Dr. Marc Halpern
Tales abound of yoga teachers and health care practitioners who’ve entered a new profession following injuries that wouldn’t heal by “traditional” means or sudden realizations that the path of alternative therapies would be the wave of the future. Marc Halpern’s story trumps any I’ve yet come across.
Dr. Halpern is the President and founder of the California College of Ayurvedic Medicine (CCA). But his path to becoming an educator and leading figure in Ayurvedic education in the west actually began as a learning disabled child, with an overly demanding, unhappy father always wanting to know “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Weary of giving the typical answer of an active 12 - year old boy, “I want to be a baseball player,” out of sheer frustration one day Marc simply responded “What I really want to be when I grow up, is happy.”
Soon he was off to a gathering of healers at Sherman Chiropractic College in South Carolina from his home in New York City where at age 16 he met his first teacher. There Marc discovered that people could become healthy and happy by learning to unite man the physical, with man the spiritual, and in that reunification, healing would take place. Following undergraduate studies at the University of Buffalo and then to Palmer College Chiropractic, he also found something he loved.
But because of the nature of his disability, the studies were hard and what he is well known for today – his perseverance – became a survival tool. Says Marc, “I studied hard and I played hard.” Out in California by now, having earned an internship, when he got in front of his first patient it hit him that he didn’t know what he was doing “on a deep level.”
Depression set in and he took off hiking in the mountains. He sought the highest peak overlooking the bay where he would ask God what should be done for healing to take place. He sat down and meditated for the first time in his life. No sign of God. No burning bush appeared.
Holding the question while hiking down the mount, he heard a voice. It took him a moment to realize that the voice was speaking from within. The answer was that he needed to learn to love each and every person who came to see him. His hands would be guided where they needed to go and the divine source would allow the healing to take place. Very excited, he went back to the clinic and began to treat people – and the biggest nightmare of his life began unfolding.
A sudden pain appeared in one ankle, the next day in the other. He hobbled around and sought the advice of a medical doctor who named migrating arthritis the culprit. Following a shot of penicillin, he passed out.
Upon waking, he stripped naked to find a rash from head to toe. Pain traveled throughout his body crippling all the joints. He began losing weight and blood tests showed liver malfunction. He was sent to Stanford where a team of immunologists and rheumatologists found more problems. They gave the disease a name: lyme negative lyme d: mixed connective tissue disorder.
Now down 30 pounds, he was hospitalized and put on more medications. Due to appear before the Grand Rounds at Stanford the next day where several doctors were to observe, question and speculate about his unique and curious condition, the voice spoke to him again. “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine. For you, all the diplomas in the world aren’t going to mean anything. For what you’re going to do, you’re going to need to heal yourself first.” And so he embarked on a journey to heal himself, leading to many forms of alternative medicine.
Through friends he found Greg Schelken, a psychic healer who touched parts of his body while talking and after about 15 minutes said “Ok, we’re done.” He told Marc that it was as if his immune system had a dead battery and he’d just given it a jump start. He also said Marc’s fever would rise to 105o that night and he’d have cold sweats, after which he would be fine.
“For what you’re going to do, you’re going to need to heal yourself first.”
In the morning Marc touched the towels he’d spread beneath him before laying down to sleep. Still dry. He called the healer who said “sometimes you need a second jump start. Sit where you are and I’ll heal you from here.” Sitting in meditation, Marc felt the healer’s hands touch the same points he had the night before. That night the fever and sweats came – but the fever lasted for two weeks.
Marc lay in bed. He began realizing there was a part of himself – on the inside – that was perfectly fine, observing himself. Passing the time observing and developing awareness, he began experiencing the body as a dense field of energy with flow and circulation. He saw energy blockages in his liver and spleen. Marc came to realize that the observer and the energy body were not entirely separate and he began to interact, experimenting with intention and awareness. He figured out how to unblock energy and his tissues began to perk back up.
Marc worked his way to a wheelchair and then to walking. After six years of intensive self care he became well enough to practice chiropractic again, this time with a partner who worked with subtle energy of the body and taught him how to unblock energy within others. He opened Peninsula Chiropractic Center in the Bay area in 1988 and was on the path of success.
Then a patient he’d been working with who was having a remarkable recovery died suddenly of a heart attack. Marc couldn’t figure it out, asking himself “why do I have to continually unblock these energy paths?”
He took off for a hike on Big Sur where he ended up with herniated discs, had to be carried out, followed by three months in bed. Returning to the clinic, the first time he bent over, he blew out the disk again. Unhealthy, unhappy, driving his little car to work one day through the canyon, a huge wind picked up his car and blew it upside down. Still, he was back in the office on Monday.
A clairvoyant psychic who worked at his office knocked on his door and asked him if he would like to know what was going on. She told him that until he got on his life’s path, he would continue to suffer. He worked on selling his practice, but nothing was happening. The psychic told him it was because in his heart he hadn’t let it go.
Marc sat in meditation and visualized a cord from his own heart to his practice and cut the cord. He would close the practice and pray for the path to unfold and that he would have the courage to walk it. That day, a woman called, came over at lunch and bought the practice.
The sale provided an opportunity for him and his wife to find and move to the community of their dreams, Grass Valley, California. Following studies in Ayurveda, including with Dr. David Frawley, CCA was born in Marc’s garage which he’d converted into a classroom.
Says Dr. Frawley, “Marc has persisted remarkably well despite all of the adversity. He never got much support until recently. Even the Indian doctors, who initially worked with him, took his syllabus and program and used it in Europe, because he’d figured out how to teach Ayurveda to westerners. He’s probably created the most foundational syllabus for Ayurveda. He pioneered a lot of the Ayurvedic education.”
Visions continued to direct Marc and he foresaw a state and national Ayurvedic organization, which he did indeed found: the California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM) and the National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA). The third part of that vision is playing out in the form of a template he’s written for managing schools and curriculum for graduates to be able to sit for state examinations.
Dr. Halpern is young, only 44 years old. He examines himself and uses that as an instrument to accomplish what has been set before him. What visions may yet come, the Ayurveda community will be looking forward to hearing about.
Reach Dr. Halpern at (530) 274 - 9100 or www.ayurvedacollege.com. The California College of Ayurveda has campuses in Grass Valley, Seal Beach and San Francisco.
Felicia M. Tomasko is a writer, Ayurvedic practitioner and yoga teacher in Santa Barbara, California.
