Arun Sharma started off as a farmer. His first three years of farming saw three droughts and his crops failing. His next venture was a brick kiln. The years that he ran the kiln, it rained like crazy and his bricks got regularly washed away. To compound matters, there was a strike at cement factories. The demand for bricks went down drastically. During one of these depression years, he was visiting Bombay where his dad was following his own dad’s footsteps in nature cure. (Arun’s grandpa, Lakshmana Sarma, is fondly called the father of nature cure in India.) Arun’s dad had to go out for some urgent work, so Arun was asked to become a substitute teacher. He had finally found his calling. And that’s what he’s been doing now for 40 years. Arun started his nature cure centre in the United States in 1982. His work is mostly with chronic patients. 

In allopathy, the trend is to specialise. Quick quiz question: How many medical specialisations can you remember? The list is much longer than that. And each specialisation requires a disease. So the effort is to keep on creating new names for diseases. And their willing brethren in the pharma industry are as keen to help – by creating new drugs to fight these new diseases. If these drugs were really so good, we should have actually seen a reduction in diseases, not addition. 

You can invite goondas to solve a dispute. They do end up solving this dispute fast, but they also end up becoming encroachers in your house for the rest of your life. Like these goondas, medicine is born out of fear. And now medicine’s status in our lives has become: Maan ya na maan, main tera mehman. No wonder, we see so few smiling faces nowadays. 

There’s always a better way. And naturopathy is leading the new azaadi movement: azaadi from drugs, doctors and disease. Just like darkness is simply the absence of light, disease is just an absence of health. Nature cure believes that a disease is life’s expression of it’s will to help. And by health we are looking at the unity of physical, mental and spiritual health. Nature cure makes no attempt to diagnose. Nature cure does not actually cure. It believes that the body is the best healer, and it’s job is to ensure that the body gets to focus on the process of healing, as the pran tries to remove toxins from the body.

It’s not how long you live, but how well you live that counts. The biggest responsibility that all of us have is to be swavlambi. Which is that we should not become a burden on others as we age. Because that is the definition of hell. Nature cure believes that health is a number that cannot be measured. One day a marathon runner went to a doctor to have a blood pressure checked. He was surprised to find that the BP was 90/70. The doctor immediately advised treatment. Actually, it’s the doctor who needs treatment. The marathoner is obviously in good health. And that BP is typical for people who have a good exercise regimen. Arun gave the example of Gandhi, whose sugar was always 180. The medical industry has been playing around with the numbers for a long time. Over the years, acceptable sugar levels has been going south, so that more and more population can now be labelled as diabetic. We spend the first half of our life to create our wealth. The next half we spend it all, to save our health. It’s good for the doctors’ business, but is it really good for society?

The venue of the talk was the green National Institute of Naturopathy, bang next to Pune Railway station. What is interesting about NIN is the connection to Gandhi. MKG used to run his own Nature Cure brigade from here. And surprisingly, in the times of plague, Gandhi had a  success rate which was better than allopathy. The director shared the story of how MKG worked with his wife Kasturba on her medical problems. Kasturba had excessive bleeding during her periods. Naturopathy recommended a reduction in salts and pulses. Kasturba remonstrated to MKG saying that it’s very easy to advise but difficult to implement. So for one year, our friend MKG vowed not to have any salt and pulses. Poor Kasturba obediently followed. Her bleeding stopped.

What enthuses the audience in Arun’s talks are the collective chanting that he does every once in a while. We started with one. The audience was supposed to chant 3 om s together, with the first one at the lowest pitch and the last one at the highest pitch. After this was done, Arun declared that the room was now Ek Omkar – we are all united together as one now. In the context of some friction in the audience over the choice of language in which the talk should be conducted, this unity was interesting.

We start work with a prayer to Ganesh. Which means that we have already decided what this first work is going to be. Hence the link between Ganesh and prioritisation. So let’s start with our first priority – aahar. When an object is broken, you repair it using the same material that the object is made of. The body is made up of aahar. So when It breaks down, the healing also has to be done through aahar. 

Mati, paani. dhup hawa,

Lakh dukho ki ek dawa

What is aahar? We usually associate aahar only with food. Air, Light are two components of aahar which we tend to neglect. But let’s start with food. We have forgotten what it is like to be hungry. Because our eating is falsely disciplined by our watches, whereas it should actually be regulated by our biological clocks. Because we eat with reference to a chronological clock, we have come to believe that hunger is a pain. It’s not. Hunger is a lightness in the body and happiness in the mind. 

