LA Yoga. Departments. Take Rest

On May 19th I leave Los Angeles and 48 hours and 10,000 miles later check in at Arya Vaidya Chikitsalayam (AVC). The unorthodox intake procedure at this 100-bed hospital providing purely Ayurvedic treatment reinforces what my mind has delighted in imagining.

I am greeted with namastes, shown directly to my room and given the
run-down of how the system works. Two beautiful women with identical lavender and white saris, in charge of administering the care of patients point out two cots with bright Indian print sheets, shower and toilet, small table with telephone, a locker and cupboards. I am instructed to read the manual before the doctor arrives. For now I am to 'take rest'.

Ayurvedic treatments involving the Panchakarmas (see sidebar) are
considered the equivalent of any major surgical procedure. I am
undergoing 'surgery' both purely for the experience and to cure my disease of stress. Ayurveda treats disease by seeking out and addressing the root cause; therefore the disease will not recur, it is claimed. No more stress. Ever.

My overwhelming feeling is one of relief. Yet I am aware of my mind
demanding to know what is going on. As the temple bell rings my mind adds the sound to the list it is creating while doing its environmental scan. The doctor knocks, enters, and takes a seat. I sit facing him on my cot. A breeze blows through the window. Sounds of Indian street life take on the role of background music and the air is hot. He asks me how I am and what my complaints are.

I talk about coming to take a treatment that I hope will help
balance my life. Because there is no patient history form, I have quickly jotted down my list of 'complaints'. I complain about everything I can think of. When I stop he asks me how my sleep is.

"What sleep? I respond. I haven't slept without melatonin since..."
When I stop talking again he says they will correct my sleeping pattern. He reads my pulse, feels my shoulder joints and fingers, looks at my tongue, pushes on my stomach a few times and says "ok, any other questions?"

"Yes! What did you just learn about my doshas from reading my pulse?" He looks at me with a combination of disbelief, humor and
thoughtfulness. This is a defining moment as he explains that in
traditional Ayurvedic medicine, the patient agrees to treatment without question. He has been told, however that I will ask questions not usually asked by their patients and that all of the doctors will explain when asked.

"Elevated vata dosha", he reveals. He explains that when treating
disease Ayurvedically, the vata dosha is dealt with first, since it is the dosha of movement. Thus begin the generous discussions to help me participate mindfully.

It suddenly occurs to me that therapy actually started when I drank
from a large plastic bottle of medicated water upon arrival. Along with the medicated water there are medicated oils to drink, and I happily down my first dose. Within two hours of arrival, I am on the treatment table.

A young woman in a white sari leads me to the treatment room and helps me don the loin cloth. I sit facing her on the pathi, a table made from neemwood, which itself has therapeutic applications. Facing a Dhanvantaree altar we light a candle and incense to acknowledge the god, who as an incarnation of Vishnu, brought Ayurveda to this world.

She pours medicated sesame oil onto the fontanel area of my head and rubs it with her fingertips over my scalp. After doing the same with my face, she pours oil into each ear. Next she administers nasyam treatment (nose drops), then a thick medicated oil that I hold in my mouth for five minutes.

I lie on my back, feeling the sinuses begin to drain, while she rubs into my skin a second type of medicated sesame oil heated in a small metal pan over a portable propane stove next to the pathi. She rubs gently, allowing the oil and the herbs to do the work. After an hour I swing my feet back over the side where she assists my walk to the bathroom. As I sit oiled and naked on a wooden stool, she bathes me in a gram flour mixture.

I fall into a routine that begins at 5 a.m. with the loud ringing of temple bells, wash the mouth, eyes and sinuses, walk in the breezeway to encourage downward movement of prana, drink a small cupful of medication brought from the pharmacy on campus, then meditate until tea is delivered from the canteen. I am allowed to practice yoga and walk outside only during the first treatment.

My mind remains busy holding itself responsible for work I've left in others' charge back home. I eagerly write in my journal at least two hours each morning. A doctor comes by to read the pulse, check on sleep, appetite, motion, and my mind, and reminds me to 'take rest'. Finally the 4:30 p.m. treatment time arrives and I have accomplished another day as a good patient. Or, so I think.

Inserted in the daily schedule is an evening visit from a doctor to answer my questions. "What is going on? What are they doing? Where am I? Who are you? Explain to me."

We cover the gunas, the five elements, the concept of Panchakarma and the state of Ayurveda in the US and India today. We discuss the role of the mind, and why it isn't important to have a report of the pulse readings. I am presented with a small book 'Silence as Yoga' and encouraged to keep silence. The discussions are soothing, like bedtime stories, and by the time dinner arrives around 7:30 p.m., I am looking forward to the end of the day and a night's sleep that has already increased to 5 hours.

With my body oozing oil from the internal and external medications, the shrotas (channels) open to allow the outward flow of toxins. The doctors decide to attack the mind directly with Takra Dhara, a therapy commonly used for fatigue, insomnia, worry, and nervousness. Unfortunately my mind has not slowed down much yet. I have been assured they will bring me to "ground zero" and I am hoping it will be soon.

