articles
EMILIE CRESP - FOREST DWELLER RETREAT
FOREST DWELLER RETREAT
Emilie Cresp
A RETREAT TO NAVIGATE THE VANAPRASTHA LIFE STAGE 1 - 5 DECEMBER, 2022, COIMBATORE, SOUTH INDIA
About one hour away from the city of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, South India, nestled in a beautiful forest, you have arrived. The place is called Vaidygrama, literally the “village” (grama) of “traditional practitioners of Ayurveda” (vaidya).
Here, everything breathes the wisdom of Ayurveda, i.e the Way of Life which kindles the body, mind, spirit and consciousness.
Tonight is the auspicious night of Bhagavati Seva Puja done to restore balance and peace in the environment.
More than 50 people, men and women, mothers and daughters, healers and wanderers, have come from all over the world to gather around some important voices of Ayurveda and well-being, namely Dr. Robert Svoboda, Dr. Claudia Welch, Rose Baudin, and Dr. Ramkumar.
They have come to understand, practice and embrace Vanaprastha, the third stage of life, “the way of the forest”.
Starting at about 48 years old until 72 years old, Vanaprastha follows Brahmacharya (the age of “pure conduct”) happening until 25 years old and Grihastha (the life at home) from 25 to 48 years old. It precedes Sannyasa (“purification of everything”) starting at 72 years old (until 120 years old, according to what should be the lifespan of human beings!)
Vanaprastha refers to the retirement stage, where a person hands over household responsibilities to the next generation, takes an advisory role, and gradually withdraws from the world to embrace spiritual liberation.
Interacting with Vanaprastha’s “embodiments” in Dr. Robert Svoboda (xx years old), Dr. Claudia Welch (xx), Rose Baudin (xx), and Dr. Ramkumar (xx) for 5 days, the delicate and powerful transition to a new approach of living, letting go of the main goals of the household life (wealth, security, pleasure, desires) appears to be the most enriching and rewarding time one could experience.
This time helps to reintegrate the very basic truth of living as a constant cycle of pure existence, birth, growth, maintenance, decay, and death, whether in the course of a day, an hour, a week, a month, or a year.
In a way, we’ve all experienced Vanaprastha already, those quieter moments when the sun starts to go down or when winter approaches.
Understanding your life from the cosmical perspective helps connect with the wisdom of time, the rhythm of life and the beauty of the moment from an entirely different realm.
Ayurveda is the application of universal principles into human life. There is no concept of duality, in fact it is all about understanding the microcosm of your body as the mirror or the macrocosm of the universe.
The body structure is made up of the five elements and the functional aspect is governed by three biological humors or doshas. Ether and air together constitute Vata; fire and water make up Pitta and water and earth create Kapha.
Similar to the laws of the cosmos constantly balancing for peace and harmony, human bodies should constantly attune to the right combination of doshas for optimal body, mind, spirit and consciousness alignment.
Embracing the third stage of life in the best way possible is first and foremost reconnecting with those universal life principles, across ages and generations and the divine flow that derives from them.
The Indian teacher of yoga and author B.K.S Iyengar once said: “I always tell people, live happily and die majestically.”
These five days together dwelling in the forest of Vaidygrama was the most insightful attempt at manifesting it.
Shakti, the matter, the mother
At the source of it all is Shakti, the ”energy, ability, strength, effort, power, capability”. On every plane of creation, the primordial cosmic energy manifests itself into all forms of matter.
Like the most exhilarating scent, the fragrance of the Earth permeates every single cell of the body.
As Dr Claudia Welch noted, it is worth noticing that matter is closely linked to the latin word “Mater”, “Mother”.
Ultimately, you’re embraced and fed by the cosmic mother, from all aspects of your being and environment. Surrendering to it is what brings wholeness and therefore peace.
You are what you eat
“Your body is like an inner fountain you constantly have to replenish.”
Like the gardener’s duty is to water the plant daily, the only life practice one should engage in is the one of nourishment, with pure food promoting health, strength, energy and life.
The 5,000 years old science behind Ayurvedic food and especially the one served at Vaidyagrama shows the powerful effect it can have on your body, from the grossest aspect to the most subtle one.
The level of care, thoughtfulness, love and excellence behind the preparation of every single meal at Vaidyagrama is like nowhere else I have seen.
Food should be simple, nourishing, juicy and soothing. That is exactly what we were served with during our time here. A dance of healing spices, organic vegetables from the garden, fragrant rices, delicious curries, vibrant fruits and golden buttermilk courtesy of the cows in-house.
Every intake of food made that way almost becomes like an act of devotion.
As one transitions out to the third stage of life, incorporating the right amount of moisture and liquid such as soups into the body slowing drying up becomes essential.
How you nourish yourself also takes more subtle forms of intakes, especially during that time of life when your constitution further connects to finer forms of energy, such as the breath and the environment.
There are multiple kinds of food: food that is edible, food that is sensory (the music you listen to, the oil you apply on your skin, the scents you’re indulging on), food as your motivations and intentions, food as your relationships, your environment, the state of your consciousness.
All is food equally serving the purpose of health, strength, energy and life. Food has to be chosen so wisely.
“Good company makes a man great”
Some of my most cherished moments at Vaidyagrama are the fire rituals, happening at least twice daily before the sunrise and sunset prayers. They purify the environment to restore balance wherever mistakes have been made and to pray for everybody’s well-being.
Most importantly, they ignite a deep sense of belonging. As beautifully related by Dr Robert Svoboda, developing any kind of relationship with the fire is probably one of the most rewarding practices one can have.
Tending the fire like you would do of any relationships, with others, with yourself, the devas or heavenly beings, your ancestors, the five elements, just unveil new realms of understanding and love.
Contemplating the transformative nature of fire energy, like you would do of the sun and its effects on plants and flowers is almost like watching the act of rebirth.
Reactivating the fire inside of you through breathing (one of our daily Pranayama exercise with Rose Baudin was Bhastrika, literally referring to the bellows used in a furnace) or any other specific healing modalities is often the very first step in correcting the root cause of any diseases.
Fire, primarily known through the sense of sight, helps us see the world entirely differently, unveiling new colors and forms, shaping new realities.
You are what you see
Shape shifting whether it happens cosmically (the worship of gods and goddesses have varied greatly across time), physiologically (women start loosing their bone mass at around the age of 35 and more intensively when approaching menopause) or through the senses (sight, earring slowly get impaired with age) may bring up uncomfortable realizations of oneself.
I was especially touched by Dr Claudia Welch’s sharing about that very moment at 46 years old when she felt the lightning of her rib cage and her transition into a new phase of her life more connected to the ethereal than the profoundly grounded nature of her life then.
The perception of what it means to have energy evolves too. Is it true that you have less energy or just energy for something else, like sitting and watching the window?
Is the tiredness merely stress slowly consuming up from the inside? The reflection of a misalignment between your activity and what you are truly meant to bring forth with it at this stage of your life?
I was moved by Rose Baudin’s stories of grace and compassion towards herself and the world, as well as Dr Robert Svoboda’s entirely new living arrangements as part as his entrance into the fourth stage of his life.
All shared about the absolute “fantasticness” of what is meant to actually shape shift, perceiving things from one whole being to another whole being, allowing the opportunity to entirely change and rearrange your life, blessed by loopholes and unexpected beauty coming from everywhere.
Could cliff jumping, provided “you’ve considered in your heart that the outcome will be a good one”, actually be the safest route to take?
“We are all going to die” were Dr Robert Svoboda’s first and opening words of the event. “Fire” also happens to be the first word of the first Veda (most important religious text in Sanskrit).
Fire and death are indeed very connected. Seeing death through the light of the fire is also seeing the power for rebirth. Like the fascinating Indian city of Benares Dr Claudia Welch and Dr Robert Svoboda would often bring us to, death and rebirth, Lord Shiva, life and transformation are all equal tools for liberation.
Ritam
Beyond energy, nourishment and transformation, the rhythm of the breath became like a recurring sound of the retreat.
The English word “Rhythm” and the Sanskrit word “Ritam” sound indeed very similar. Ritam means “whole truth”.
From a functional and biological perspective, Vanaprastha connects further to the mobile nature of the wind energy. When balanced, this opens new doors for creativity and expansiveness, as well as restlessness, anxiety, insomnia, weakness when imbalanced.
Connecting to the rhythm of the breath, Prana, from all aspects of your life becomes a critical anchor.
All you’ve been and all you’re becoming are built on this very rhythmic melodic memorization that the breath is.
Like a wave, each out-breathe and in-breathe set the way for new motions of life and transitions between realities.
