Ayurveda is adjective medicine. Western medicine is noun medicine. Adjectives are about the whole but nouns are about the parts. Your whole body can be hot but your whole body can't be an arm.

Ayurveda treats disease like an adjective. Influenza is a noun but a cold is an adjective. To think Ayurvedically you have to rename the disease as an adjective. We find that herbs work better when you use them to treat adjectives instead of nouns. Because herbs are whole too.

Sensitivity to poison ivy runs in my family genes including hospitalizations! But over the past several years I healed my allergies to poison ivy and can even pick up a leaf without blisters or itching. I now view poison ivy as 'sister ivy', a powerful lymphatic cleanser. My lymph system was imbalanced because of my liver. When my teacher told me to nourish vata in the liver my allergies to poison ivy disappeared. Ayurveda has the potential to help with many other allergies too like peanuts, wheat and soy.

After a fever breaks, the stool becomes tarry and stinky.
Vishnu Das - Blue Lotus Ayurveda

If you try, you'll ruin it.

Lao Tsu, Tao Te Ching

Try to find it; it will disappear. Forget about it; it comes closer than ever. Despite its elusive nature the heart commands every part of the body. Thus the heart opens up a pathway for disease to enter.

Our spirit must be enticed to live in our heart. Nourish the heart and make it beautiful for the spirit. When the spirit is at home, the heart is still.

From the trunk of the great vessels liver reaches down with roots to drain the earth and water from the GI tract. The heart pushes it through the branches to all pores.

- Andrew Weil

- Andrew Weil

Sometimes the body just needs a nudge.

We come from the natural world. Health comes from oneness with nature.

What questions were you sent here to answer in this lifetime? Which of the 12 archetypes are you? - Carolyn Myss.

Tribal truth. Individual truth. Spiritual or symbolic truth. - Carolyn Myss.

...instead of solving it. - Carolyn Myss.

The mind is comparison which is separation, measurement and judgment. Judgment is violence. Comparison creates desire. The mind is the cause. With meditation all thoughts can be digested into pure love. Unity is in the heart.

- Inspired by Mia Cohen

When we try to change creation, that is effort. When we merge with creation, love happens.

Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and were cast from the garden. Knowledge is comparison, measuring, labeling. The mind wants to have experiences because it wants to know. God is beyond knowledge. God is being without a thought; God is the act of listening.

- Dr. Vasant Lad

We can't know the truth but we can be with it.

You can only experience your perception of it. You created this moment with your choices. The bird that chirps in the wilderness is also the echo of your choices. Where is the tree? My eyes catch light and the tree appears. The tree that I see is the one recreated in my mind. Do we see the same tree?

The joy of the sunset happens before we realize it. The moment we become conscious of joy it becomes a memory and the memory becomes desire. Joy is the moment and desire is the dead past. Come back to Now.

- Dr. Vasant Lad.

Yoga squeezes the blood out of organs and then opens them up again. It flushes the channels, it cleans the sponge.

Bliss is the state without thought. If we are quiet we can sense thoughts coming before they happen. It feels like a vibration or a bubble. Bless the bubbles and bring attention back to the breath. Thoughts are space invaders. Do you know the video game 'space invaders'? Zap the thoughts before they happen.

When the body wants change it creates a thought. When the body is content there is no thought. Bliss is the state without thought.

Never believe the rationale. Stay in the state of not knowing.

Some beliefs are therapy to balance the ego. God is not only the unsolved mystery, but also the missing perspectives within our psyche.

Courage and confidence reside in the front of the heart chakra. But receptivity and love live in the back of the heart chakra. Inhale through the front, exhale through the back.

Perception and reality are not the same. The ego trusts itself. It wants to change the reality instead of its perception. When ego refuses to accept reality it wastes our power. Power struggles lead to bitterness, resentment, and exhaustion. We cannot control reality. We can only control our inner experience of it.

When we fight the mind, the mind always wins. To heal the mind, leave it altogether. Sometime we are arguing with yesterday's tomato or chili pepper. Smoking, drinking, and addictions cause emotional fragility. If pitta is the source, follow a pitta pacifying diet including bitters, cilantro, and turmeric. Pitta wants to talk but talking, thinking, and problem solving aggravates pitta.

Then listen. Let go of the need to respond right now. Silence is a great healer.

Never let an angry conversation last more than fifteen minutes. Take a break, heal your liver, and you'll be surprised how much easier life will be.