The act of eating is a conflict between body and mind. The body wants food from nature. The mind wants foods that are processed. And the mind mostly wins – because in our instincts, the first test is always taste. Every human being is born with certain genetic programming. There is only a finite number of times your heart will beat. This is only a finite number of breaths that your lung will take in. And there is only finite kilograms of sugar that your body can consume. Spices, which incidentally include sugar, confuse our body chemistry. They make us eat, even when we are not hungry. In every wedding we attend, we philosophize that life and death is a cycle, but dawats are not! Kal kya hoga kisko pata, abhi zindagi ka lelo maaza. To vasulify our thousand rupees gift, we hog on 2000 rupees of junk food and then spend 5000 rupees on medical treatment. 

Food follows the order of creation. For any species, before it is formed, nature has made an arrangement for its food. Carnivores evolved only after herbivores. One carnivore never eats another carnivore. Our body can regulate intake for natural food, but it does not have the mechanism to regulate processed foods. Have you ever tried eating chocolate powder without sugar? Ingesting just a spoonful of coffee into your system? Which is why we end up overdoing processed foods. And this overdose is what leads to excess of acids.

A positive food is one that has got more nutrients and less waste. This is called pathya food. The best foods are those that can be eaten raw. Like fruits, which are actually predigested foods. The advantage of eating fruits and salads is that you don’t need anyone to make it for you. You can do it yourself. And food that you make for yourself is definitely more appetizing than food that is made by others for you. The next best foods are those which require light cooking. And the worst are those which can are either fried or can only be eaten spiced up. 

Arun had an interesting take on milk products. He recounted a very popular bhajan where Lord Krishna tells his mum. Mai nahi makhan khayo. He only got the butter for his friends. He extends this interpretation of Krishna avoiding butter to all dairy products. 80% of the food that we eat should be alkaline. Fruits and raw vegetables are a good source of alkaline food. But his advice is to not mix fruits. Eat only one type at a time. It helps digestion. And Arun is pragmatic, he knows that none of us can live in a regimen like this seven days a week. So he turns a blind eye to one cheat day per week.

Our digestion follows the circadian cycle. We can eat our heaviest meal when the sunlight is at its brightest. So not breakfast, but lunch should be our heaviest meal. The practical problem is that we are all office workers. And a heavy lunch would mean a siesta. Which is why we like to have light lunches and heavy dinners. This is not what our traditional lifestyle was. In earlier days our forefathers would get up at dawn, just have a drink of water and start work. They would finish work in the fields around noon, have a bath, have food, and a siesta. Some light work was ok after siesta, and by evening you were done with your last meal of the day. Leaving you with about four hours of activity to help digest the food before you slept.

Arun is an expert in using analogies to drive home points. One of them was related to body cleanliness, where he uses the analogy of body and house. In the houses of the olden days, people used to mostly sit on the floor, sometimes on a chatai. Later on we moved on to chairs. And now we sit on sofas. In our much smaller houses, we continue to fill them up with all kinds of furniture. We have become hoarders. There is no space left. Our maids come home to clean the house. Does she actually clean the floor below the furniture? She can’t. So this clutter is acting against hygiene. Isn’t the same true for our bodies? Don’t we need to keep some space inside for moving around.

Why do toxins accumulate in our body? Because our food lacks something. It could be water, it could be fibre, it could be just life. The last one needs some elaboration. Don’t plants also have a life. Isn’t the real life of a plant in the roots, and shouldn’t we avoid eating fruits, as some of the religions profess? Arun feels that life is in raw. As you process, the nutrients reduce and toxins increase. When toxins accumulate in the body, then that part of the body which has an excess of toxins gets an inflammation. We don’t need to treat this inflammation. We need to keep it in place. Arun looks down upon ayurvedic remedies like haldi et al, which people use to stop inflammations. If you want to cure, cure the cause, not the effect. Remedies are not solutions.

Life’s activity in an unclean body is disease. Isn’t it ironic that we can live with constipation and toxin creation, but we cannot live without food! When toxins accumulate, your body tries to warn you that there is something wrong. What is a toxin? Matter in the wrong place. Disease can be seen as an attempt by the body to set things right. Story time again. You are busy cleaning your house. And just then, the neighborhood kiranawala comes to make a delivery. You stop your work as you concentrate on stacking up all the stuff in the right places. And you forget the cleaning. 

This is what happens when you eat. The cleaning process stops, as the body gives a higher priority towards digesting the food that has come in. Because if left undigested, this food will create more trouble. And so it happens, that the cleanup message that the body was trying to tell you, through the pain, gets hidden as you get diverted. Food then is the evil diversion, the symbolic dust, that keeps on getting pushed below the carpet. This is the time that you need to give time to the body to heal itself. Fasting allows our body to concentrate on the cure. Remember that food is also poison. Your food can slowly eat you up, if you don’t follow the principles of right eating. 

