Aware, Awake, Alive: A Contemporary Guide to the Ancient Science of Integral Health and Human Flourishing
(Practice CD Included with paperback) Paragon House, 2011 Available at Amazon | kindle ebook (no CD) Practice CD | Practice CD as MP3 download Introduction (below) Chapter One Endorsements |
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A Letter to the Reader
In the pages that follow, you and I will join together in a profound journey of learning and transformation that can take us toward an extraordinary state of well-being, one largely unknown in modern times. This extraordinary state of well-being goes far beyond anything that we would call “normal,” yet the potential for it exists within each and every one of us. In modern times we call this optimal well-being by its traditional term, human flourishing. It is the crowning achievement of human development. It is a deeply satisfying way to live. It is a state of peace, wisdom, happiness, freedom, and love as we have never known them.
To our customary way of thinking such well-being is inconceivable. Yet there are wise men and women from across various cultures and times whose lives give evidence to this possibility. Using a consistent set of practices as their vehicle, they have journeyed to the center of their being and brought forth the full flowering of their own human potential. They prospered in the full sense of that word—body, mind, and spirit. They found this state of optimal well-being to be steadfast and enduring, even in the face of illness, aging, or death.
For most of us this experience is far from the norm. Fortunately, the wise women and men of times past who awakened this within themselves have carefully articulated the universal science of integral health and human flourishing so that we may follow in their footsteps. They have provided us with a time-honored and reliable path that leads to the alleviation of all forms of mental distress and suffering and the attainment of an unsurpassable quality of life.
Fortunately for us, their attainments and methods are no longer a mystery. They were caring enough to leave a roadmap that details the precise steps that will also take each one of us from an ordinary life to an extraordinary life, from ordinary health to extraordinary health, from a limited life to profound prosperity. This universal roadmap to human flourishing is the basis for our work together. That is why we are meeting here, and it is a fortunate connection of potentially great magnitude.
This book represents my best attempt to share with you what I have learned from individuals that have fully awakened to life. It is my intention that this knowledge will help guide you in this journey. I have presented it in a format that is personal, practical, and accessible.
Before you accept me as a guide and spiritual friend on this very important journey, however, it is important that you know something about my life and work. You must be careful about choosing your guides. I have learned that from personal experience. You must be willing to examine their lives, motivations, and capacities. If you are certain that you have chosen the correct guide, you will find it easier to make the level of commitment that will assure more rapid progress.
As for myself, I don’t claim to be a master or sage, but I have been fortunate. I have been able to travel down this road for a period of time. I have had wonderful teachers to guide me, two excellent educations that together fully embrace the inner and outer aspects of healing, the opportunity to learn from teaching others, and the experience gained from continuously integrating what I have learned into my day-to-day life. I have had a taste of human flourishing, a taste I would very much like to share with you.
Let us start with my education, both my educations. My first education culminated in medical school, internship, and residency training. After this formal education, I practiced full time internal medicine for 21 years and participated in over 50,000 patient visits. Over the years, I learned to cherish my medical education and the opportunity it gave me to assist individuals suffering from disease and seeking health.
However, it was not long before I discovered that my medical education did not fully prepare me to care for all of the needs of my patients. I was extensively and well-trained in matters of the body—physical diagnosis and therapy—and this was certainly of great value when considering issues of health and disease. But I learned little about the mind, and nothing at all about the spirit. I often felt helpless and powerless when faced with the day-to-day complexities of life that unquestionably had a powerful impact on my patient’s well-being; factors such as stressful lifestyles, disheartening and painful relationships, unsatisfying work, deeply ingrained high-risk behaviors and subtle discontent, and not-so subtle unhappiness.
Even when I succeeded in helping a patient alleviate the immediate signs and symptoms of disease, I realized that only half the job was done. In a conventional sense, one could say that patient was once again healthy. But at a deeper level, that was far from the actual truth. Why? Because the underlying disturbances of lifestyle, mental distress, and spiritual darkness persisted. The fundamental causes of ill health were unchanged.
There were many times when I would look into the eyes of my patients and feel their longing for something more. It would trigger the same feeling and longing within me. At that time I knew nothing about the mind or subtle mind/body interactions. And I certainly knew little about human flourishing. I did not know how to respond to their inarticulate yearning for a more substantial and far-reaching health or that indefinable “something more,” a yearning we each revisit in our quietest moments. I could not understand the deeper meaning and hidden potential of their disorder. I had arrived at the limits of my knowledge and capacities. I could not meet the longing of my patient’s soul. I was not trained to be an authentic healer of body, mind, and spirit; a healer of the whole person.
Here it is important for you to understand my attitude toward biomedicine so that you will not misunderstand me. Medical science has been a remarkable achievement. I am grateful for its brilliance. We can count on it for an accurate understanding and diagnosis of disease, a host of targeted therapies, risk factor reduction, safe surgery, and efforts aimed at health promotion and wellness that include physical exercise and proper nutrition. Our health and lives are far better—more comfortable, more productive, and longer lasting—because of it.
Those strengths aside, it has its shortcomings. Its current understanding, tools, and practices are insufficient to address today’s challenges to health, healing, and human flourishing.
