Kim sat across from me, anger and frustration etched on her face. “I can’t believe this happened to me. I exercise every single day. I pay attention to every morsel that goes in my mouth. I don’t smoke and have only two to three alcoholic drinks per year. All my five siblings are overweight; they all smoke and eat the unhealthiest foods. If anyone should get cancer, it should be one of them, not me.”
I sat quietly, listening to her pain-filled words. She had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and was in my office for a preoperative cardiac evaluation. She began to sob softly. Why had good health eluded her even though she did everything right?
When her sobbing subsided, I gently asked her to tell me about her motivation to take such good care of herself. Frustration replaced the sadness in her voice as she described her parents’ lifestyles—they both had been obese and had regularly binged on food, cigarettes, and alcohol before succumbing to heart disease in their sixties. She voiced her disappointment that her siblings had blindly followed the “doomed” path paved by their parents. I asked her if she felt that her siblings’ choices made them more deserving of cancer. She began to cry again. “I can’t believe I would want that for them, but I feel that they deserve it more than I do,” she said quietly. I commended her for her honesty. Few of us would ever admit to having such thoughts! I asked her, “Who judges what each of us deserves?”
She remained quiet for several long moments before admitting that she didn’t know. “If I do everything right, shouldn’t it mean that I get to remain disease-free?” she asked.
“Well, you’re sitting here with the diagnosis. What is the reality of the situation, whether or not it should have happened?” I asked.
She thought about it for a while and said, “The reality is that I’m here now.”
“That’s it. What should or should not happen and what should have or should not have happened are mere speculations. What if you never had the ability to think what should be?” I asked.
She sat quietly for a long time. “Then I’d still be sitting here, but without all this pain,” she said with a smile.
Kim had touched upon the root cause of suffering, which is always separate from disease. After I’d examined her, I asked her to investigate her intentions for lifestyle changes and consider whether it came from a place of love for herself or fear of disease.
The Bliss Rx
How does it matter what the intention for wellness is and where it comes from? This is what we will explore in this book, which is not about curing heart disease. It is not even about preventing it with certainty. It is about healing the heart that beats tirelessly in the chest by revealing the heart that is the seat of our true nature.
Consider this question: Who are you? If you are like most of humanity, you might say you are so-and-so, with a particular name, ethnicity, culture, religion, political belief, and other stories that make up your life. You might define yourself by where and when you were born, the state of your body and mind, and your aspirations for the future. In other words, your identity is one of a body-mind occupying a particular time and space in the grand scheme of the universe.
How would your life be if you discovered that who you really are is eternal, unborn, and undying, and bliss is your essential nature? You might be tempted to throw this book away if this is not your current experience, but I implore you to read on. It is quite natural for us to believe that we are limited beings because that is the default model in which the world operates.
Starting at an early age, we are taught by well-meaning caregivers that we are fundamentally incomplete and limited, and that we must seek completion by “making something” of ourselves and “getting somewhere” in our lives. Our lives are marked by an endless seeking to overcome the overpowering sense of lack that arises from believing ourselves to be limited and flawed. We seek happiness from the outside in the form of wealth, fame, achievement, success, love, security, and relationships.
As we will see in this book, suffering is the result of taking ourselves to be the body-mind. As long as this identity remains, we will suffer because we will always seek completion from external objects. No matter how much we seek and for how long, lasting happiness evades us. We will never have only joy, success, health, and the other things that are desirable. We come to see that life is a zero-sum game—we get what we want some of the time and what we don’t want at other times. Our life is marked by chasing what we want and avoiding what we don’t want. Since the outcome of anything we do is never in our hands, we live with an underlying sense of uncertainty, dissatisfaction, and yearning, and we never experience lasting contentment.
In contrast to the default model, the bliss model is based on the principle that who we are is much more than the body-mind. Our true nature is pure bliss consciousness: we are unborn and undying, and the body-mind is a mere reflection of our eternal nature. When we realize this, we develop a deep reverence and gratitude for the gift of embodiment, and suffering drops away. There is nothing we can seek outside of ourselves because we see that we are already whole.When bliss permeates our senses, minds, bodies, thoughts, and emotions, our relationship with ourselves, disease, others, and the world changes to one of absolute beauty and joy. Merely believing that we are bliss is not enough; we have to know it experientially. Only then can its transformative power heal us. For this knowing to occur, the various layers of misconceptions about who we think we are must be peeled away. This is the goal of the Bliss Rx.