Ultimately, that flow is what nourishes. In French, the word Mother is translated as “mère” and the word sea as “mer”. They sound exactly the same.
That flow is the arms of the cosmic mother slowly but surely carrying you forward as long as you let yourself be embraced by her.
It’s never all or nothing, rather a constant back and forth advancing towards what is ultimately your very essence.
The process can be rocky and gentle, the key of it all is to embrace it rather than resisting it and to remain calm at all cost.
The flow is the ease (versus dis-ease) and happiness. This is Sukha which in Sanskrit means both “joy” and “running swiftly or easily”. One can not happen without the other.
Every morning Rose Baudin would guide us through the immense gift that the connection with your breath is. She would teach us through the gentle control of your breath how to move the prana throughout your body and restore the functions of elimination, assimilation, balance, purity, cleanliness and peace and stillness associated. It’s like she was teaching us the musical instrument of life meant to create the melody of our soul.
Chanting is another superb representation of breathing, a well orchestrated movement of the breath and body rocking together as one with the universe.
Singing the Om mantra and giving gratitude to Ganapathy, Vishnu, Hanuman and all the Gods, all together as one, felt like one of the most important acts of healing of the retreat.
I loved observing Dr Robert Svoboda’s articulating of each word of the prayer so perfectly, like a pure act of devotion, reflecting on Dr Claudia Welch’s closed eyes and inner journey offered as a gift to us.
I could feel the care through each of their words, each of their sounds, each of their breaths touching each pore of our beings.
Emptiness as an act of courage
Vanaprastha is a constant balance between emptiness and fullness, effort and grace, wholeness in surrendering.
Vanaprastha is an act of courage.
Courage to do nothing and wait until it becomes clear.
Courage to let go of guilt, fear, grief and thriving.
Courage to detach and allow for new space to come in your life.
Courage to care and live your life in service for others, your parents, the sick, the vulnerable, your family, without feeling depleted.
Courage to think as “We” versus “I”, like the doctors of Vaidygrama physically living with their patients.
Courage to trust emptiness and fullness, welcome birth and death with the same radiance. Courage to know that there is no better place to be than anywhere you are now.
Loneliness made sublime
Vanaprastha is also, as magnificently put by Rose Baudin, the powerful process of sublimation of loneliness into solitude. Yes, loneliness can be made noble and beautiful. Solitude can in fact become your safety space and silence, your most precious teacher.
At the end of her class, Rose Baudin shared this prayer from Jennifer Wellwood.
“Willing to experience aloneness
I discover connection everywhere Turning to face my fear
I meet the warrior who lives within Opening my loss
I am given inimaginable gifts; Surrendering into emptiness
I find fullness without end
Each condition I flee from pursue me Each condition I welcome transforms me And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so Who has crafted this master game
To play it with pure delight
To honor is true devotion.”
Who am I when there is nothing? What happens when you choose to go inward versus outward? When you slowly realize that you don’t need to project externally to be internally content?
As stated by Dr Ramkumar, the visionary behind this deeply essential healing movement that Vaidyagrama is, most diseases start from the constant desire to project to the world.
How about being a great 60 years old, instead of desperately trying to stay 30 years old? Why is it so scary to live according to your most inner essence?
There is no decision to be made except for being comfortable with who you are, for just intensively living the present. That is the only practice.
Living someone else’s life is in fact such a loss, it’s cutting out possibilities from amazing changes and transformations.
As Dr Robert Svoboda, author of Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution, stated, when you go with the minutia effort of aligning with your dharma (universal way of life), then nature will always support you.
Wherever your intention is will determine who you are.
The 8 limbs of yoga.
Yoga is the practice of uniting the body, breath and senses, mind, intelligence and self together as one.
Similar to all parts of a tree, all components of the human being have to function all well together to bear fruits.
From an external perspective, the Yama (ethical discipline) could be referred to as the roots, the foundation from which all the rest will grow, the Niyama (self discipline) as the trunk, the means to rise.
Following a daily routine that promotes self-care, cleansing of the sense organs (the “virtuous conducts of the mind”), balancing of your elemental combinations could in fact be the most life changing and spiritual journey you could embark on. Those are your roots.
Guided by the Ayurvedic doctors into the process of paying attention and care to each sense organs, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the eyes and the skin, what looks like a cleansing act becomes a true act of love.
From an internal perspective and going back to that tree, the Asanas (postures) are the branches, the spiritual practice in physical form, Pranayama (control of the breath), the leaves, Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses) the bark.
From a spiritual perspective, Dharana (concentration) is the sap, Dhyana (meditation, contemplation) the flower and Samadhi (bliss) the fruit, all bringing the experience of the sight of the soul.
Rose Baudin’s morning yoga sessions were the most inspiring introduction to the gift that engaging in this comprehensive journey of purification of the mind, body and spirit is.
Ultimately, the journey, the path is your life purpose.
Staying committed to that path, and always coming back to it is your practice.
The key is to observe and engage with every part of the path, the “experience of the nectar”, the “nectar of the experience”.
The “road to the forest” has to start with the growth of vibrant trees.
You are the forest
Vana, “the forest”, accessed through the road of the 5 elements, the 8 limbs of yoga is whatever in yourself feels stable, anywhere in yourself you feel grounded to.
Vana is your anchor, your true friend and cosmic mother, what ultimately matters. Vana is your foundation, where it all begins, where it will end and begin again.
Vaidygrama and its perfectly crafted houses built using the soil from the same land, the warming colors draping the inside, the temple and gardens, the trees planted by every single patients who had visited here feel a little bit like that mother and forest.
Listening to Dr Claudia Welch’s stories of her life in the forest of Vermont sounded fascinating. Robert’s forest in the middle of the city of Bombay, India sounded as much enlightening. The point is that your forest can be anywhere and everywhere. In a busy demanding household as well as in a dreamy piece of luxurious green heaven. The forest is your mind. The forest is your body. The forest is your practice. The place you learn everything from, the place to dismember and remember. Anywhere you go, anything you do, for the sake of the divine.
Vanaprastha becomes “the road to yourself”, where the true danger and lions to fight against are the self destructive energies inside and the mountains, your own internal obstacles to overcome.
Pondering on Rose Baudin’s burning desire to find her guru early on (that she quickly came to meet in Sri Lanka at the beginning of her spiritual journey) as well as Dr Claudia Welch’s beautiful gems from her own guru she would mindfully sprinkle here and there, I wondered about my own guru. Who is he? Who is she? Where is he? Have I met him already? Will I meet him soon?
Then, it came so clear to me: the forest in the guru. That practice you engage in every day is your guru.
Anything you’re running away from is something you can not run away from . This is your guru. Simplicity is your guru.
Dances of the feet
To open and close the retreat, three powerfully alive women danced the soul and stories of heroic journeys, gods and goddesses, the divine made alive.
The depth of expression through their eyes and smile, their focus and drive dancing the stages of life felt the most authentic representation of what life is all about. A path. A road. A forest. Harmony. Beauty. Transcendence. Transmutation.
The Path to the forest is a healing path and the dance between the “I”, human, and the “We”, divine, the ultimate reward.
Each of the women’s steps and feet moving with grace and passion drew the way to go. Captivated by their feet dancing I could not help but think about the strange coincidence of the feet injuries Dr Robert Svoboda, Dr Ramkumar, Rose Baudin and a few others were somehow all experiencing at the same time during the retreat!
It reminded me about Dr Claudia Welch’s beautiful description of her way to feel the forest at night, one step at a time. It reminded me about surrendering over the feet of the guru, whether a person, a healing journey, or just plain beautiful vulnerability. It reminded me of a seed, shaped like a foot.
When Dr Robert Svoboda shared about his favorite homeopathic remedy for his foot injury called “R55”, I immediately thought about the meaning of the number 5 in Hebrew, the symbol of the seed and the promise of the totality, the unity, the sole power.
Going through every stage of life and even more so the stage of Vanaprastha is the opportunity for unity and liberation.
In fact, after every single group gathering we would have inside the main community room, some magical hands would come tidy up all the shoes outside, preparing our path forward.
To all of them and the incredible people that joined hands and feet together during those 5 days, to Vaidyagrama, one of the most advanced places of healing in the world, to all the teachers and the Satsangam community spreading the gift of healing across borders, one can only be forever grateful.
Emilie Cresp
A RETREAT TO NAVIGATE THE VANAPRASTHA LIFE STAGE 1 - 5 DECEMBER, 2022, COIMBATORE, SOUTH INDIA
About one hour away from the city of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, South India, nestled in a beautiful forest, you have arrived. The place is called Vaidygrama, literally the “village” (grama) of “traditional practitioners of Ayurveda” (vaidya).