Why? Because we now face very different and subtler challenges. New epidemics have replaced old ones. We suffer from high and persistent levels of stress, anxiety, and non-stop mind chatter. Mood disturbances, addictive behavior and attention disorders have become increasingly common. Our relationships are often troubled, and a source of ongoing mental distress. In addition, many of us suffer from feelings of discontent, and dissatisfaction. At times these are so subtle we hardly recognize their presence and at other times they are quite overt and troubling. At all times these modern day epidemics are real and significant threats to the health of body, mind and spirit. We know that something is amiss, but we don’t know what it is or how to fix it.
The failure to understand and address the causes of these symptoms, and their practical interference in our lives, denies us the full richness of human life. It’s ironic—while our superb medical science is capable of extending life, it cannot guarantee that life is happy, peaceful, meaningful, or prosperous.
Because my traditional medical education did not teach me how to address these modern threats to the quality of human life, I began to study psychology, wellness, holism, mind/body interactions and the dynamics of stress. I learned many things that enabled me to expand my knowledge and skills. Over time, my studies resulted in two books, many speaking engagements, and a more satisfying medical practice. I thought I had found the answers I was seeking, and I did, in part. I practiced medicine in this expanded way for many years. Those were satisfying years, and I thought I had touched as deeply as possible what was known about health and healing. But I soon discovered that I had barely scratched the surface. I had not yet touched below the surface to the core of health and healing. At that time, like most of you, I was unaware of the capacity for human flourishing. I was similarly unaware of the unexpected turn my life and work were about to take.
When my youngest daughter completed college, I finally had time to sit back and reflect. Busyness and constant doing does not leave much time for self-reflection, and my day-to-day life was as busy as anyone else’s. I had spent years developing myself professionally, running my medical practice, writing, teaching, and raising my daughters. And now, finally, I had the luxury of some time to myself.
And that’s how I came to hear the insistent longings of my soul. It did not “speak” to me directly, but through a nagging insistence that there was more to life, more to be experienced and enjoyed than what I had tasted in my personal and professional life. In its quiet and persistent way, it “spoke” to me about all that was not yet resolved in my life and heart. It insisted that there was more to life.
I would have preferred that this voice just disappear, but I knew it spoke truth. It told me that there was a deeper and more enduring happiness than I had yet experienced, a peace that surpasses brief moments of relaxation, a profound love that inspires authentic connection and intimacy, and a greater purpose in life that transcends ordinary doing and achieving.
It would have been a lot more convenient if these nagging doubts and questions had just disappeared, allowing me to continue with my life as I always had. Why push my good fortune? I had a satisfying practice, a good and stable income, and the respect customarily offered to physicians. I also had the opportunity to continue writing books, speaking, and teaching. Those were clearly not things to turn away from. I had spent many years cultivating them. But the insistent voice in my head just kept repeating: there is more, there is more. I did not know the precise way forward. But I did know that I did not want to look back later in life with regrets that I had failed to heed this inner call. If there was more, I needed to discover it, and if not now, when?
A month after my daughter’s graduation, I left my medical practice, sold my house, gave my furniture to my children, packed my bags and headed north by car to a secluded island home that I had used infrequently over the years. I did not have a set agenda. However, what I did know, for the first time in my life, was that I needed to learn how to “be” rather than “do.” And I knew that would be the hardest thing I had ever done!
I knew the great stories of transition and transformation. I had read them many times, old and new, traditional and non-traditional. They spoke with a singular voice: “If you want to turn a corner in your life,” they said, “you must first be willing to let go of your comfortable anchors and move into the unknown. Rearranging furniture in the same room just won’t work.”
Unwinding a carefully cultivated and “successful” life was difficult at first, but once I got in the car with my bare belongings, I knew something was right, very right. I had begun the long awaited journey of awakening.
My plan was to just sit still for an indefinite period of time and see what it was like to just “be” with nothing to do and no place to go. That is exactly what I did except for a brief winter sojourn each of the first two winters to serve as a fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Slowly I could feel the natural rhythms of life returning to body, mind, and spirit. I could feel the layers of years of accumulated stress and strain slowly dissipate. They were slowly and tentatively replaced by a newfound lightness of being. I could sense something was happening, and it was good.
And then it happened. An unexpected meeting occurred during my second winter at the institute. At the time, I was sharing a house with an Indian physicist from Eugene, Oregon, Amit Goswami. He was a visiting scholar at the same institute. You might recall him from the movie What the Bleep. For several months, we shared dinner each evening and talked for hours about physics, consciousness, and health. Towards the end of our time together, he asked me if I wanted to join him on a forthcoming trip to Asia. “I’ll give you a soft landing,” he said. So I thought, why not?
Three months later, I was on an airplane to Chennai. I could not have possibly known what lay ahead. I could not have known that I had just embarked on a journey that was to last for more than a decade and define the next phase of my life and work. After all my previous efforts to organize life and career, it was now about to naturally unfold in ways I could never have imagined. It was happening without any intervention from my “doing” mode.
