The Plant Medicine Summit Healing Stars: Using Essential Oils as Astrological Remedies Arjun Das

Transcription

1 The Plant Medicine Summit Healing Stars: Using Essential Oils as Astrological Remedies Arjun Das Welcome to everyone! This is David Crow, your host of The Plant Medicine Summit where we are exploring the many diverse uses of medicinal plants around the world for healing the body, mind, spirit, families and communities. Today, I'm very honored and pleased to present a gentleman that I've known for many years who's doing very important work around the world actually in the field of Ayurvedic medicine and plant medicine. Mr. Arjun Das is an Ayurvedic Practitioner and a Panchakarma specialist. He's the director and founder of the TriGuna Institute in Brazil, which he's been doing for almost 17 years now. In his journey of study and practice, he's received the blessings and the guidance of many healing masters in different continents especially in Brazil and India. Twelve years ago, he started a long-term research project on public health and traditional medicines which I have been very honored to learn about as he has gone along preserving the disappearing ethnobotanical information of the indigenous people of Brazil. He's a certified Hatha Yoga Instructor and a researcher in Medical Astrology, which is our topic for today, studying local herbs and their connection with Vedic astrology, which he is an expert in, for health and meditation. He was recognized with the award "Vagbhata 2009 Excellence in Teaching Ayurveda" at the North American Ayurvedic Association and has represented Brazil in major Indian Conferences as a guest lecturer. Arjun Das offers Ayurvedic training courses in various states in Brazil, in the US, in the Bahamas, in Europe and in India which he's been doing since 2001 and where he's also led more than a hundred of his students for clinical residency in Ayurveda in the State of Kerala, South India for advanced training. With that brief introduction to some of the most important but certainly not all of the things that you've been doing, welcome, Arjun Das. Thank you, David. It's wonderful to be here again with you and all of this community. I'm very pleased to be here, thank you. Okay. Well, let's talk about "Healing Stars: Using Essential Oils as Astrological Remedies." Why don t you start us off with a little background about Vedic astrology and how you started integrating that into the field of aromatherapy and essential oils which you are also an expert in? Oh, very nice. You see, Healing Stars is an approach that I'm trying to revive, but it's not my contribution. In fact, the combination of astrology and medicine was not created by my own research. It was since the beginning. In India, Ayurveda, traditional medicine and astrology was part of the same body. All the Vedic Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 1

2 [0:05:07] knowledge, it's part of the same idea and the same concept. In astrology, especially in Vedic astrology, it's very beautiful how those Rishis or those sages, they receive that information and contemplate the nature and the environment as a single unit. When they talk about the plants, herbs, aromas, notes, musical notes, numbers and colors for those enlightened beings, this is all about the same. When they talk about stars, planets, signs and constellations, they are just observing an external layer of the same environment that we are living in. It's all about the micro and the big manifestation of these celestial bodies. What I'm trying to do is to collect this information. I had started this about 15 or 12 years ago. I was traveling in India looking for more teachers, gurus, professors and masters. They are protecting this kind of knowledge in their traditions and in their families and for some reason they decided to restore that wise information in their families, so I'm very pleased to live in Kerala for many years. Wow, this is amazing, how they simply use especially essential oils as a supportive and detox process cooperating with the Panchakarma to manifest a more creative mind and consciousness. I hope this is a little bit clear at this moment. For the Ayurveda, it's suggested to undergo a process of cleaning, the cleansing of the body and removing the toxins. Also, it can be effective up to the point to remove the toxins from the mind, the senses or the consciousness. When we are talking about the subtle layers of our being, our biological unity, Ayurveda prefers to use subtle substances of gems, colors, sun, moonlight and also using herbs that are basically connected with these planets. Because for Vedic traditions, the planets, the stars and astrological information covers this aspect of higher consciousness. When we are talking about for example the sun, we are talking about our creativity, energy and vitality. Of course you can use, for example, ginger for that. Why do you use ginger? Because in Ayurveda when we select some herbs, we are following a specific protocol for classifying that herb. For example, because it's spicy and it's heating in its property. But when we are reading the ancient texts in Ayurveda and astrology at the same time, both are using the same words to classify herbs and the planets. I'm sure you are familiar with this term that is Dravyaguna. That in Sanskrit is talking about the quality of the substances. In Dravyaguna, we use about 20 unique qualifications and qualities of the substance, so it doesn t matter if it's gold, silver, a tissue, a cloth or anything. Everything can be classified using these 20 qualities, but my research found that before Ayurveda was using these qualities, the same qualities in some more words were mentioned in the Vedic books about the stars, not about the herbs. When you go deep in the Vedic knowledge, we realize that the classification of everything on Earth started from the stars and started on the sky. This can be a little bit subjective at this moment, but it's beautiful how those great teachers inspire in us to observe that the qualities of the sky manifested on Earth, not the opposite. It's not an approach Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 2

