July - September 2016 Transformation Journal

Transformation American Meditation Institute

americanmeditation.org

July - September 2016

Self-Care for Healthy Living

AVERILL PARK, NEW YORK

What Makes

UNION POSSIBLE?

See p. 8

Photo: Illustration: 123RF.com

Upcoming Classes and Events Inside this Issue: Beginner’s Meditation The Heart & Science of Yoga® Sacred Journey If you want to start and maintain a meditation practice, this course is perfect for you. / P. 4

AMI’s 6-week self-care program combines meditation, breathing, Ayurveda & Gentle Yoga. / P. 2-3

By understanding the meaning of death, you’ll learn how best to live your life. / P. 5

FREE Guided Meditation

8th Annual Physicians’ CME Conference

Every Sunday morning at 9:30 you can experience a “guided meditation” with Leonard. / P. 4

AMI’s Comprehensive Training in Yoga Science as Holistic Mind/Body Medicine (30 CMEs), held October 25-29 at the Cranwell Resort & Spa, Lenox MA. The curriculum was developed to help relieve burnout. / P. 5, 12,13

COMPLETE AMI CLASS SCHEDULE: Pages 2-5

AMI Classes for July - September 2016

The Heart and Science of Yoga

®

Complete Self-Care Program

Reduce Stress & burnout • Relieve Pain • Optimize Health with Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev), AMI Founder Taught continuously since 1996 • For Mind, Body and Spirit

Introduction to Self-Care Now, in your present situation, you need to successfully balance all your many personal, professional and family responsibilities.

AMI’s time-tested Heart and Science of Yoga® Complete Self-Care Program will help you transform your stresses into strength, sharpen your decision-making skills, and meet every one of your challenges creatively.

What is Self-Care?

Self-care is an essential survival skill. SelfCare refers to easy-to-learn daily practices that can reduce stress and maintain and enhance your short and long term health and well-being. By maintaining AMI’s Self-Care Program you’ll be able to fulfill all your personal and professional commitments effectively and rewardingly.

Purposes of Self-Care Self-Care is not simply about limiting or eliminating stressors. It is also about enhancing your overall health and wellbeing. The purposes of Self-Care include: • Strengthening physical and psychological health • Managing, reducing and transforming stress • Honoring emotional and spiritual needs • Fostering and sustaining relationships

“A problem cannot be solved on the level at which it appears.

It must be solved on a higher level.”

ALbERt EINStEIN AMI’s Heart and Science of Yoga® Complete Self-Care Program teaches you how to reliably access your own inner, intuitive wisdom from the superconscious portion of the mind.

By accessing this “higher level” of knowledge you will know (and know that you know) how to make positive, stress reducing and health affirming lifestyle choices.

Self-Care is essential to your OPTIMAL HEALTH Herbert Benson, MD of the Harvard Medical School, says the maintenance of optimal health is analogous to a three-legged stool that must be supported by SELF-CARE. Such as AMI’s

Heart and Science of Yoga ® Complete Self-Care Program

Optimal

HEALTH

Self-Care Pharmaceuticals

Surgery

Leonard Perlmutter Leonard is a noted educator and founder of The American Meditation Institute.

He is the author of The Heart and Science of Yoga® and the mind/body medicine journal, Transformation. He has presented self-care courses at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Albany Medical College, The New York Times Yoga Forum with Dean Ornish MD and the U. S. Military Academy at West Point.

2

americanmeditation.org • Tel. (518) 674-8714

What A MI’s Self-Care Program Can Do for YOU In 2007, AMI conducted a retrospective case study of participants who completed Leonard Perlmutter’s Heart and Science of Yoga ® Self-Care Program. the findings included these positive, reproducible, long-term health-promoting changes: • Reduced cholesterol levels • Significant reductions in stress and fear • Improved energy levels • Diminished or extinguished • Increased creative capacity • Decreased anxiety and depression acute and chronic pain • Diminishment of migraine headaches • Lowered blood pressure • Weight loss • Heal irritable bowel syndrome • Lowered heart rate • Increased breathing capacity • Enhanced happiness and optimism • Improved restorative sleep