The Origins of the Bliss Rx
The principles and practices described in this book represent a fundamental shift in our understanding of who we are; they are about healing and are not necessarily a cure. With a shift in the model through which we operate, we can heal completely without being cured of disease. This approach is far removed from the principles of modern medicine, where we become fixated on getting rid of disease at all costs. I am often asked how all this came about. How is it that a cardiologist trained in Western medicine is called to prescribe bliss?
Many parts of this story may seem familiar to you. I had been studying Yoga for several years when I was attracted to a career in medicine. The busy coursework of medical school drew me in, and Yoga moved to the back burner. Competitive and ambitious, I progressed through medical school, internal medicine residency, and cardiology fellowship, getting married and having a family amidst the rigors of training. Midway through residency I became aware of a nagging sense of dissatisfaction that poked its head up quite often; there was always something more to achieve. I wondered why no achievement or success brought lasting peace. However, this ennui seemed to be normal; everyone I knew was also seeking something more.
This inner conflict reached a fever pitch at the start of my training in cardiology. I had just given birth to my second child and couldn’t be happier—yet even the beauty and purity of motherhood hadn’t permanently erased the sense of inner dissatisfaction. Now I worried about balancing my work with my family and how to progress in my career without losing touch with my children. At each stage of life a new ambition had replaced the old one, and the seeking continued.
One Saturday morning I was unloading the dishwasher when my eyes rested briefly on the block of kitchen knives. I wondered casually if death could end this inner conflict. The thought arose from curiosity; I wasn’t depressed or suicidal. Quite suddenly the thought gave way to a vivid vision. I saw myself as a deeply unfulfilled old woman exhausted from the endless cascade of seeking; the permanent contentment that I sought had eluded me despite a successful career and family life. The feeling wasn’t one of greed or of wanting more but that of utter despair that I had missed the most important lesson in life.
As the vision faded and my awareness returned to the kitchen, I noticed that several minutes had passed and my hand was frozen in midair, still clutching a utensil. I sat down, shaking. Finally, I knew that what I was really seeking was the end of seeking. No amount of gathering, achieving, or acquiring anything from the external world would solve this puzzle. The quest for the key to this puzzle took me on the inner journey that would lead to a paradigm shift.
Finishing up my cardiology training, I began my clinical practice, waking up well before dawn and spending hours in meditation and self-
inquiry before my children rose and the day began. After I put them to bed at night, I read voraciously and meditated again. Guided by many teachers along the way, I learned to question all that I had taken to be true—my beliefs, thoughts, emotions, actions, and life itself. My life began to change gradually, and this transformation exuded outward in an expanding circle to include family, friends, and patients. This journey had opened the doors to vast possibilities and realms I had never imagined. The model through which I operated began to shift.
Patients were no longer body-minds that needed “fixing” but were vibrant expressions of bliss that were inseparable from me. How could I keep talking about their disease as if they were their disease? How could I prescribe medicines, procedures, or surgeries and send them on their way without trying to have them see their own inherent perfection? How could I possibly have them believe that fixing their disease was the way to end their suffering or that incurable disease meant endless suffering? I was ridden with conflict between my own self-discovery and the way I was practicing medicine. It felt incomplete and phony to not address the elements that contributed to both disease and healing—the mental, psychological, social, emotional, and economic issues that make up our identities and stories. It was not enough to ask people to eat right, start exercising, and stop smoking without also asking them to examine the stress and tensions of reacting and responding to life in fixed, conditioned ways. And yet, I had no reference for how to address these issues from my training in modern medicine. I turned to Ayurveda, Yoga, and Vedanta for answers.
Ayurveda
Ayurveda, literally translated as “knowledge of life,” is one of the oldest medical systems, having originated nearly 5,000 years ago. It is a comprehensive science with a philosophy that everything in creation is interconnected; therefore, the health of our body is deeply related to our mind, senses, spirit, and the world we live in. As I began to study Ayurveda, a series of light bulbs began to switch on in my understanding of life, health, and disease. The many gaps of modern medicine that were evident in my training were gradually filled up.