There are times and places where you feel at home. One does not know the why and how of it. You just feel at home. For me, India was like that. It was an immediate hit. There was something special there, perhaps the better word is sacred, something which touched my soul and continues to defy explanation. Yes, there was the beauty, sensuality, authenticity, colors, rhythms, natural simplicity, and more. It was all of these and at the same time none of them. There was something even deeper, intangible, and very subtle. It was about soul and spirit—a soul and spirit that are deeply grounded in the soil of this land, in the people, and in a culture that has cultivated two of the world’s great religions. India was like a mirror that reflected my own spirit and soul. Something inside told me that I had found the people and place that could teach me about a different level of health and wholeness.
At the end of my first visit, I knew I would return. I also knew that when I returned, it would not be to sightsee. I wanted to focus, instead, on studying the inner aspects of health and healing, and learning how to bring about the radical health and well-being I had seen in certain highly developed teachers. So, over the next 12 years, I made annual trips to India, and later, Nepal. Each of these trips lasted from two to six months. I studied in various locations with various teachers. I committed myself to my studies the same as I had done in medical school. I searched for the wisest, happiest, and most peaceful teachers I could find. And then I sat, listened, studied, reflected, and practiced.
This was my second medical education, and it felt right. It lasted 12 years in Asia and continues to unfold each day. My second formal medical education did not supplant my first education in medical science, rather, it compliments and completes it.
My first medical education taught me about the outer biologic aspects of healing, it focused on disease, treatment, and longevity. My second medical education focuses on the inner aspects of health and healing. Here, the emphasis is on mind and spirit, on the quality of life rather than the biologic aspects of life. Together, they form the basis for a comprehensive and far-reaching understanding of health and healing. Together, they provide me with a scope of knowledge and skills that ranges from diagnosing and treating disease to guiding others along the path to human flourishing. This is what I had come to the East to learn.
In some ways, this period of study resembled my medical school training. My curriculum was divided into intellectual understanding and laboratory experience. The former was attained by listening to talks and reading texts. The latter required daily practice of mind training. Mind training enabled me to examine and understand the intricacies of my mind, much as the microscope is used to understand the intricacies of the body. I soon discovered that this inner science was as precise, practical, and relevant as medical science was in the West.
Slowly, I developed an understanding of the principles and practices of inner healing. Because I wanted to carefully assess the effects of this training on my life, my life became my laboratory. Could I begin to bring stress, distress, dissatisfaction and suffering to an end in my personal life? Could I intentionally cultivate a more profound health, happiness, and wholeness? Could I taste the qualities of human flourishing? Would these ideas and practices work? Surely this would be the ultimate way to prove to myself whether or not there was a larger health, one that could be self-created through inner development without the use of external remedies or the need for health practitioners.
Fourteen years of immersing myself in this deeper study of inner health and healing has convinced me that it is possible for every motivated individual to gain a complete understanding of the mind. It is possible to learn to tame its repetitive and habitual mental chatter, diminish and overcome disturbing thoughts and emotions, activate the mind/body relationship as a powerful healing force, transform dysfunctional relationships into gifts of intimacy, and gain a profoundly satisfying life. I know that this might seem inconceivable. However, I have verified these possibilities through my own experience and witnessed it in many others. The wise healers of the past have spoken the truth. Human flourishing is possible for each of us. In fact, it is a potential waiting for us to awaken to it. It is already and always there.
Let’s be very clear, however, that you cannot take a pill or use some other external remedy to achieve this optimal state of well-being. Someone else cannot do it for you or give it to you. You need to do it for yourself, and you need to want it. You need to want it with your whole being. You need to feel within you the deep longing for a larger life that reaches beyond the bounds of what is now known to you. Desire it as intensely as you would a lover.
As I could slowly see the glimmer of the gem of human flourishing I knew it was possible for everyone. And I also knew it was time to come home to my own culture, as a physician, and do what I could to help others see the truth, goodness, and beauty of life, much as I had been helped to see it for myself. I knew it was time to practice medicine again, but this time, an inner and outer whole medicine.
There were obstacles to overcome in bringing this expanded vision to the West. I struggled with many questions: how do I tailor the ideas and practices learned in a different culture, to day-to-day life in the West? How do I integrate inner healing with the outer healing that dominates Western culture? How do I convey the age-old vision of optimal health and human flourishing to individuals who mistake “normal” for healthy? This became my prime focus.
I committed myself to making what I had learned about human flourishing accessible to Westerners. I decided to do an experiment in the form of a ten-week program of study, reflection, and practice, and offer it in a local hospital.
I chose the hospital setting because I wanted to make this opportunity available to individuals who would not usually consider such programs. I wanted to work with “ordinary” people who had no particular background in inner or spiritual approaches; individuals who knew there was something more to life and health and were willing to undertake the challenge.
My students and I met weekly for two hours. At the beginning of the class, they would share their progress and the challenges they confronted. This allowed me to tailor the process to individual needs, reinforce the instructions, and clarify certain issues I presented. Then I presented material related to that week’s class, provided time for group support, and taught practices to be used daily, for formal home sessions as well as for day-to-day life activities.
