Dear Subscribers,

Wow! The eclipse isn't even here yet but this week has been something!

There was less email than usual this week and this gave me a chance to organize some of material on kalpa. I would like to describe what I believe is a reasonable approach and ask a few people to share their experiences via the forum.

http://kayakalpaforum.doshabalance.com/

For those who have not been following the essays on kalpa, let me simply start by saying that this is procedure that was apparently revealed to a handful of extraordinary individuals thousands of years ago. One of my Indian friends believes that the persons who memorialized the medical system and its treatments were aliens, but I personally believe that we all came here from somewhere else. Every indigenous culture has myths about such and a simple look at archaeological evidence suggests that intergalactic travel and exchanges have been ongoing for hundreds of thousands of years, certainly tens of thousands. This also suggests that civilization is cyclic and this would be a reasonable deduction based on all the shorter cycles we can observe in the course a year or a lifetime.

Perhaps more thought provoking is the idea that rejuvenation and longevity are part and parcel of a concept of immortality that has been occasionally demonstrated by remarkable persons such as Babaji. As part of my own quest, I am searching for the links between various cultures such as the Dravidian and Aryan, the wisdom of the Deccan Plateau and China and their relationship to the warehousing of wisdom in the Himalayas and perhaps also the Andes. This journey has been fascinating, but then anthropology and philosophy were my two favorite subjects in college.

Anyway, the bigger picture is very big, but I will try to set it forth in a book. The smaller picture is manageable. It boils down to this:

We must all heal because whatever is not healed is what separates us from our fullest potential. The flip side of this is that we might not even know what that fullest potential actually includes unless we first heal of all physical and emotional wounds. My experience is that this can occur in one profound moment of realization . . . in which case, we might have the explanation for spontaneous remissions and other almost inexplicable and rare events. However, if we think about it, the only reason something might be regarded as inexplicable is that we limit our ability to interpret to material explanations, i.e., those explanations that might be scientifically acceptable, when the reality is that we are merely the consciousness that exists between spirit and matter so that as the consciousness changes there are inevitable perceptual changes. The truth is we do not know if reality is changed by our perceptions or whether our perceptions determine what we think is real. The gauntlet I might toss out is how do we explain clairvoyance, the ability to see through apparently solid objects, the ability to see what is not solid, or the probably rare but real experiences of moving through solidity such as walls. Such experiences occur from time to time so the real question might be why they are not commonplace rather than remarkable.

What the mystics have demonstrated is that we are spirit having experiences in a dimensional world and — most likely — we are having multiple experiences in multiple dimensions simultaneously but without knowing this, i.e., consciousness seems to function in a limited perceptual range, determined by our senses, each of which is designed to operate in a defined frequency range. For instance, the eyes only see one octave of vibration, the 49th octave. We do not see infrared or ultraviolet. To make this more confusing to some and perhaps trigger the satori button for others, let's add that we do not "hear" light. Our ears function in a much lower frequency range that includes a few octaves, i.e., oscillatory frequencies. However, we do not hear ultrasound though we gave that name to the 20th octave. Just think about it for a moment and ask if "in the beginning" there really was "the word" and if the word shaped creation. We know that sound creates waves and that it can reorganize malleable substances or shatter glass. What might be harder to decide is whether what we perceive as light and color has a sound as well as attributes we describe in visual terms.

The fact that so many people are today hypersensitive to electronic and other "noise" suggests that many people have sensory apparatuses that are functioning in ranges in which others claim to be insensitive. Not knowing that something might be affecting us does not, of course, mean that there is no effect, merely that there is no conscious acknowledgment of the effect. This might keep many people in the consumer mode for a while, unless and until the facts become better known . . . as is now happening on a large scale with microwave frequencies.