I continue to study the science with various teachers across the globe. My own practice of Yoga has been deeply enriched by incorporating Ayurvedic principles; this came as no surprise since Yoga and Ayurveda are sister sciences.
Yoga
The word Yoga is derived from the root yuj (“to join”) and can refer to the joining of many things: breath with body, breath with awareness, individual with God, skillful action, dispassion and nonattachment to one’s lower self (the limited body-mind), unity with the higher self (eternal bliss consciousness), and so on. Mostly, however, Yoga is defined as the discovery of our true nature of bliss, which occurs when all our mental modifications come to rest.
In Yoga we are asked to cultivate positive aspects of our bodies and minds by discriminating between what serves us and what doesn’t. By constantly redirecting our focus and attention, we stop trying to find happiness in external objects. With this, our mental modifications and discursive mind activity come to a rest and we realize that who we are is eternal bliss consciousness. With this shift in identity and perspective, health and disease take on a very different meaning. We find that many of our ailments seem to disappear, and those that don’t no longer bind us in suffering.
The eightfold path of Yoga consists of the following limbs: moral or ethical injunctions (nonviolence, truth, non-stealing, celibacy, and non-clinging), virtues (purity, contentment, perseverance, self-reflection, and devotion), body postures, regulation of breath (known as pranayama), withdrawal of senses, one-pointed contemplation, meditation, and absorption into the object of meditation. Self-inquiry is an additional practice that comes from Vedanta.
Vedanta
Vedanta is a secular science that translates into “end of knowledge.” It looks critically into our existence and the source of suffering. The end of knowledge here refers to the end of seeking external objects for our happiness or to feel complete—material objects like wealth or nonmaterial objects like fame, success, love, sense pleasures, or relationships. As I discovered years ago, such seeking never ends because one thing leads to another in an endless loop of desires. Vedanta teaches us to look at our life, our body, and our mind in a highly logical fashion. By contemplating existential questions, we come to see that what we are cannot be separate from what we know.
Ordinarily, when we talk about knowledge, we are referring to knowledge about something—I go to medical school to learn about health and disease. When I become a doctor, I know about medicine; I don’t become it. Yet, when I call myself a doctor, my knowledge about medicine becomes who I think I am. We identify with our knowledge about things—a lawyer knows about law, a botanist knows about plants, a herpetologist knows about snakes. This is known as secular knowledge. Our entire education system is based on secular knowledge, which also forms the basis of our experience.
When we look deeply into the experience of sense objects, we will see that we refer to knowledge about seeing or hearing when we look at an object or hear a sound. When we say “I see,” we are really saying that we know that seeing is happening. Without the knowing or the awareness of seeing, we wouldn’t be able to see. When we say “I see a bird,” we are referring to the knowledge about the bird gained through seeing. Throughout our waking hours, we accumulate knowledge about the world through our senses or about our inner landscape by being aware of thoughts and emotions. Secular knowledge becomes the basis of our experience and identity. For example, if a stressful situation comes along, I become identified with it as “I am stressed,” when in fact it is only an experience. Vedanta teaches us to examine knowledge critically: if knowledge of my experience is not who I am, then who am I?
This inquiry leads us to Self-knowledge, or knowledge about our true nature. The capital “S” differentiates it from the self with the small “s” that we think we are—the body-mind. The body and the mind, along with the countless experiences that become our identity, are objects, while the Self is the sole subject. Objects are temporary, while the subject is permanent, unchanging, ever-blissful. Knowledge of our true blissful nature puts an end to becoming identified with objects of experience.
Practicing the Bliss Rx
As my self-discovery progressed, I began teaching select patients to meditate during their clinic visits. Initially, they were mainly patients with heavy symptom loads of palpitations, chest pain, shortness of breath, and other complaints. Among the patients that kept up the practice, the results were astounding: they would return with significantly decreased symptoms. Some patients were no longer interested in meditation for reducing symptoms but for the other benefits it provided, such as peace, a sense of calm amidst activity, better sleep and mood, and a changing outlook toward life. They began to request classes they could attend and recommend to their loved ones, which led to the Heal Your Heart Free Your Soul program.
