Soul’s Code

From herbs to T-Tapp exercises and cold-laser treatments, the key is boosting your lymphatic system

GUEST COLUMN: VAISHALI — At the end of June, 2009, the U.S. Center for Disease Control estimated that one million Americans had contracted swine flu.  In July, after more than two dozen deaths, Britain’s National Health Service budgeted for a worst-case scenario of 65,000 swine flu *mortalities* in 2009.

What is our holistic prescription to H1N1? Protect, strengthen and support the immune system, the body’s first line of defense. Here’s why.

“The next time you pick up a newspaper forecasting the end of the world, remember to laugh.”

GUEST COLUMN: VAISHALI — The only thing more highly contagious than a virus, bacteria, mold spore or free radicals is fear. The panic that arises from imagining oneself succumbing to the dreaded swine flu is a far greater health-threatening condition. It travels much faster and with more drastic consequences than the actual illness itself, leaving its own trail of destruction in its perceptual wake.

Maybe they should change the name of the swine flu from the H1N1 virus to the “CNN#1 Ratings virus panic-demic.” You know, we can’t just sit around waiting for Homeland Security to kill all the free radicals so we can feel safe once again. And now, I heard the pigs are worried about contracting the swine flu from humans!

“Just because CNN is selling economic fear across the board doesn’t mean you have to buy it.”

GUEST COLUMN: VAISHALI — From the Eastern perspective there will never be one single pill, diet, exercise or lifestyle that will cure what ails all people.

Each of our lives fulls of thoughts and episodes and sensations reflect an intensely-experienced microcosm. Each being has a unique fingerprint —  let it be said, soul’s code — and wants to be understood, examined and healed uniquely, not through the lens of mass judgment.

What is experientially, emotionally and perceptually toxic to one person could be liberating to another. There is not one accepted standard that will equally measure every nuance of every person’s life. The “average person” does not exist in Eastern philosophy.

Guidance from a homeless man on a beach and Thoreau: disasters, money meltdowns and loss are blessings in disguise

BY VAISHALI — I was talking with a loved one who rode out Hurricane Ike on Galveston Island on the gulf coast of Texas. The Island took a big hit with a 14-foot storm surge, 120 mph winds and torrential rain. As will happen in the aftermath of a storm of this magnitude, a significant amount of the residents’ possessions were destroyed.

When we’re not happy, do you believe it’s because we “think” we know what happiness is? The short answer from Vedic psychology

Raised in an abusive, alcoholic family — and twice diagnosed, “terminal” — Vaishali is a new female mystic who comes by her joy honestly.

GUEST COLUMN: VAISHALI — Happiness. It is the No. 1 thing we all want. The constitution of the United States institutionalizes our protected right to pursue it. But what exactly is it? Someone once told me they’d found happiness. I honestly didn’t know it was ever lost.

A post-modern mystic describes how she learned to accept — and appreciate — financial ruin, homelessness, and terminal illness

GUEST COLUMN: VAISHALI — I have had to start over so many times in so many aspects of my life, you’d think that ‘Square One’ was my mailing address. I’m sure we at least share the same zip code. I have been diagnosed — terminal — twice.

I like to refer to myself as a “terminal over-achiever.” Because of those chronic health problems, I lost the business I spent nearly a decade building. And then it took every cent I had ever saved just to stay alive. I had to start over financially, from Square One.

I have been without a home, and as Blanche DuBois from Streetcar Named Desire would say, “. . . have relied on the kindness of strangers.” No home? No problem. I can stay at Square One — they even leave the light on for me.

I have been lied to, and cheated on, by nearly every single romantic partner I have ever had, which for me, is a deal-breaker. So, the instant I discovered betrayal, I packed up and left. My destination? Square One.

An excerpt from Vaishali’s upcoming book, Wisdom Rising, one woman’s manual for reinvention and realization

PART 1 of 2 — In Taiwan there is a device known as a Taiwanese monkey trap. It is a simple box made of open wooden slats. A banana is placed inside the box, and it is clearly visibly through the open slats. There is a hole in the box just large enough for a monkey’s open hand to reach through. Once the monkey has a grip on the banana, the trap is sprung: the monkey now finds the hole is too small for a closed fist clutching a banana to pass back out again.

There is actually nothing holding the monkey in the trap — except for its attachment to the banana.

In her upcoming book, Wisdom Rising, Vaishali reveals how the things that happen *to* you are not really *about* You

ADVANCE EXCERPT: PART 2 of 2 — Vedic psychology says you do not have to take their word for it, you can prove it to yourself. Just ask yourself, “like air, fire and water, were emotions around before you showed up on the planet?” Were human experiences happening before your charming butt arrived to grace the third rock from the sun? Did you invent thought, or was that property of being bouncing around long before you were born? If it was on the planet before you showed up, then it is a universal event, and there is nothing personal about it.

ADVANCE BOOK EXCERPT: VAISHALI

The following is taken from Vaishali’s second book, Wisdom Rising.

It was the great spiritual teacher J. Krishnamurti who once said, “If you think that meditation is sitting in a corner of your room for fifteen to twenty minutes, and then getting up and paying no attention to the rest of your day, you are NOT meditating. You are fooling yourself!”

What does he mean by this? Meditation is the process of watching the mind, paying attention to where it wanders, and then bringing it back to a place or point of focus. The point of focus can be watching the breath; it can be holding a mantra or a specifically-designed intention or thought.