Making Medicinal Oil- VATASHAMAK TAILAM

Each morning we have lecture for 4 hours and after lunch each day we have been gathering on the roof top of the clinic to make medicinal oils & medicinal ghee.

 

Vinayak Panchakarma Clinic in Nagpur

This is the clinic where I am staying for the next 3 weeks. Dr. Joshi and his wife are both Ayurvedic Physicians and Medical Doctors trained in India. The staff that works here is so friendly and helpful. The place is clean, comfortable- and we are treated like house guests. I feel so fortunate to be having this experience.

              

This clinic is 3 stories tall and this is the second floor where I sit to connect to the internet & update the blog.

Neetu is the cook who makes delicious food for the Panchakarma patients and students.

Mukul Joshi  is Dr. Joshi's brother who is the manager of the clinic and has been taking good care of us!

Ayurvedic Medicines at the Clinic

The lovely rooftop where we spent all the afternoons last week making herbalized oil and ghee.

Out on the town in Nagpur

I was the first student to arrive, the next to arrive was Mike. We actually met 2 yrs. ago at Dr. Lad's summer intensives so it was great that although he hadn't slept in 2 days, he was ready to hit the town. Then Marie joined us and we visited a few of the local temples. 

If you haven't been to India before, the streets are an experience. Its not easy for me to describe but we were the only Westerners around. Nagpur is not a destination so its not usual for the people here to see people from other cultures. That means that you get stared at.. alot. 

The First Teaching~ Be happy, surrender and the teacher will appear.

And he did on the international flight to Mumbai!
I was nervous about reaching Mumbai and doing the overnight transfer. My friend Arjun said, “Surrender” and I think I did. This amazing thing happened when I relaxed. In Newark airport I spotted a man that looked much like the picture I had seen of Dr. Joshi. I didn’t want to approach him so I let it go. But some 13 hrs into the flight I was up stretching my legs and this same man came to stand next to me. I pushed through my hesitation and I asked him. “ Are you Dr. Joshi?” He said, “ Yes”. I said, “ Sunil Joshi?” He said, “ Yes”. WOW. 

      What an auspicious encounter to meet him on the plane. He was also quite happy to meet me and said that in 20 yrs of teaching he had never met a student on the plane before. He offered to help me get transferred and all the concern I had about staying in the airport or hotel vanished.

The beginning of my journey~

This trip began along time ago, my desire to come to India to study with an Ayurvedic doctor has been in my heart for many years. Although I learned of Ayurveda over 21 years ago and was surrounded by people who studied with Dr. Lad at the Ayurvedic Institute, I didn’t have the desire to do so until 2002. At that time my son, Pascal, was young and there was no way I could take this kind of time out to come to India, much less find sufficient time or focus to study on my own at home.

In 2007, I was trained in Ayurvedic bodywork by Lalita Devi at the Sivananda Ashram and I continued to piece my education together and finally found a good online practitioner training with New World Ayurveda. This was a good foundation but I quickly realized that people were coming in with complicated health issues. The lifestyle counseling I learned is very important and I see how powerful it really is when we take our health seriously and alter our habits for the better. For the most part, we really do have the power to heal ourselves and the way we live our daily life has everything to do with it. 

It is important to have a mentor and I have been looking for someone I resonated with. I had heard about Dr. Sunil Joshi’s training many years ago in Albuquerque and with a reminder I looked into his program.  I have waited patiently and with a strong aspiration that I want to be a grow my skills as an Ayurvedic practitioner and gain good clinical experience.

The timing was right- the stars aligned and I made all the efforts to get here to Nagpur-- and here I am! It feels so wonderful to be fulfilling a dream. My entire family has supported me in doing this and even my father who lives on in my heart and soul. I feel his support even though he has departed.

The days up to my trip were actually calm, I planned ahead and worked at the small details for a couple weeks prior to departure. This was so beneficial in order not to be in a frenzy right before traveling. It took some forethought but it made a great difference to feel calm and excited instead of stressed!

 The trip to the airport was sweet with Charles & Pascal, who is now having his first exposure to NYC. I love my guys!