Here, everything breathes the wisdom of Ayurveda, i.e the Way of Life which kindles the body, mind, spirit and consciousness.
Tonight is the auspicious night of Bhagavati Seva Puja done to restore balance and peace in the environment.
More than 50 people, men and women, mothers and daughters, healers and wanderers, have come from all over the world to gather around some important voices of Ayurveda and well-being, namely Dr. Robert Svoboda, Dr. Claudia Welch, Rose Baudin, and Dr. Ramkumar.
They have come to understand, practice and embrace Vanaprastha, the third stage of life, “the way of the forest”.
Starting at about 48 years old until 72 years old, Vanaprastha follows Brahmacharya (the age of “pure conduct”) happening until 25 years old and Grihastha (the life at home) from 25 to 48 years old. It precedes Sannyasa (“purification of everything”) starting at 72 years old (until 120 years old, according to what should be the lifespan of human beings!)
Vanaprastha refers to the retirement stage, where a person hands over household responsibilities to the next generation, takes an advisory role, and gradually withdraws from the world to embrace spiritual liberation.
Interacting with Vanaprastha’s “embodiments” in Dr. Robert Svoboda (xx years old), Dr. Claudia Welch (xx), Rose Baudin (xx), and Dr. Ramkumar (xx) for 5 days, the delicate and powerful transition to a new approach of living, letting go of the main goals of the household life (wealth, security, pleasure, desires) appears to be the most enriching and rewarding time one could experience.
This time helps to reintegrate the very basic truth of living as a constant cycle of pure existence, birth, growth, maintenance, decay, and death, whether in the course of a day, an hour, a week, a month, or a year.
In a way, we’ve all experienced Vanaprastha already, those quieter moments when the sun starts to go down or when winter approaches.
Understanding your life from the cosmical perspective helps connect with the wisdom of time, the rhythm of life and the beauty of the moment from an entirely different realm.
Ayurveda is the application of universal principles into human life. There is no concept of duality, in fact it is all about understanding the microcosm of your body as the mirror or the macrocosm of the universe.
The body structure is made up of the five elements and the functional aspect is governed by three biological humors or doshas. Ether and air together constitute Vata; fire and water make up Pitta and water and earth create Kapha.
Similar to the laws of the cosmos constantly balancing for peace and harmony, human bodies should constantly attune to the right combination of doshas for optimal body, mind, spirit and consciousness alignment.
Embracing the third stage of life in the best way possible is first and foremost reconnecting with those universal life principles, across ages and generations and the divine flow that derives from them.
The Indian teacher of yoga and author B.K.S Iyengar once said: “I always tell people, live happily and die majestically.”
These five days together dwelling in the forest of Vaidygrama was the most insightful attempt at manifesting it.
Shakti, the matter, the mother
At the source of it all is Shakti, the ”energy, ability, strength, effort, power, capability”. On every plane of creation, the primordial cosmic energy manifests itself into all forms of matter.
Like the most exhilarating scent, the fragrance of the Earth permeates every single cell of the body.
As Dr Claudia Welch noted, it is worth noticing that matter is closely linked to the latin word “Mater”, “Mother”.
Ultimately, you’re embraced and fed by the cosmic mother, from all aspects of your being and environment. Surrendering to it is what brings wholeness and therefore peace.
You are what you eat
“Your body is like an inner fountain you constantly have to replenish.”
Like the gardener’s duty is to water the plant daily, the only life practice one should engage in is the one of nourishment, with pure food promoting health, strength, energy and life.
The 5,000 years old science behind Ayurvedic food and especially the one served at Vaidyagrama shows the powerful effect it can have on your body, from the grossest aspect to the most subtle one.
The level of care, thoughtfulness, love and excellence behind the preparation of every single meal at Vaidyagrama is like nowhere else I have seen.
Food should be simple, nourishing, juicy and soothing. That is exactly what we were served with during our time here. A dance of healing spices, organic vegetables from the garden, fragrant rices, delicious curries, vibrant fruits and golden buttermilk courtesy of the cows in-house.
Every intake of food made that way almost becomes like an act of devotion.
As one transitions out to the third stage of life, incorporating the right amount of moisture and liquid such as soups into the body slowing drying up becomes essential.
How you nourish yourself also takes more subtle forms of intakes, especially during that time of life when your constitution further connects to finer forms of energy, such as the breath and the environment.
There are multiple kinds of food: food that is edible, food that is sensory (the music you listen to, the oil you apply on your skin, the scents you’re indulging on), food as your motivations and intentions, food as your relationships, your environment, the state of your consciousness.
All is food equally serving the purpose of health, strength, energy and life. Food has to be chosen so wisely.
“Good company makes a man great”
Some of my most cherished moments at Vaidyagrama are the fire rituals, happening at least twice daily before the sunrise and sunset prayers. They purify the environment to restore balance wherever mistakes have been made and to pray for everybody’s well-being.
Most importantly, they ignite a deep sense of belonging. As beautifully related by Dr Robert Svoboda, developing any kind of relationship with the fire is probably one of the most rewarding practices one can have.
Tending the fire like you would do of any relationships, with others, with yourself, the devas or heavenly beings, your ancestors, the five elements, just unveil new realms of understanding and love.
Contemplating the transformative nature of fire energy, like you would do of the sun and its effects on plants and flowers is almost like watching the act of rebirth.
Reactivating the fire inside of you through breathing (one of our daily Pranayama exercise with Rose Baudin was Bhastrika, literally referring to the bellows used in a furnace) or any other specific healing modalities is often the very first step in correcting the root cause of any diseases.
Fire, primarily known through the sense of sight, helps us see the world entirely differently, unveiling new colors and forms, shaping new realities.
You are what you see
Shape shifting whether it happens cosmically (the worship of gods and goddesses have varied greatly across time), physiologically (women start loosing their bone mass at around the age of 35 and more intensively when approaching menopause) or through the senses (sight, earring slowly get impaired with age) may bring up uncomfortable realizations of oneself.
I was especially touched by Dr Claudia Welch’s sharing about that very moment at 46 years old when she felt the lightning of her rib cage and her transition into a new phase of her life more connected to the ethereal than the profoundly grounded nature of her life then.
The perception of what it means to have energy evolves too. Is it true that you have less energy or just energy for something else, like sitting and watching the window?
Is the tiredness merely stress slowly consuming up from the inside? The reflection of a misalignment between your activity and what you are truly meant to bring forth with it at this stage of your life?
I was moved by Rose Baudin’s stories of grace and compassion towards herself and the world, as well as Dr Robert Svoboda’s entirely new living arrangements as part as his entrance into the fourth stage of his life.
All shared about the absolute “fantasticness” of what is meant to actually shape shift, perceiving things from one whole being to another whole being, allowing the opportunity to entirely change and rearrange your life, blessed by loopholes and unexpected beauty coming from everywhere.
Could cliff jumping, provided “you’ve considered in your heart that the outcome will be a good one”, actually be the safest route to take?
“We are all going to die” were Dr Robert Svoboda’s first and opening words of the event. “Fire” also happens to be the first word of the first Veda (most important religious text in Sanskrit).
Fire and death are indeed very connected. Seeing death through the light of the fire is also seeing the power for rebirth. Like the fascinating Indian city of Benares Dr Claudia Welch and Dr Robert Svoboda would often bring us to, death and rebirth, Lord Shiva, life and transformation are all equal tools for liberation.
Ritam
Beyond energy, nourishment and transformation, the rhythm of the breath became like a recurring sound of the retreat.
The English word “Rhythm” and the Sanskrit word “Ritam” sound indeed very similar. Ritam means “whole truth”.
From a functional and biological perspective, Vanaprastha connects further to the mobile nature of the wind energy. When balanced, this opens new doors for creativity and expansiveness, as well as restlessness, anxiety, insomnia, weakness when imbalanced.
Connecting to the rhythm of the breath, Prana, from all aspects of your life becomes a critical anchor.
All you’ve been and all you’re becoming are built on this very rhythmic melodic memorization that the breath is.
Like a wave, each out-breathe and in-breathe set the way for new motions of life and transitions between realities.
Ultimately, that flow is what nourishes. In French, the word Mother is translated as “mère” and the word sea as “mer”. They sound exactly the same.
That flow is the arms of the cosmic mother slowly but surely carrying you forward as long as you let yourself be embraced by her.
It’s never all or nothing, rather a constant back and forth advancing towards what is ultimately your very essence.