Obviously, in this technological era, we find ourselves between a rock and hard place when it comes to how to stay connected when the methods for connecting are having a deleterious impact on our survival. As you know, I am convinced that the plant kingdom adapts more intelligently than humans to environmental impacts so I have the habit now of walking around in the yard to observe. To give you a for instance, my helper and I spent half an hour or so yesterday studying leaves and I said I felt that many were much glossier than last year so I speculated that this is protection against radiation. For similar reasons, I would suggest that everyone not only wash their vegetables much more thoroughly than before Fukushima but that they also consider the leafy greens that are shinier as safer. It's just speculation but it's how my mind works. The important point is that the plants look vibrant so even if we are facing centuries of cesium pollution, the plants intend to survive.

Now, let's return to the central point: healing. Whatever we have experienced as "not health" can be an inadequate adjustment to an experience that did not feel good. I am sure that there are forces in the mainstream world that would like us to get used to such experiences because it is not only good for business but it keeps us dumbed down enough that we are shaped by fake realities. If that statement is not instantly clear, let me suggest that constant exposure to violence and toxicity is clearly not healthy much less healing, but we are so used to news based on negativity that we almost forget that life might be harmonious and loving rather than shattering to the psyche. This is one reason that I disconnected my television and that I do not subscribe to any mainstream publications. I don't think any of us can begin to calculate the impact of an endless barrage of negativity on our true selves. All the fear-generating propaganda acts as a circuit breaker on higher awareness. Thus, to restore health, we have to begin with life style changes that eliminate the most egregious intruders on our psyches.

Even more to the point, healing has to precede rejuvenation and longevity because we have to regenerate by shifting the patterns that entrain us in dysfunctional ways so that our true selves can be liberated. Once these selves are freer to function as intended, the careful steps of rejuvenation can begin.

Over the last half century of my life, I have given enormous thought to these subjects and would like to propose that something on the order of 90% of all wounds affect the lower chakras. I will try to be as succinct as possible.

Any power trip affects the first chakra so the use of authority to tell someone something as simple as when to eat or sleep is actually intrusive because our natural instincts ought to suffice to inform us when we are hungry and when we are sleepy. Unfortunately for our orderly modern world, clocks do not really determine the time of hunger or fatigue since these are personal, not familial or corporate matters. In short, the damage begins very early when we are made to conform to the schedules and therefore also the wills of others about truly simple matters. Of course, this entire pattern escalates exponentially when we consider such matters as how much effort to make to learn to walk or talk and these are all minor compared to being sent to war to murder and be killed . . . dare I say for no reason at all, surely no reason that makes any sense to the living being who is possessed of both a will to live and a purpose for existence.

What I am saying is that any authority or command exercised by one person over another is already a form of abuse, subtle and perhaps easily defended on the basis of convenience or conformity; but it is an abuse, and we do have to extricate ourselves from the abusive patterns in order to heal. To surrender one's will to another is evidently always a mistake. I was first exposed to this concept when a student of mine used shamanic journeying on my behalf and reported four traumas that, in my case, involved noble minded sacrifices of authority over my own existence. It was very hard to see these decisions as erroneous much less harmful but the details were poignantly convincing. What I am saying is that if we fast for the purpose of influencing political agendas or if we fast to placate some invisible force with a religious impact on our lives or if we give up autonomy, we are risking putting some part of our first chakra in jeopardy. All I am saying is that fasting is mind over matter. Mind and matter need to equal partners, not servants of one another.

Such subjects fascinate me. For instance, in the last half year or so, I revisited the lives of Giordano Bruno as Galileo Galilei. Bruno was a Dominican philosopher and astronomer who had the audacity to propose that our sun is actually a star. For his heresies, he was burned at the stake in the year 1600 A.D. He was passionate and defiant and is still today regarded as a martyr and hero of true science. Galileo, a few years junior to Bruno, faced similar risks but recanted and lived under house arrest. What I might propose is that we examine the issues of sacrifice and ask not who made better choices but rather what the impact of the choices is on the relationship of spirit to matter when faced with such difficult choices. No doubt, Bruno, who was apparently of quite lean and fragile physique, had a weak first chakra and power in the higher chakras whereas Galileo, with his stronger survival instinct, had a stronger body as well.

