Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
I am relishing the pang of hunger. The gurgling sound from down below. Is it an earnest plea for more food? Or is it a subconscious reaction stemming from years of habit – gorging this stomach of mine with anything so that it won't feel “empty”?
Dr Jacob Vadakkanchery, and Ayurvedic healer from the enchanted land of Kerala , India , has a simple answer to my present symptoms: Enjoy the hunger.
It has been five days since I joined this “Nature Cure” health camp for a seven day retreat. I must say that feelings of uncertainty, anticipation and doubt have clouded over me, even on the first day when I stood at the entrance of Ashram Wongsanit in Nakhon Nayok, where the retreat is being held. What does Dr. Jacob mean in his slogan, “Enter as a patient, Leave as your own doctor”? What's so special about depriving oneself of food?
True, Mahatma Gandhi did it. So did the Isan villagers during a protest against the Pak Moon Dam in front of Government House a few years ago. But don't those acts have more to do with sending a political statement to the powers-that –be? What's the difference between fasting and starving yourself?
It was a conversation with a friend who had participated in the same workshop last year that gave me the final push. “Try it,” she said, “and you will experience a real, spiritual challenge.”
Now, if good old Dr Jacob knew what was swimming in my head, he might raise his tick eyebrows. According to him, the period of abstaining from food should also be a period of total silence – not just verbal silence, but mental silence. Tut-tut.
On the other hand, I realize how my mind has become unusually alert. Sipping only fruit juice for the past two days. I find myself automatically shifted to low gear, in walking as well as speaking but the seemingly torturous pace has brought me many simple joys. I savour each drop of succulent mango juice to the fullest and in quiet gratitude. I no longer fall asleep during afternoon lectures like on previous days when I carried a full stomach. I notice the swaying dance of the slim weed grass as I saunter along the walkways. At the morning yoga session, I observe, and beam at, the “butterfly” posture that an 87-year-old Chinese woman – who we call “Ah Ma” (Grandma) – struggles to make every day. And of course, Ah Ma's little eight month – old grandson and his toothless, endearing smile is such a wonder of life.
For a fleeting moment, I start to glimpse the tricks my own body has been playing with my mind, the seesawing between lack of food and desire for it. Which is real? Which is illusionary?
I am certain the few other particulars who are fasting on plain water must be experiencing far stranger, stronger, sensations than I am. Because I can only take a week away from work, I cannot experience that whole range of this fasting trip, something that requires a minimum of 15 days. One needs several days to first get accustomed to the one –meal-a –day regimen, which consists of rice and fresh vegetables, followed by the next couple of days of fruit only, then fruit juice only, and finally the pure water-only sustenance.
Fasting, Dr Jacob stresses, is not about waking up one morning and forcing yourself to stop taking any food. “You cannot fast that fast,” is usual quip. Besides, the procedures after the period of fasting is finished is even more delicate and requires greater precautions than the steps taken to gradually cut down food intake.
But the testimonies I had heard form those who had done it, my friend among them, seemed to promise a lot. Naturally, one could expect a period of utmost distress: three bouts of high fever, continuous vomiting or diarrhea, or skin rashes- you name it. Dr Jacob call this stage the cleansing period, and likens it to a housepainter who preps his surface, sweeping and brushing every single pore of the surface before giving it a fresh, new coat.
Next is the healing phase and the epitome time for celebration – the stage when one feels a deluge of energy. This may seem very strange, but those who have gritted their teeth and been through it invariably express how they felt as if they had been given a new life. An apt description, since Dr. Jacob's clinics in Kerala also carry the name of Navajivan, meaning new life.
At any rate, Nature Cure is not only about eating. There is a host of things that Dr. Jacob has introduced to the camp in order to “uncondition” what modern men and women have long taken for granted. He calls the refrigerator a “mortuary” fit only for storing dead things, or at best, clothing. Soap, Shampoo and skincare products are confiscated upon arrival at the camp, and each of us instead gets to enjoy the raw fragrance of green peanut multipurpose soap instead. No nylon toothbrushes, chemical toothpaste or dental floss either.
Twice a day, at dawn and before bedtime, I stand under the shade of a big mango tree, expressing my modest thanks for her generous supply of leaves, and transform them into a quintessentially natural tooth cleaner. Country to the pessimist's belief, there are still things that are free in this world .
One woman did manage to smuggle in cream for her chronic skin problems. However, she later confessed her skin, adding that it had turned out she didn't need to use what she had thought was indispensable after all.
The retreat isn't a return to the Stone Age. One the contrary, the Indian doctor asserts that modern medicine is in fact outmoded technology. Here, in this realm of Nature Cure, what we have been used to for most of our lives is turned completely upside down.
Take, for example, the typical signs of sickness – fever, diarrhea, coughing and vomiting. These are regarded as blessings by Dr. Jacob. He says the body, the most wonderful healer, is struggling to cleanse herself of its toxins and therefore give these symptoms. Modern physicians, with painkillers and whatnot, suppress this natural detoxification process. The result? The so-called toxic substances get trapped inside the body and accumulate in various cells and organs, awaiting the day they will burst out in the form of more severe maladies.
Worse, these modern drugs weaken body mechanisms still further. The Indian Nature Cure doctor argues that there is not a single modern (meaning Western) medicine that does not have side effects, particular for the liver and kidneys. I wonder: are physicians in hospitals and clinics aware of this as they write their routine prescriptions?
Dr Jacob does not see himself as curing people. Rather, he is assuming the role of a guide, assisting novices along the Nature Cure path, until they master the art of listening to their own individual voices inside their bodies.
The techniques he dispenses appear utterly simple. Back Pain ? Take a bath submerging your spine only twice a day. Constipation ? Bathe your hips only for an hour. He says that exposure to sunlight before nine in the morning and after four in the afternoon is one of the greatest remedies for diabetic troubles. For aches and bruises, apply a wet pad.
The Kerala doctor is a tireless advocate of coconut juice (he dubs it Coconut-Cola), which he says is the best drink in the world. Bottled Coke, he says, is more appropriate for cleaning toilets than drinking.
Unlike some other health camps I know, this Indian school of alternative medicine prescribes no vitamin supplements, and one needs very few external devices. Coffee-based enemas, common among detox fans, are not promoted here either. Only in unusual cases are water enemas advised. As long as one can conduct the toilet ritual oneself, why bother with extra gadgets?
But returning to nature's embrace is not always easy. Throughout he course, several people dropped out. Some left because of urgent business at home, but others because they could not cope with the strict regimen. For instance, some dreamed of, yearned for instant noodles.
What about me? Will I succumb to the temptations of unhealthy food too? Again, the mind seems to dictate to the body. Dr. Jacob often muses how, if and when you are happy, the bacteria inside your body is happy as well. Most of the time, we tend to worry about the past or the future looking at others but ignoring our own feelings. Our eyes see a myriad of things but not themselves.
The flow of fluids inside my stomach is gently calling for my attention again. A friend of mine once told me about a wise man who said that all the world's ills stem from one addiction – an to the delicious taste of things.
Right now I'd have to agree.