The process can be rocky and gentle, the key of it all is to embrace it rather than resisting it and to remain calm at all cost.
The flow is the ease (versus dis-ease) and happiness. This is Sukha which in Sanskrit means both “joy” and “running swiftly or easily”. One can not happen without the other.
Every morning Rose Baudin would guide us through the immense gift that the connection with your breath is. She would teach us through the gentle control of your breath how to move the prana throughout your body and restore the functions of elimination, assimilation, balance, purity, cleanliness and peace and stillness associated. It’s like she was teaching us the musical instrument of life meant to create the melody of our soul.
Chanting is another superb representation of breathing, a well orchestrated movement of the breath and body rocking together as one with the universe.
Singing the Om mantra and giving gratitude to Ganapathy, Vishnu, Hanuman and all the Gods, all together as one, felt like one of the most important acts of healing of the retreat.
I loved observing Dr Robert Svoboda’s articulating of each word of the prayer so perfectly, like a pure act of devotion, reflecting on Dr Claudia Welch’s closed eyes and inner journey offered as a gift to us.
I could feel the care through each of their words, each of their sounds, each of their breaths touching each pore of our beings.
Emptiness as an act of courage
Vanaprastha is a constant balance between emptiness and fullness, effort and grace, wholeness in surrendering.
Vanaprastha is an act of courage.
Courage to do nothing and wait until it becomes clear.
Courage to let go of guilt, fear, grief and thriving.
Courage to detach and allow for new space to come in your life.
Courage to care and live your life in service for others, your parents, the sick, the vulnerable, your family, without feeling depleted.
Courage to think as “We” versus “I”, like the doctors of Vaidygrama physically living with their patients.
Courage to trust emptiness and fullness, welcome birth and death with the same radiance. Courage to know that there is no better place to be than anywhere you are now.
Loneliness made sublime
Vanaprastha is also, as magnificently put by Rose Baudin, the powerful process of sublimation of loneliness into solitude. Yes, loneliness can be made noble and beautiful. Solitude can in fact become your safety space and silence, your most precious teacher.
At the end of her class, Rose Baudin shared this prayer from Jennifer Wellwood.
“Willing to experience aloneness
I discover connection everywhere Turning to face my fear
I meet the warrior who lives within Opening my loss
I am given inimaginable gifts; Surrendering into emptiness
I find fullness without end
Each condition I flee from pursue me Each condition I welcome transforms me And becomes itself transformed
Into its radiant jewel like essence.
I bow to the one who has made it so Who has crafted this master game
To play it with pure delight
To honor is true devotion.”
Who am I when there is nothing? What happens when you choose to go inward versus outward? When you slowly realize that you don’t need to project externally to be internally content?
As stated by Dr Ramkumar, the visionary behind this deeply essential healing movement that Vaidyagrama is, most diseases start from the constant desire to project to the world.
How about being a great 60 years old, instead of desperately trying to stay 30 years old? Why is it so scary to live according to your most inner essence?
There is no decision to be made except for being comfortable with who you are, for just intensively living the present. That is the only practice.
Living someone else’s life is in fact such a loss, it’s cutting out possibilities from amazing changes and transformations.
As Dr Robert Svoboda, author of Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution, stated, when you go with the minutia effort of aligning with your dharma (universal way of life), then nature will always support you.
Wherever your intention is will determine who you are.
The 8 limbs of yoga.
Yoga is the practice of uniting the body, breath and senses, mind, intelligence and self together as one.
Similar to all parts of a tree, all components of the human being have to function all well together to bear fruits.
From an external perspective, the Yama (ethical discipline) could be referred to as the roots, the foundation from which all the rest will grow, the Niyama (self discipline) as the trunk, the means to rise.
Following a daily routine that promotes self-care, cleansing of the sense organs (the “virtuous conducts of the mind”), balancing of your elemental combinations could in fact be the most life changing and spiritual journey you could embark on. Those are your roots.
Guided by the Ayurvedic doctors into the process of paying attention and care to each sense organs, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the eyes and the skin, what looks like a cleansing act becomes a true act of love.
From an internal perspective and going back to that tree, the Asanas (postures) are the branches, the spiritual practice in physical form, Pranayama (control of the breath), the leaves, Pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses) the bark.
From a spiritual perspective, Dharana (concentration) is the sap, Dhyana (meditation, contemplation) the flower and Samadhi (bliss) the fruit, all bringing the experience of the sight of the soul.
Rose Baudin’s morning yoga sessions were the most inspiring introduction to the gift that engaging in this comprehensive journey of purification of the mind, body and spirit is.
Ultimately, the journey, the path is your life purpose.
Staying committed to that path, and always coming back to it is your practice.
The key is to observe and engage with every part of the path, the “experience of the nectar”, the “nectar of the experience”.
The “road to the forest” has to start with the growth of vibrant trees.
You are the forest
Vana, “the forest”, accessed through the road of the 5 elements, the 8 limbs of yoga is whatever in yourself feels stable, anywhere in yourself you feel grounded to.
Vana is your anchor, your true friend and cosmic mother, what ultimately matters. Vana is your foundation, where it all begins, where it will end and begin again.
Vaidygrama and its perfectly crafted houses built using the soil from the same land, the warming colors draping the inside, the temple and gardens, the trees planted by every single patients who had visited here feel a little bit like that mother and forest.
Listening to Dr Claudia Welch’s stories of her life in the forest of Vermont sounded fascinating. Robert’s forest in the middle of the city of Bombay, India sounded as much enlightening. The point is that your forest can be anywhere and everywhere. In a busy demanding household as well as in a dreamy piece of luxurious green heaven. The forest is your mind. The forest is your body. The forest is your practice. The place you learn everything from, the place to dismember and remember. Anywhere you go, anything you do, for the sake of the divine.
Vanaprastha becomes “the road to yourself”, where the true danger and lions to fight against are the self destructive energies inside and the mountains, your own internal obstacles to overcome.
Pondering on Rose Baudin’s burning desire to find her guru early on (that she quickly came to meet in Sri Lanka at the beginning of her spiritual journey) as well as Dr Claudia Welch’s beautiful gems from her own guru she would mindfully sprinkle here and there, I wondered about my own guru. Who is he? Who is she? Where is he? Have I met him already? Will I meet him soon?
Then, it came so clear to me: the forest in the guru. That practice you engage in every day is your guru.
Anything you’re running away from is something you can not run away from . This is your guru. Simplicity is your guru.
Dances of the feet
To open and close the retreat, three powerfully alive women danced the soul and stories of heroic journeys, gods and goddesses, the divine made alive.
The depth of expression through their eyes and smile, their focus and drive dancing the stages of life felt the most authentic representation of what life is all about. A path. A road. A forest. Harmony. Beauty. Transcendence. Transmutation.
The Path to the forest is a healing path and the dance between the “I”, human, and the “We”, divine, the ultimate reward.
Each of the women’s steps and feet moving with grace and passion drew the way to go. Captivated by their feet dancing I could not help but think about the strange coincidence of the feet injuries Dr Robert Svoboda, Dr Ramkumar, Rose Baudin and a few others were somehow all experiencing at the same time during the retreat!
It reminded me about Dr Claudia Welch’s beautiful description of her way to feel the forest at night, one step at a time. It reminded me about surrendering over the feet of the guru, whether a person, a healing journey, or just plain beautiful vulnerability. It reminded me of a seed, shaped like a foot.
When Dr Robert Svoboda shared about his favorite homeopathic remedy for his foot injury called “R55”, I immediately thought about the meaning of the number 5 in Hebrew, the symbol of the seed and the promise of the totality, the unity, the sole power.
Going through every stage of life and even more so the stage of Vanaprastha is the opportunity for unity and liberation.
In fact, after every single group gathering we would have inside the main community room, some magical hands would come tidy up all the shoes outside, preparing our path forward.
To all of them and the incredible people that joined hands and feet together during those 5 days, to Vaidyagrama, one of the most advanced places of healing in the world, to all the teachers and the Satsangam community spreading the gift of healing across borders, one can only be forever grateful.
JYOTI PANDE LAVAKARE - Healing at Vaidyagrama
Healing at Vaidyagrama
Jyoti Pande Lavakare Published: Apr. 29, 2022
Updated: Jul. 29, 2022
Link
GENTLE, smiling therapists help me off the hard and slippery wooden table, bathing me like a baby, with lukewarm water and powdered green gram, wiping me down with a rough, thin cotton towel.
