Meet the author, lecturer and columnist Janesh Vaidya. His highly acclaimed novel "In the last rain" was published in 2009 and then followed by the book "Ayurveda for your mind".
Beautifulosophy got an exclusive interview with Janesh Vaidya about mind managment, self love, beauty and how to make life a little bit more magical.
Janesh, why is it so important that we pay attention to develop our mind and learn to be “the boss of our thoughts”?
Everything starts from the mind, whether it is a thought or an action or a reaction. The body is just a set of organs following the orders from the mind. In that sense we can say that our mind is the architect of our life and getting control over our own mind is the most important in life.
How does understanding our mind on a deeper level affect us?
Understanding our mind means, understanding our thoughts, feelings and emotions on a deeper level. We consume our outer world through our five senses. What we see, hear, smell, touch and taste becomes an image in our brain, that generates a thought. Just like a piece of food is chewed inside the mouth a thought is processed in our brain and swallowed down. Literary said the heart is the stomach of the mind and when a thought enters into the heart it becomes a feeling. Later that thought goes down to the deeper level and stays there as an emotion. With the help of easy to understand flow charts and tables in my book Ayurveda for your mind (Ayurveda för ditt sinne in Swedish) I have explained the functions of a mind where the reader can closely see the cyclic effect of positive and negative thoughts and its relation to your health.
Can you tell the readers a little about your upbringing and background?
I was born and brought up in a Vaidya family (traditional ayurveda physicians in South India). Since ancient times, Vaidyas are considered as the godfathers of ayurveda and every village in India had a vaidya family who took care of the health of the people. My family has six hundred years of tradition in practicing ayurveda in my village and according to the government sensus records we are one of the thirty-five Vaidya families now existing in India.
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 teenage and youth. Ayurveda is a vast subject and even after three decades of my practice I am still standing on the shore of this ocean with my little knowledge like a little child holding a few shells in my palm. That is why I dedicated my ayurveda book to my grandfather, who practiced ayurveda for more than eighty years, and said as his last words, he was happy to live and die as a student of ayurveda.
Do you believe we are all born with a life path and a purpose? If so, how do we find it?
Everybody is unique and the main purpose of life is to seek for the nature of reality through self-realization. In our modern world most of the people are living in a maya, an illusion, where we seldom find who we are and what we are actually doing on this planet. We forget the fact that when we split our time on the earth it is just as short as days and hours. When we walk on the same roads every day we are actually living only one day in our entire life. So it is important to live everyday as the last day, every meal, every meeting, each sunset as our final experience on this planet.
According to you, why is it important to learn about the chakras and the body’s energy system?
As I have explained in the book "Ayurveda for your mind" chakras are simply the house of energy points in our body. While the East has explained these points as chakras the West has described it as the endocrine system of the body, which are the set of glands producing hormones for the function of our body and mind. According to ayurveda the seven chakras’ points are the seven keys of health in a human body and any studies on the subject without those energies are considered as incomplete.
Can you give us your best and most effective practice to use daily to enhance the general health?
I can give you my grandma’s water therapy, which helps to clean the body’s system in three weeks. Drink three glasses of lukewarm water on empty stomach when you wake up in the morning and wait for forty-five minutes to drink/eat anything else. Practice this with discipline for twenty-one continuous days to see the difference in your health. You can read more traditional food/drinks exercises in my coming book, Mat för perfekt hälsa, which will be released on May 2013 by Norstedts in Sweden.
I like the title “mind management”. What can a participator of your workshop expect to learn?
Mind Management workshops will be held in fifteen cities in Sweden during September 2012 before I am heading to United States. Mind Management is the third part of my book "Ayurveda for your mind" where I explain how you can practice your mind in your day to day life; for example, at your work or at home. During the workshop participants will get simple but effective exercises to develop their mind.
What do you think about the popular movie The Secret, that has influenced millions of people in one way of thinking?
I think mind management education should be a part of our daily education. When we look into our modern psychology studies we can see that we are lacking the simplicity to explain this topic to the public who doesn’t have any prior knowledge in this subject. That is why whoever comes with an idea to describe the mind function in a simple formula will attain the attention and popularity among the people, who are constantly looking for a solution for their daily stress, anxiety and sadness.
I appreciate the basic idea of ‘law of attraction’ but felt disappointed when I saw that many people are using this theory to awaken their hidden attraction to accumulate wealth and material objects. I advice my audience that before getting a crush over anything outside, start an inner search and find your treasures inside and get a crush on yourself, a crush on your own heart.
What can meditation bring to an every day person?
Meditation is a practice of mind to get focus on what is the most important in the moment. Through the practice of meditation a mind can be sharper as a knife to cut into any difficult situation and come out with the right solutions. For the readers of Ayurveda for your mind I have given three ancient meditation techniques in the last part, ‘Dhyana’, to practice and sharpen the mind.
I really think you are refreshing and hopeful when you say that life starts at 60! Can you tell us more about this point of view?
I have met many people who lived healthy over 120 years. I can clearly see that the average life span of a human is 120 years passing through the four seasons of life – spring, summer, autumn and winter. The first thirty years of a human life is passing through childhood, from the age thirty to sixty is youth, then sixty to ninety is the mid-age and ninety onwards the old age. As my grandma said, life begins at sixty if you live healthy and mid-age will be one of the most fruitful periods of your life. But nowadays because of our modern lifestyle (fast food – fast life – fast death) most people are dying before reaching their old age.
What inspires you in your every day life?
The first thought of the day, what I love to do today (instead of what I have to do) when I open my eyes in the morning thanking God for giving me one more day in my life.
What inspires you in your every day life?
The first thought of the day, what I love to do today (instead of what I have to do) when I open my eyes in the morning thanking God for giving me one more day in my life.
What is beauty to you?
I believe that the true beauty of everything, whether it is a word or an action that originally derives from my inner world is the result of the unconditional love residing within me. So simply said, my inner beauty is the practice of love to myself. The practice of love is ahimsa, non-violence, which starts from my inner world. And to practice non-violence to myself, I need to constantly practice managing my mind, to not let my thoughts to punish for my mistakes, to not betray my feelings, to not let my heart and brain to argue while taking any decision and always keep them as a loving couple inside. Beauty exists or never exists. Outside what we see and feel, beauty is just the result of our inner love. The outer beauty for me is the unconditional love to the world and all the life on the planet. To practice ahimsa, non-violence to the world one shouldn’t let his mind to kill anyone even with his words or actions. Personally I practice ahimsa in my food and daily life by keeping a vegetarian diet and using only products that is not made from animals.
This planet we live on is full of mirrors. Just as the sky and the clouds we see in a silent lake, just as the eco of our voice we hear in a cold tunnel, what we see and hear from outside is merely a reflection of our inner self. As my grandma once said to me ‘if someone made you angry today, go and say thanks to him because he has helped you to show how much anger you were carrying inside’. If you smile to the world it will smile back and if you turn around the world will do the same to you. Every word and action you throw out to the outer world is like a boomerang that will return to you sooner or later. And everything starting from your inner world is purely from one aspect – how much you love yourself!
How can we make our lives a little bit more magical?
I say, let yourself get lost and be a wanderer. Personally for the last years of my voyage I lost the time and territory that let my eyes to see the roof of my room over the sky, my land over the oceans and mountains, and my home where my heart resides. In my opinion the most dangerous situation in life is when we enter into a comfort zone, there our life follows nothing but the rules of the society where our heart is imprisoned in fear and mind rest in the darkness. So I suggest to my readers, if you want to find the magic in life first break your comfort zone and get lost and wander in the desert or the woods searching for the pearls of your life.