For six months, from October to March, we met at the department auditorium where I taught various practices, beginning with meditation and progressing to additional practices such as breathing techniques and self-inquiry. The program ended with a weekend retreat of intense practices. At the end of the first six-month session, there was a waiting list of people who had heard about the program. When we examined the benefits of the program, we found a significant improvement among participants in measures of perceived stress and mental and emotional components of health over the six-month period.1
Although the program initially included people with heart disease, it began to attract those with other chronic ailments such as cancer. Soon, people with no disease or issues started enrolling in the program to discover a holistic way to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled.
Can Self-Discovery Be Measured?
Progress on the path of self-discovery is mostly subjective. Although there are sophisticated ways of measuring brain activity to infer one’s mental state, the resting of the mind to reveal our true nature is largely unquantifiable. How we respond to life and to our own minds changes and becomes filled with sweetness, softness, and acceptance—parameters that are difficult to measure objectively. Physiological responses such as heart rate, blood pressure, and hormone and biomarker levels or healthcare outcomes such as the need for medications and procedures, hospital admissions, symptom relief, quality of life, and changes in lifestyle may or may not correlate with nonmeasurable parameters such as perception and outlook on life.
This is a significant challenge in body-mind research since subjective improvements surpass objective measurements that the scientific community thrives on. Many studies have demonstrated the beneficial effects of Yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and other body-mind approaches on heart disease and other chronic illnesses. In this book there will be little emphasis on objective measures. Instead, the approach here is on the subtle aspects of this path on our relationship with ourselves (including our health and illnesses) and with the world.
Building Blocks of the Bliss Rx
The program outlined in this book is based on the following principles:
Model: This program is not aimed toward curing or preventing heart disease; rather, its goal is to optimize the working of the body-mind so that the bliss of our true nature can be revealed. In the process of optimization disease and stress may be reversed, but this is not the end goal.
Science: Many scientific disciplines are interwoven in this book, including neuroscience, physiology, psychology, and quantum physics. Whenever available, modern theories are presented side by side with those of Ayurveda, Yoga, and Vedanta to understand the similarities and differences between them.
Holistic: Every aspect of the program fits into all the other aspects, like a jigsaw puzzle. All the practices complement each other; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Logic: Practices of the program are based on sound logic and are therefore secular and not based in any faith or religion. People who have followed this program have found it to be complementary to their religious beliefs.
Timeless: The strength of a comprehensive program like this one is that you never lose what you gain. Even if you pick it up years after dropping it, you will make progress.
Pace: This program is meant to be self-paced. There is no set time limit for each step, and you can take as long as you need.
Simplicity: The program is simple; however, simple doesn’t mean easy. It will ask you to change your fundamental thinking about yourself, others, and the world. It is not meant to be a bandage or cover-up of deeper issues but a radical shift in your perspective that will lead you from suffering to bliss.
How to Use This Book
This book is laid out in two parts. Part 1 begins with the fundamental difference between the default and the bliss models. Here we will examine the scientific literature and evidence for the program, the logic behind it, and why such an approach is meaningful. We will examine the differences between the two models when it comes to heart disease and its risk factors and the heart-mind connection. We will understand the true meaning of a holistic approach, which neither negates modern medicine nor elevates ancient wisdom but integrates both. Part 2 consists of the Bliss Rx, with distinct steps for realizing bliss as our true nature.
There is no single way to read and implement the recommendations laid out in this book. Here are some suggestions:
- You can read from beginning to end, as with any other book. Feel free to include the exercises or skip them initially. Once you’ve read through, return to Part 2 and do the exercises as recommended.
- If Part 1 is too onerous or dense, skip it and go directly to Part 2. Alternatively, read the chapter summaries of Part 1 and move on to Part 2. If you are curious about the science behind the particular aspects of the program, then you can read the relevant sections or chapters in Part 1.
- I recommend keeping a journal to record your inner and outer progress. Write down your experiences, insights, and discoveries as you progress through the program.