Then, they apply rasnadichoornam on the crown of my head and wave it under my nose, to prevent me catching cold, also smearing chandan and kumkum on my forehead and throat.
After measuring my blood pressure, they send me back to my room, where a tiny, double-bottomed steel cup of warm green gram soup awaits me.
I am at Vaidyagrama, a healing village 40 km from Coimbatore in a dusty and remote corner of the foothills of the Nilgiris. It is a centre for traditional Ayurvedic therapies.
My journey here is more than just the flight and car rides from my comfortable home in south Delhi. It is really a leap of faith.
In my desperate search for healing and a reset through traditional medicine, I had surveyed and checked out many facilities. None seemed to be what I was looking for. They were either too slick or too dour. A retreat near Palakkad in 2011 had been good and yet not the real thing.
But after I found Vaidyagrama, I went rapidly, as though preordained, from Vaidyagrama’s homepage on the internet to turning up there to lay claim to the sparse room and frugal meals that awaited me.
Vaidyagrama was what I had been looking for. Instantly, there was a sense of belonging. Its remoteness enveloped me. An easy flow and uncontrived simplicity embraced me and I merged with it easily.
As part of the initiation for patients, one of the vaidyas, or traditional Ayurvedic physicians, spoke of the importance of surrendering to the Ayurvedic treatment that was to follow, of going along with the Universe.
To allow another grown human being to bathe you, as I have just described, is to truly hand yourself over. It is the kind of surrender from which inner beginnings are made.
My quest for such a place began with the personal turmoil that followed my mother’s passing from lung cancer which could be traced to air pollution and long years in Delhi. The loss of a parent brings unanticipated grief. Additionally, it made me angry that she had died from a disease merely because she breathed. It was hers and everyone’s right to breathe safely.
After her passing, I wrote a grief memoir referencing air pollution to put the issues surrounding it more firmly in the public domain. Prolonged sitting to get the book out quickly had resulted in tailbone pain. And then I got infected with the Delta variant of COVID-19 which left my body wracked.
The 17 days I spent at Vaidyagrama didn’t result in a miraculous cure. But they introduced me to Ayurveda in ways more wondrous than I could have thought possible.
I am city-bred and long accustomed to the hurly-burly of urbanized living. As I entered my small room in Vaidyagrama, with its limited furniture, no television and weak telecom signals, I confess I wondered how the days would pass.
Time did hang heavy to begin with, but as the daily rhythm took me along, I realized that the slowness of everything was therapeutic. It was at the heart of the treatment I had sought out, together, of course, with a lot more like the changes in diet, ingesting of ghee, oil massages and use of herbs.
At Vaidyagrama, patients are gently discouraged from doing anything vigorously — walking and yoga included. The treatment lies in finding inner balance and discovering the boundaries of your being. Silence and slowness are needed for this. It is an internal process.
FOUR FRIENDS AND A DREAMThe more I learnt about Ayurveda, the more I found I learnt about Vaidyagrama, so intricately were the two linked.
Vaidyagrama was created in 2008 by four third-generation vaidyas who had studied around the same time at the Coimbatore Ayurvedic College in the foothills of the Nilgiri mountains.
Although they didn’t know it then, their experience of learning the science of Ayurveda in the lap of nature in the gurukul-like environment of their college in the late 1980s was going to lead to the creation of Vaidyagrama 20 years later.
Dr Ramkumar“We used to have elephants walking up to our windows. Often, we bathed under clear, cold waterfalls — something we didn’t much like back then. But college, being so close to nature, left a deep impact on us. We also found our life there prepared us well in body and mind. It made us as strong as steel. It reinforced in us how Ayurveda should work for people,” says Dr Ramkumar Kutty, one of the founders.
But over the years, Ayurveda hospitals were becoming fancier in order to match conventional hospitals and raise the comfort levels of patients. They were providing air conditioning, television and internet connections in rooms.
“This was not how it was meant to be,” says Dr Ramkumar, recalling the growing dismay among Ayurvedic physicians who had begun to feel that the drift in values would undermine the nuanced scientific foundations of the system they had been trained in.
Dr RamadasIt was around then Dr A.R. Ramadas, Dr E.K. Ramanandan and Dr K.K. Harikrishnan, his college mates from the late 1980s who were all working in their traditional family practices at that time, came together with him to create Vaidyagrama.
“The land here was barren. There was hardly any water, so farmers were happy to sell to us. The first thing we did was to set up six wells to recharge the groundwater,” recalls Dr Ramadas.
Thanks to that water harvesting, today, almost 14 years later, despite the growing community, Vaidyagrama is water self-sufficient with five borewells and no piped municipal water.
At first, the four vaidyas and their supporters had no resources — just their ideas and their idealism — but they pushed ahead, designing their community as a natural healing environment.
Dr E.K.RamanandanThey minimized the use of chemicals, chose natural materials for construction and adopted renewable approaches to energy. There was a strong focus on circularity, especially in waste management.
I didn’t see any waste lying around. The steel dustbin in my own tiny room remained empty because there was nothing to throw! I learnt that even the oils used in the massages are poured off to make candles and soaps. Bright yellow and parrot green painted terracotta pots visually encouraged garbage segregation and composting is integral to Vaidyagrama.
“We wash all clothes only with pounded soapnuts in our washing machines to avoid chemicals from detergents or soaps,” Sandhya Mol K. told me as she took patients on an orientation tour. She pointed to the lines of thin cotton towels, sheets and laundry belonging to patients drying in the sun.
Dr K.K.HarikrishnanRooms are cleaned every morning by gentle, uniformed women employed from local villages using lemongrass oil, which leaves the rooms smelling citrusy and fresh. The equivalent of the turn-down service leaves the mosquito net tucked into the hard mattress. Guggul and dhoopam are used to purify the air and are also quite effective in driving away mosquitoes.
Three tiffins, two tiny cups of herbal tea (once with fruit) and one cup of green moong soup/congee appear magically each day like clockwork for everyone. It is the choornamsand kashayams, made fresh in the illam pantries to maintain potency, that are customized for each patient.
All cooking is done in a Vaastu-compliant annalayam or kitchen in the southeast of the premises. Fruits, grains, vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants are locally sourced and seasonal. Vaidyagrama is trying to grow its own food but is not there yet.
Food is medicine and all cooking is done on a yellow flame like in ancient times
“We cook only on a yellow flame, the way it used to be in ancient times. The yellow flame of natural fire sources — firewood or biomass briquettes — is healthier for cooking food, than the blue flame of liquefied petroleum gas,” explains Aparna Sarma, the quietly efficient patient coordinator who has worked with one of the Vaidyagrama founders for 22 years, even before the healing village came into existence.
The diet is simple, non-oily, non-spicy, following another Ayurvedic principle of eating locally and seasonally.
LEARNING EVERY DAYEvery day, I learnt a little more. About Ayurveda. About Vaidyagrama. And about myself.
I already knew about the three doshas, Kapha (unctuous, constructive), Pitta (fiery, transformative) and Vata (dry, windy, degenerative), but intimate daily afternoon sessions with different vaidyas with just a dozen or so patients like me taught me much beyond these basics.
Ayurveda treats healing as a journey. It doesn’t just treat the disease or merely its symptoms, but the body — holistically, at its deepest level, clearing blocked energy channels, detoxing the smallest of cells to allow the body to repair itself.
Unlike conventional Western medicine, Ayurveda doesn’t treat human bodies homogeneously, with standard medicines for standard diseases or symptoms. So, it won’t do, as has become the fashion, to pop capsules of ashwagandha to reduce stress and anxiety; brahmi for memory; and guggul for cholesterol management.
Ayurveda in its true form is a deeply complex science. Each patient’s condition is addressed differently. Body types are taken into account. Multiple variables come into play: time of day, season, age, stage of life, physical and mental state and dominant doshas of the rogi and his digestive fire.
Of utmost importance are the vaidya and his insightfulness in diagnosis. Medicines chosen are from among herbs, kashaayams, oils, diet, panchkarma or some mix used to balance the doshas.
Dr Ramkumar speaks about the difference between cure and healing. “Ayurveda is not about a temporary suppression of a problem. It is about healing, about the body-mind complex, creating a paradigm shift that allows the natural intelligence of the human body to act.”
Healing, according to Ayurveda, is internal, a continuous process that doesn’t stop when you leave Vaidyagrama. Treatment here just kickstarts the process by removing imbalances and rebalancing the doshas that are responsible for that ailment. But the patient has to continue the discipline of Vaidyagrama even after leaving.
