Dr. Chinnaiyan offers an entirely new approach to “wellth” and illness. She calls the path Bliss Rx, which is a paradigm-expanding approach to health, illness, self, and peace that blends her strong roots in both Eastern tradition and practices and her cutting-edge practice of heart care at a major center. She asks the hard question, “What if we are more than just body and mind?” What if we have a pure light inside—one that radiates bliss, one that has been covered up and hidden by the twists and turns of life but that can be rediscovered to understand and deal with suffering?
I have had the joy of knowing Dr. Chinnaiyan for nearly two decades in my role as an attending cardiologist and teacher. Her potential for greatness was obvious. She raised lovely daughters, developed an excellence in the clinical practice of cardiology and research, and began to teach other trainees to grow to her level of a caring, intelligent, and effective clinician. Not many of us around were aware of the hours she was spending studying and practicing advanced yoga and meditation before and after working the long hours that her trade required.
We are fortunate that she persisted on these demanding paths because her introduction of her six-month program Heal Your Heart Free Your Soul stood out at this shrine of technology. Just a floor above her meetings were millions of dollars’ worth of state-of-the-art CT and MRI scanners, ultrasound machines, and complex catheterization laboratories dedicated to exploring the workings and diseases that so commonly affect heart and arteries. At the same time, in her program on the first floor, hearts were being inspected with breath, silence, support, and calm.
Our good fortune is that Dr. Chinnaiyan has now distilled the profound experiences and gains she observed from her courses into a manual that challenges us to look within, slow down, and consider our lives. The Heart of Wellness is a paradigm shift in going beyond the body and mind that we are taught to consider in Western medicine (frankly, much more often the body than the mind). It brings an examination of spirituality and awakening from limitations that often are the root cause of pain and suffering of the heart and entire body.
Dr. Chinnaiyan doesn’t promise us cures or disease reversal but uses her profound study of Ayurveda, Yoga, and Vedanta to present an opportunity to wake up to the blissfulness of our existence. This process may enhance healing as a side benefit, but it is worth pursuing on its own. This is not a seven-day or four-week radical cure but a life path that can be embraced at any pace at any time.
Although my path has not been as deeply steeped in Eastern traditions as that of my friend and now teacher Kavitha Chinnaiyan, it has included years of yoga and a period of practicing Kundalini yoga. The haunting music of that practice touched me deeply, as did the unusual flows that went on for an hour or more. Of the various chants I was exposed to, none touched me more than the words “I am the light of my soul, I am beautiful, I am bountiful, I am bliss, I am, I am.” Dr. Chinnaiyan has written a primer to help us truly accomplish those words—to realize the bliss that is within and to use that bliss to address any health issues we may face. Once in a generation a book appears that defines a new paradigm in its field. The Heart of Wellness is that book for our generation. Your copy, like mine, will have corners bent over and pages highlighted to return to.
Joel K. Kahn, MD, FACC, clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine and author of The Plant-Based Solution (Sounds True, 2018)