Dr. Bharat Thakur tells the story of how Michelangelo saw Pieta in the block of stone. Michelangelo did not create it. It came to him, he ‘saw’ Pieta and he chipped away the excess marble until Pieta emerged. Michelangelo is said to have used the method of being still or quiet as the way to arriving at his ideas and sculptures. Sri Ramana Maharishi used to often answer deep philosophical questions after consideration, with the words “keep quiet”. The seeing of these great masters and seers was entrenched in stillness/ quietness. It appears that quietness helps develop clarity. How does one understand the process of developing clarity?

To understand, in the end is to just ‘get it’. It is not like the process of building a house. It is more like how an idea occurs , how we have an insight, a breakthrough, a big idea. It is not something that you can put together skilfully, or create a formula for. It is a spark of wisdom.

In this episode, we explore how do we achieve an understanding of something? Can we really ‘understand’ it? How does one begin to ‘understand’? Is understanding the process to achieving clarity?

Through delightful insights into the etymology of the word ‘understand’, we arrive at the contours of ‘understand’.  It is derived from the greek ‘in’ and ‘terra’,  and from ‘antar’, ‘sta’ and ‘nu’ in Sanskrit.  ‘Understand’ when put together as a sum of its sounds in greek and sanskrit gives us  ‘not from this space’, from the ‘difference in the space’, ‘new’’ and has has the connotations, of firmness, of insight, of the now. It is neither this nor that, it is something that is firm and it is essentially a part of you, eternally part of you.

We all go through the ups and downs of pain followed by pleasure and pleasure followed by pain. So the turning point comes to everyone when one notices this pattern, when it strikes you spontaneously that, “wait a minute, whatever the story of my life, the pattern is the same. It’s only in fairy tales that there is an “and they lived happily ever after....”. What we seek in all our endeavors, be it career, romance or in the movies, the pattern that seems to pervade everything is that in pleasure is the seed of pain and in pain there is the seed of pleasure.  

Once we are attentive to our experience of this cycle, the key word being attentive, the key is the attention we pay to our experience as it unfolds and this is what is meant by “one’s own experience”. If we begin to pay attention to all that is happening in us, we begin to see this pattern that we are all caught in this cycle of pleasure and pain and therefore, pleasure too is pain. 

When you know this first hand, as your personal experience when we are able to in this way assess the common thread in all our experience. When we are able to extract its essence, then this ability is called ‘viveka’ or discernment and when this happens, we have this natural tendency where we look for a way out of the cycle. We want a way out and as Sri Ramana Maharshi liked to say, we may not be looking for it in the right places, we are not looking at what is essentially an understanding, something that is already stuck to our insides..

Continuing on from part 1, where we studied the philosophies and journeys of Maharishi Ramana and the great Cezanne. In this episode, we delve deeper into how they perceived their journeys. Did they know where they were going? Was it a conscious choice? Did Cezanne in his passionate pursuit of his art eventually come to realise that he was the art. 

Dr. Bharat Thakur very beautifully lays out the trials and tribulations of Cezanne’s journey that led him to realise that it was truth that he was pursuing all along. To quote Cezanne, “by going deep you automatically go to the truth”. You feel a healthy need to be truthful. You’d rather strip your canvas right down than invent or imagine a details you want to know”. 

And for our other traveller, Maharishi Ramana, the insight was “eventually, all that is learnt will have to be forgotten”. 

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How do we see our journey?

Do we buy a return ticket to a particular station? A monthly pass to hop on and off different stations that we visit regularly, a series of small journeys to be completed ever day? Or, a one way ticket to the last station? Or perhaps, even a one way ticket to the station beyond the last...to oblivion?

What drives each passenger to choose his journey? Where do we really want to go? Does the passenger who has bought a ticket beyond the last station even know where the train goes?

Dr. Bharat Thakur explains these journeys through the stories of the great artist Cezanne and the great Ramana Maharishi.

In this episode, Dr. Bharat Thakur explains the 5 factors of cooking - 'rasa', 'guna', 'veerya', 'vipaka' and 'prabhava'. Rasa is not just taste as we know it. Beautiful aspects of 'sneha' and 'andaaz' go into creating it. If every recipe has a method, process and timing, why then does the same dish taste differently depending on who has cooked it? Why is it that different consumers of the same food related to it differently?
Rasa or taste is the bridge between nature and us. That essence is made from a particular combination of the 5 elements (air, water, fire, earth and space). So in that sense, it is through the sense of taste that we reach out to nature. Therefore, it is through food that we connect with nature. It is the gap between us and nature that manifests as the three imbalances, the Tridosha, which has been explained in the previous episode.
Herbs and spices offer more than just taste, they bring quality, potency, an effect post digestion and a unique effect on our body. This episode is dedicated to the nature of different spices and their nature not just in the form of taste but across quality, potency, digestive impact and unique effect on the body. It also explains the interplay between our nature, nature (spices and herbs) and tridosha and how this manifests in our body.

Spice: the three great fires

"First comes food and then everything else".
Dr. Bharat Thakur traces some of the greatest historical events and how spices have had a part of play in them. The highlights key events in the evolution of mankind before and after the discovery of fire and then before and after the discovery of spices.
Spices brought traders and then invaders to the borders of India; some took back our culture and our spices while others assimilated into our society.