3 from the ground to the stars, but it's trying to understand how those words were used for the lights above us on Earth. [0:10:14] Wonderful, thank you, that s an excellent introduction! So now that you have set the context for us to understand where these ideas came from historically and a little bit about the qualities that are involved and how that can be related to the subtle aspects of consciousness, why don t we talk a little bit about the influence of the planets and the stars' astrological influence on the plants themselves and especially on the aromatic plants? I would be curious to hear if the aromatic plants, the ones that give us the essential oils, actually have some significantly different astrological types of qualities than other plants with other tastes in qualities. Yeah, this is really cool because in astrology especially in the science of essential oils for example, we are reaching a different part of our body. From the science of anatomy and physiology in yoga, we know that we have so many koshas. This is the word they use in the yoga tradition to describe these different layers or levels of our energy and vibrational manifestation. When we're talking about the essential oils, we're talking about the astral body. This is the point, so it's another common word. You can find the astral body mentioned in the yoga tradition. Then you can find the same manifestation in Ayurveda and obviously you can find huge information and huge amounts of wisdom and information in astrology. The idea is every herb, once it's connected with a specific star or planet, and we are not talking about how scientifically the light from that specific planet is moving some particles or atomic manifestation in the biology of herbs. The point is it's all about the concept that all is connected. When we are talking about the action from the stars on herbs, we are talking about the agriculture so those are the masters. They know, understand and live this kind of wisdom every day. When they are growing, harvesting, preparing seeds and preparing the soil for growing something, for planting, they are obeying or following the information from the stars. Basically, we can understand that to a certain level that the sun and the moon works directly on this process. For growing, for planting, and for agriculture in general. What those masters in India realized is that it's not only the moon or the sun. It's not only about the seasons, but also about the other planets especially the transition that the moon comes to happen and manifest along these 360 degrees around our planet. There's a specific topic called Nakshatras and we are talking about the 27 subdivisions of the zodiac. Each day, the moon is specifically in one Nakshatra and that Nakshatra is correlated with a specific moment for planting this kind of herb or that kind of organic plant. The idea is we use this table, this classic reference point from the Nakshatra, the stars, the moon and specifically the moon. The moon is deeply connected with the roots, the water, the ojas and the fluid in this planet. It's through the moon that we can revive this process in herbs. And when we are Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 3

