Next we’re going to work with the mind and its thoughts, then the heart
and its emotion s. They don’t come in through your senses, but they are
certainly things you experience. As we comb through each layer, it’s going
to become easier and easier to let go—to accept and surrender. Remember,
you are not surrendering life; you are surrendering your resistance to life.
We can use the term mindfulness to mean that you are always conscious of
what is really going on around you and inside you. Y ou’re not just conscious
of the appearance of things but also their true nature: where they come from,
why they are the way they are, and what it took for them to manifest before
you. Mindfulness is a natural, effortless process once you let go of personal
distractions. Instead of thinking that the moment in front of you has to be a
certain way, you start thinking that it’s pretty awesome the way it is. In fact,
it’s amazing that it even exists.
From now on, everywhere you look and everything you interact with,
be sure to say, “Thank you.” And be sure to pay tribute to the stars. They are
not just romanti c things twinkling in the night sky. They are the furnaces of
the universe. They have created  everything for you. Can you thank them?
Can you appreci ate this truth, and understand that you didn’ t do anything to
deserve the trees, the oceans, and the sky? You don’t even know where You
came from. You’re just in there experiencing this amazing gift unfolding
before you. This is spirituality—coming into harmony with r eality, instead of
your personal self.PART III:
The MindChapter 11.
Empty Mind
As a conscious being, you are aware of the world coming in through your
senses. But your awareness is not limited to that outside world. You also
have inner experiences. Sometim es when the world comes in, it makes you
feel good. Other times, it make s you feel bad. Since the outside world is
really just structures of atoms, why does it have that inner effect on you?
How could a bunch of atoms get you all jumbled up inside? What’s going
on?
You are capable


, 118, 121, 133, 135, 155, 157, 182, 184
Dieting, 10–11, 51, 64,
115–116, 121, 167–168, 171, 185, 192–193, 196–197
Dihydrotestosterone (DHT),
105–106, 107
Diuretics, 164D-ribose, 65
Effexor, 125, 128, 162
Elavil, 162Endometriosis, 20, 35, 43, 84,
87, 138, 146, 189
Estradiol, 21, 76, 96, 97, 105,
106, 107, 110, 111, 112, 182–183, 188
Estriol, 21, 96, 97Estrogen, 4–5, 13–27, 41,
43–44, 50–51, 55, 68, 70, 71, 76, 77, 80, 81–88, 89, 91, 93, 94, 96–98, 100, 144, 146, 161, 163, 175, 179, 182–183, 185, 187–190, 193, 200–201, 206–207
in men, 76, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111–112, 117, 120, 153, 157
Estrogen dominance, 13–27,
43–44, 50–51, 77, 84, 93, 120, 132, 138, 142–143, 146, 186, 189215 INDEX 216 THE MIRACLE OF BIO-IDENTICAL HORMONES
44, 55, 88, 101, 107, 108,
109, 110, 118–120, 128, 135, 136, 138, 142–143, 150, 168–171, 172, 173, 174–175, 179, 185–186, 187, 190
overproduction of,
see
hyperinsulinemia
Irregular periods, 80, 141
Kegel maneuver, 100
Ketostix, 172–173
Lee, John, M.D., 20, 193, 195
Lescol, 151, 164Levothyroxine, 30Levoxyl, 30, 32, 33Lexapro, 162Libido (sex drive), 37, 44, 62,
71, 76, 80, 88, 99, 100, 103, 104–105, 106, 118, 120
Lipitor, 30, 150, 164, 201Lipogenic (fat-creating)
hormones, 5, 22, 84, 123,
128, 161, 163, 175, 189
Lithium, 125, 128Lopressor, 31, 162
Lupron, 112
Luteinizing hormone (LH), 25,
86
Lycopene, 73, 112Heart, 5, 21, 31, 32, 75, 79,
82, 84, 88, 89, 98, 104, 121,
150, 151–152, 157, 163, 169, 178, 197, 199, 200,
201, 202
High blood pressure, 36, 42,
164
Homocysteine, 21, 202–203Hot flashes, 16, 24–25, 80, 86,
87, 89, 96, 97, 100, 183
Human growth hormone
(HGH), 101, 177–179
Hyperinsulinemia, 11, 18, 39,
42, 55, 107, 109, 110,
118–120, 128, 129, 131–132, 142–143, 144, 145, 150, 153, 157, 164, 171
Hypertension, 166Hypoglycemia, 39, 44, 107,
109, 110, 119–120, 129, 131–132, 134, 135, 136, 143
and adrenaline, 110, 129, 131, 135
Hypothalamus, 86Hysterectomy, 14, 18, 23, 80,
188
Insulin-like growth factor
(IGF-1), 179
Inderal, 48–49, 162Insulin, 11, 18, 22, 23, 42, 43,  217 INDEX
Obesity, 55–56, 88, 118, 120,
121, 141, 153–159, 163, 165–175, 182–184, 185, 191–197
Osteopenia, 67–70Osteoporosis, 5, 19–20, 22, 41,
67–74, 75, 81, 87, 88, 98, 103, 104, 108–109, 120, 122
Ovarian cancer, 19, 23, 84, 85,
189, 200–201
Parkinson’s disease, 76, 151,
202
Paxil, 37, 39, 40, 44, 125, 128,
162
Perimenopause, 5, 23, 76, 86Pituitary gland, 25, 31, 42, 86,
96, 97, 144, 178
PMS (premenstrual syndrome),
70, 80, 84, 87, 93, 94, 142, 145
Polycystic ovarian syndrome
(PCOS), 144, 145
Postpartum depression, 53–57,
94, 146, 185
Pravachol, 151, 164
Prednisone, 40, 41, 43, 44
Pregnancy, 18, 35, 55, 56–57,
84, 86, 93, 94–95, 97, 98, 142, 145, 146, 179, 184–185, 206Macular degeneration, 106, 202
Magnesium, 65, 70, 73Melatonin, 71–72Memory, 22, 29, 32, 76, 151,
152
Menopause, 4–5, 8, 20, 23, 47,
48–49, 51, 68, 79–89, 91–93, 96–102, 163, 179, 193, 206
Menstrual bleeding, 93Menstrual cramps, 70, 80, 84,
87, 93, 94, 138, 141, 142, 144, 145, 189
Menstrual headaches, 101
Meridia, 182–183, 186–187Metformin, 119, 174Mevacor, 151, 164Migraine headache, 19, 22,
47–51, 84, 87, 93, 138, 141, 143, 145, 146, 186, 189
Miscarriage, 19, 43, 94, 95,
146, 185
Morning sickness, 19, 43, 56,
146
Multiple sclerosis (MS), 22, 73
Neuropathy, 22
Night sweats, 25, 86, 87, 96,
97, 100, 154
Norpramin, 162 218 THE MIRACLE OF BIO-IDENTICAL HORMONES
Saw palmetto, 106
Selective serotonin reuptake
inhibitor (SSRI), 162, 186
Selenium, 112Sexual dysfunction.
Seelibido
Sleep, 14, 17, 43, 59, 61–62,
71, 76, 155, 169, 183
Statin drugs, 30, 150–151, 152,
164
Stress, 64, 65, 72, 77, 101, 128,
129–130, 173–174
Strokes, 5, 21, 50, 79, 82, 84,
199, 200, 201, 202
Somers, Suzanne, xvi, 83–85,
92, 98
Syndrome X, 120, 150, 170,
172, 174
Synthroid, 14, 15, 27, 30,