Although the participants had varied backgrounds, that class clicked, because everyone shared the same goal, worked together, and supported each other. Watching my students’ progress taught me that any motivated individual could work this program, irrespective of his or her background or state of physical health. That was a very important discovery, It affirmed something wise healers have long known: the possibility of human flourishing is equally available to everyone.
Since that time, I have taught the course to hundreds of people, some of whom have taken it two or three times. My students have taught me what worked and what did not work. They showed me how to adapt the course material to their individual needs, and even more importantly, they showed me with their lives the value of this approach.
Every time I teach the course, I am astonished at the changes I see in individual’s lives. I still cannot believe that so much can occur in such a short period of time. Results have been consistent. By the second or third week, my students find that their reactivity has diminished and inner calm has gained a foothold. By the fifth week, they report that their relationships have improved. Afflictive emotions (like anger or jealousy) have lessened, mindfulness progressively extends into daily life, the overactive mind calms down, and personal relationships improve. Even in that short time, it is possible to see tangible evidence of a new and richer life. Life changes. The possibility of truly having “more” becomes real. And that is a miracle.
As the course evolved, I developed a manual to help with the intellectual content. Over the years it was edited and re-edited many times to incorporate what I learned teaching this course. Finally, we had a course manual that was written as much by the participants as it was by me. It fit the Western mind and accomplished the task of supporting others in the inner development that is essential for a larger life and health.
Inspired by the consistent, positive changes I saw in my students in each of the 16 courses I taught, I decided to turn the course manual into a book. Aware, Awake, Alive incorporates all the material I give to my students. It is divided into four parts.
The first, The Vision, will awaken you to possibilities for your life that may be more thrilling than any you’ve ever contemplated. The second, The Path, explains in a careful, precise, and step-by-step way, how to train your mind and progressively unfold the capacities that characterize human flourishing. The third section, The Fruition, explores the exquisite capacities of human flourishing that begin to emerge when the mind is quieted and the heart is free of emotional disturbance. These include the capacity for serenity, full-knowing wisdom, enduring happiness, natural self-arising compassion, boundless freedom, and the perfection of health. The fourth section, The Integration, discusses the part these practices can play in the healing of challenging, often treatment-resistant conditions such as addictive disorders, heart disease, chronic illness, depression, attention deficit disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorders.
Aware, Awake, Alive is unusual, in that it incorporates the original 10-week course into the book, along with more advanced material for those who master the basics and want to continue on. The book includes “readings” for each of the 10 weeks; each was created to deepen your understanding of an underlying basic principle. This is the “study and reflection” part of the course. Chapters 4-13 will also teach you a formal daily practice as well as a progressive series of daily living “practices” that will put you solidly on the path to human flourishing.
Many participants retake this course two and three times. Repetition is important, so expect to find it in this book. Repetition is how you learn and become familiar with the material and practices. That is how to develop new and healthy mental habits. The material presented is rich and multi-faceted; with each reading the material takes on a subtler meaning. To assist you in learning it, I have also included a practice CD with this book. The use of this CD is discussed in chapter four. It will help you establish a stable and effective daily practice.
I suggest that you first read through the entire book without focusing on the practices. This will provide you with a complete overview of the journey to human flourishing--vision, path, fruition, and integration. You may then return to Chapters 4-13 (the practice chapters) and work through the practices at your own pace. With this second reading you can take your time re-reading the text, learning and integrating the practices into your life one step at a time. Alternatively, you can work with the practices during your first reading, pacing yourself as you slowly integrate each practice into your life. Choose what is best for you: get the full picture first or dive right into the process. Either will work. Whichever you choose, consider this as a self-development course that requires your active participation. Merely reading the book will plant a seed but won’t bring the same benefits.
Many others, throughout time and across diverse cultures, have followed this time-honored approach and successfully transformed their lives. This can serve as a source of reassurance and affirmation that you are on the right path. We do not get that many chances in a lifetime to shift gears. We do not get that many chances in a lifetime to unfold the precious gem of life. We cannot wait until it is too late. We cannot afford excuses and delays. There comes a time to get on with it. There comes a time to jump into the richness and vastness of life. And that time is now, today.
My commitment to you is twofold. First, this approach will definitely and decisively bring you to greater health, happiness, and peace. There is nothing new here, nothing which has not been demonstrated time and time again by those willing to undertake this journey. Second, I will stay with you throughout your effort, and beyond. I will offer you additional resources in this book and on my website. I will be available to you.
I began this letter by introducing myself to you. I wanted you to know about my two medical educations and what I learned about human flourishing from both of them. I wanted to inspire you to turn a corner in your life and to offer to partner with you in that precious and sacred process. I want you to taste human flourishing as I have, and to feel a thirst for the fullness and richness of life. When you have seen what is possible and travelled along this path for a while, it is only natural to want others to experience the same. That is what I wish for you and that is what I am certain you will wish for others as well.
I hope this note encourages you to accompany me on this extraordinary journey that is brought alive in the pages ahead. If you choose to grow your inner life, your inner calling will progressively unfold itself and be fully realized. You will actualize human flourishing in your life, and the dissatisfactions, uncertainty, and discontent of your earlier life will dissipate like morning dew.