Over the weeks, it becomes clear to me that the vaidyas see disease as a spiritual experience and fear as its biggest lock. This is why all panchkarma begins with preparing the body for treatment. Ayurveda believes that stress is the beginning and toxicity the next step in almost all diseases.
Thus, it recommends appropriate relaxation, cleansing and repair, using literally tens of thousands of herbs in various time-tested recipes and fine-tuned treatment techniques to achieve renewal of body and mind, before beginning actual treatment.
PATIENTS FROM ALL OVERI’d been a little anxious about time hanging heavy on my hands, but to my surprise, I settled quickly into the slower pace of this ashram-like life. Daily learning sessions with junior vaidyas and question-answer sessions disguised as satsangs with senior vaidyas kept me busy, educating me on many aspects of healthy living and eating.
A community meal: The diet is simple, non-oily, non-spicy
“We have these just so you all don’t fall asleep in the afternoons,” joked Dr Ramanandan. Ayurveda doesn’t encourage naps in the middle of the day because that increases the body’s vatadosha; a daily yoganidra session of guided relaxation was offered instead. “Rest is not sleep and sleep is not rest,” says Dr Ramanandan.
These satsang sessions were more than wholesome entertainment to keep us awake. They often transformed into intense conversations on science versus faith or debates on spiritual matters between patients and doctors. A diverse patient community made these interactions lively.
Karla from New York and I would take feverish notes, whereas Monique from New Mexico just listened intently and intensely, absorbing the knowledge like a sponge. This was her 10th year back and she has seen Vaidyagrama grow from one cluster to 12.
Ahalya from Whitefield in Bengaluru asked questions about sleep and trauma even as Carolina from Chile nodded in silent agreement with Arun and Pragitee from Chennai.
Aruvita, an Indian-born Canadian, giggled and whispered with her Indian-American cousin while Astha and Devesh from Mumbai, Jaipur and Dubai looked on indulgently.
Astha and Devesh are full of youth and vitality, fit and beautiful, but Astha suffers from vertigo and has benefitted enough from Vaidyagrama to come back a second time within a month to complete her treatment. She is a jewellery designer whose family is in the diamond business.
Devesh surprises me with the stillness with which he sits through morning and evening prayers, eyes closed in meditation, his athletic millennial body and tall frame unmoving. He works in his family’s gold business and moves in celebrity circles that are at complete variance with the simple, spiritual life we are all living here.
Cluster consisting of four rooms
Then there is Vijaya, an asthmatic Kashmiri who has lived in Chennai for 20 years and now lives in Coonoor, who says: “I am from everywhere and nowhere.” He is currently undergoing chemotherapy and “feels like a new man”.
“My BP has settled at a normal 130/80, my breathing is easy, and the hot flushes I was getting due to hormonal injections have not appeared even once,” he writes in his journal. Years ago, an off-roading accident in Botswana broke his neck, but not his enthusiasm for life. He is 80.
His neighbour, Raja, a music lover who comes from a family of musicians, is diabetic. Raja is a friendly charmer, in his seventies, easy to talk to, and by the time we bid him goodbye, I feel like I’ve known him for years. He says he is feeling lighter, better and his sugar levels are under control. He plans to return with his daughter, who lives in the US, in December. He is also making plans to visit Vijaya in Coonoor. Every patient I meet is accomplished in his or her own way.
Another patient who fascinates me is Subhash Chandra Bose, whose roots are in Tamil Nadu but who lives and works in Dubai. He suffers from a genetic muscular disorder, muscular dystrophy, and I can see the debilitating effects of this disease in his walk. He tells me he came here in a wheelchair. When he leaves, after planting the customary tree each patient does before leaving, I see him walk out. His wife, Surya, walks beside him with shy pride. I’ve seen her praying daily in the brahmakamalam. Their two-year-old boy is with his grandmother.
There is also Arun Mugilan, a Chennai businessman and scion of the Precision Engineering Group, a solemn-looking young man in his early thirties whose psoriasis was completely cured at Vaidyagrama in 2020 after he had tried everything.
“I was spending several thousand rupees per session of treatment, but nothing worked — until I came here,” he says. He was put on the traditional snehapanam treatment and had to drink increasing amounts of medicated ghee. This treatment scrapes out toxins from deep within the cells, the vaidyas tell us. Arun’s psoriasis responded immediately to the ghee treatment, clearing up in the first round.
“But I went back to my old ways,” he says wryly. “My stress levels were high and I noticed some skin reactions reappearing.”
Before things could get worse, he returned to Vaidyagrama and has benefitted again. His wife, Pragitee, loyally accompanied him both times and has taken treatment for her polycystic ovaries syndrome on this visit.
There are many other such stories but I am chary of positioning Vaidyagrama as a place for miracle cures. It is clearly much more than that.
For various reasons patients come from all over India and from all over the world. Some of them have been coming to Vaidyagrama for several years. They are doctors, scientists, designers, jewellers, software developers, teachers, Bollywood casting directors, self-professed hippies....
What I find amazing is how quickly completely diverse strangers from across the globe develop such strong social bonds — I wonder if it is being together in a non-competitive environment where the focus is on health, well-being and learning. Or perhaps it is what I felt the moment I entered this space — a certain stillness and deep restfulness.
It is positive, healing energy that I sense comes from chants and prayers that reverberate through the day. They provide the healing energy.
“Intensive treatments may affect the body and certain emotions may surface,” says Dr Ramadas. “Daily prayers conducted by the physicians themselves become very important as enhancing healing energies.”
Dr Ramadas takes the morning and evening prayers, going into an almost trancelike state during the 45 minutes of chanting Vedic shlokas.
LIVING AYURVEDA SCHOOL“Vaidyagrama is also a living Ayurveda school, where we guide healers of tomorrow,” another senior vaidya, Dr Harikrishnan, tells me. His Arogyadayam Vaidyasala in Kerala is one of the three pharmacies that prepare and supply Vaidyagrama their herbal medicines. I visited his Arogyadayam Ayurveda Hospital in Palakkad in 2011 and find him almost unchanged physically since I last met him.
True to his words, I see daily meetings of junior vaidyas as well as weekly meetings of therapists within the illams in this healing community. This is how authentic Ayurveda can be made contemporary without compromising on its core values. It feels totally possible to experience sarvebhavantusukhinah — may all be happy — here.
“We realized very early that we cannot create a true healing space here if the villages around us are unhealthy, the people unhappy,” says Dr Ramkumar. He is wearing his usual crisp white mundu and a coloured shirt, his face glowing with vitality and passion.
Tiffin in the roomHe reminds me a little of the modern-day seers, visionaries who have evolved to the next level. He exudes a certain strength and sense of purpose, a combination of drive and anchored stability, compassion and detachment that is unusual.
If he is the brain behind Vaidyagrama, Dr Ramadas is its soul and Dr Ramanandan and Dr Harikrishnan are its beating heart and pulsing nerves.
They have set up trusts to manage the multiple ideas they want to execute. Geetha Mohandas, an ex-banker who volunteers as a nominated trustee of the Punarnava Trust that runs Vaidyagrama, happens to be here because her daughter, who lives in the US, needs treatment. She is babysitting her granddaughter as she goes about her tasks and explains how healing the surrounding environment, along with the lives of the village folk, has become part of the integrated plan of the trust.
Apart from Lakshmigrama, they already have a residential Balagrama that educates and vocationally upskills selected children of single parents from local communities as well as a Nivrittigrama (senior citizen living). A Krishigrama (sustainable farmer community), Kalagrama (an artists’ village) and Bhashagrama (a linguistic community) are also planned to be integrated into this model.
Simple rooms with sparse furniture
The trust also plans to open a university close to Vaidyagrama, perhaps at the site of a living temple, that will concentrate on Indic knowledge systems, including Ayurveda and all other disciplines that have come down as oral traditions and through texts that are extant today.
These include astronomy, mathematics, itihasa, physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences. The possibilities are endless. But it all begins with healing.
Our body, the vaidyas tell us, is like the cosmos. A microcosm of that macrocosm. And when we heal it, we can begin to heal the universe.
I leave Vaidyagrama after 17 days, not cured but healing. I have a lightness of mind and spirit. The pain in my tailbone is still there, but I have a newfound capacity to bear my pain with dignity.
Jyoti Pande Lavakare is a Delhi-based journalist and author of Breathing Here is Injurious to Your Health, a grief memoir on the human cost of air pollution. She is the co-founder of Care For Air, a non-profit.
Jyoti Pande Lavakare Published: Apr. 29, 2022
Updated: Jul. 29, 2022
Link
GENTLE, smiling therapists help me off the hard and slippery wooden table, bathing me like a baby, with lukewarm water and powdered green gram, wiping me down with a rough, thin cotton towel.