the Heart and Science of Yoga ® Self-Care Program Curriculum AMI Meditation • Mantra Science • Diaphragmatic Breathing • Yoga Psychology Mind Function Optimization • Easy-Gentle Yoga • Lymph System Detox • Nutrition • Ayurveda YOGA SCIENCE How to use the mind for the best choices How to create new, healthier habits Understanding pain as an agent for healing Increasing energy, will power & creativity Antidotes for worry, stress and depression AMI MEDITATION Systematic procedure for AMI Meditation Diminishing distractions with mantra science Learning the one-minute meditation Building focus, fearlessness, and strength BREATHING TECHNIQUES Breath as Medicine How breathing irregularities foster dis-ease Complete (three-part) yogic breath

YOGA PSYCHOLOGY & AYURVEDA How the mind supports optimal health The power of the present moment Building and healing relationships Introduction to Ayurveda EASY-GENTLE YOGA EXERCISES Yoga stretches to benefit: muscles, joints, glands and internal organs Physiological benefits of yoga postures MIND /BODY CARE PLAN The healing power of prayer The practical benefit of contemplation Creating a therapeutic care plan for yourself Learning to budget your time Integrating spiritual beliefs into daily life

tuES NIgHtS: JuN 28- Aug 9 Excl. July 19; WEd NIgHtS: Aug 17- SEP 21; tHuRS NIgHtS: SEP 29-NOV 10 Excl. Oct 27 6:30 - 9:00Pm, $495. (6 WKS) Physicians $795; PAs, NPs, Psychologists: $695; RNs: $595 Required Texts: The Heart and Science of Yoga ® and The Art of Joyful Living.

HEALTH INSURANCE CovERAgE Call us to discuss how your Health Insurance plan might cover this program.

PHYSICIAN ACCREDITATION (15 CMEs) This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the Essential Areas and Policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education through the joint providership of Albany Medical College and The American Meditation Institute. Albany Medical College is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The Albany Medical College designates this Live activity for a maximum of 15 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits TM. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Registration Includes: Lifelong support for your meditation practice, a Guided Meditation CD, a copy of The Physiology of Easy-Gentle Yoga, and a complementary subscription to Transformation, the journal of meditation as mind/body medicine.

NURSING CONTINUING EDUCATION (15 contact hours) This continuing nursing education activity was approved by the American Nurses Association Massachusetts (ANA MASS), an accredited approver by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

PSYCHOLOGIST ACCREDITATION (15 CE hours) The American Meditation Institute (AMI) has been approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists.

AMI maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

the Heart and Science of Yoga ® Self-Care Program is Endorsed by Dr. Oz (Mehmet Oz MD), Dean Ornish MD, Bernie Siegel MD, Larry Dossey MD 3

americanmeditation.org • Tel. (518) 674-8714

BEgInnEr’S MEDITATIOn the basics for getting Started Mary Holloway, Doreen Howe, Beth Netter MD Bob Iwaniec, André Tremblay, Sandy Vo

LEvEL I: Have you thought about trying meditation, but weren’t ready for AMI’s 6 week Heart and Science of Yoga® Complete SelfCare Program? This two session course provides step-by-step guidance on how to start— and stick with—a daily meditation practice.

It’s easy to learn the basics: how to deal with distractions, reduce stress, enhance your body’s immune system and become more focused, creative and content. This class also includes a FREE “guided meditation” CD. SAtuRdAY mORNINgS, 9:30 -11:00Am, $95. (2 WKS) Aug 6 & 13; SEP 10 & 17

The Heart and Science of Yoga

4 DAY SUMMEr rETrEAT

Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev), AmI Founder

July 14-17, 2016 The 16th annual July retreat presents the same core curriculum as AMI’s Complete Self-Care Program (see pages 2 & 3). These time-tested practices are designed for both the general public and healthcare professionals. Attending physicians, PAs, RNs, NPs and psychologists receive 18 CME credits.

