Ambrosia Intoxication

The fingers still drowsily looking at the keyboard and unwilling to come out of the intoxication of ambrosia, each cell in the body attaining the moksha (liberation) after being served the "Nectar of Immorality" by the Lord of Ancient Medicine, Dhanvantari, himself walking into the soulful city of Vancouver.

The ancient Hindu scriptures say that, once upon a time when the Good was getting crushed in the arms of the evil, there was an attempt by the Supreme Energy to make ‘Good’, Immortal, in the strands of universe, to be passed down the lineage of humanity. In that attempt, the ocean of cosmic milk was churned to bring out the divine nectar, after crossing many a hurdles. Finally, Dhanvantari, the Lord of Immortal Science of Life, ‘Ayurveda’, evolves from the ocean carrying a pot of Nectar, serving the gods and demi-gods, all the eternal good that had been stored in the heavens from ageing universe, to reinstall the values and morals of human life, and made them all immortal, so that, there is always Light that guides the human mind, that has a darker side and keep the flame of Soul alive. Once the soul goes back to its source, it becomes another star of the cosmic mat, providing light and acumen to many more galaxies of the universe.

The History repeated itself in the spiritual city, Vancouver, the melting pot of cultures of the world, when the rest of the world is suffocating in the web of wars and violence, and discrimination of races, and genocides. Supreme Energy had realized again that the time has come to send the God of Life, back to the humanity, this time not just with the jug of nectar, but allowing him to stay on the planet for the time infinite, with a mission of living 'Ayurveda', the Harmonic Science of Living, Lord Dhanvantari walked on Earth again, in form of Dr.Vasant Lad, in the midst of souls yearning for enlightenment, and churned the ocean of wisdom to pour the "Knowledge of Life".

The season of Spring' also called the 'Basant or Vasant', in India, bringing the winds of change, life emerging from the eternal soil, sprouting the seeds of dormancy with warmth of the Sun peeping out of the clouds, the cherry blossoms of the Pacific northwest, that have taken the showers of snow and storms of winters, with the bare bodies of dry branches, impatient to wait for the tenderness in the form of leaves of knowledge to form, letting the petals of freedom, colors of vibrant energy, fragrance of flowers blooming, and joining the procreation parade are the pregnant bulbs of Tulips, waiting for an opportunity to deliver the new life, displaying the bulbs of VIBGYOR with enlightenment.
In the holy scripture, The Bhagavad-Gita, Lord Krishna says ‘Among all the seasons, the invigorating Vasant season (spring) is My manifestation’. In the effervescence of the same light and elation, the dawn of "soulful spring",
Dr. Vasant Lad, an icon of new life, bringing freshness, inspiration and hope to the meditating souls of the ocean city.

Dr.Lad, the incarnation of the Mahatma, Gandhi himself, with the gait and walk that inspired the millions of Indians, wearing the spectacles of delicate glasses for more clarity in vision of universal brotherhood, that hold them with the frame of iron and steel will, providing the strength to hold the cranium, clear of the weeds of dark or grey hair, making way for the spiritual energy entering into the Crown chakra, "The Sahasra", the thousand petal lotus temple of Divine form, enclosing the enlightened mind, to set an example for the humanity, with the importance of living in harmony with nature, in the language of silence and self reflection.

Tall, slender, divine, beautiful inside and out, glorifying the importance of Ahimsa, Non-violence, peace and self realization as the fundamental principles that have been weaved into the ancient script, "Ayurveda", carrying the multitudes of Vedic philosophy, breathing in and out as "SOHAM", and spreading the scent of divine creation, eliminating the darkness surrounding the minds and the notion that there is God inside everyone, but reemphasizing everyone that "You are God, Don’t search for Him inside" and pointing us to see everything and everyone as GOD himself and composing a divine dance in the compassionate singing, words and recitation of poems and slokas from the saints and sages that have walked the Indian Sub continent for centuries, going as back as 5000 BC.