Then, they apply rasnadichoornam on the crown of my head and wave it under my nose, to prevent me catching cold, also smearing chandan and kumkum on my forehead and throat.
After measuring my blood pressure, they send me back to my room, where a tiny, double-bottomed steel cup of warm green gram soup awaits me.
I am at Vaidyagrama, a healing village 40 km from Coimbatore in a dusty and remote corner of the foothills of the Nilgiris. It is a centre for traditional Ayurvedic therapies.
My journey here is more than just the flight and car rides from my comfortable home in south Delhi. It is really a leap of faith.
In my desperate search for healing and a reset through traditional medicine, I had surveyed and checked out many facilities. None seemed to be what I was looking for. They were either too slick or too dour. A retreat near Palakkad in 2011 had been good and yet not the real thing.
But after I found Vaidyagrama, I went rapidly, as though preordained, from Vaidyagrama’s homepage on the internet to turning up there to lay claim to the sparse room and frugal meals that awaited me.
Vaidyagrama was what I had been looking for. Instantly, there was a sense of belonging. Its remoteness enveloped me. An easy flow and uncontrived simplicity embraced me and I merged with it easily.
As part of the initiation for patients, one of the vaidyas, or traditional Ayurvedic physicians, spoke of the importance of surrendering to the Ayurvedic treatment that was to follow, of going along with the Universe.
To allow another grown human being to bathe you, as I have just described, is to truly hand yourself over. It is the kind of surrender from which inner beginnings are made.
My quest for such a place began with the personal turmoil that followed my mother’s passing from lung cancer which could be traced to air pollution and long years in Delhi. The loss of a parent brings unanticipated grief. Additionally, it made me angry that she had died from a disease merely because she breathed. It was hers and everyone’s right to breathe safely.
After her passing, I wrote a grief memoir referencing air pollution to put the issues surrounding it more firmly in the public domain. Prolonged sitting to get the book out quickly had resulted in tailbone pain. And then I got infected with the Delta variant of COVID-19 which left my body wracked.
The 17 days I spent at Vaidyagrama didn’t result in a miraculous cure. But they introduced me to Ayurveda in ways more wondrous than I could have thought possible.
I am city-bred and long accustomed to the hurly-burly of urbanized living. As I entered my small room in Vaidyagrama, with its limited furniture, no television and weak telecom signals, I confess I wondered how the days would pass.
Time did hang heavy to begin with, but as the daily rhythm took me along, I realized that the slowness of everything was therapeutic. It was at the heart of the treatment I had sought out, together, of course, with a lot more like the changes in diet, ingesting of ghee, oil massages and use of herbs.
At Vaidyagrama, patients are gently discouraged from doing anything vigorously — walking and yoga included. The treatment lies in finding inner balance and discovering the boundaries of your being. Silence and slowness are needed for this. It is an internal process.
FOUR FRIENDS AND A DREAMThe more I learnt about Ayurveda, the more I found I learnt about Vaidyagrama, so intricately were the two linked.
Vaidyagrama was created in 2008 by four third-generation vaidyas who had studied around the same time at the Coimbatore Ayurvedic College in the foothills of the Nilgiri mountains.
Although they didn’t know it then, their experience of learning the science of Ayurveda in the lap of nature in the gurukul-like environment of their college in the late 1980s was going to lead to the creation of Vaidyagrama 20 years later.
Dr Ramkumar“We used to have elephants walking up to our windows. Often, we bathed under clear, cold waterfalls — something we didn’t much like back then. But college, being so close to nature, left a deep impact on us. We also found our life there prepared us well in body and mind. It made us as strong as steel. It reinforced in us how Ayurveda should work for people,” says Dr Ramkumar Kutty, one of the founders.
But over the years, Ayurveda hospitals were becoming fancier in order to match conventional hospitals and raise the comfort levels of patients. They were providing air conditioning, television and internet connections in rooms.
“This was not how it was meant to be,” says Dr Ramkumar, recalling the growing dismay among Ayurvedic physicians who had begun to feel that the drift in values would undermine the nuanced scientific foundations of the system they had been trained in.
Dr RamadasIt was around then Dr A.R. Ramadas, Dr E.K. Ramanandan and Dr K.K. Harikrishnan, his college mates from the late 1980s who were all working in their traditional family practices at that time, came together with him to create Vaidyagrama.
“The land here was barren. There was hardly any water, so farmers were happy to sell to us. The first thing we did was to set up six wells to recharge the groundwater,” recalls Dr Ramadas.
Thanks to that water harvesting, today, almost 14 years later, despite the growing community, Vaidyagrama is water self-sufficient with five borewells and no piped municipal water.
At first, the four vaidyas and their supporters had no resources — just their ideas and their idealism — but they pushed ahead, designing their community as a natural healing environment.
Dr E.K.RamanandanThey minimized the use of chemicals, chose natural materials for construction and adopted renewable approaches to energy. There was a strong focus on circularity, especially in waste management.
I didn’t see any waste lying around. The steel dustbin in my own tiny room remained empty because there was nothing to throw! I learnt that even the oils used in the massages are poured off to make candles and soaps. Bright yellow and parrot green painted terracotta pots visually encouraged garbage segregation and composting is integral to Vaidyagrama.
“We wash all clothes only with pounded soapnuts in our washing machines to avoid chemicals from detergents or soaps,” Sandhya Mol K. told me as she took patients on an orientation tour. She pointed to the lines of thin cotton towels, sheets and laundry belonging to patients drying in the sun.
Dr K.K.HarikrishnanRooms are cleaned every morning by gentle, uniformed women employed from local villages using lemongrass oil, which leaves the rooms smelling citrusy and fresh. The equivalent of the turn-down service leaves the mosquito net tucked into the hard mattress. Guggul and dhoopam are used to purify the air and are also quite effective in driving away mosquitoes.
Three tiffins, two tiny cups of herbal tea (once with fruit) and one cup of green moong soup/congee appear magically each day like clockwork for everyone. It is the choornamsand kashayams, made fresh in the illam pantries to maintain potency, that are customized for each patient.
All cooking is done in a Vaastu-compliant annalayam or kitchen in the southeast of the premises. Fruits, grains, vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants are locally sourced and seasonal. Vaidyagrama is trying to grow its own food but is not there yet.
Food is medicine and all cooking is done on a yellow flame like in ancient times
“We cook only on a yellow flame, the way it used to be in ancient times. The yellow flame of natural fire sources — firewood or biomass briquettes — is healthier for cooking food, than the blue flame of liquefied petroleum gas,” explains Aparna Sarma, the quietly efficient patient coordinator who has worked with one of the Vaidyagrama founders for 22 years, even before the healing village came into existence.
The diet is simple, non-oily, non-spicy, following another Ayurvedic principle of eating locally and seasonally.
LEARNING EVERY DAYEvery day, I learnt a little more. About Ayurveda. About Vaidyagrama. And about myself.
I already knew about the three doshas, Kapha (unctuous, constructive), Pitta (fiery, transformative) and Vata (dry, windy, degenerative), but intimate daily afternoon sessions with different vaidyas with just a dozen or so patients like me taught me much beyond these basics.
Ayurveda treats healing as a journey. It doesn’t just treat the disease or merely its symptoms, but the body — holistically, at its deepest level, clearing blocked energy channels, detoxing the smallest of cells to allow the body to repair itself.
Unlike conventional Western medicine, Ayurveda doesn’t treat human bodies homogeneously, with standard medicines for standard diseases or symptoms. So, it won’t do, as has become the fashion, to pop capsules of ashwagandha to reduce stress and anxiety; brahmi for memory; and guggul for cholesterol management.
Ayurveda in its true form is a deeply complex science. Each patient’s condition is addressed differently. Body types are taken into account. Multiple variables come into play: time of day, season, age, stage of life, physical and mental state and dominant doshas of the rogi and his digestive fire.
Of utmost importance are the vaidya and his insightfulness in diagnosis. Medicines chosen are from among herbs, kashaayams, oils, diet, panchkarma or some mix used to balance the doshas.
Dr Ramkumar speaks about the difference between cure and healing. “Ayurveda is not about a temporary suppression of a problem. It is about healing, about the body-mind complex, creating a paradigm shift that allows the natural intelligence of the human body to act.”
Healing, according to Ayurveda, is internal, a continuous process that doesn’t stop when you leave Vaidyagrama. Treatment here just kickstarts the process by removing imbalances and rebalancing the doshas that are responsible for that ailment. But the patient has to continue the discipline of Vaidyagrama even after leaving.