I must acknowledge that the teachings given in these chapters are not mine. I cannot take credit for them. I did not invent them or discover them. I am merely transmitting as best I can what the great sages have taught us throughout the ages. I hope I am an acceptable conduit.
To our customary way of thinking such well-being is inconceivable. Yet there are wise men and women from across various cultures and times whose lives give evidence to this possibility. Using a consistent set of practices as their vehicle, they have journeyed to the center of their being and brought forth the full flowering of their own human potential. They prospered in the full sense of that word—body, mind, and spirit. They found this state of optimal well-being to be steadfast and enduring, even in the face of illness, aging, or death.
For most of us this experience is far from the norm. Fortunately, the wise women and men of times past who awakened this within themselves have carefully articulated the universal science of integral health and human flourishing so that we may follow in their footsteps. They have provided us with a time-honored and reliable path that leads to the alleviation of all forms of mental distress and suffering and the attainment of an unsurpassable quality of life.
Fortunately for us, their attainments and methods are no longer a mystery. They were caring enough to leave a roadmap that details the precise steps that will also take each one of us from an ordinary life to an extraordinary life, from ordinary health to extraordinary health, from a limited life to profound prosperity. This universal roadmap to human flourishing is the basis for our work together. That is why we are meeting here, and it is a fortunate connection of potentially great magnitude.
This book represents my best attempt to share with you what I have learned from individuals that have fully awakened to life. It is my intention that this knowledge will help guide you in this journey. I have presented it in a format that is personal, practical, and accessible.
Before you accept me as a guide and spiritual friend on this very important journey, however, it is important that you know something about my life and work. You must be careful about choosing your guides. I have learned that from personal experience. You must be willing to examine their lives, motivations, and capacities. If you are certain that you have chosen the correct guide, you will find it easier to make the level of commitment that will assure more rapid progress.
As for myself, I don’t claim to be a master or sage, but I have been fortunate. I have been able to travel down this road for a period of time. I have had wonderful teachers to guide me, two excellent educations that together fully embrace the inner and outer aspects of healing, the opportunity to learn from teaching others, and the experience gained from continuously integrating what I have learned into my day-to-day life. I have had a taste of human flourishing, a taste I would very much like to share with you.
Let us start with my education, both my educations. My first education culminated in medical school, internship, and residency training. After this formal education, I practiced full time internal medicine for 21 years and participated in over 50,000 patient visits. Over the years, I learned to cherish my medical education and the opportunity it gave me to assist individuals suffering from disease and seeking health.
However, it was not long before I discovered that my medical education did not fully prepare me to care for all of the needs of my patients. I was extensively and well-trained in matters of the body—physical diagnosis and therapy—and this was certainly of great value when considering issues of health and disease. But I learned little about the mind, and nothing at all about the spirit. I often felt helpless and powerless when faced with the day-to-day complexities of life that unquestionably had a powerful impact on my patient’s well-being; factors such as stressful lifestyles, disheartening and painful relationships, unsatisfying work, deeply ingrained high-risk behaviors and subtle discontent, and not-so subtle unhappiness.
Even when I succeeded in helping a patient alleviate the immediate signs and symptoms of disease, I realized that only half the job was done. In a conventional sense, one could say that patient was once again healthy. But at a deeper level, that was far from the actual truth. Why? Because the underlying disturbances of lifestyle, mental distress, and spiritual darkness persisted. The fundamental causes of ill health were unchanged.
There were many times when I would look into the eyes of my patients and feel their longing for something more. It would trigger the same feeling and longing within me. At that time I knew nothing about the mind or subtle mind/body interactions. And I certainly knew little about human flourishing. I did not know how to respond to their inarticulate yearning for a more substantial and far-reaching health or that indefinable “something more,” a yearning we each revisit in our quietest moments. I could not understand the deeper meaning and hidden potential of their disorder. I had arrived at the limits of my knowledge and capacities. I could not meet the longing of my patient’s soul. I was not trained to be an authentic healer of body, mind, and spirit; a healer of the whole person.
Here it is important for you to understand my attitude toward biomedicine so that you will not misunderstand me. Medical science has been a remarkable achievement. I am grateful for its brilliance. We can count on it for an accurate understanding and diagnosis of disease, a host of targeted therapies, risk factor reduction, safe surgery, and efforts aimed at health promotion and wellness that include physical exercise and proper nutrition. Our health and lives are far better—more comfortable, more productive, and longer lasting—because of it.
Those strengths aside, it has its shortcomings. Its current understanding, tools, and practices are insufficient to address today’s challenges to health, healing, and human flourishing.
Why? Because we now face very different and subtler challenges. New epidemics have replaced old ones. We suffer from high and persistent levels of stress, anxiety, and non-stop mind chatter. Mood disturbances, addictive behavior and attention disorders have become increasingly common. Our relationships are often troubled, and a source of ongoing mental distress. In addition, many of us suffer from feelings of discontent, and dissatisfaction. At times these are so subtle we hardly recognize their presence and at other times they are quite overt and troubling. At all times these modern day epidemics are real and significant threats to the health of body, mind and spirit. We know that something is amiss, but we don’t know what it is or how to fix it.