Ayurveda is a philosophy and science that is very easily put to practice, adaptable into any common household, nicely packaged to care for the elements of Life: Body, Mind and Soul. It is not just the medical science as many might be wrongly positioning, but is a multidimensional model, that encompasses all sides of human well being and defines “Perfect Health” as something that is naturally Inherent to Life that is Self-sufficient, Self-Happy, and Self-fulfilled, also called "Svastha", in Sanskrit. This definition of a Perfect Health is also the only one in the world that is complete in every form and is recognized by World Health Organization (WHO).

Dr. Lad begins the time travel by laying the foundation on which the human life is built, the Soul or the Spirit, that transcends beyond this material world, but covered by the layers of Prana (sensations), Manas (Feelings), Budhi(Intellect), Smrithi (Memory), Chitha (Images), Ahamkara (Ego). So, our journey at every moment consists of, perception of the objects and situations with sensations, converting them to feelings, creating our Intellect and storing them in Memory in form of the Images, that over a period of time accumulate into "Ego" which becomes the cloud covering our Inner Soul. This is what ancient Hindu wisdom calls Web of 'Maya' that creates an illusion and blinds the real perception of truth. The true nature of inner soul is "Sat Chith Ananda", Pure Bliss. He explains how we are made up of trillions of cells, and every single cell is in a state of awareness, and has its own mind, thinking and intelligence. These cells in our body are constantly communicating with each other in form of Prana. This flow of prana is what we call "LIFE".

He also very subtly delves into the concept of Ego and convinces that Ego is an essential element of this creation because of which the Universe sustains and that even a cell has an Ego of its own, that helps it to propagate and exist. He explains how "I" is very important and essential feeling, that helps humanity in the self and spiritual realization. Every thing in this world has "I" within.

But he also with a beautiful analogy ( trying to erase the lines of the marker pen ink from the white board, that sticks to his finger and does not want to leave his finger tip), explains how our own "I" which is pure and simple Ego, can become very sticky and cause attachment to the surroundings and objects. He provides a solution to carefully tread the path of our own existence, using the total awareness in our cells, and cosmic intelligence that creation had bestowed on us, as tools to cross the hurdles of Desires, Anger, Miser ness, Attachment, Pride, and Jealousy.
He ultimately requests us to experience the truth "I am Pure bliss, awareness and existence", not the feelings, sensations, thoughts and actions.



Also he brings to every one's attention to a very beautiful fact, with a great sense of humor that "Our birth is our choice and that we choose our parents and enter into the divine womb of a mother that we feel comfortable with" and we are all what our thoughts are and that we transform them into actions, and these actions carry our souls in the boat of life crossing us the worldly matters to join the source after the journey.

Dr. Lad then dives into the science of Ayurveda and details the different character traits of life, that evolve from the Ego, The three ‘Gunas’ as mentioned in Vedic literature, 'Satwa' associated with Clarity, 'Rajas' with Movement and 'Tamas' with Inertia. These form the basis of our personality at Mental/Emotional levels and physical constitution at physiological level.
Everything in this universe is made up of five elements: Fire, Air, Ether, Water and Earth. At a cellular level, he gives an example of how a simple cell is made up of five elements, the cell membrane formed from Earth element, spaces inside the cell representing Ether element, Air pockets of cell the Air element, Nucleic acids forming the Fire element and finally the cytoplasm of cell made with Water.
From this evolves the backbone of the Ayurveda, the three properties of the forces that these 5 elements create within a human body. Vatha - Energy of movement, Pitha - Energy of Digestion and Kapha - Energy of Lubrication. He explains how life is made up of these and each individual is predominantly characterized by one of these dominant than the rest.
The imbalance or disease caused in the body is because of the change in any of these energies caused by many factors from Diet, seasonal changes, Environment, Jobs, Goals, Relationships, Ageing, Nature of mind and emotional changes.