4 [0:15:04] talking about the smell, the taste or the sense connected with the essential oils from that smell, from that fragrance, we can get a glimpse of what is working behind. For example, just to bring some examples, when we are using Nag Champa, which is a very famous essential oil from a beautiful flower in India, from the text we read that it's clearly connected with Jupiter, not the moon and not the sun, but with Jupiter. So why does it happen? We know that Jupiter in India is in fact not called Jupiter, but the Sanskrit name for Jupiter is Guru, and Guru is talking about the preceptor, the teacher or the guide. We have a very clear connection between the Nag Champa and this approach before masters. We realize that using Nag Champa can improve these relationships with your wise being or with your gurus and teachers. This is just an idea of how in India, for example, they use Nag Champa in every altar and in every temple. The smell, the fragrance and the scent of Nag Champa in the air brings our spirit to a more open perception of the message from the gurus. This is one aspect of its application, for example, just to give some idea. I don t know if it was clear or not, but it can be really fast and deep. There are many connections with the use of essential oils in India and also for blessing the first step. In astrology, everything is about the first moment that something is happening or manifesting in this life. That's why we have our birth chart to talk about the first moment in our life that we took a deep breath, so then life started. Everybody, when we're facing a moment to start something, there is a moon, a Nakshatra and a moment in astrology connected to it. At the same time, there is a fragrance. There's a smell. There's an aroma connected with that. When we use that aroma, the consciousness can be more aware of what it's doing in life. One beautiful aspect of this approach called the Healing Stars is using essential oils to boost our being and to boost our consciousness, and to be properly aligned with this spiritual information just behind our act. It's how I believe that using essential oils, using herbs or using this kind of information can help us to get into a specific meditation pattern and work on life aligned or associated with these higher ideas. For me, it's really beautiful. It's my passion and I have dedicated a part of my life doing this kind of research and there's so much more to learn and to realize. Wonderful, thank you! I think it would be very interesting to spend the rest of our short segment here just hearing different examples as you were describing and I think there are two ways that we could approach it. One is maybe if we started from the standpoint of the essential oils themselves because I know that you are quite familiar with a number of essential oils. Maybe you could tell us your favorite essential oils and the kind of astrological influences that they have and the kind of purposes that we would use them for, as you just described with the Nag Champa. But also we could possibly start from the standpoint of what things do rather than what the essential oil is. And so maybe you'd like to just explore both topics. Start from the essential oils, some of your favorite oils and Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 4

5 what they do and their astrological qualities, or start from the standpoint of what we would like to accomplish. You've given the example of opening more to the relationship with higher teachings and our spiritual teacher. You've also given the example of the ginger and the creativity. I'm sure you have many, many examples of things we could do using certain types of essential oils, so I'll just turn this back to you to unpack that as long and in as much inspiring detail as you would like. Thank you. You see, when we are talking about the planets in astrology, we have at least the seven classical stars: the sun, moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn. Those are the seven. For Vedic astrology, we also have Rahu and Ketu that is all about the shadow effect, the shadow side of our consciousness and our ego. When we are talking about each one of them, we have up to three different layers of manifestation from its vibration. For example, the sun as I said, is about creativity energy vibrating enthusiasm and this line of thought. We can use for example rosemary for that. Rosemary is a very powerful and beautiful herb. By the way, while I'm talking to you, I'm in front of a beautiful rosemary here through the window, so that's why. Rosemary is a beautiful herb connected with the sun because it's a powerful tonic, so when we are using this herb, of course we can get the most basic benefit from this herb, and we can collect. We can grasp and digest the beautiful pranic healing vibrating energy from this rosemary to support our soul, to support our spirit and to be aligned with the light. The sun is all about how clearly we see nature and how we connect our being with the environment through service. In my practice, I have seen so many people, for example, with some debilitated sun in their charts. That means in their life, there's so much low confidence and low self-esteem. When we are using these kinds of herbs, for example, neroli, peppermint, rosemary or ginger, there are so many options that we can use and prescribe for this kind of debilitation, and this is an astrological term, when we find a specific planet that is not in balance in the chart. We can use some herbs, these that I've mentioned here especially in talking about the rosemary. Rosemary is not only good for the blood as it's a powerful herb to improve circulation, but circulation of what? Circulation of prana and circulation of life force, that's the idea. From the primal level, we can see the blood circulating more vividly, but also we can find the consciousness changing the pattern, opening the heart to receive this connection with the divine manifestation of life, being more brave and with an open heart to serve through devotion and through this passion in life. Neroli is also beautiful for that, so it's a beautiful way to strengthen the spirit. Peppermint can stimulate the mind to be more active and to be more open for that and eager to do something and to create something. In my opinion and for my system, I use the blend of neroli, peppermint and rosemary. These three herbs combine in a beautiful synergy. We can evaluate this changing of this state of mind, so this is just to give some idea. From the moon, we are talking about Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 5