Gourmet vegetarian meals are included.

FOR mORE INFORmAtION: tEL. (518) 674-8714 OR VISIt ONLINE: americanmeditation.org

FrEE gUIDED MEDITATIOn Leonard (Ram Lev) and Jenness Perlmutter LEvEL I: Join AMI’s FREE 20-minute guided meditation and satsang teaching. Participants may sit on comfortable chairs or on the floor.

SuNdAYS, 9:30 - 11:00Am, FREE

gUrU PUrnIMA Full moon Fire Ceremony & Sitar Concert

tuesday, July 19th, 7:30-10pm RSVP by July 17

FREE: Veena Chandra Sitar Concert Love donations Accepted

LEvEL I: For those students who seek to deepen their meditation practice, it is traditional to gather on Guru Purnima, the full moon of July. On this auspicious day, students celebrate and rejoice in the wisdom and blessings of their teachers and receive inspiration and instruction to further their spiritual journey.

Guru Purnima is a time to acknowledge, contemplate and honor the principle of Guru.

Guru is the universal force of light that dispels the darkness of ignorance. The Guru principle exists as a teacher both “within” and “without,” always available to help correct our ignorance and cure our dis-ease. The public is invited for this FREE event. RSVP required.

IrA BAUMgArTEn Meet the Author • Book Signing mONdAY NIgHt, AuguSt 22, 6:30 - 8:30 Pm A NIgHt ON buddY’S bENCH AN ENd OF LIFE StORy

Directions to A MI • 60 garner road I-90 Exit #8 (Rt. 43 E). take Rt. 43 for 4 1/2 miles. In W. Sand Lake, take a right turn at the lighted intersection onto Rt. 150.

Go 1 mile on Rt. 150. take a left turn on Cnty Rd #52/Sheer Rd (at stone wall). Go 1 mile on Sheer Rd and bear left at fork onto Garner Rd. AMI is the 3rd house on the right.

4

All profits donated to AMI and the National Hospice Foundation

AMI Classes for July - September 2016

SACrED JOUrnEY

*

Living Purposefully and Dying Gracefully

Leonard and Jenness Perlmutter Available by CdL (Computer distance Learning) *Level II: To understand the purpose of life, we

must try to understand the relationship between life and death. The two are partners––each providing a context for the other. Death is not the end, but merely a pause in an eternal journey. When both birth and death are understood and accepted as parts of the human journey, then the fear of death subsides and life can be lived more fully and joyfully. Based on the ancient Katha Upanishad, this course reveals how to organize your life in a way that leads to expansion and growth. Every student with a body is encouraged to attend.

Required text: Sacred Journey, by Swami Rama

mONdAY NIgHtS, 6:30 - 8:30Pm (7 WKS) $150.

JuL 11 - Aug 22

*

YOgA PSYCHOLOgY BHAgAvAD gITA STUDY

Leonard (Ram Lev) and Jenness Perlmutter

*

Available by CdL (Computer distance Learning) Attend this in-depth course from your own home or anywhere in the world. Call 518.674.8714 for details.

LEvEL II: In continuous six week installments this course presents the profound teachings of the Bhagavad Gita as a handbook on the science of life and the art of living. If you are seeking a manual or guide for the supreme task of living in the world today, this ongoing study will provide you practical wisdom, meaning and purpose for your life. Each week Leonard and Jenness will teach you how to reduce stress and confidently enhance your health and creative abilities, while providing you a fresh, positive perspective on all your family and business relationships. mONdAY NIgHtS, 6:30 - 8:30 Pm, $150. (6 WKS) Aug 29 - OCt 3

PHYSICIAnS’ CME COnFErEnCE Comprehensive training in Yoga Science as Holistic mind/body medicine

October 25-29, 2016 Cranwell Resort • Lenox, MA • 30 CMEs

upon Completion of this Conference Participants will be able to: 1. Demonstrate knowledge of how Yoga Science as mind/body medicine can help heal disease, manage addictive habits, alleviate stress, inflammation and physician burnout.