Poor diet makes our reactions trigger happy. Tolerance to everyday problems weakens when we are out of balance. Since reactions and the causes are separate, they need different treatment. My professor at Harvard once told me, "Never speak when you are having an emotion."

It's easier to understand the body than to study thousands, if not millions, of diseases.
Ayurveda spends more effort understanding health than disease.

Unlike western medicine, Ayurvedic texts say less about the organs themselves than the relationships between them. Ayurvedic anatomy is relational, not structural.

Nutrition is important. Food products in the U.S.A. all include a 'nutritional information' label. But Ayurveda also says to cook for good digestion. Cooking for good digestion is a lost art in the modern west. We need a "digestive information" label too. Without digestion we can't absorb the nutrients.

Nutrition is ojas and western nutrition is all about ojas - counting calories, fats and four food groups. But digestion and metabolism are tejas.

In addition to nutrition and digestion, Ayurvedic diets also address vitality. Vitality is prana, the life giving energy of the food. When digestion and vitality is missing, the quality of ojas and nutrition is poor.

Inside, the mind projects of the universe. It also has memory and forecasting which is time. Three dimensions and time make four dimensions. Time is a wire and at every point in the wire there is a whole universe. The mind contains the wire of time into the past and the present. As a consequence, the mind makes time travel possible.

In the outer, objective world we have only four dimensions. But the inner, subjective mind has another dimension, a fifth dimension. Every object is the mind also has a universe with time. Every object in the mind has a mind. So our mind is a mind of minds. It's recursive. It's a fractal. It's a fragemented ego. And a mind is a universe. So our mind is a universe of universes moving through time. And that's what the fifth dimension is - parallel universes moving through time.

In everyday language we can ask, what is her viewpoint or her opinion? What is her mind? But we can't know the answer objectively. An opinion of an opinion is an opinion projected, a projection of a mind into a mind. A projection of her thought. It's a double thought vector. A double mind vector. Ultimately, with enlightenment, the reality comes together in the objective world. But for the rest of us, the Teacher says that we are stuck in our little ego world.

We ended up visiting the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL for "Dia de los Muertos". I bought some sugar candy skulls for family Christmas presents and a children's book for my sister's kids. A macabre topic but beautiful holiday. Walking through the museum, I noticed an Aztec proverb on a sign, "Fear and hope are the parents of God."

- Andrew Weil

Medicine awakens a 'dhi'. Medicine is that which leaves you with a calm mind that grows in awareness.

When I close my eyes, after the residue of light dissipates on the back of my eyelids, little flashes remain. And if I sit in a quiet place, my ears are buzzing. It is ama (toxicity). When the flashes and the buzzing stop, the eyes and ears are quiet. Quiet the senses to quiet the mind.

Where is your breakfast right now? Take ten seconds to find out. It's where your blood is. With your eyes closed, can you feel your pulse in your abdomen? Gently massage your abdomen. Does any part feel full? If your last meal is already near your cecum (just inside the right hip), you'll probably get hungry soon.

- David Frawley

There is a great confusion about what it means to 'have energy'. The confusion is the difference between having energy and spending energy. Because the sign of energy is stillness not movement.

The 'energizer bunny' is stress energy. Stress energy depletes the body and leads to ill health. Real energy doesn't feel like stress, it feels like prana. Real energy is the stillness of the Qi Gong master who gathers potential energy. Potential energy is health. Kinetic energy destroys health.

- Claudia Welch, Acupuncturist and Ayurvedic Practitioner

2 ears, 2 eyes, 2 nostrils, 1 mouth, 1 anus, 1 urethra, 1 shushumna

- Claudia Welch, Acupuncturist and Ayurvedic Practitioner

-Roy Eugene Davis quoting "Paramahansa Yogananda"

Crops with fertilizer have low ojas. They are like low-libido body builders on steroids.

- David Crow, author of "In Search of the Medicine Buddha"

We are a mirror to plants, their opposite.
They collect the light and bind it with carbon.
We eat their light and unbind it.
God is the light, the awareness.
They carry the light, the truth, the source
and prepare it for us.
Oxygen is our prana and they exhale it.

-Joseph

Wind and rivers are the circulatory system. Rocks and earth are the skeleton. Plants are the organs of the earth. Soil is the ojas. Sun is the prana. Acid rain is pitta. Global warming too.