6 [0:25:10] the mind, the emotions, feelings and inspiration. What is the full moon? The full moon is simply a complete reflection of the sunlight which in turn represents the spirit. A strong moon ruling over our lives is the perfect symbol of serenity, of peace and of vivid soul. This is the softest manifestation of our consciousness through the stars. We have a delicate mood. Basically, the moon is a feminine energy related to all aspects of creation. This is one of the most impactful expansions of the Divine Mother nurturing, feeding and calming down our rajasic quality by employing a very cooling nature. For example, jasmine, lavender, and clary sage are my three main herbs for this kind of purpose. The moon is very easy to determine in the astrological chart. Every time we find someone with moon in a very delicate or risky situation in the chart, we can prescribe any one of these, especially jasmine or lavender for example, to support the mind, to bring or to restore the balance of the emotions and the focus that the mind must be connected with. At this moment, I would like to inform you that I have trained some students. They don t know about astrology, but they still can use these concepts because it's not something that you need to have the birth chart to know their situation, but you can feel from the present. I really hope that you can understand what I'm trying to say here. That is, before a patient or a person can be helped by this information, when we have a wavering mind or very low stamina or there are so many ideas but you re not concentrating on anything, we can feel that that person is still suffering from this weak moon in the chart or in that specific moment of their life. We use this kind of herb without knowing the birth chart, but because it's notorious from that person's behavior that the moon is probably under some weak separation or out of balance in their life. The same thing we could say about Mars. It's all about courage, bravery, and a boost of working in this life. It's through Mars that we express our brave energy that boosts manifestation of our desires and puts them in action. This is all about Mars in astrology. When we find some situations like weakness and debilitation in our body, lots of fear or low confidence again, it is a clear sign of obstruction of this planetary energy in our heart. When we improve this energy in our subtle bodies, we are able to experience hope and peace, blend it in an optimistic mood. For Mars, we prefer to use, for example, vetiver. That is a beautiful, grounding energy. And cedar and bergamot, which are wonderful mood enhancers. When we are using these herbs, essential oils, for example, we are creating this bravery again. We are firing up. We kindle the spirit and what is happening here? We are using the energy of Mars. These are a few examples. I could give more to the entire list of the planets, but this is up to you, David. Thank you. I'm sure we could talk for hours. That's the problem with these segments, they're so short. But those are excellent examples that I'm sure will help people to understand more about the interrelatedness between the astrological side, the qualities, the Gunas, consciousness, the subtle bodies, the Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 6

7 [0:30:00] psychology, the emotions, our behavior and how to use this to help us overcome obstacles and blockages. There's one aspect that I'm curious to hear more about, something we were talking about before we had this call and that was the aspect of protection. You commented that many of the essential oils have this unique quality of giving protection and this is also linked to the astrological energies that they contain. I found that very interesting because I'm aware from my studies that the essential oils are actually produced by plants for their own protection. They're the chemical aspects or the molecular aspects of a plant's immune system that the plants produce to protect themselves from a wide range of different types of microbial toxins, being eaten by herbivores and all sorts of things. And so, I'm wondering if you could unpack that side of aromatherapy a little bit because we do know quite a lot about the antimicrobial effects, the immune-boosting effects and the protective effects of essential oils from a biochemical standpoint. I'd be curious to hear what your perspective is on the astrological aspects of protection from essential oils. Awesome, this is a wonderful aspect of this system, these Healing Stars that is all about protecting the mind. You see, I'm talking about the nine planets and, as I said, there can be up to three varieties of essential oils on each planet. So we have 27 options. But in fact, all of them are trying to protect the mind to keep it as steady as possible as much as possible. What is found outside? When we're talking about the virus, biomolecules and all these agents from the environment, from this kind of understanding in Ayurveda and astrology, these are being acceptable by a weak standard of mind. The idea behind is when we improve the vitality of our mind, we can keep and attain excellence of consciousness and protect our body, avoiding these kinds of open doors and open windows for these kinds of beings that create an imbalance in our body. For me, it's simple but not poor. The concept that everything is connected with the force, with the power of mind. When we are using essential oils to protect the mind, to keep it steady and focused, the mind, the soul and the body, we are aligned through the service. I'm not trying to speculate here, but in my humble opinion, all these vulnerabilities in our environment just find a place in our body that can destroy our energy and create so much imbalance because we are not aligned with our duty, dharma and mission in this life. When we are completely immersed and attached to our purpose in life, in our mission and this connection with the divine light, we are engaged in action. This kind of karma is purified by itself because we are just serving and supporting the nature, the Divine Mother and the community. These are all different aspects of the expansion of ourselves. But to make it more specific, for example, I love frankincense. Frankincense is my best choice. When I'm at home, for example, protecting my two babies, my baby girls, they love the smell and the aroma of frankincense. It can be also wonderful when you're talking about myrrh and palo santo. When we find there is some kind of spirit or Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 7