Over the weeks, it becomes clear to me that the vaidyas see disease as a spiritual experience and fear as its biggest lock. This is why all panchkarma begins with preparing the body for treatment. Ayurveda believes that stress is the beginning and toxicity the next step in almost all diseases.
Thus, it recommends appropriate relaxation, cleansing and repair, using literally tens of thousands of herbs in various time-tested recipes and fine-tuned treatment techniques to achieve renewal of body and mind, before beginning actual treatment.
PATIENTS FROM ALL OVERI’d been a little anxious about time hanging heavy on my hands, but to my surprise, I settled quickly into the slower pace of this ashram-like life. Daily learning sessions with junior vaidyas and question-answer sessions disguised as satsangs with senior vaidyas kept me busy, educating me on many aspects of healthy living and eating.
A community meal: The diet is simple, non-oily, non-spicy
“We have these just so you all don’t fall asleep in the afternoons,” joked Dr Ramanandan. Ayurveda doesn’t encourage naps in the middle of the day because that increases the body’s vatadosha; a daily yoganidra session of guided relaxation was offered instead. “Rest is not sleep and sleep is not rest,” says Dr Ramanandan.
These satsang sessions were more than wholesome entertainment to keep us awake. They often transformed into intense conversations on science versus faith or debates on spiritual matters between patients and doctors. A diverse patient community made these interactions lively.
Karla from New York and I would take feverish notes, whereas Monique from New Mexico just listened intently and intensely, absorbing the knowledge like a sponge. This was her 10th year back and she has seen Vaidyagrama grow from one cluster to 12.
Ahalya from Whitefield in Bengaluru asked questions about sleep and trauma even as Carolina from Chile nodded in silent agreement with Arun and Pragitee from Chennai.
Aruvita, an Indian-born Canadian, giggled and whispered with her Indian-American cousin while Astha and Devesh from Mumbai, Jaipur and Dubai looked on indulgently.
Astha and Devesh are full of youth and vitality, fit and beautiful, but Astha suffers from vertigo and has benefitted enough from Vaidyagrama to come back a second time within a month to complete her treatment. She is a jewellery designer whose family is in the diamond business.
Devesh surprises me with the stillness with which he sits through morning and evening prayers, eyes closed in meditation, his athletic millennial body and tall frame unmoving. He works in his family’s gold business and moves in celebrity circles that are at complete variance with the simple, spiritual life we are all living here.
Cluster consisting of four rooms
Then there is Vijaya, an asthmatic Kashmiri who has lived in Chennai for 20 years and now lives in Coonoor, who says: “I am from everywhere and nowhere.” He is currently undergoing chemotherapy and “feels like a new man”.
“My BP has settled at a normal 130/80, my breathing is easy, and the hot flushes I was getting due to hormonal injections have not appeared even once,” he writes in his journal. Years ago, an off-roading accident in Botswana broke his neck, but not his enthusiasm for life. He is 80.
His neighbour, Raja, a music lover who comes from a family of musicians, is diabetic. Raja is a friendly charmer, in his seventies, easy to talk to, and by the time we bid him goodbye, I feel like I’ve known him for years. He says he is feeling lighter, better and his sugar levels are under control. He plans to return with his daughter, who lives in the US, in December. He is also making plans to visit Vijaya in Coonoor. Every patient I meet is accomplished in his or her own way.
Another patient who fascinates me is Subhash Chandra Bose, whose roots are in Tamil Nadu but who lives and works in Dubai. He suffers from a genetic muscular disorder, muscular dystrophy, and I can see the debilitating effects of this disease in his walk. He tells me he came here in a wheelchair. When he leaves, after planting the customary tree each patient does before leaving, I see him walk out. His wife, Surya, walks beside him with shy pride. I’ve seen her praying daily in the brahmakamalam. Their two-year-old boy is with his grandmother.
There is also Arun Mugilan, a Chennai businessman and scion of the Precision Engineering Group, a solemn-looking young man in his early thirties whose psoriasis was completely cured at Vaidyagrama in 2020 after he had tried everything.
“I was spending several thousand rupees per session of treatment, but nothing worked — until I came here,” he says. He was put on the traditional snehapanam treatment and had to drink increasing amounts of medicated ghee. This treatment scrapes out toxins from deep within the cells, the vaidyas tell us. Arun’s psoriasis responded immediately to the ghee treatment, clearing up in the first round.
“But I went back to my old ways,” he says wryly. “My stress levels were high and I noticed some skin reactions reappearing.”
Before things could get worse, he returned to Vaidyagrama and has benefitted again. His wife, Pragitee, loyally accompanied him both times and has taken treatment for her polycystic ovaries syndrome on this visit.
There are many other such stories but I am chary of positioning Vaidyagrama as a place for miracle cures. It is clearly much more than that.
For various reasons patients come from all over India and from all over the world. Some of them have been coming to Vaidyagrama for several years. They are doctors, scientists, designers, jewellers, software developers, teachers, Bollywood casting directors, self-professed hippies....
What I find amazing is how quickly completely diverse strangers from across the globe develop such strong social bonds — I wonder if it is being together in a non-competitive environment where the focus is on health, well-being and learning. Or perhaps it is what I felt the moment I entered this space — a certain stillness and deep restfulness.
It is positive, healing energy that I sense comes from chants and prayers that reverberate through the day. They provide the healing energy.
“Intensive treatments may affect the body and certain emotions may surface,” says Dr Ramadas. “Daily prayers conducted by the physicians themselves become very important as enhancing healing energies.”
Dr Ramadas takes the morning and evening prayers, going into an almost trancelike state during the 45 minutes of chanting Vedic shlokas.
LIVING AYURVEDA SCHOOL“Vaidyagrama is also a living Ayurveda school, where we guide healers of tomorrow,” another senior vaidya, Dr Harikrishnan, tells me. His Arogyadayam Vaidyasala in Kerala is one of the three pharmacies that prepare and supply Vaidyagrama their herbal medicines. I visited his Arogyadayam Ayurveda Hospital in Palakkad in 2011 and find him almost unchanged physically since I last met him.
True to his words, I see daily meetings of junior vaidyas as well as weekly meetings of therapists within the illams in this healing community. This is how authentic Ayurveda can be made contemporary without compromising on its core values. It feels totally possible to experience sarvebhavantusukhinah — may all be happy — here.
“We realized very early that we cannot create a true healing space here if the villages around us are unhealthy, the people unhappy,” says Dr Ramkumar. He is wearing his usual crisp white mundu and a coloured shirt, his face glowing with vitality and passion.
Tiffin in the roomHe reminds me a little of the modern-day seers, visionaries who have evolved to the next level. He exudes a certain strength and sense of purpose, a combination of drive and anchored stability, compassion and detachment that is unusual.
If he is the brain behind Vaidyagrama, Dr Ramadas is its soul and Dr Ramanandan and Dr Harikrishnan are its beating heart and pulsing nerves.
They have set up trusts to manage the multiple ideas they want to execute. Geetha Mohandas, an ex-banker who volunteers as a nominated trustee of the Punarnava Trust that runs Vaidyagrama, happens to be here because her daughter, who lives in the US, needs treatment. She is babysitting her granddaughter as she goes about her tasks and explains how healing the surrounding environment, along with the lives of the village folk, has become part of the integrated plan of the trust.
Apart from Lakshmigrama, they already have a residential Balagrama that educates and vocationally upskills selected children of single parents from local communities as well as a Nivrittigrama (senior citizen living). A Krishigrama (sustainable farmer community), Kalagrama (an artists’ village) and Bhashagrama (a linguistic community) are also planned to be integrated into this model.
Simple rooms with sparse furniture
The trust also plans to open a university close to Vaidyagrama, perhaps at the site of a living temple, that will concentrate on Indic knowledge systems, including Ayurveda and all other disciplines that have come down as oral traditions and through texts that are extant today.
These include astronomy, mathematics, itihasa, physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences. The possibilities are endless. But it all begins with healing.
Our body, the vaidyas tell us, is like the cosmos. A microcosm of that macrocosm. And when we heal it, we can begin to heal the universe.
I leave Vaidyagrama after 17 days, not cured but healing. I have a lightness of mind and spirit. The pain in my tailbone is still there, but I have a newfound capacity to bear my pain with dignity.
Jyoti Pande Lavakare is a Delhi-based journalist and author of Breathing Here is Injurious to Your Health, a grief memoir on the human cost of air pollution. She is the co-founder of Care For Air, a non-profit.
Coming soon