David Crow - author of "In Search of the Medicine Buddha"

Ayurveda heals nature and the planet. When our bodies are in tune with nature, we become a steward for the planet. Ayurveda is sustainable for the pocketbook too. We don't need fancy machines. Ayurveda is not just luxury it's also for survival after peak oil and for a grass roots health movement.

-David Crow - author of "In Search of the Medicine Buddha"

We evolved in the natural world. When the natural world comes into contact with our senses, there is a yoga, a union, a deeper understanding and timeless connection. Our eyes do not understand plastics. Our nose does not understand chemicals. The language of the manufactured world is foreign. One of the main causes of disease in ayurveda is misuse of the senses.

Carl Jung says the origin of human consciousness is rooted in archetypes - the ancients called them elemental spirits. The archetypes grew out of the forces of nature. The 'face' of something is its covering or mask. The Greek word for person also means a 'mask'.

David Crow - author of "In Search of the Medicine Buddha"

From the tropics, paw paws acclimated to northern latitudes and temperatures with the help of native American Indians. I've seen wild paw paws growing from Asheville to Washington D.C. to hearty varieties in Fairfield, IA. If you haven't eaten a wild paw-paw, it's time to return to America.

is a reflection of your state of consciousness. You are not separate from it, and there is not an objective world out there. Every moment, your consciousness creates the world you inhabit.

Quote from Barbara Pepper's home, midwife in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

- Monica Yearwood - Yoga teacher in Chicago (A HREF="http://www.vedictherapies.com/about.html">http://www.vedictherapies.com)

A shenpa is a Tibetan word for an attachment, an urge, a tension, a tightening in the body/mind.

"Generally speaking, however, we don't catch it at that level of just open space closing down. You're open-hearted, open-minded, and then... erkk. Right along with the hooked quality, or the tension, or the shutting down, whatever... I experience it, at the most subtle level, as a sort of tensing. Then you can feel yourself sort of withdrawing and actually not wanting to be in that place. " - Pema Chodron

says Nancy Pottinger while discussing how to be kind to patients in a clinical setting. Nancy is an Ayurvedic Physician, Albuquerque, NM and with a degree in psychology, a beautiful and insightful teacher for client / patient relationships.

"Permaculture farming techniques creates tropical rainforest from desert," says Grover Stock of Fairfield, IA (http://www.biggreensummer.com). For a crash course in permaculture, click here.

Moms and dads can be scary - we've been trained to listen to them and feel vulnerable. We might be afraid 'nothing will change'. But change is the future and the real relationship is here and now. Not the past training. Not the future suffering. Moms and dads are people too; we have to transcend our vulnerability and hold space for them. Enjoy being vulnerable. And try to learn something too. What is the relationship between your parents and grandparents? Try to break the cycle of pain by staying seated in self and holding space without external referencing.

There is a silent field beneath words beyond content. The silent field is the universal field. Even a flower can be your guru. What's left of words is an energy or presence that points to the real truth.

Paraphrased from Eckhart Tolle, The Flowering of Human Consciousness"

The ego defines itself by opposition. Even when the 'no voice' comes, our impulse is to fight with it. But Eckhart Tolle in The Flowering of Human Consciousness reminds us, "Say yes to no." No is a contraction. And fighting with no is also a no. The only solution is to create openness and space and a yes is an opening.

When any emotion comes say yes to it. Say yes to fear. Without dwelling on sadness, say yes to sadness. Then return to the current moment. Many emotions are competing for our attention but our spirit is beyond all emotions, beyond the sadness. They, like 'no', are just fragments. But yes makes everything beautiful. Even your fear and sadness are beautiful. Each of them have a story to tell, a gift. Each bring a blessing. Ask your fear for a blessing.

Stress is the urgent need to be in the future. We're stuck in the moment, in traffic. The ego is stuck here but it wants to be there. The solution is coming back to the moment.

Eckhart Tolle, "The Flowering of Human Consciousness."

Coming back to the moment means coming back to the five senses. Look through your eyes. Hear through your eyes. Smell through your nose.

The word 'no' strengthens identity and protects the ego. 'Yes' is a surrender. Yes is a loss of self. When you say yes to whatever arises, you say yes to the universe and all of life. Enjoy the play of the universe.

The ego wants to interpret the moment and evaluate it. But the evaluation is based upon memories and evaluations of the past experience. Allow the moment to be without reacting. There is enormous power when no thought involved in the moment, when there is no 'me' involved. Just notice.