The Indian spelling of fast is better spelled with an e between the f and the a. Traditional India is the real originator of fast foods. Arun told this interesting tale about his grandmother. He lived in a joint family with 16 members. Every ekadashi, the grandma would ask the daughter-in-laws what they have made for lunch. After hearing about all the goodies that were getting made, she would lament that all she had had during her ekadashi was only one idli. Omitting to mention the fact that it was the Kanchipuram idli, which is the equivalent of 12 normal idlis. Most of our fasts are charades. Eating is the best way of making a fast slow.

Pain and Gain are at opposite ends of our timelines. Anything that pains you in the short-term, is good for you in the long term. And vice versa. Sugar and exercise are cases in point. Hunger develops when there is some output, there is some exercise. Most of us have sedentary jobs. In his workshops, Arun always comes across wives who are doing advocacy on behalf of the husbands. But my husband goes for a walk 90 minutes everyday! Out of which 60 minutes are spent in gossip! Or the CEO husband who goes for his tennis everyday. He always plays doubles. And most of the time the delegation in the court is to his doubles partner! Nature cure is as much about exercise as it is about food. Arun considers true exercise as one that causes you to sweat. And he is a firm believer in age not being a constraint for that. Jo hilta hai, vah hila deta hai.

We then moved on to the next type of aahar, light. Light is not as simple as we make it out to be. In primary school, we were taught that light travels in a straight line. In secondary, light seemed to have got some magical properties of bending through refraction. And in college, we realised that it’s not just particles, but it’s also waves. There are some inner secrets that light has. It is these secrets of light that the Nature Curist uses.

Moving on from light to air. Imagine a long good train of purplish blood cells, loaded with carbon dioxide. The train enters your lungs. It stops. Carbon dioxide is unloaded, and oxygen is loaded. The cells on the train have now changed colour to a bright red. Arun likes telling stories to make a point. He talked about the sessions that he does in Calcutta. He stays as a guest of a Jain family. Their mansion has 129 rooms. And there is just a mother and daughter who stay there. They have 26 servants working for them. Once a year, on the occasion of Diwali, the extended Jain family comes down to Calcutta to celebrate together. And it is then that all these 129 rooms are opened up. There are always problems with a few rooms. The hinges are rusty. The rooms have never been opened during the last year. It requires a lot of effort on part of the servants, but eventually the doors do open. Our lungs are full of cells which are like rooms. If you don’t use them, you lose them. Or look at it another way, since we are not using the full capacity of our lungs most of the time, there is a lot of stale air that remains. And this stale air, like unused goods in our attics, tends to catch up dust and toxins. To detoxicate air, Arun advises Pranayam. Pranayam has got 5 steps in it. 

• Slow breath in. 
• Hold.
• Slow exhalation through the nose.
• Exhalation through the mouth.
• Hold.

Holding your breath when you have inhaled helps improve posture and confidence. But what about holding your breath when you exhale? Arun believes that holding the lungs after exhalation gives a much needed rest to this vital organ. After all, we need to remember there is a finite number of breaths that we are going to be taking. And lungs will work better when they are given some intermittent rest. We need to do 5 sets of Pranayam, three times a day: when you wake up in the morning, sometime near the afternoon, and before you go to sleep at night. 

Another interesting breathing exercise happened post lunch. Stand up. Raise your hands. Breath in. Put your hands down. Breath out. He got the audience to do this three times, and most of them were woken up from their postprandial slumbers. Incidentally, lunch at NIN was millet khichdi, coconut chutney, chaas and a gur based dessert. The chai break was a nachni-gur drink.

We ended with a discussion on spiritual health. We all start life with a credit balance. This is given to us at our birth. Your good karmas add to this credit balance. When you are the recipients of others’ good karmas it gets debited from this balance. The aim in life is to maintain a healthy Karma credit balance. The Bible states ask and it shall be given. This is true. But there is a problem. Because we don’t know what to ask. So it’s best not to ask. Ojas is the capacity to receive. And tejas is the capacity to give. The best tejas is the one that is done without informing the recipient. Let’s spice up the spirituality with some more stories from Arun.

When Arun’s niece, Sita, was 6 years old, she refused to go to school. She was adamant, her mother even more so. Arun stepped in. He told Sita, ‘Look in the mirror. You are so beautiful. Can you see this beauty?’ ‘Yes’, said Sita. ‘Why are you so beautiful? It’s because you have a beautiful heart. You don’t want to hurt people. You want to help them. But people don’t know about it. Go to school and help someone, everyday.’ Sita had the most number of friends in school in the month that followed. 

When Arun was in 7th standard, he had a tough time with math. So one day he went to his dad and asked him, ‘I want a tutor.’  His dad’s reply, ‘Become one.’ The mystical answer took some time to get absorbed. Two days later, Arun went to his fourth grade teacher and asked her ‘Can I get some students who are weak in maths who I can teach?’ He got 4. He taught these kids during his lunch break. Not only was the teacher happy, but also the kids’ parents were overjoyed. The next week he repeated this with the fifth standard. And the week after that with the 6th standard. 6th grade was difficult, because he had to do a lot of homework before he got down to teaching. But in a month’s time, he was up to the mark in his 7th grade math.