8 [0:35:19] manifestation on the mind, so this is another topic in this system, in this Healing Stars. Then our vulnerability to receive or to be connected with some vibration that is deeply primal and perhaps full of ignorance, I'm talking about some other spiritual beings that can communicate with us and interfere with our mind, desires, tensions and perceptions. In this case, I prefer to use a set of oils for Rahu and Ketu that is about the shadow aspect of our consciousness and the sky. It's about the shadow side of our mind. For those, we are patchouli, tea tree, eucalyptus, white sage, thyme and helichrysum. These are the six main herbs or the essential oils that I prefer to use specifically to protect the mind against other individualities or other spiritual information in our life creating a kind of confusion and losing the sense of unity in our daily lives. Let me know if it was clear enough for you. Anyway, we can use so many different herbs. But these six as I have mentioned, frankincense, myrrh, palo santo, patchouli, tea tree and eucalyptus, are the most powerful options also to protect the body by itself against fungus and microbiome. For example, tea tree, it's all about immunity. My point is why is it strong against some bacteria, for example? Why? Because it can prepare the mind to heal itself, so it's all about self-healing. In my opinion, this is how the healing operates, but how can it really and I don t like to use this word but how can it really kill some bacteria? Because it can improve and boost the mind to restore the idea that this is my community, this is my land and this is my body in the sense of this is the place of my own manifestation. You just clean your space so the fungus, bacteria and viruses are not allowed to be there because they are not operating in your dharma. They are not supporting your dharma, so this is a part of my realization using this herb in this sense. Thank you. That was very, very profound and it's very thought-provoking to think about that particular aspect of immunity and the link between the plants, the energies, the mind, the immune system and so forth. That was brilliant. Thank you very much. Unfortunately, we're running out of time, but I was hoping that you would be able to close things up here with something personal and maybe along the lines of a case study. Maybe it could be your own personal experience or maybe something you've seen in the clinical practice with one of your patients because you have years and years of treating people. I'm wondering if you have an example that you could give of a kind of transformation that has happened when a person uses an aroma, a fragrance, an essential oil that is full of a particular kind of astrological energy and quality and they use it for a period of time, and during that period of time, something changes inside of them, like you've mentioned ginger. They become possibly more creative or you've mentioned the tea tree, that they're able to fight something off immunologically because of a change in consciousness. I'm wondering if you have something that you yourself have experienced that's a really good story about that kind of transformation that can happen when a particular fragrance targets a particular Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 8

9 part of a person's chart or something from your clinical practice. I would be very curious to hear that. [0:40:07] Thank you, I just remembered this case. Recently, I tried to support a lady in Brazil. She was trying to find the reason in life and her purpose in life. This is a very deep topic, but in her daily life. She was struggling to find a reason, a specific profession or a kind of work to do. In her heart, she was completely in love with arts, paintings and this kind of beautiful manifestation of ecstatic things, but in her background, her father was not supporting her so much. He created a kind of trauma in her childhood. When she was a child, there was so much pressure and bad words. It was not supportive to her, so she blocked that. When she came to me and we saw her birth chart using Vedic astrology, I was impressed by the position of Venus in her chart. It was amazing and beautiful. And not only Venus, but many other planets were connected with Venus, creating an even higher kind of light and manifestation of excellence of Venus. Based on that information that I was collecting from astrology terminology, I was very confident to support her idea to go on and to look for more opportunities to learn about art, paintings, drawings, sculpture, music and all these things because this is all about Venus in our classification. It was more than 45 years that she was looking for that opportunity and that time, she was eager to dive in but also feeling the pain of that trauma that it was not for her. It was not for her. That's what she heard her entire life. Then we started using this kind of option. For example, geranium. I prescribed geranium, blue chamomile and mandarin. Those are the three essential oils that I use in my blend for Venus, so geranium and blue chamomile. It's a beautiful combination of compassion and humility. The beauty of this synergy of compassion and humility through geranium and blue chamomile, is about making her forgive herself and forgive her father because everything was happening through a channel of love. The father was not aware of that, but he was trying to protect her in his kind of culture and his amount of information of life. These essential oils were being applied through sprays like essential oils shower, using some kind of spray and a kind of mist on her face, head and the body. And after some time, I'm talking about just a fraction of two or three weeks, she was completely restored of that same vibrating energy that she said was the same energy that she found in her childhood. It was a kind of opportunity to birth again and to live another opportunity to serve, to be creative, to find charm in life and to manifest compassion and forgiveness. You see, from my perspective, a single and a very simple combination of herbs can operate in different layers of our consciousness. I think we can understand when it's very connected with our gross body because you don t find pain. There is no more pain, so you can really and easily see how it works. But my question is: when will you be ready to identify and to recognize how the same herbs and Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 9