Paraphrased on the "no mode of consciousness" from Eckhart Tolle, "The Flowering of Human Consciousness"

The ego needs the future to create a greater sense of self, to become something. The future is also threatening because the ego can lose what it already has. But the future is not that threatening or promising. Future magnified by the mind. Stay in the now; nothing that big as the whole future can enter into the field of now.

Paraphrased from Eckhart Tolle, "The Flowering of Human Consciousness"

The ego wants to be special. Special dress, car, knowledge, even a special spirituality. Ego wants to accumulate stuff. The fear of loss is the fear of losing part of yourself. The enitre universe is a play of form. Enjoy the play.

Paraphrased from Eckhart Tolle, The Flowering of Human Consciousness"

Whenever one listens to the heart sound, there is a death of the ego and the ego doesn't like to die. Die to the ego, to power, prestige, and position, then one will flow with the love, the inner sound, the primordial sound of his own prakruti. This sound is called, 'prakruti sound'".
p51, Secrets of the Pulse, Dr. Vasant Lad, Ayurvedic Physician.

Reported by Julia Fishman of Albuquerque, NM.

The limbic system remembers scent and we do not need to apply them [essential oils] once the system has this memory in place, as that could cause toxic overload and be a strain to our system thus causing confusion in the flow of sensory stimulation and messages to our body, mind and spirit.

Chaya - Sharon Heller in her 8/16/08 newsletter on essential oils.

Pungent taste causes vasodilation; astringent taste causes vasoconstriction. Svedana and stambhana are opposites.

Our entire body is a sex organ. Sex energy is the basis of all creativity and worship. Sex affects our body at a very deep level; it is our link to our ancestors and continuity of all life force. Any change in the natural sex act affects millions of years of evolution.

Procreation is the most basic way our body expresses itself creatively. When sex is separate from procreation, hesitation and fear rise at the moment of orgasm. When orgasm happens, the body believes it has procreated. Birth control blocks the natural flow of this prana. In samadhi, the ego is dissolved and a true orgasm is a total loss of control.

Birth control helps prevent unwanted pregnancies. When the risks of sex are reduced, dating relationships and sexual exploration help people find the right relationship. For others, exploration leads to long term dead end relationships where both partners are emotionally attached and stuck.

In reality, we put tremendous energy into relationships. The use of this energy can be aligned with our true creative potential or it can stifle it. In Ayurveda, sex with the right partner, out of love and total acceptance, enhance our creative potential. But with the wrong partner, it mangles our creative potential.

Some vaidyas advocate the use of herbal formulas to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Others advocate celibacy and the use of yoga and meditation to understand the nature of desires.

-Joseph, 2008

I honor the place within you where all the Universe resides
The place of love and light
Of peace and truth
Where when you are in that place within you
And I am in that place within me
We are in the same place

- Unknown

Marie-Josée Carrière

Michael Moore writes "Ocotillo is useful for symptoms that arise from pelvic fluid congestion, both lymphatic and veinous. It is absorbed from the intestines into the mesenteric lymph system by way of the lacteals into the thoracic duct and improves dietary fat absorption into the lymph system. With fewer dietary lipids going to the liver by the portal blood, there is less tendency for the intestinal blood to back up (portal hypertension) and less stagnation in the pelvis and upper thighs. Most hemorrhoids are helped by..." p81, Medicinal Plants of the Desert and Canyon West.

Anxiety and racing thoughts due to anoxia in the brain? When thoughts are racing, Dr. John Douillard in "Ayureda for Detox" suggests to do pranayama to bring oxygen to the brain.

NATIVE AMERICAN PRAYER

I give you this one thought to keep -
I am with you still - I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone -
I am with you still - in each new dawn

~~ Author Unknown ~~

-Oren Weinrib, an apprenticing shaman who studies under Hawks of New York.

-Oren Weinrib, an apprenticing shaman who studies under Hawks of New York.

-Oren Weinrib, an apprenticing shaman who studies under Hawks of New York.

Experience the emotion fully without hiding from the feelings. But talk to the story and ask about its needs and fears. Thank the story for sharing but set boundaries with it, "Negative aren't not very helpful. Come back later with something deeper."

-Oren Weinrib, an apprenticing shaman who studies under Hawks of New York.

Visualize the pain body (we often talk about the auric body, physical body, etc.) When the ego faces an obstacle it creates painful feelings (the pain body), then it triggers the mind to have thoughts (the story) that explain the feelings. Through identification with the store and the emotions, the pain body takes over the entire organism; we act out the pain and inflict pain on others.