The failure to understand and address the causes of these symptoms, and their practical interference in our lives, denies us the full richness of human life. It’s ironic—while our superb medical science is capable of extending life, it cannot guarantee that life is happy, peaceful, meaningful, or prosperous.
Because my traditional medical education did not teach me how to address these modern threats to the quality of human life, I began to study psychology, wellness, holism, mind/body interactions and the dynamics of stress. I learned many things that enabled me to expand my knowledge and skills. Over time, my studies resulted in two books, many speaking engagements, and a more satisfying medical practice. I thought I had found the answers I was seeking, and I did, in part. I practiced medicine in this expanded way for many years. Those were satisfying years, and I thought I had touched as deeply as possible what was known about health and healing. But I soon discovered that I had barely scratched the surface. I had not yet touched below the surface to the core of health and healing. At that time, like most of you, I was unaware of the capacity for human flourishing. I was similarly unaware of the unexpected turn my life and work were about to take.
When my youngest daughter completed college, I finally had time to sit back and reflect. Busyness and constant doing does not leave much time for self-reflection, and my day-to-day life was as busy as anyone else’s. I had spent years developing myself professionally, running my medical practice, writing, teaching, and raising my daughters. And now, finally, I had the luxury of some time to myself.
And that’s how I came to hear the insistent longings of my soul. It did not “speak” to me directly, but through a nagging insistence that there was more to life, more to be experienced and enjoyed than what I had tasted in my personal and professional life. In its quiet and persistent way, it “spoke” to me about all that was not yet resolved in my life and heart. It insisted that there was more to life.
I would have preferred that this voice just disappear, but I knew it spoke truth. It told me that there was a deeper and more enduring happiness than I had yet experienced, a peace that surpasses brief moments of relaxation, a profound love that inspires authentic connection and intimacy, and a greater purpose in life that transcends ordinary doing and achieving.
It would have been a lot more convenient if these nagging doubts and questions had just disappeared, allowing me to continue with my life as I always had. Why push my good fortune? I had a satisfying practice, a good and stable income, and the respect customarily offered to physicians. I also had the opportunity to continue writing books, speaking, and teaching. Those were clearly not things to turn away from. I had spent many years cultivating them. But the insistent voice in my head just kept repeating: there is more, there is more. I did not know the precise way forward. But I did know that I did not want to look back later in life with regrets that I had failed to heed this inner call. If there was more, I needed to discover it, and if not now, when?
A month after my daughter’s graduation, I left my medical practice, sold my house, gave my furniture to my children, packed my bags and headed north by car to a secluded island home that I had used infrequently over the years. I did not have a set agenda. However, what I did know, for the first time in my life, was that I needed to learn how to “be” rather than “do.” And I knew that would be the hardest thing I had ever done!
I knew the great stories of transition and transformation. I had read them many times, old and new, traditional and non-traditional. They spoke with a singular voice: “If you want to turn a corner in your life,” they said, “you must first be willing to let go of your comfortable anchors and move into the unknown. Rearranging furniture in the same room just won’t work.”
Unwinding a carefully cultivated and “successful” life was difficult at first, but once I got in the car with my bare belongings, I knew something was right, very right. I had begun the long awaited journey of awakening.
My plan was to just sit still for an indefinite period of time and see what it was like to just “be” with nothing to do and no place to go. That is exactly what I did except for a brief winter sojourn each of the first two winters to serve as a fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Slowly I could feel the natural rhythms of life returning to body, mind, and spirit. I could feel the layers of years of accumulated stress and strain slowly dissipate. They were slowly and tentatively replaced by a newfound lightness of being. I could sense something was happening, and it was good.
And then it happened. An unexpected meeting occurred during my second winter at the institute. At the time, I was sharing a house with an Indian physicist from Eugene, Oregon, Amit Goswami. He was a visiting scholar at the same institute. You might recall him from the movie What the Bleep. For several months, we shared dinner each evening and talked for hours about physics, consciousness, and health. Towards the end of our time together, he asked me if I wanted to join him on a forthcoming trip to Asia. “I’ll give you a soft landing,” he said. So I thought, why not?
Three months later, I was on an airplane to Chennai. I could not have possibly known what lay ahead. I could not have known that I had just embarked on a journey that was to last for more than a decade and define the next phase of my life and work. After all my previous efforts to organize life and career, it was now about to naturally unfold in ways I could never have imagined. It was happening without any intervention from my “doing” mode.
There are times and places where you feel at home. One does not know the why and how of it. You just feel at home. For me, India was like that. It was an immediate hit. There was something special there, perhaps the better word is sacred, something which touched my soul and continues to defy explanation. Yes, there was the beauty, sensuality, authenticity, colors, rhythms, natural simplicity, and more. It was all of these and at the same time none of them. There was something even deeper, intangible, and very subtle. It was about soul and spirit—a soul and spirit that are deeply grounded in the soil of this land, in the people, and in a culture that has cultivated two of the world’s great religions. India was like a mirror that reflected my own spirit and soul. Something inside told me that I had found the people and place that could teach me about a different level of health and wholeness.