Disclaimer
While on this program, it is important to continue with the medicines prescribed by your doctor. You may find that your need for medicines may decline. At every visit with your doctor, ask about your medicines, what they are for, and how your need for them can be evaluated (through blood tests, drug holidays, and so on). This approach is not meant to conflict with your current regimen; it is meant to be complementary.
This is not a book on Ayurvedic medicine or self-healing. We will not go into body typing and laying out specific guidelines based on quizzes (though in the resources section I’ve listed some excellent books that are based on Ayurvedic body typing). Instead, it uses the guiding principles of Ayurveda, Yoga, and Vedanta to address the root cause of suffering. The approach taken here regarding health and wellness is that a healthy body-mind makes it easier for us to let go of the mental modifications that obscure our true blissful nature. The whole purpose of the program is to enable this great self-discovery, not for mere healing of the body-mind. Along the way, such healing can (and often does) occur, but that is only a side benefit and not the end point.
Exercise: Clarifying Intention
As we discovered in Kim’s story, our intention for change forms the basis for our actions and what comes of our actions. The outcome of our actions always reflects our intention, which can often be unclear or hidden. To make progress in any field, we must know what we want before we go about taking action. For example, in smoking cessation programs, setting a quit date is the most important first step. If I set the intention but don’t really want to quit smoking, the program will not work for me.
Similarly, if you don’t really want to discover the unlimited bliss of who you are, you will not feel like keeping up with the program when your mind stories and life situations pull you back into suffering. The drama of the body-mind will seem far more alluring.
- Before you begin practicing the techniques in Part 2, take time to think about what you really want. Write down your answer on a small piece of paper, keeping it limited to one sentence.
- Once you are satisfied with your answer, fold the paper and keep it in your wallet. It can be as simple as “I want to realize lasting joy and peace that can manifest as health and wellness” or “I want my combative relationship with my disease to come to an end” or “I want to understand why I’m not always happy and discover ways to find lasting joy.”
- Now that you know what you want, set an intention to realize your desire. Hold it close in your heart and think about it as you go about your day. Take out the note and read it, particularly when you feel unmotivated to follow through.
Setting intentions works wonders in every area of life. I make a ritual out of it in order to infuse it with sincerity and longing. It can be a simple thing like being present for my children on the weekend. Every time I’m distracted, I remember the intention I made that is infused with the love I have for them and the awareness of how fleeting their childhood is. Immediately my attitude, posture, and attention shift into one of being completely immersed in what they are saying or doing. Everything else can wait because now is the time for me to honor my intention to myself, and in this honoring, my children benefit as much as I do.
The beauty of this path is that even if you are half-hearted about it, sticking with it will transform your desire and intention. As you progress through the Bliss Rx, you will gain greater clarity and insight into your deepest desires and longings.
The only other ingredient required for this program is integrity, which is honesty in action. Small steps taken with integrity and commitment are much more effective than ambitious plans that we can’t really keep up with. At all times, recall that the path to bliss is your birthright. There is nobody that is more or less deserving of it, for it is the true nature of all in existence. Mostly, enjoy the process!
In the next chapter we will explore the many benefits of the Bliss Rx and the ways in which this program transforms our life, health, and relationship with disease.
Summary
- The principles and practices described in this book represent a fundamental paradigm shift in our understanding of who we are, which determines our relationship with health and disease.
- In the default model we assume that we are the body, the mind, or a combination of the two. This model leads to endless seeking because it is associated with an inherent sense of lack, so we continually seek fulfillment from external objects.
- In the bliss model we start with the knowledge that who we are is eternal bliss consciousness. When we see this, we stop seeking for completion because we realize that we are already blissfully whole. This realization changes our relationship with ourselves, the world, and our disease. Suffering drops away.
- The approach taken in this book is that a healthy body-mind makes it easier for us to realize our true blissful nature. The whole purpose of the program is to enable this great self-discovery and not for mere healing of the body-mind.
- Before you begin the program, clarify your desire and set an intention to work with it.
1. K. M. Chinnaiyan, A. M. DePetris, J. A. Boura, K. Stakich-Alpirez, and S. S. Billecke, “Feasibility of Establishing a Comprehensive Yoga Program and Its Dose-Effect Relationship on Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Wellness Parameters: A Pilot Study,” Int J Yoga Therap 25 (2015): 135–40.