-Oren Weinrib, an apprenticing shaman who studies under Hawks of New York.

Wherever the mind goes, let it go there. Let it go to hell even. Who cares? Awareness is God and awareness is love and freedom. Concentration resists distraction but distraction is a piece of awareness. Concentration is focus, and a focused mind is a narrow mind. A mind which focuses is a particular mind. A very personal mind; it becomes a stupid mind.

But a mind with clarity is completely aware, everything is welcome. All inclusive. Concentration is exclusive, it rejects everything. Behind concentration is a desire to achieve. Concentration is effort and effort denies the existence of God. Effort makes a person tired but awareness comes without effort and brings great energy.

Concentration puts aside God and we become the doer. Listen to distraction with all of your being. Awareness is doing it without the doer. We should never 'do' concentration. Concentration just comes as a gift from awareness. Enjoy life as it is. Moment to moment awareness is staying with 'what is'. You are really, 'staying with yourself.'

-Transcribed from classes with Dr. Vasant Lad (hopefully I captured the essence of what he was trying to say)

They are still that person.

Life forms are stations for the reception and transmission of energy, through which all are nourished. Each thing exists to nourish all others, and in return, to be nourished itself. In this manner each kingdom of nature serves to receive and transmit life.

p3-6 Lad, Vasant; Frawley, David. The Yoga of Herbs - An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine. Lotus Press; 2nd edition (January 1, 1986)

Lad, Vasant; Frawley, David. The Yoga of Herbs - An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine. Lotus Press; 2nd edition (January 1, 1986)

The sages of ancient India approached healing and herbs through direct perception, not experimentation. Direct perception, or meditation, is the science of yoga. Yoga allows the essence, the thing-in-itself, to disclose itself.

The seers, through the yoga of perception, let plants speak to them. And the plants disclosed their secrets, many of which are far more subtle than a chemical analysis could uncover.

To become a true herbalist means to become a seer. This means being sensitive to the being of herbs. Learn to listen when the plant speaks, to speak to the plant as to another human being, and to look upon it as one's teacher.

p3-6 Lad, Vasant; Frawley, David. The Yoga of Herbs - An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine. Lotus Press; 2nd edition (January 1, 1986)

Plants bring us the love, the nourishing power of the sun, which is the same energy of all the stars, of all light. These cosmic energies emanated by plants thus nourish, sustain, and make us grow our own astral body. In this way the existence of plants is a great offering, a sacrifice.

p3-6 Lad, Vasant; Frawley, David. The Yoga of Herbs - An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine. Lotus Press; 2nd edition (January 1, 1986)

Everywhere else you go, the mind comes with you.

Frank Cook (Plants and Healers). How long is a moment? Is it 1/9 of a minute? Looking at the sunset, how long does the feeling last before we become aware of it?

Frank and I are driving across southern Colorado west toward Durango. High on the plateau, we were also spiritually high. The land is expansive. We met nestled in the mountains of Asheville, in the womb. Landscape effects my spirit; I'm learning how.

We step into a cave in Las Huertas Canyon of Albuquerque, New Mexico. In the ear of the mountain, I ask for permission to harvest the wild herbs of the region. Energy is wobbling. "Spend seven days here in total darkness and you will dissolve," explains Frank.

Frank Cook (Plants and Healers). What is the science of set, setting, and context that shifts a disease pattern into health? Can we develop set, setting, and context based on the constitution of the individual? Sangomas also use smoke that shift reality, sometimes knocking the patient to the floor.

Poop is a great resource which has been wasted in the last hundred years. Composting toilets are safe, clean and comfortable. Poop is an offering and a sacred gift to the mountain.

- Frank Cook (Plants and Healers)

Home is a memory, the moment is always fresh and new.

"The forest is a cathedral," says Frank Cook (Plants and Healers)

"In that order," says Frank Cook (Plants and Healers).

"Plants are closer to the light and they bring us with them." says Frank Cook of Plants and Healers, "Once you start eating something wild, you'll never forget how rotten a candy bar is."

says Frank Cook, of Plants and Healers, who also explains, "All over the world, people don't know the weeds."

Plants fill the empty space of a certain niche. They survive there because they express unique qualities, unique energetic. The life force they express is their message. When that message interacts with you; what happens?