Daily I am asked if I am tired yet, and I always reply cheerfully, "No, I haven't been doing anything but sitting around". That's when they inform me that my behavior must change. No more going outside and walking around, no yoga, limited writing. Just 'take rest'.

The first experience with Takra Dhara and Pizhichil brings me to tears. The two treatments are performed simultaneously for an hour. A constant stream of cool medicated buttermilk is directed through a hole in a clay pot onto my forehead (Takra Dhara), while three women on either side of me squeeze warm medicated oil over my body (Pizhichil) - using 2.25 liters per session. The only reason the therapist moves a hand over the body is to keep it warm and to remove the oil. The oil is then collected in a bigger vessel, re-heated and squeezed again. Silence in the treatment room except for the sound of cloths being dipped and squeezed. I turn my attention inward struggling to stay present. Memories, lurking in the darkness, some of them toxic, are ready to come out.

Following the bath I walk back to my room, greeting fellow patients as I pass them in the breezeway. Ravi Shankar, being treated for chronic back pain, reads Dale Carnegie every day and hates his job as a bank manager. The retired journalist from Delhi, takes treatment but there mainly for his wife whose complaint is a swollen and painful foot. She was stepped on while alighting from a train a year ago and was treated unsuccessfully with western medicine. She came here as a last resort and is now recovering. The German woman who broke her spine three years ago, yet I would never guess as we stand here visiting.

I lie on my cot and listen to music and the noise from the street.
As the temple bells and drums grow louder I walk out and look down over the people at temple.

Even though my restlessness is ever-present between the routine activities, slowly the treatment is working. Like a cool breeze in the night air that brings you momentarily to stillness, on the 15th morning I wake up. I wake up to a hint of what the feeling of a life in balance might be like. It is the sensation of all of me being present at once, and the realization that I am no longer struggling.

Two weeks of temple bells, treatments and sitting meditation brings
the body to a halt. With agni barely simmering on the back burner, there is no need to eat much of the morning meal. When the doctors arrive with their routine questions, we joke and compare mantras. There is no desire, no little voice whispering demands and promises.

The treatments are free to do their work. I visualize toxins making their way from all points toward the alimentary canal, into the intestinal tract where vata accumulates. Not being schooled in herbal pharmacology I can't say precisely what the medications contain, and I stop asking.

My team of 8 therapists happily prepare a puja (offering) at the end of this phase. As I emerge from the bath I am greeted with a prayer at the lit altar. I glance down to see the pathi I was lying on ten minutes before, covered with red flower petals and white, black and red stripes of
powder where my neck had been, signifying the gunas. In the concave head rest is water. I am given a tray holding Kerala banana, fresh herbs, sandalwood paste, flower petals, and coconut water. I strew the flowers on the pathi and wash down the table that has absorbed much of my illness and now needs cleansing, by me. They split open another coconut dividing it among us. "How do you thank people who do this kind of thing?" I wonder.

I lie on my cot, eyes closed, stretched out on my side. My mind goes to my Black Labrador, Karma, stretched out exactly like I am, probably right at this moment, 'taking rest' as usual. I have become my dog.

Three weeks have passed and the restlessness that one day prompted me to inform doctors that I needed to leave early so I could be a tourist for a few days, has evaporated. A suggestion that I use my mind to take a walk in the garden that I was forbidden from physically entering earlier, makes sense.

Navarakkizhi involves the use of a bolus of boiled red (navara)
rice combined with a decoction of herbs and buttermilk, wrapped in cloth. Before application, abhyanga is performed. Then the bolus is dipped in the remaining buttermilk heated beside the treatment table and rubbed firmly over problem areas. The therapist works on my shoulders, arms, neck and upper back that are recovering from injuries and experiencing pain and loss of mobility.

During this time the basti (enema) is expertly performed with two days of medicated oil followed by a main injection of medications. The entire alimentary canal is now clear.

I am overcome with gratitude to learn that the tail end of the final treatment will take place at AVC's center at Kotagiri, in the Nilgiri mountains two hours north. I find myself studying the calendar and calculating days here, there, then the inevitable 48 hour journey home. After getting over the excitement of this turn of events, I settle back into a state of inertia, mentally assisting my body in its final days of cleansing.

My comfortable routine ends suddenly as we depart for the Nilgiris. An assigned companion, a therapist to continue my treatments (abhyanga and internal medications) and I are driven to AVC's center high in this tea growing region.

There is no better way to transition from the hospital to a final departure in three days and immediate return to normal life. I walk the terraced slopes among the tea plants, comfortable with my bare feet on the ground reconnecting me to my childhood beginnings on a farm. A return to the land and the cycles of waking up before dawn feel like the most natural thing in the world. Calm and clear, even while I am sad to leave the peaceful state the good doctors have guided me to find, my being is reunited and rejuvenated.

Julie Deife is on the Board of Directors of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA). To know more about Ayurveda and AVC go to www.avpayurveda.com and to the Southwest Yoga Conference "Yoga and Ayurveda," Oct. 29 - Nov. 4, www.southwestyoga.com

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