10 [0:45:14] aromas are still operating in our spirit supporting us toward a path of love and healing? That's all about my humble contribution organizing this information. This is not coming only by my mind and my brain, but also representing the tradition that I'm very proud to support in life that is all about the Kerala tradition in South India. Wonderful, thank you! That was a beautiful story. I appreciate hearing it and I'm sure everybody is appreciating that kind of information. We are unfortunately out of time, but I want to make sure that everybody hears more about your work, and so I would like to refer people to your website, which is triguna.com. Arjun, I would like you to close things up by telling people a little bit about what they can find. I know that this is especially relevant for the people who are working with you and following you in Brazil since your website is in Portuguese. But I think it would also be a good way for people to contact you in general and to know about your international work. Specifically, if you'd like to mention the trips, tours and the educational opportunities that people everywhere have to study this subject with you in person and in India. So again, I'll just mention your website, triguna.com, and maybe you could tell the folks in Brazil what they're going to find and maybe you could tell everybody else about the upcoming tours that you have studying the traditions in the real Ayurvedic classical way. Beautiful, thank you for this opportunity! Well, at this moment, I'm concentrating my energy and my desire to organize a kind of program that can be offered to people like my students and those who are here attending this beautiful summit to go to Brazil, for example, to go deep in our forest and learn about our native herbs and how we are using this Ayurvedic knowledge and astrological information to classify our own herbs. At the same time, we are also leading people to India specifically to Kerala to spend some time there learning about Ayurveda inside the authentic Ayurvedic hospital that is protecting this tradition. And after that, we fly up to north going to the Ganges, the river, before the mountains, the Himalayas. And we have a beautiful and very sacred place that we love to be with our students and friends for immersion in meditation and the meditation training using the essential oils. It's a wonderful opportunity to be in a very holy atmosphere around Rishikesh, the capital of yoga in India, so we go and spend some days in deep meditation using essential oils, learning about the scriptures, talking about philosophy and applying these in our daily life. At the same time, we are also coming to the US to organize more groups and create a different kind of study groups and cells across the country to promote more awareness about this interconnection between yoga, Ayurveda and astrology, and obviously herbology and essential oils. That is my passion. Well, thank you for the opportunity to bring more information about my work here. I really appreciate it. Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 10

11 Well, Arjun, thank you on behalf of all of us for not only a wonderful presentation, but also for all the work that you've been doing. I know from our past conversations and time that we've spent together and times that we have talked about your work in some detail that your work in Brazil is very challenging on many, many levels. There are economic challenges, social and political challenges. There are challenges of getting the Ayurvedic herbs through the very complex importation system, so I know that the work that you've been doing to bring Ayurveda to Brazil over the last 15 years and more has been a lot of work. I know that it's been full of a lot of obstacles many times, and so I just want to say personally thank you for doing all of that, for all the people that you've helped and for spreading the message, the methods and the opportunities for healing that Ayurveda represents. And on behalf of all of us listening, I just want to say thank you again for your presentation here. Thank you, my friend. This was a wonderful opportunity and I would be always ready to attend your call, and please keep on calling. Okay, wonderful! And for everybody listening in, thank you again for joining us and join us again on another segment of The Plant Medicine Summit The Shift Network. All rights reserved. Arjun Das March 23, 2017 p. 11