But he also clarifies that Body and Mind can be kept in the state of balance by four goals as defined in Vedic system, Dharma - Righteous Duty, Artha - Wealth, Kama -Fulfillment of desire and finally the Moksha - Enlightenment or Self Realization.
Dr. Vasant with his divine and melodious voice sings the glory of God from the famous Bhaja Govindam of Adi Sankaracharya, " punarapi jananam punarapi maranampunarapi jananii jathare shayanam" meaning that "we all take so many births and deaths and our actions (Karmic deeds) create our destiny and it is very hard to liberate from this ocean of samsara or family". Even though we all set our goals to something materialistic, our ultimate vision should always be to attain Liberation and that is possible only through understanding our selves, following certain righteous ways of life, in harmony with nature and aligning our body, mind and soul to the dynamics of energies defined in Ayurveda.
He warns that our faulty life styles, creates leakages in our own bodies and minds, the impurities (doshas) start accumulating in our life bucket and carry the deposits to the next birth manifesting them in form of psychosomatic disorders.
Whatever is manifesting in this birth is simply a reflection of the accumulation of actions from the previous life. Disease is caused by our own ignorance most of the times. So he says, that Ayurveda plays a major role in not just treating a disease, but defining and setting standards for body and mind to transcend the faulty life styles and walk towards the Pure bliss and Joy.



He creates a beautiful bridge between the science, philosophy and religion, by declaring that "Science is an Experimentation of Truth", and "Philosophy is the Love of Truth" and finally "Spirituality or Religion is Experiencing of the Love". Ayurveda is a communion of Science, Philosophy and Religion.
He also regrets that, the moment Religion/Spirituality falls into the hands of fanatics, the experience of love is crushed and exploitation of human mind begins in the name of God.

The turmoil that exists in humanity is the outcome of the Brains' perception of the information and its responses. To streamline the response in an appropriate way, Dr.Lad suggests that we all should learn to "Watch the Watcher". He says the moment we become the watcher, we start witnessing everything and we just become the witness to our own existence. The witnessing is, Silence and this gives birth to "Unconditional Love" which is the only solution for ending human turmoil and pain. In the process of watching the watcher, one experiences Compassion and Love, because at this point we enter the Heart. Then he suggests that we move down slowly to the Belly button. It is the center of connection to our source of life, the Mother, from which we are created. This point is our existence through which we breathe life. He simplifies that, Life is a Journey from Brain to Heart to Belly Button which is our ultimate beginning and end.

Dr.Vasant Lad also digs into the details of the treatment management, also called "Chikitsa" which encompasses different subtle approaches in diagnosing, managing and treating any kind of dysfunction in body or mind. In this regard, he explains how powerful Ayurvedic system is, in reading thousands of different pulses (72,000) in diagnosing any malfunction. He also enlightens the participants about an experience he had in a conference, where, a scientist from NASA had challenged the pulse diagnosis and Dr.Vasant was asked to check the pulse and explain any problems that exist.
Dr.Vasant had to begin his meditative diagnoses and found that the man was having Prostate cancer. He also read other vitals like body temperature, blood sugar and cholesterol. The scientist was shocked to see the truth.
Dr.Lad uses this personal experience among many more, to very humbly confess, that he is not here to take pride in his diagnosis, but to share the magic of the creation and Ayurveda’s insight into it and what it has to offer the humanity.
He also had an opportunity to take a number of cases from the audience and instantly provide them with diagnosis, treatment and management of life style for them.

He very rightly chose half a day to explain the importance of Pranayama, The regulation and control of Life force i.e. Prana. Prana forms a basic element of our existence and we ignore that completely in our day to day life. He explains that regulating the breath can not only cure all kind of chronic and malignant problems, but also form a foundation of our life to be complete, fulfilling and beautiful. The auditorium reverberated with joy and happiness as all the 100 or more participants joined the Breathing Divinity, and the sounds of "SoHam", mellowing cosmic music, 'Om', revealing the God. He teaches the Mantra or secret of simple, joyous life, the song of 'Soham', the sound of inhalation and exhalation.
"SO" representing God and "HAM" the Ego. Every breath takes the God inside and throws Ego out. He made aware of the most important part of human existence, The Breath.

His divine words of wisdom transforming into a soulful music many a times, accompanied by accomplished musician Sunita Bapooji, another woman of divine unconditional love, who is an exponent in Indian classical music, and heals and cleans the impurities of humanity with her Yogic and ancient ways of living, loving and Caring. At many a times the auditorium would vibrate with contrasts of silence and music both originating from the twin souls of Vasant and Sunita.