2. Develop equanimity, discrimination, will power, creativity and energy through a daily practice of meditation and diaphragmatic breathing.

3. Incorporate long-term strategies for healthy lifestyle choices using Yoga Psychology.

4. Demonstrate knowledge of the principles of both Ayurveda and Epigenomics.

5. Recognize the physiological benefits of Easy-Gentle Yoga (exercises for lymph system detox, joints, glands, muscles and internal organs).

6. Help themselves and their patients reduce conditioned habits of negative thinking and other symptoms of burnout through the healing powers of mantra science.

7. Utilize Food as Medicine (Diet, Nutrition, Functional Medicine) to maximize personal well being.

8. Use Chakra Psychology (subtle emotional/mental causes of stress) to diagnose and treat dis-ease.

9. Recognize how meditation changes the neural pathways in the brain.

30 CmE Conference

americanmeditation.org/cme 5

CALENdAR

Meet the Author Book Signing

FREE: SUNDAY GUIDED MEDITATION & SATSANG Sundays 9:30-11:00 AM with Leonard (Ram Lev) and Jenness

mONdAY NIgHt AuguSt 22, 6:30 - 8:30 Pm

JUNE 2016

IrA BAUMgArTEn

JUN 28-AUG 9: HEART & SCIENCE OF YOGA see p.2-3 tues. Nights, 6:30 - 9:00 PM

A Night on Buddy’s Bench

JULY 2016 JUL 11 - AUG 22: SACRED JOURNEY

see p. 5

Mon. Nights, 6:30 - 8:30 PM

JUL 19: GURU PURNIMA FIRE CEREMONY see p.4 tues. Night, 7:30 - 10:00 PM

AUGUST 2016 AUG 6 & 13: BEGINNER’S MEDITATION see p. 4 Sat. Mornings, 9:30 - 11:00 AM (2 wks)

AUG 17-SEP 21: HEART & SCIENCE OF YOGA see p.2-3 Wed. Nights, 6:30 - 9:00 PM (6 wks)

AUG 22: MEET THE AUTHOR & BOOK SIGNING see p.4 & 6 Mon. Night, 6:30 - 8:30 PM

AUG 29- OCT 3: GITA/YOGA PSYCHOLOGY see p.5 Mon. Nights, 6:30 - 8:30 PM (6 wks)

SEP TEMBER 2016 SEP 10 & 17: BEGINNER’S MEDITATION see p. 4 Sat. Mornings, 9:30 - 11:00 AM (2 wks)

SEP 29-NOV 10: HEART & SCIENCE OF YOGA see p.2-3 thurs. Nights, 6:30 - 9:00 PM (6 wks.except Oct 27 )

OCTOBER 2016 OCT 25-29: PHYSICIANS’CME CONFERENCE see p. 5,12,13 8th Annual at the Cranwell Resort & Spa, Lenox, MA

Print and eBook Versions Now available at the AMI Bookstore and Booksellers Nationwide

American Meditation Institute

Self-Care for Healthy Living July - September, 2016 • Vol. XIX No. 4 ©2016 60 Garner Road, Averill Park, NY 12018

americanmeditation.org \ Tel. (518) 674-8714 ami@americanmeditation.org AMI is a tax exempt, non-profit 501(c)3 educational organization. Donations are fully tax deductible.

6

An ancient Sufi proverb states that, “When the heart grieves what it has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left.” After suffering the loss of three family members, and mourning a high school friend’s passing for decades, AMI student Ira Baumgarten decided to channel his grief into a labor of love that would support fellow grief sufferers.

Conceptualized in 2012 following the death of Baumgarten’s mother, A Night on Buddy’s Bench: An End of Life Story tells the story of an unnamed resident of a tiny island off the coast of Maine reflecting on his life and calling upon ghosts past and present to comfort his grief.

The 17 page hardcover book includes 16 watercolor illustrations by Baumgarten’s mother-in-law Ann Bonville Trombly. Just as the mourning process can be a family affair, so can the creative process. Ira’s wife Nadine (also an AMI student) contributed to the project as the manuscript’s editor.