Every belief has a benefit but also a limitation. Pure plasticity is beyond limitation; it comes from being in the moment.

When we are being in our own beauty, we are not aware of the beauty. As we become conscious of the beauty, it acquires a form, a label, a memory.

Dr. Lad, Ayurvedic Institute.

Medicinal herbs give our body an experience. Through meditation on the experience we learn about our internal pathways and relationships between them.

Judgment projects our emotions and feelings externally, onto others. Discernment is internal, about our own emotions and process. Discernment is about setting boundaries. In discernment, we can still experience a state of love.

If your buttons can be pushed, what is the button? A button is a raw place the psyche is defending. Heal your raw places by visiting them and bringing forgiveness.

- Claudia Welch, Acupuncturist and Ayurvedic Physician

Eureka comes when mind chatter stops, we begin to listen and wisdom comes. When we are thinking, we aren't listening, we are unconscious. In the shower, let the stream of water touch the forehead, that is daily shirodhara and the mind is free.

I am drumming but without hands.
I am in asana but without a body.
I am singing but without a voice.
I am just dancing with my being,

-Joseph

p456, Ayurvedic Pharmacology & Therapeutic Uses of Medicinal Plants, Vaidya V.M. Gogte

When I lifted my head and rolled back my shoulders, my neck muscles relaxed and thought forms moved from the front to the back of my brain. I felt para-sympathetic and receptive. In the front body, the effort of my muscles held the posture. In the back body, the structure of the skeleton held my posture.

Being in the moment comes without effort, without thought. Being with our feelings is different from thinking about our feelings. When the mind is without thought, we are totally open to receive whatever sensations are coming, right now. There is no thought of self in self realization.

said by Ram Dass in "Be Here Now"

Enjoy your suffering like a movie or soap opera. Let life be what it is without interfering in your life, without getting embroiled in it.

If you've ever traveled to India...you probably agree that squatting is the natural way to eliminate. Squatting not only relaxes the colon, but it also opens up ligaments in the lower back. Expanding ligaments in the lower back heals anxiety, worry, and ground vata.

See http://www.naturesplatform.com/health_benefits.html for more information.

Jetlag is considered a problem of agni in Ayurveda (digestive fire). If we get hungry on time, sleep on time, and have a bowel movement on time, then agni is probably okay. But traveling disrupts our schedule. Time changes disrupt our biological clock and internal rhythms. Air conditioned planes and altitude increase dryness. Thus, traveling increases vata and constipation.

Eating on the Plane
1) Citrus fruits especially limes. Sour taste keeps the colon hydrated and flowing.
2) Ask for orange juice when the flight attendant brings juices but not during meals.
3) Ask for wine with your meals on international flights. 3 tablespoons of wine increases agni.
4) Simple light foods. No fatty, heavy difficult to digest foods. Vata pacifying diet.
5) Salty foods should be avoided; they increase swelling and fluid retention.
6) Plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration during long flights with air conditioning.
7) Peanuts are heavy, drying, hard to digest, salty and increase vata. Avoid them!

Exercises on the Plane
1) Basic stretching and massage every 3 hours while flying.
2) Focus on kidneys, solar plexus, ankle swelling.
3) To stay grounded, use root lock and direct attention to sacrum and back body.

For herbal regimen and more information about how to stay grounded and healthy while traveling, contact Joseph!

Happiness, beauty and abundance are the fruits of alignment. We feel the impulse to make decisions to improve our lives. But, behind the impulse to decide is resistance to what is being offered to us, dissatisfaction and ego. We struggle with making decisions instead of acceptance. We can let it happen instead of making it happen. We can let go of the impulse to decide and start noticing and being with the truth.

When pitta is high leading to anger and confrontation find the source in doshas. Is vata fear, pitta irritability and heat, or kapha denial leading to anger and frustration?

Be nice to your liver
The liver becomes toxic from fighting. Never let an angry conversation last more than fifteen minutes. Take a break, heal your liver, and you'll be surprised how much easier life will be. Long arguments become circular. What is the fruit? One or two sentences is enough to communicate the essential truth. Then listen. Let go of the need to respond right now. Silence is a great healer.

Heal it in the body, not with words.
Find the source in the doshas and use diet and lifestyle. Sometime we are arguing with yesterday's tomato or chili pepper. Smoking, drinking, and addictions make people emotionally fragile. If pitta is the source, follow a pitta pacifying diet including bitters, cilantro, and turmeric. Pitta wants to talk but talking, thinking, problem solving aggravates pitta.

