that glutton is still in suk wah

before hwubby going away for a week, i pack him up good, i mean, pack up a box of provisions and another of medicine. he's determined to keep doing what we have learned from vaidyagrama and, believe you me, we have been working hard since coming home to implement whatever we can.

well, sure, cut me some slack if you will. there are still some practices i have not put in place yet. like what? like applying warm oil all over and keep it for thirty minutes as early morning practice. really. this is not india and it's winter. what with all the food practices i have to get up at three and do things naked in the kitchen. sorry, call me weakling, whatever.

anyway this is not about me. back to hwubby. bless his heart. keep in mind he is staying with a friend. so, being considerate and sensitive as he is, he makes sure he gets everything done before the friend gets up. it means applying oil, making food including rolling chapati and preparing medicine. granted he says, my chapati is like rubber, you have to give me a chapati lesson. but he cooks mung bean, germ of wheat, quinoa.

then i see there're half of the medicine left. he says, yeah, breakfast i do great but then i just can't keep up with it in the evening. it's hard. either he's out there or he gets in late. since the meds are all liquid we need to get some tiny containers that don't leak so he can take them with him. anyhow he says, i just realize how much work it takes for you to keep both of us going day to day.

what is the hardest thing in keeping a satvic diet? hwubby says, not the diet itself, the hardest is what's going on around us, while in vaidyagram it's the mind that is rambling, but now back in the world triggers and temptations are in your face all the time. true. and it doesn't help he has a history of espresso, lox and bagel, pastries, salad, pastrami. on one hand his palate is fundamentally transformed. he basically doesn't want to have what's offered out there. on another hand, these are entrenched tendencies. there are residual conditioning and they can get at you hard, like the aroma of a fresh croissant and well-made latte.

hey, i am no saint either. i am fortunate. for the most part, i don't have to go to these events and functions. i barely go out at all. still i have weak spots all over the place. for instance, fresh chapati with almond butter and sprinkled sugar. i can hear the stomach say, hmmm, too heavy. but can i cut it out for good? i don't know. i look at that nice, fresh dough and i forget. what can i say. i am really happy with a bowl of congee, with milk or ghee, and veg. it's beautiful. it's deliiish. but...there's still that glutton in suk wah. i see that dough, almond butter and sugar and the mind is insanely overcome with the thought, i have to have it. hwubby is right. get that suk wah in a chinese restaurant she will go nuts. i know. i was talking to a chinese meditator. what were we talking about? comparing notes on traditional shanghainese food. perfectly stewed fiver flower belly. fried and braised eel. spicy beef.

hwubby asks dr harikrishnan, when will it go away? doctorji goes quiet, thinks deeply. in his signature quiet, steady and wise tone of voice, he says, eventually. then another pause before he says, after several courses of treatments. i guess this is kind of like cleaning a very dirty pot that has a lot of hard stains. i have to scrub very hard and i have to do it several rounds. and you know what. i keep at it. the pot is now shining.

life of minimals. life of abundance

hwubby goes to a sunday brunch event. he says, i want  some suji and chapati before leaving the house. i say, o, okay. later in the day i say, how did it go? of course he knows i mean the food situation. he says, there’s omelette, lox, cream cheese. i say, that sounds great. he says, i don’t really want to have any of it, well, a little of it, but... i say, a-huh, it’s not like you have to have a whole plate of it. he says, yeah. pause. he says, i have herbal tea in phil’s. that’s the coffee place he likes to go to. in fact, he has the pic to prove it.

wow. this is major, fundamental transformation. it means his palate has changed in a huge way. actually, mine too. we’ve been back almost three weeks. by and large we have been eating the way we were in vaidyagrama. okay, except almond butter and sprinkling sugar on chapati. just simple vegetarian food. i think i can safely say on behalf of hwubby as well that we don’t feel deprived in any way. in fact we have no desire to eat any other way. this is huge shift. keep in mind this is the chinese new year season. all kinds of yum yum things are calling me. it amazes me that i don’t really miss them. not that i don’t remember how deliiiish they are. i don’t even miss not using onion and garlic.  hwubby says, i was in the grocery store, i had to be on a long line, i watch what’s going on and i just think to myself, how is it that we need five thousand varieties of everything. i know. dr ramkumar says, living a life without excesses, a life of minimals, is a life of abundance. so true. and it’s not just some truth some expert says. it’s my experience. i live it. it’s a state of abundance when the mind is that much quieter and clearer.

panchakarma is a plumbing job

we’ve been home for twelve days. it’s easy for others to see the transformation in hwubby. after all he has lost eighteen pounds. whereas i have no poundage to show for it. as a matter of fact my beloved dr harikrishnan says softly and gently at one point, you can actually gain a little weight. much as i do anything he tells me to this one is too far out for me. anyhow back to hwubby. he has this great way to put it. he says, it feels like all the pipes are cleaned, things flow easier. i agree. it does feel something is loosened up within. the state of mind is not so easily bound up by this thought and that emotion. within three days of return i did taxes, met a litigation deadline, which means constructing a legal package for arbitration, all while implementing the daily medicines and fresh meals daily. really. i roll chapati, make ghee, cook herbs. i am the chopper, cook, dishwasher. it’s true that i am flat tired by six. but without a doubt i am strongly anchored in a place of clarity and ease. there is no sense of being overwhelmed even though there is one flurry of activity after another. all that pounding, purgation, baastis and vaastis have removed not just toxins from improper metabolism of food but also mental toxins. it just feels that much more effortless to stay in the witnessing state. what a great plumbing job this panchakarma has done.

i am proud to be called a jew

how come as a people it is called jews, from the line of judah? why not moseites? avrahamites? isakites? yaaakovites? or even yosefites? how come king david is from a line that originated from the father-in-law, judah, taking his daughter-in-law, tamah, mistaking her for a prostitute? how is that possible that the torah says the messiah is to come from this same line? well, this year, upon examining judah's story for the fourth or fifth year, i can see why. judah is the only figure in torah who would openly admit his mistake, acknowledge it and then some. he says, my daughter-in-law is right and she is more righteous than i. yes, he participates in throwing his brother, yosef, into a pit, selling him into slavery. but he manages to break the cycle of sibling rivalry. he steps up to the plate and asks to be taken as slave in return for releasing benjamin, the son his father dotes on, the only brother of yosef, the son of his father's most favored wife. in other word he rises to the challenges and become transformed. this is the template for me. i can't avoid making mistakes. but once i am conscious of being off the mark i can acknowledge it and step up to do what is necessary and right. in this sense i am proud to be called a jew.

cleaning out the inner world

the first day of jewish new year is also the occasion for celebrating the birth of the universe. in this simple mind, this is celebrating the birth of the physical universe as much as hailing the fresh beginning of my inner universe.

the culmination of a full day of praying and singing praises to yhvh, which, by the way, is so much fun, we are at the waters in a park, throwing pieces of challah into the running stream. what's going on here? we are tossing away whatever we want to remove from our inner world, all that which veil and block our highest vision of ourselves which is none other than the pure and powerful force of healing and transformation expressing as us in each of our unique and marvelous forms.

i know exactly what i want to throw out. impatience. unworthiness. more impatience. more unworthiness. hey, what about i just want to get up every morning to meditate no matter what? all those nagging thoughts and feelings that hold me back from getting out of bed. throw them all out. may it be so.