The program would not have been possible without coordination, commitment and love of some elite in Vancouver like Jayashree, Neelam, Oma, Gayathri, including every single soul in the spiritual congregation.

The moment finally arrived in the form of, he taking a breath away, but leaving the Silence of Joy, and Souls filled with tranquility and ecstasy. His movement, like a breeze in the spring, carrying the fragrance of perfumed soul, and dropping a few tender petals of heart for the humanity to softly walk on them and feel the beauty of divine creation.



It took a spring like Vasant, to remind that the Ayurveda, science of self healing, is Us, the nectar of life flowing within, in form of Prana and it just takes a breath to find the treasure.

A weird analogy

Those were the days when we used to sit on the terrace of our house, under the cold night sky with stars and the moon. It was the same pattern for every night, the night falls in, stars come out and then the Mother used to come to the roof with us to tell stories of great warriors, great saints, freedom fighters, and the epics of Mahabharata and Ramayana (Epics from Indian Sub-continent). Those stories were the anesthetics to put is to sleep every night, dozing into dreams thinking that one day we would be the warriors of the new millennium.

Later after a few years all the Film and TV industry was flooded by these epics in to movies and Television programs that explain Indian culture's strong roots in their history, epics and belief in Gods, Demo-Gods, etc. at least during child hood. Later we start reading Biology, Physics and Chemistry and come to conclusions that these epics and stories about great heroes, saints and Gods who have these great powers are just some stories written by writers and do not have any scientific explanation nor logic. Then we move slowly into the age of radical and rational attitude, where we ask questions about existence of God, start contradicting customs, traditions and sometimes call them Superstitions and make fun of our Grand parents and parents for their ignorance and blind beliefs. Exactly at this turning point of life, I felt the same way as many of us have probably felt, started to think about the validity of these epics and stories that Mom told us. It was after this blood boiling and scientific proof stage of life where contemplation starts playing a role. It is exactly then, I felt like doing some analysis and try to correlate Epics with Science.

As a kid it always amazed me, The class of Zoology, where we read about animals, their development and how a single cell organism like Amoeba has evolved into a class of multi-cellular organisms called Mammals that includes us, the Homo sapiens. We are definitely not going to the learn the development of a human form in this article, but for sure try to bring a little bit of epics from Indian sub continent and try to see its significance in explaining the facts of science. These epics have their roots even before the development of the class of science called Zoology, for that matter even before the existence of Binomial Nomenclature, the way of naming animals and plants by classifying these living organisms into different families, classes, genera and species.

As a kid I was taught an epic that most of the people with Indian origin listened to for as long as Indian Civilization existed and will continue to exist as long as the human race is non perishable. The epic has some strong roots in Hindu way of life. Definitely the intentions are not to talk about a certain religion or promote the significance of a religion, but to see how science and faith blend well together when it comes to the presentation of facts of/about nature and development. The epic starts explaining that the Supreme power, whatever you want to call, let’s say God, came in to existence millions and millions of years back and then there were all these problems faced by the mother Earth, that God decided to come down in many different forms once like Ram, Krishna etc. to save the humanity.

The epics say that God decided to come down to the face of the humanity, to save the Mother Earth from evil at 10 different periods of time in 10 different forms. I will definitely not go in to the details of these Gods/Forms that saved the earth but will sure give an introductory note about a few which are going to play an important role in the analogy further down. The first and foremost form that came in to existence was that God came in the form of a Fish(Matsya) and save the humanity from some devil/evil. Then the second form of God is the form of Tortoise (Koorma) and protected the whole world. Later the third form that came in to existence is that of a half human (Nara in Indian language) and half Lion (Simha, in Indian language). The next form (fourth) is the form of a very small man (Lilliputian - Vamana) and that is the form of a complete man who could talk, walk and do lots of little things as today’s human. The fifth form was that of a complete Man called Rama who is considered very important form of God/role model in the Indian Sub continent, and then later there are a few more forms that came into like Parasurama, Krishna, etc.,