Check pitta organs
Are your eyes red? Is there pain the epigastric center (soft spot between where the ribs meet beneath the sternum?) Tenderness in the abdomen? Or in the liver underneath the right rib cage? Are you hot? Do you have a rash or allergy? Any inflammation? Give your body a massage to find out. In that case the root of the argument is pitta dosha.

Avoid difficult conversation during pitta time 10pm-2am
Tomorrow is another day. When pitta is high the results are simply late night exhaustion. Exhaustion causes high pitta leading to tomorrow's downward cycle. Avoid confrontation, intellectual or stimulating activity including reading or TV for at least an hour before 10pm bedtime.

Resolving Problems
Pitta wants to resolve all problems instead of merging into the unfolding dynamic. In the unfolding dynamic there is no resolution. The universe continues to unfolds its vast truth. But pitta people get stuck in the words and lose the gist. They derail themselves with the truth without realizing they are mistaking the moment for the whole relationship. With silence and perspective, pitta people will expand their focus and realize that love is always greater than the current problems.

Ego trusts itself.
Ego doesn't acknowledge the difference between reality and perception. So ego wants to change reality instead of its perception. When ego refuses to accept reality, our power is wasted. Power struggles lead to bitterness, resentment, and exhaustion. We cannot control reality. We can only control our inner experience of it.

Keep your heart chakra open

Lower your temperature

Every day I'm learning. I still feel like a new student of vedic psychology. Here are some hints that are helping me on me way, given to us by our beautiful, saintly teacher Dr. Vasant Lad.

Watch the watcher. The watcher is the mind and the body but spirit is beyond both. Watch thoughts as if they are a movie. You will see what is inside you.

Organs create emotions and the brain searches for a thought. So mind is in the organ. We make a decision then create the rationale. Mind is body and brain. Mind is also the universe around us that we created. Yoga psychology cleans the mind by cleaning organs. Yoga squeezes the blood out of organs and then opens them up again. It clears the channels.

When the body wants change it creates a thought. A thought is a sign of an unhealthy organ. Thoughts indicate discomfort or toxins in the body. When the body is content there is no thought. Bliss is the state without thought. If we are quiet we can sense thoughts coming before they happen. It feels like a vibration. We bless the thought and bring attention back to the breath.

We can't know the truth but we can be with the truth. We merge with the unfolding dynamic. Joy of the sunset happens before we realize it. The moment we become conscious joy is a memory and becomes desire. Desire is the memory of past pleasure.

I see the tree and the tree is me. The internal is the macrocosm. The universe my creation. God is the creator but I am the hand. This chair, I brought my body to this place and the chair became manifest. This bird that chirps in the wilderness, my echo chirping in the wilderness. Where is the tree? My eyes catch light and the tree appears, from photo cells I recreate the tree in my mind. The tree that I see is the one in my mind. Do you see the same tree?

All of creation is a manifestation of God. Evil thinks that it exists but in yoga there is no separation from the divine. When you become the tree and the tree becomes you there will be no violence. If I give my attention to the darkness, it creates the darkness. If I give my attention to the light it creates the light.

Experience nourishes the ego. Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and were cast from the garden. Knowledge is knowledge of difference, comparison, measuring, separation. The mind wants to have experiences because it wants to know. God is beyond knowledge. God is being without a thought; God is the act of listening.

All effort denies the existence of God. Creation happens. Love accepts all things. Love is listening. When we try to change creation, that is effort. Thoughts are effort and effort comes from ego.

The mind creates the abyss and the heart crosses it. The mind is comparison which is separation and measurement. Comparison is judgment and judgment is violence. Comparison is desire. The mind is the cause. With meditation all thoughts can be digested into pure love. It is the heart.

An emotion comes to us. We healed it through the body with yoga. We healed it in the mind through the breath. We healed it in the spirit through prayer and meditation. Body, mind, then spirit. Speech is surgery. We release our frustrations upon the world but the world is us. We cut open the external with a word. Speech comes last, last resort. Emotion the root cause of disease. World change is not the objective of yoga; it is the by product of self-awakening.

Traditionally, yoga is preparation for prayer and meditation. Meditation has no purpose or goal. It cultivates 'is-ness'.

This journal entry is a work in progress. Please send your ideas to joseph@greenbookcafe.com.