In the question and answer session at the end, my question to Arun was related to compliance. I asked him what his experience has been about compliance for people who have attended his workshops. As expected, it was dismal. But then his point was that even if one out of hundred benefits, it’s acceptable. Alternatively out of hundred things that were spoken, if one gets adopted that also is acceptable. Arun went on to give the example of ISKCON. It was started in downtown New York, one of the most challenging places to be in the United States. And the biggest ISKCON ambassadors have come from the ex-convicts who attended these programs.

The high point was when one of the audience member sitting next to me, Nisha Koiri, got up and supplemented Arun’s answer. She was detected with breast cancer in 2016. Allopathic doctors had given her 45 days to live. She had to choose between chemotherapy and nature cure. She chose the latter. And is doing well. Fasts every Monday. Has only salads for lunch. And has said no to chemotherapy. She has been so impressed with the treatment, that she has switched over from her previous marketing job to becoming a Nature Cure Practitioner. Her number is 98216 71733. The other person of interest for people interested in Nature Cure in Pune is Anand Kelkar. He can be contacted at 94033 99240.

Addendum by TN Ganesh.

Five guiding Principles of Nature Cure for Healthy Living:

1.Ample exercise

2.Adequate rest

3.Positive foods

4.Positive thoughts

5.Channeling  creative intelligence towards greater good

What is health? Health is an optimal state of functioning of the body and the mind. We tend to assume that food provides energy. But the body is a living system that spends its energy to convert food into nourishment (building blocks) for its survival, growth and renewal.

How does food work? Food does not digest itself. We spend our energy to digest food and build our system. We eat food and it eats us. Food is a tax on vitality, even if it is good food. Is there a quality or hierarchy of foods? Yes, in this order:

1. Fruits

2. Greens

3. Raw Vegetables

4. Sprouted Millets, Legumes, Grains, Seeds

5. Cooked foods: (1) Baked, (2) Steamed, (3) Boiled (4) Fried

6. Non-Vegetarian foods (minimally processed and spiced)

7. Intoxicants: tea, coffee, alcohol, etc (no nutritional value)

What is disease? People think that the ever increasing number of diseases require multiple types of interventions. But, actually, all diseases have the same cause. And all cures occur due to the same process. Diseases are the end products or the result of a degeneration of metabolism caused by: Consuming acidic foods, thoughts and emotions Wrong combination of foods Eating for reasons other than hunger Sensory overload in work and entertainment Greed and fear driven work culture 

What can I do? Start simple. Avoid the five whites   Sugar Salt White pasta or rice Dairy White bread If you have to eat dairy, let it be organic yogurt or buttermilk. Wherever possible substitute millets for wheat. What should my three meals of the day be like? Try and sort your three meals of the day so that one meal is fruit, one meal is cooked and one meal is raw. Keep a gap of at least two hours between anything you eat. Remember that fruits digest much faster than cooked food, so never eat fruit after a meal. Nuts take ages to digest so they are best eaten separately as a snack (not mixed into salads). TNG advises against adding salts or spices in salads.

What does “Chew your water, drink your food,” mean? There is a misconception that we have to drink a lot of water. Men need about 3 litres and women about 2 litres of liquids per day (and this includes what you get from fruit.) Chewing water: When you drink water, don’t gulp it down. Sit down and drink it. Pay attention. Slosh it around your mouth, let it touch all sides. The kidneys filter however much you drink. So the obsession of drinking lots of water is misplaced. If one is eating healthy, enough fruits, etc., then one needs very little water intake. Drink your food: When you eat your food, chew it thoroughly until it becomes liquid in the mouth. Only then, should you take the next mouthful.

How does one approach Fasting? Fasting is a way to allow space to help heal the body. It lets the body rest rather than have it constantly working to digest the food we put into it. A multi-day fast should be done in times of illness, under supervision, and only after you have built up the ability to fast. Here is how you start:

Step one: On a day of your choice, stop eating after lunch until breakfast the next morning. So you have fasted through dinner, through your sleep, till the next morning. You can have water or coconut water, but nothing else. Do this once a week, for four weeks.

Step two: Once you are comfortable with step one, you can increase the time; fast from lunch to lunch. So now, you have skipped dinner and breakfast. Do this once a week, for four weeks. By then end of this eight week cycle you will be prepared for longer fasts.

Fasting is seen as a way of allowing the body to do the repair work it needs to do (not just digestion.) So if one has a fever or any illness, a recommendation is to fast.

What about eating out? Invite people home and cook together! Its easier to be healthy. If you go out, try and eat healthy food. Of course, there are times when you cannot avoid eating out or are tempted to do so. In that case, the simple thing is just to skip the next meal.