JANESH VAIDYA
“Happiness is your birthright and a major part of your health is the result of your choices. Yes, life is a choice. For instance if you stand on the road and look around, you can only see the walls of buildings around you. But if you start to fly a little higher, you see the top of the buildings and the land from above. When you go up yet again you see the forest and the ocean below your feet. Life is also like that; when we stand on the ground we can only see the obstacles of walls and musts — and we forget our choices of infinite opportunities just above our heads.”
Born in a traditional family in South India, Janesh Vaidya started his education in Ayurveda in the early years of his life, and extended his knowledge in the subject of Mana-shastra (psychology), Vedanta (philosophy), Dhyana (meditation), Kalari marma chikitsa (Kerala martial art therapy) and Yoga chikitsa (yoga therapy) from the traditional village schools in South India known as gurukulams. He also has a bachelor’s degree from Mahatma Gandhi University and a master’s degree in human resources development.
For more than a decade and a half, Janesh Vaidya has been travelling in Europe and the United States to share his knowledge in the field of Ayurveda through lectures, columns and books, based on his traditional knowledge in the subject and his experience working as a practitioner of Ayurveda around the world. Over the years, Vaidya has given hundreds of inspirational lectures and has written eight books in the field of health, which have been translated and published in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and Holland.
Apart from being an author, lecturer and Ayurveda practitioner, Janesh Vaidya is also the Managing Director of Vaidya’s Ayurveda Village, a health retreat in Kerala, South India.
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“Ayurveda teaches me one of the biggest lessons in my life, that I am unique with my strength and my weakness.”
What does Ayurveda mean to you?
My life vision is to make Ayurveda, one of the most ancient health sciences on this earth, accessible to all levels of people in this modern world, regardless of whether they areyoung or old, rich or poor, and with that wisdom help humans to grow through the development of their physical, mental, spiritual and sensuous sides of life.
At the very early stage of my life I was inspired by the mission of my grandma, who took care of the mental and physical health of the people in her village in South India. That must have been the first spark which later grew with me as a flame of my vision — the vision to support people around the world with my traditional knowledge in Ayurveda.
I am aware that I have a long way to go to serve this health wisdom to more than seven billion people in this world, which sometimes feels like an ocean of responsibility. But every morning I wake up with the belief that every action I take that day towards my vision — whether I am giving a lecture in front of a crowd, meeting a client for a health consultation, or sitting alone in the silent ambience of my room writing a book, hoping for this ancient wisdom to reach an even bigger volume of people in this world — makes me alive during that day and I return to my sleep in the evening with the same dream, my vision of this world.
At every struggling point of my journey I recall my grandma’s words, “Look at the raindrops, they are so small, but the collection of these tiny droplets fills the enormous ocean.” Remembering my grandma’s, my first guru’s words, I continue my journey without taking my eyes off my vision, and spread the knowledge of Ayurveda on my way to make this world a better place for all lives on this Earth. So I continue my journey, with the belief that the small drops of my efforts, my personal meetings, my literature, and my speeches, will one day fill the ocean of health and happiness on this wonderful planet.
After nearly two decades of my journey outside India as an ambassador of Ayurveda I have come to realise that I am not alone in this mission. Over the years I have found many like-minded people in different countries around the world and we are working as a team towards the same mission.
When did you discover it? How long have you been practising it?
As I mentioned, I started my Ayurveda education with my grandma, who was also a poison therapist in the village. I continued my studies in vedanta, vedic astrology, numerology, yoga, tantra and meditation with different teachers in India during my adolescence and youth. Ayurveda is a vast subject and even after more than three decades of my studies and practice I am still standing on the shore of this ocean with my little knowledge, like a little child holding a few shells in his palm. That is why I dedicated my second book to my grandfather, who practiced Ayurveda for more than eighty years, and as his last words, he said that he was happy to live and die as a student of Ayurveda.
What drew you to Ayurveda?
Ayurveda is holistic in its approach and treatment. That is the reason why, in Ayurveda, body and mind are considered as coupled, and we need the balance in both to maintain health through all stages of life. The physical side of the body is merely a mediator between two worlds — the inner world is the “mind” and the outer world is the “nature.” Without having proper communication between the inner and outer world a body can’t survive healthily in the long run. In our modern world what we are doing is treating the body without knowing our inner (mind) and outer world (nature).
I have noticed that here in the West people take pills to treat the symptoms while in Ayurveda we use symptoms as the signal of the imbalanced state of our body and find the natural solutions to treat the root cause of the actual problem, basically by making the necessary changes in the patient’s food, lifestyle and thoughts. I often ask my audience: when we have a fire in the house, will we put out the fire or will we just switch off the fire alarms?
We have to know that we have internal and external organs. That is why we can’t survive without nature. When we cut down a tree, remember that we are destroying one of our external organs, which is a couple with our internal organ — our lungs that receive the oxygen from the trees. From this example we can see that health is not just related to our physical body, but our mind inside and the nature outside has a bigger role in it. For a permanent solution to our health problems we need a holistic approach and Ayurveda is the answer for that.
Has it helped you with anything major?
Ayurveda teaches me one of the biggest lessons in my life, that I am unique with my strength and my weakness. This ancient wisdom opens my eyes to see that I am the only one like me in this world in this century, which makes me feel special, and makes my mind stronger by not comparing other people’s life or experience with mine.
Is Ayurveda part of your everyday life or just for your medicine cabinet or fall-back routine?
A Vaidya is a student of Ayurveda during his entire life. And for a Vaidya, Ayurveda is a lifestyle, not merely a profession. He never teaches people with the textbooks, but with his own life experiences. The world is his classroom and every difficult situation is his examination to face and pass to enter into the next stage of his life. And according to the belief of a Vaidya, the most dangerous situation is when his life settles in a comfort zone, where he faces no struggling and learns nothing more, and lives the rest of this life without new experiences.