If we think historic examples are hardly relevant, then all we have to do is consider the modern debates over such things as climate change, the origin of the moon, and the clout mainstream power brokers have over our ability to learn the facts and reach educated conclusions. So while less likely to burned at the stake, anyone whose views are too far out of bounds is at minimum pilloried by conformist opinions aimed at undermining the credibility of the dissenters. In short, the tyranny lives on but is targeted more at the fifth chakra than the first. However, the first quivers because one can lose the safety net on which life is predicated by stepping too far over the line.

Now, going up one chakra, we find a further abundance of wounds revolving around our sexual identities and expressions. According to the most ancient Ayurvedic texts, all these issues have to treated and, wisely, they are divided into physical and psychological. There are such an immense number of issues of both types that it could take volumes to address the nuances, but long before kalpa can be reasonably expected to succeed, there must be peace in this chakra as well. Physical issues include everything from intentional suppression of sexuality due to any of countless factors: fear of pregnancy or STDs, desire to be celibate or to conserve energy, dissipation and exhaustion due to overexpression, congenital defects, lack of a partner, etc., etc., etc. Emotional issues include everything one can imagine also: taboos, consent, domination, violation, etc., etc., etc. Obviously, a complete list would be looonnggg. As I commented to my collaborator on the kalpa book, if you take Indian culture as an example of a classic agrarian society with all the emphasis on fertility, seasonality, and continuity that is typical of such societies, then we find social codes that foster conformity with the norms of such cultures, i.e., marriage, abundance, progeny, and so on and so forth. These are in stark contrast to monastic ideals that promote chastity and poverty and that therefore also have to foment compliance through some kind of moral tyranny such as through promotion of concepts of sin and all the guilt that ensues from such propaganda. In stating something as bold as this, I am not referring exclusively to monastic traditions in the West but also to any religious culture that perceives a conflict between spirit and matter. This takes us right back to Bruno and Galileo because we have two scientists with more or less equal access to the most advanced theories of the day, one wearing a habit and the other a family man with much to preserve.

We cannot really say who is right or wrong much less which of the unpleasant options is preferable because when faced with difficult decisions, we do often choose what we regard as the lesser of the two evils, but in an ideal world, we would, of course, be free not only to have our own thoughts but to publish them. In any event, we sustain damage to our chakras and therefore to the subtle matter we preserve for use in one incarnation after another and these patterns have to be balanced before we can conquer the ultimate challenge which is how to demonstrate our essential immortality in a world that seems to be ephemeral. In my view, the purpose of kalpa is to move an inch or two beyond conventional reality.

This definitely translates to: kalpa is not for everyone, but the truth is healing is for everyone and once it is well underway, kalpa is a reasonable next step.

Now, I have a favor to ask. In my last post, I said that bhringaraj has been flying out the door, and it is traveling all over the world. It is the primary herb used by two of the original 18 siddhars for their own kalpa, but I have been taking it every morning for a while now and have some experiences that seem worth sharing.

I would therefore like to hear back from others who are taking it so as to compare notes. I might see if we can install a small survey on one site, but in the meantime, please consider sending an email using this link.

http://www.ayurvedicbazaar.com/contact/contact.php

Finally, I would like to mention a new product that was added without notification. It is produced by the Himalayan Institute and is called Safe Travels and is essentially an immune formula.

http://www.ayurvedicbazaar.com/immunity.php

However, in addition, there are other travel formulas to consider. I have one called Happy Wanderer that is more for jet lag:

http://shop.kitchendoctor.com/jetlag.php

Also, hardly a week goes by that someone does not ask about what to take when traveling to the tropics or returning. Artemisia annua would top my list of recommendations, but any of the parasite formulas or bulk herbs would be acceptable alternatives. To help people understand the risks, think of mosquitoes and malaria or dengue fever or countless other diseases, not to mention Montezuma's revenge and much harder to detect spirochetes that may or may not even be diagnosed correctly. Truly, most people are on their own when it comes to parasites.

Obviously, this post needs a sequel. In the meantime, I hope to hear from those who are taking bhringaraj, whether internally or externally.

Many blessings,

Ingrid

Copyright by Ingrid Naiman 2012

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