At the end of my first visit, I knew I would return. I also knew that when I returned, it would not be to sightsee. I wanted to focus, instead, on studying the inner aspects of health and healing, and learning how to bring about the radical health and well-being I had seen in certain highly developed teachers. So, over the next 12 years, I made annual trips to India, and later, Nepal. Each of these trips lasted from two to six months. I studied in various locations with various teachers. I committed myself to my studies the same as I had done in medical school. I searched for the wisest, happiest, and most peaceful teachers I could find. And then I sat, listened, studied, reflected, and practiced.
This was my second medical education, and it felt right. It lasted 12 years in Asia and continues to unfold each day. My second formal medical education did not supplant my first education in medical science, rather, it compliments and completes it.
My first medical education taught me about the outer biologic aspects of healing, it focused on disease, treatment, and longevity. My second medical education focuses on the inner aspects of health and healing. Here, the emphasis is on mind and spirit, on the quality of life rather than the biologic aspects of life. Together, they form the basis for a comprehensive and far-reaching understanding of health and healing. Together, they provide me with a scope of knowledge and skills that ranges from diagnosing and treating disease to guiding others along the path to human flourishing. This is what I had come to the East to learn.
In some ways, this period of study resembled my medical school training. My curriculum was divided into intellectual understanding and laboratory experience. The former was attained by listening to talks and reading texts. The latter required daily practice of mind training. Mind training enabled me to examine and understand the intricacies of my mind, much as the microscope is used to understand the intricacies of the body. I soon discovered that this inner science was as precise, practical, and relevant as medical science was in the West.
Slowly, I developed an understanding of the principles and practices of inner healing. Because I wanted to carefully assess the effects of this training on my life, my life became my laboratory. Could I begin to bring stress, distress, dissatisfaction and suffering to an end in my personal life? Could I intentionally cultivate a more profound health, happiness, and wholeness? Could I taste the qualities of human flourishing? Would these ideas and practices work? Surely this would be the ultimate way to prove to myself whether or not there was a larger health, one that could be self-created through inner development without the use of external remedies or the need for health practitioners.
Fourteen years of immersing myself in this deeper study of inner health and healing has convinced me that it is possible for every motivated individual to gain a complete understanding of the mind. It is possible to learn to tame its repetitive and habitual mental chatter, diminish and overcome disturbing thoughts and emotions, activate the mind/body relationship as a powerful healing force, transform dysfunctional relationships into gifts of intimacy, and gain a profoundly satisfying life. I know that this might seem inconceivable. However, I have verified these possibilities through my own experience and witnessed it in many others. The wise healers of the past have spoken the truth. Human flourishing is possible for each of us. In fact, it is a potential waiting for us to awaken to it. It is already and always there.
Let’s be very clear, however, that you cannot take a pill or use some other external remedy to achieve this optimal state of well-being. Someone else cannot do it for you or give it to you. You need to do it for yourself, and you need to want it. You need to want it with your whole being. You need to feel within you the deep longing for a larger life that reaches beyond the bounds of what is now known to you. Desire it as intensely as you would a lover.
As I could slowly see the glimmer of the gem of human flourishing I knew it was possible for everyone. And I also knew it was time to come home to my own culture, as a physician, and do what I could to help others see the truth, goodness, and beauty of life, much as I had been helped to see it for myself. I knew it was time to practice medicine again, but this time, an inner and outer whole medicine.
There were obstacles to overcome in bringing this expanded vision to the West. I struggled with many questions: how do I tailor the ideas and practices learned in a different culture, to day-to-day life in the West? How do I integrate inner healing with the outer healing that dominates Western culture? How do I convey the age-old vision of optimal health and human flourishing to individuals who mistake “normal” for healthy? This became my prime focus.
I committed myself to making what I had learned about human flourishing accessible to Westerners. I decided to do an experiment in the form of a ten-week program of study, reflection, and practice, and offer it in a local hospital.
I chose the hospital setting because I wanted to make this opportunity available to individuals who would not usually consider such programs. I wanted to work with “ordinary” people who had no particular background in inner or spiritual approaches; individuals who knew there was something more to life and health and were willing to undertake the challenge.
My students and I met weekly for two hours. At the beginning of the class, they would share their progress and the challenges they confronted. This allowed me to tailor the process to individual needs, reinforce the instructions, and clarify certain issues I presented. Then I presented material related to that week’s class, provided time for group support, and taught practices to be used daily, for formal home sessions as well as for day-to-day life activities.
Although the participants had varied backgrounds, that class clicked, because everyone shared the same goal, worked together, and supported each other. Watching my students’ progress taught me that any motivated individual could work this program, irrespective of his or her background or state of physical health. That was a very important discovery, It affirmed something wise healers have long known: the possibility of human flourishing is equally available to everyone.
Since that time, I have taught the course to hundreds of people, some of whom have taken it two or three times. My students have taught me what worked and what did not work. They showed me how to adapt the course material to their individual needs, and even more importantly, they showed me with their lives the value of this approach.