What are your top 3 Ayurvedic tips that have worked for you?
You are what you eat – physically and mentally. While you chew your physical food in your mouth and digest it in your stomach, your mental food is your thoughts, which you chew in your brain and swallow into your heart to process.
Since I am focusing on mental health, which is the base of wellbeing, I can give you three steps that I apply in my daily life. My first tip to maintain a healthy mind is to observe your thoughts constantly. That simply means, be aware of what is going on in your brain from morning till evening. Second, classify your thoughts. Which means analyse each thought whether it is a good or bad (medicine or poison) thought for your mind. Third, receive or reject accordingly. If it is a good thought let that thought linger until it cultivates a good feeling. And if you find your present thought is not good, try to replace it with a good one, which will automatically defuse the negative thought before it is generating a negative feeling in your heart.
What surprised you most about Ayurveda?
Even though I was born in one of the oldest Vaidya families in south India, even though I had the opportunity to learn Ayurveda from the very early stages of my life, until I started to practise mind-yoga exercises in my own life, I couldn’t make use of this great wisdom in its complete form. Until I understood the anatomy of my own mind and until I started to practise the power of the seven energy points (chakras) in my body, all the knowledge I gained through the years was merely framed theories in my daily practical life.
If I hadn’t found my mental powers through the tools of Ayurveda, if I was not adding mind-yoga exercises to my practice, I wouldn’t have found my talents and been able to work for my passion. If I hadn’t found my passion I wouldn’t have written any books and you wouldn’t have read these lines from me.
Did you integrate it gradually or overnight for any particular reason?
Since I was lucky to be born in a Vaidya family, Ayurveda was integrated into my life from a very early stage, even from the first memory of my life. But as I mentioned earlier, even though I had all the tools to work on my health, my mind was occupied with deep anxiety, heavy stress and sadness during the early years of my youth.
Everything changed in my life after an accident where I came close to death and at the last moments of struggling between life and death I gave a promise to my heart. Those moments while saying goodbye to the world I promised my heart that if I survived that accident, I would live my life with a vision for this world. I promised myself that I would never treat my heart with anxiety or stress or sadness again, instead I would live full of joy, filled with love, and move with hope. I kept my promise, since I returned to my life, and I will continue my journey, until I leave this planet once again.
Do your children/family eat an Ayurvedic diet? And if they do, do they know it's Ayurveda or do they just think of it as home cooking?
In a Vaidya family, since Ayurveda is integrated as a normal lifestyle and food as a healthy treat, we won’t usually call it Ayurvedic meals, instead we just call it food — our natural medicine for our body, mind and our vital energy. In a Vaidya’s kitchen the food will always be prepared with the principles of Ayurveda, and eaten in silence with a meditative mind.
Since many ancient practices are integrated into our daily life in the village, we often forget about the practice. We keep yoga postures all through the actions in our daily life without doing yoga on a mat; we often live in the moment with mindfulness without even doing a meditation outside our daily life; we eat plant-based food according to the seasons without calling it a diet plan. As another example, in our village people don’t even know about organic vegetables, only vegetables, which they grow naturally without using chemical pesticides or fertilisers.
What is your favourite Ayurvedic recipe or go-to ingredient?
There are many, though I can say, korma is one of my favourites. Here is the recipe — make changes to adapt for Kapha, Pitta and Vata according to the recommended ingredient lists on my website.
How does Ayurveda fit into your day-to-day routines?
There are mainly four areas in which I try to keep a discipline in my daily life:
1. The right food — I try to eat according to my PDE (Presently Dominating Elements).
2. The right exercise — I do my short yoga therapy programme designed according to my PDE.
3. The right thoughts — I try to be awake in my mind from morning till evening to catch the negative bits of thoughts trying to enter into my brain. In any situation I try to engage my mind with love, passion, good memories and dreams.
4. Enough relaxation — I find enough time to give rest for my body and mind. Sleep is one of the highest priorities among them.
What do you wish was easier in our society to make an Ayurvedic lifestyle more accessible?
Most of the problems in our society are the result of lack of understanding. That means, misunderstandings happening everywhere, between the couples in a family, between the boss and the subordinate in an office, between friends, families, cultures and countries. Even a war is a kind of misunderstanding between two leaders.
I wish, everybody in the world could get the basic knowledge of this ancient life wisdom. I wish Ayurveda was included in the syllabus of our school education, especially the mental health routines of Ayurveda, which have a major role in shaping a person's life, a family, a society and a healthy world. So I wish that in the coming days we will focus on the mental side of Ayurveda rather than only the physical part, and start every change the world wants to see from within us.
Do people around you/in your circle of friends know about Ayurveda?
When I first came to Europe in the millennium, and landed in Scandinavia to teach Ayurveda, apart from a few specific health practitioners, hardly anyone knew about this ancient health science and its practices. But during the last two decades more and more people came forward to study Ayurveda because of the experiences they have seen in the people in their society.
What's the one thing you would encourage everyone to try or you think would benefit the majority of people's health for the better?
Happiness is your birthright and a major part of your health is the result of your choices. Yes, life is a choice. For instance if you stand on the road and look around, you can only see the walls of buildings around you. But if you start to fly a little higher, you see the top of the buildings and the land from above. When you go up yet again you see the forest and the ocean below your feet. Life is also like that; when we stand on the ground we can only see the obstacles of walls and musts — and we forget our choices of infinite opportunities just above our heads.
Anything else you'd like to add?
Every person is different in this world, but the one becomes unique who recognises it herself.