Accompanied by an audio book that includes music and an interview with Baumgarten, A Night on Buddy’s Bench provides quiet comfort to those coping with loss. The CD also includes a reading of the book by Tony Lopez and the song “Oh Sun I Love You So.” The interview with Baumgarten was conducted by award-winning playwright Sharon Cooper.

As a thank you to the dedicated caregivers who supported Ira and his family through their experiences with loss and grieving, all profits from A Night on Buddy’s Bench, An End of Life Story will be donated to the National Hospice Foundation and The American Meditation Institute.

Please RSVP online, and join Ira and Nadine On monday, August 22nd from 6:30-8:30pm For this special celebration of

A Night on buddy’s bench

GivinG CampaiGn ank you for your generosity. americanmeditation.org/annual-appeal

American Meditation Institute’s Yoga of Medicine Program Presents

8th Annual Conference for Physicians • RNs • NPs • PAs • Psychologists Comprehensive Training in Yoga Science as

Holistic Mind/Body Medicine A unique Curriculum developed for Clinical Application • Personal Health • Relieving Physician burnout and building Resilience

30 CMEs

The Heart and Science of Yoga

®

Meditation • Mantra Science • Diaphragmatic Breathing • Yoga Psychology Mind Function Optimization • Chakra System • Easy-Gentle Yoga • Lymph System Detox Yoga Nidra • Functional Medicine • Ayurvedic Medicine • Food as Medicine Epigenomics • Trauma • PTSD • Resilience • Neuroplasticity Meditation Practices to Relieve Physician Burnout

OCTOBER 25-29, 2016

Self-Care For Healthy Living

Albany Medical College

Lenox, Massachusetts

5 1/2

The only 4-Diamond Resort in the Berkshires

Hour Online Video Course & Book

Space is LIMITED

Please Register EARLY!

FREE!

Leonard Perlmutter Susan Lord MD

Beth Netter MD

REgIStER ONLINE:

Mark Pettus MD Jyothi Bhatt BAMS Tony Santilli MD PrashantKaushikMD Sara Lazar PhD

americanmeditation.org/cme •

JennessPerlmutter

Jesse Ritvo MD

tel. (518) 674-8714

Core Curriculum Endorsed by: Mehmet Oz MD, Dean Ornish MD, Larry Dossey MD and Bernie Siegel MD 7

What Makes

UnIOn POSSIBLE?

by Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev) Illustration: 123RF.com

We rarely examine our most closely held concepts. Every day we deal with issues involving family, business, technology, and morality, knowing that when we need to enlist a certain concept to help us answer life’s questions it will come forward from the unconscious mind. But are all these concepts we’ve stored and employ really reliable, accurate and helpful?

In the field of political science, for example, consider that prized concept of “union,” so passionately discussed, debated and cherished during the turbulent birth of our nation. You probably still remember these famous words you once learned in elementary school: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Whether we care to admit it or not, our lives today remain deeply dependent on the existence of a viable political union. On the Fourth of July we celebrate the courage and sacrifices made by thousands of women and men to “form a more perfect union,” but do 8

we have any meaningful understanding today of what that “union” actually is? We all know that some form of compassionately responsive union is essential for our shared experience of justice, tranquility, defense, welfare and liberty, but how can we preserve and maintain it––if we don’t even know what the concept of “union” means?

In India, 5,000 years ago, many people recognized the need to form a “more perfect union”––not just on a political level, but at every level of human endeavor. In fact, they treasured the concept of “union” so highly that they dedicated a great deal of their time and creative energy to examining and experimenting with it. Realizing that the primary motivation behind every desire is for “union,” they developed a science and vocabulary that explained in detail how any person, or any group of people who so desired, could reliably experience “union.”

In the ancient Sanskrit language the word Yoga means “union,” and the science of Yoga is a system of intellectual, spiritual and practical observation and experimentation that leads to the experience of “union” in every relationship. Here’s how it works.