Every time I teach the course, I am astonished at the changes I see in individual’s lives. I still cannot believe that so much can occur in such a short period of time. Results have been consistent. By the second or third week, my students find that their reactivity has diminished and inner calm has gained a foothold. By the fifth week, they report that their relationships have improved. Afflictive emotions (like anger or jealousy) have lessened, mindfulness progressively extends into daily life, the overactive mind calms down, and personal relationships improve. Even in that short time, it is possible to see tangible evidence of a new and richer life. Life changes. The possibility of truly having “more” becomes real. And that is a miracle.
As the course evolved, I developed a manual to help with the intellectual content. Over the years it was edited and re-edited many times to incorporate what I learned teaching this course. Finally, we had a course manual that was written as much by the participants as it was by me. It fit the Western mind and accomplished the task of supporting others in the inner development that is essential for a larger life and health.
Inspired by the consistent, positive changes I saw in my students in each of the 16 courses I taught, I decided to turn the course manual into a book. Aware, Awake, Alive incorporates all the material I give to my students. It is divided into four parts.
The first, The Vision, will awaken you to possibilities for your life that may be more thrilling than any you’ve ever contemplated. The second, The Path, explains in a careful, precise, and step-by-step way, how to train your mind and progressively unfold the capacities that characterize human flourishing. The third section, The Fruition, explores the exquisite capacities of human flourishing that begin to emerge when the mind is quieted and the heart is free of emotional disturbance. These include the capacity for serenity, full-knowing wisdom, enduring happiness, natural self-arising compassion, boundless freedom, and the perfection of health. The fourth section, The Integration, discusses the part these practices can play in the healing of challenging, often treatment-resistant conditions such as addictive disorders, heart disease, chronic illness, depression, attention deficit disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorders.
Aware, Awake, Alive is unusual, in that it incorporates the original 10-week course into the book, along with more advanced material for those who master the basics and want to continue on. The book includes “readings” for each of the 10 weeks; each was created to deepen your understanding of an underlying basic principle. This is the “study and reflection” part of the course. Chapters 4-13 will also teach you a formal daily practice as well as a progressive series of daily living “practices” that will put you solidly on the path to human flourishing.
Many participants retake this course two and three times. Repetition is important, so expect to find it in this book. Repetition is how you learn and become familiar with the material and practices. That is how to develop new and healthy mental habits. The material presented is rich and multi-faceted; with each reading the material takes on a subtler meaning. To assist you in learning it, I have also included a practice CD with this book. The use of this CD is discussed in chapter four. It will help you establish a stable and effective daily practice.
I suggest that you first read through the entire book without focusing on the practices. This will provide you with a complete overview of the journey to human flourishing--vision, path, fruition, and integration. You may then return to Chapters 4-13 (the practice chapters) and work through the practices at your own pace. With this second reading you can take your time re-reading the text, learning and integrating the practices into your life one step at a time. Alternatively, you can work with the practices during your first reading, pacing yourself as you slowly integrate each practice into your life. Choose what is best for you: get the full picture first or dive right into the process. Either will work. Whichever you choose, consider this as a self-development course that requires your active participation. Merely reading the book will plant a seed but won’t bring the same benefits.
Many others, throughout time and across diverse cultures, have followed this time-honored approach and successfully transformed their lives. This can serve as a source of reassurance and affirmation that you are on the right path. We do not get that many chances in a lifetime to shift gears. We do not get that many chances in a lifetime to unfold the precious gem of life. We cannot wait until it is too late. We cannot afford excuses and delays. There comes a time to get on with it. There comes a time to jump into the richness and vastness of life. And that time is now, today.
My commitment to you is twofold. First, this approach will definitely and decisively bring you to greater health, happiness, and peace. There is nothing new here, nothing which has not been demonstrated time and time again by those willing to undertake this journey. Second, I will stay with you throughout your effort, and beyond. I will offer you additional resources in this book and on my website. I will be available to you.
I began this letter by introducing myself to you. I wanted you to know about my two medical educations and what I learned about human flourishing from both of them. I wanted to inspire you to turn a corner in your life and to offer to partner with you in that precious and sacred process. I want you to taste human flourishing as I have, and to feel a thirst for the fullness and richness of life. When you have seen what is possible and travelled along this path for a while, it is only natural to want others to experience the same. That is what I wish for you and that is what I am certain you will wish for others as well.
I hope this note encourages you to accompany me on this extraordinary journey that is brought alive in the pages ahead. If you choose to grow your inner life, your inner calling will progressively unfold itself and be fully realized. You will actualize human flourishing in your life, and the dissatisfactions, uncertainty, and discontent of your earlier life will dissipate like morning dew.
I must acknowledge that the teachings given in these chapters are not mine. I cannot take credit for them. I did not invent them or discover them. I am merely transmitting as best I can what the great sages have taught us throughout the ages. I hope I am an acceptable conduit.
Blessings on the journey,
Elliott
Elliott
© Elliott Dacher, M.D. (From Aware, Awake, Alive: A Contemporary Guide to the Ancient Science of Integral Health and Human Flourishing, Paragon House, 2011)