Spices have a great contribution to the science of Ayurveda, the science of life. A philosophy that is about never being sick; about finding means to be healthy and happy. Just are fire is created from rubbing two flint stones, there are two other fires that have changed the way we have experienced life. 1. The fire of the physical body - the metabolic fire 2. The fire of the mental body - the fire of attention. After the discovery of fire, it was the understanding of the metabolic fire and the fire of attention that changed the way we think about, live and experience life. It is the metabolic fire and the fire of attention that has made civilisation and culture possible. While yogic sciences have pursued the mental fire, Ayurveda researched the metabolic fire. It focuses on how to control, conserve, protect and grow the metabolic fire.

Spices are key to kindling the metabolic fire and are the most tangible route to understanding the metabolic fire. One of the greatest insights into the cosmology of well being lies in the three imbalances, the Tridosha - Vatta, Pitta and Kapha. In this episode we focus on understanding the Tridosha.

In this episode, we learn about awakening the breath body. We explore Swara yoga which constitutes two of the four steps to awakening the breath body. 

Bharat compares the 72,000 nadis in our body to rivulets. As in the case of a river where the rivulets lead to the ocean, in our bodies too, the nadis or rivulets lead to the great river called the kundalini. The nadis join to form 3 major rivers of subtle energy also called the three great flows, Ida Swara, the Lingala Swara and the sushumna Swara. 

In this episode, we learn to tap into these rivers of subtle energy by becoming aware of our breath. We explore how our breath alternates between our nostrils and how this alteration defines our energy. Observing our breath offers a path to becoming aware of and tapping into our energies most effectively to maximise the quality of tasks we are doing.

In this episode, Bharat continues to explore the vayus, diving deeper into the fifth of the five major vayus, Vyana Vayu. 

We often become identified with our thoughts, our body, our feelings, our memories….and we are often asked to practice detachment in order to separate ourselves from these. It is very hard to practice detachment. However, attaching ourselves to our breath offers a path to detachment. One may ask, why the breath? The breath is the very fountain of life. It offers a very powerful and fundamental choice of shifting our identity from the limited to the limitless. The breath offers a path to inward attachment. This does not mean one loses interest in life, rather one enjoys everything about life a lot more by taking limiting identities away. 

In this episode, we take a deeper look into the science of our breath, of how our breath enters and leaves the body and how this impacts the functioning of the body. Through the knowledge of Swara Yoga, we are able to tap into the power of the three nadis. 

We also study, Vyana Vayu, the fifth of the five major vayus. Vyana vayu is the conne for between the five koshas, it is the vehicle of consciousness in the entire body. It helps regulate not just vital body signs like blood pressure and temperature but also helps avoid fatigue and keeps the energy levels steady, thereby impacting mental and emotional steadiness. 

In this episode we go deeper into the breath. We examine how to access our entire being by delving into the breath. 

The difference between sleep and meditation is one of unconscious and conscious relaxation. Through meditation, we  can enter a state of deep relaxation and this can be achieved through awareness of the breath. 

Our breath mirrors our state. We  breathe very different when we are agitated compared to when we are relaxed. Therefore, through our breath we have the power to control or modify our state.  The breath is the golden key to relaxation and healing. We can also use the breath to modulate our energy levels and our emotions. 

We have the ability to bring awareness to our mental and physical state and use the breath to modulate that state into one of deep relaxation. 

Breath carries Maha Prana which splits into vayus and the vayus in turn control all the functions of the body. Therefore, the way we breath affects the functioning of the body and every aspect of our being.

Noticing; being aware of and sensitive to the breath makes it deeper and fuller, bringing with it relaxation. This relaxed and balanced state affects all the vayus and in turn the koshas.

In this episode we delve into achieving a the breath body through Svara yoga. We also study Udana Vayu and how it’s functioning helps develop great immunity to stress. 

The intense longing for the goal begins when we are “done” with all that we have been craving and been busy with - recognition, wealth, ego, ….now we crave for something deeper, something lasting. In yoga, this is the sign of “now I am ready”.

Through the retelling of a fable in which a young boy who deep desire to be a musician takes him to a master, Bharat highlights the maturity, readiness, preparation and longing that takes us to a goal. When the longing is intense, the purpose draws you to it, the right experiences come your way, you are unaware when your training has begun. Opportunities are created by your purpose alone. 

Yoga is about tuning into Vayu. Yoga is not just flexibility and strength building or disease cure, it is about tuning in to Prana Vayu, the vital life force that animates our whole being and the whole cosmos. In this episode, we recap the power of our breath and the different vayus, the quality of each Vayu and the nature of its movement. Each vayu performs a particular set of functions. Vayu can be seen as the enabler, the hidden hand that makes everything possible.

This episode dives into Samana Vayu which is responsible for absorption of energy that is brought by Prana vayu and is the balancing force in the body.

The key to the greatest quality of life lies in our breath. The science of the breath begins and ends with just one word, “awareness”. By breathing with awareness, we begin the process of witnessing. Every effort to become aware of the breath influences the breath itself. 

In the episode, Bharat examines healing through awareness of the breath. Through the retelling of a fable, he explains what it means to be aware of the breath. Awareness of the breath makes us conscious of it. It helps bring our focus to our breath and slows it down. This helps manage stress and anxiety. By awareness of the breath, we slow it down, thus reducing heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature - thus calming the body.

By slowing down the breath, we can control our responses to circumstances that are outside our control. A mindful slowing down of the breath changes the body’s stress response. Through awareness of the breath we can re-wire our brain and revive our bodies. 

In the preceding episode we examine Prana vayu, the cosmic energy that we inhale. In this episode, we examine the Apana vayu. The vayu that is responsible for eliminating all toxins from the body. Bharat explains the role of the breath in Apana vayu and how through the breath we can enable the body to release toxins effectively.