Now let us jump in to the world of Zoology and see the science behind the development of the most complicated organism on the earth, The Human. The first interesting classification is based on the presence or absence of a spinal cord, Vertebrata and Non- vertebrata. Under Non vertebrata we have all the forms of water based organisms without back bone like amoeba, lots of disease causing organisms called parasites, starfish, earthworm, cockroaches etc., The other important sub classification is the Vertebrata, the ones with spinal cord and the one’s that have brain, well developed and smart enough to do some tricks and amuse others. This class Vertebrata is divided into 5 classes and the first one includes Fish(Pisces), the second include Frogs(Amphibians), the third includes Snakes and Tortoises(Reptiles), the fourth includes Birds(Aves) and the last one includes us The Humans( Mammals). If we compare this one with the epic we just talked and read about, doesn't something common strike to our minds? Can’t we compare the family of Fishes to the first form of God who came like a fish (matsya avatara)and rescued the world, the second form of God who came like a Tortoise(koorma avatara) that could be compared to the Family of Snakes and Tortoises and the transition of organism’s living place from water to the land, the third form of God who is a mixture of Human and Lion (narasimha avatar) and then the slow transition of this mixed form to the small human Lilliputian(vamana avatara) form and then to the completely developed form of Human (Rama avatara, Krishna avatara)who is mature and smart to study, grow, marry and lead a life like us.

So, the conclusion, I do not really know, whether to give the credit for the Indian Epic or the science of Charles Darwin. Does Epic come first or the science? Did Science come into existence first or the Epic. Well, let’s put it this way, The Science and the Epic coexisted all the time and were created by none other than we the master-minds, the invincible Humans.

As the ages pass we try to find different ways of reasoning out things around us. From the Stone Age till today, there have been theories about birth of the first form of life, Life started in Water and then came to Land, formation of universe, existence of other galaxies, presence of life in other planets, and questions about existence of God. As the ages advance we hear new theories about these and for that age that particular theory seems to be appropriate and people go with that theory or belief. Meanwhile a scientific explanation comes out that contradicts the old theory and that takes a while to form a good foundation for us to believe in it and we keep moving forward as a Humanity. It is for the convenience of the complicated human mind we develop these theories, to satisfy our thirst for finding answers to this mystical cosmos.

The truth is the same "It all came from some where and we do not know from where". The only thing we could do is "To Contemplate" or "Meditate" to find the truth.

Event analysis

In life we have many events happening and passing by. The first even of course starts with us forming an embryo in the mother's womb. The first 9 months of the life, is completely revolving around Mommy's activities and the baby is fed automatically by the system. Mother has no control over it. She is just physically eating food and automatically by some divine energy that food and energy is being transmitted into the baby. The baby is born and after that many events happen too. Parents raise the baby to become an adult. As far as my memory goes, I did not have any control over the events till certain phase of life, I would rather say till my adult hormones started flowing in my system. So until then life went on irrespective of I knew to control it or not. The events keep happening around us, even after that. But now, the EGO created by these hormones, forms a layer of cloud called "I did it, this is mine, That is mine". From this point on till the hormones fade off again and till the clouds of maya is gone, is the stage of samsara, where we are struggling and fighting for everything, in the name of "I". We totally forget the fundamental fact that events around us happen irrespective of the intervention from human side. The Judgment attitude prevails and people are pointing fingers at everyone and fighting in the name of right and wrong.

How can something change from not being under our control for a few years, to something under our control after few years? Isn’t it foolish to claim the responsibility for success and failure in the life’s events. Isn’t that Krishna says in the famous Indian Spiritual text “Bhagavadgita” – Do not claim sense of ownership towards anything in life.

But we suddenly start falling into Maya and keep judging situations, events and facts. Reasoning takes us all only a little far. A true Yogi is one who watches everything coming and going, but is still in every moment.

In an interesting perspective, the parents also need to learn a lot from this simple logic, the baby that had formed by the miraculous divine grace and grown into a 9 month old precious life, becomes an object of ownership to the extent that their control on the kids is seen at every level. They forget the simple fact that baby was very well taken by the same divine source for such a long time and shall be taken care even further, with or without interference from the parents. I just took parenting as an example here, but it applies to every single event occurring in this universe. We claim the responsibility and happy when successful and sad when fails. The one who stands all, is the perfect YOGI.