First, Yoga Science posits that human beings become fulfilled by establishing “union” in their lives.

Second, Yoga Science acknowledges the profound connections between thoughts, words, actions and consequences. The Law of Karma states that thoughts lead to words and actions which inevitably result in specific consequences.

the Law of Karma thoughts + Words + Actions = Consequence If you genuinely desire fulfillment in life, if you want to be happy, healthy and secure, you must choose the thoughts to think, words to speak and actions to take that will lead you to your intended goal of “union.” But that’s easier said than done.

The Mind is the Problem If the truth be known, each of us lives enslaved to our own habit patterns of likes, dislikes and (often faulty) concepts. Through conscious or unconscious decision-making, we continually create the software of mind by what we choose to give our attention to and what we choose to withdraw our attention from. In other words, our habit patterns make us think the same things, say the same things and do the same things, with few exceptions, every day. Too often, this process brings us more division than “union.”

It is the mind and its unconscious, limiting habits that is the real cause of physical, mental and emotional dis-ease. Unless we can unite our outer actions with our own Inner Wisdom, we simply cannot see the possibilities available to us when an action is required. We tend to behave like racehorses that run around the track with blinkers on.

We get around the track all right, and we might look successful, but, in truth, we’re leaving a universe of rewarding possibilities unobserved, unexplored and unexperienced.

Our minds become habituated to serving familiar and attractive thoughts, desires, emotions and concepts. In the process, individual enslavement to fear, anger and the self-willed desires that conflict with our own Inner Wisdom cause physical and mental disease. Every cell, every individual organ, every bodily system––the cardiovascular, digestive, respiratory, neurological and reproductive systems, are all affected. That inner mental conflict of the individual is also

reflected outward in the collective form of our political “union.”

The Mind is the Solution Between 150BC and 400AD, the sage Patanjali codified the ancient oral tradition of Yoga Science. The very first instruction in his Yoga Sutras states that, “All Yoga, all ‘union,’ begins with an understanding and coordination of the functions of the mind.”

His words were an introduction to a systematic regulating, parenting and mastering of the mind functions that leads to “union.”

The following diagram [on page 10] illustrates the method Patanjali used in teaching his students how to establish “union” by coordinating the four functions of the mind.

In this analogy, the wheel represents the human body and the spokes represent the four functions of the mind. No movement (speech or action) can occur in the body until there is movement in the four functions of the mind. The functions of the mind always move first, and then the body follows.

The hub of the wheel is the Eternal Witness or soul, and it represents our awareness or consciousness. It is self-existent and not dependent on the body or the mind for its existence. The hub (consciousness) never moves, but it is the cause and the power of the mind, and the mind ultimately animates the body. Once speech and action of the body take place, consequences develop.

The four functions of the mind, viewed as spokes of the wheel, are: manas (active mind), ahamkara (ego or I-maker), chitta (the unconscious, storehouse of impressions or samskaras) and buddhi (intellect, discrimination).

Manas The word manas comes from the Sanskrit root man, which means mind. Manas operates both internally and externally; it is an importer and exporter of information. As we relate to each thought, desire, emotion and concept, we constantly face the decision of whether or not to take an action. Toward that end, the manas collects various bits of pertinent information from the external world and from the other functions of the mind, organizes the data and presents it to our awareness.

9

The Four Functions of the Mind BOdy

MAnAS Employs five senses and five sense organs

SAT cHIT AnAndA

AHAMkArA Ego or “I-maker”

Eternal Consciousness, Wisdom and Bliss

SOUL

the Hub or Center of Consciousness

BUddHI cHITTA Unconscious

Manas Engages the Senses In order to collect information from the external world, the manas employs five senses and sense organs: sight (eyes), smell (nose), hearing (ears), taste (mouth) and touch (hands, feet and skin). These employees are constantly going out into the material world and bringing back information about the multitude of objects with which there exists potential for a relationship. The knowledge from this perspective is always limited.

Ego (Ahamkara) The manas also collects and organizes data from the ego. This information can be valid and useful, but its inherent bias of dividing everything into pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad can be problematic. Left undisciplined, the unruly ego continually reinforces a human being’s alienation from the experience of true “union.” Because the ego has only a limited perspective, it is often wrong––even though it is never in doubt.

Unconscious Mind (Chitta) As the manas debates whether or not to take an action, information retrieved from the unconscious portion of the mind (chitta) is added to the various suggestions of the ego and senses. The chitta is analogous to a computer’s hard drive––a reservoir of all our habit patterns and the storehouse of information defined as useful in fulfilling our desires. The unconscious mind, like the 10

Intellect, Conscience, discrimination senses and ego, operates from a rather limited perspective because many of its habits and concepts are faulty.

Manas Presents its Findings When the manas concludes its preliminary fact-finding, it presents two possible choices for consideration. Addressing our awareness, the manas begins by saying, “You have two basic alternatives. There is alternative A, which will probably result in consequences one, two, three and four, and there is alternative B, which will probably result in different consequences five, six, seven and eight.

What is your decision? In support of which alternative will you take an action?”

After the manas concludes its monologue on alternatives and consequences, it waits a bit for our decision. Without a decision, manas repeats again and again, “You have two choices: A or B. Will you do it or will you not do it? A or B? A or B? A or B?” The relentless repetition becomes first annoying, then frustrating, and eventually, exhausting. The doubt and indecision play on like a broken record, and our inability or unwillingness to make a decision based on the available information is a major cause of stress that depresses both the mind, and the body’s immune system.

Conscience (Buddhi) The conscience (buddhi) is the only mind function that can discriminate and decide.

Functioning like a mirror, the conscience has the capacity to reflect Perfect wisdom from the superconscious portion of the mind. The superconscious mind lies beyond the conscious and unconscious minds. It is the same portion of mind from where Albert Einstein saw mathematical equations and Paul McCartney hears beautiful melodies. Of all the functions of the mind, the buddhi alone has access to the Inner Wisdom that will know what is to be done and what is not to be done in every relationship.

Coordinating the Functions of the Mind As Yoga scientists, before we try to skillfully coordinate the functions of the mind in a personal experiment to experience the benefits of “union,” let’s step back a moment to review four important points. 1. Our nation’s founders believed that forming a more perfect “union” was a vital requisite to experiencing justice, tranquility, defense, welfare and liberty. 2. The Law of Karma states that consequences flow from our thoughts, words and deeds. 3.Patanjali taught that, “All Yoga, all “union,” begins with an understanding and coordination of the mind. 4.The buddhi or conscience is the only function of the mind that can provide a faultless path to “union” by reflecting Perfect wisdom from the superconscious mind.

What Do I Really Desire?

If we honestly desire the benefits of “union,”

we need to parent the ego, senses and unconscious mind to defer to the wise and good counsel of the conscience (buddhi). Only when we skillfully coordinate the four mind functions in this manner can we transcend the painful limitations of the animal mindbody-sense complex and experience a “more perfect union” in every circumstance.

In March, 1775, a group of patriots convened at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia to hear Patrick Henry urge his fellow citizens to choose the high road to “union.”

“They tell us that we are weak, unable to cope. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction—by lying supinely on our backs hugging the delusive phantom of hope— until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak—if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power.”

The Truth is that the “God of Nature” Patrick Henry spoke of has already provided us the means for “union.” By coordinating the functions of the mind, our personal Bridge of Yoga will not only unite our outer actions with our Inner Wisdom, it will breathe new life into our gridlocked political “union.”

Are we less patriotic today than those who walked this sacred land 240 years ago?

Are we not willing to commit our mind, action and speech to forming “a more perfect union?” And if not, at what cost?

The Key to “Union” is

THE BRIDGE OF YOGA Inner Wisdom Superconscious Mind

yOGA UNION

Outer Action Thoughts Words Deeds

Epilogue yoga means union. It is a philosophical and scientific bridge uniting your Inner Wisdom with your words and actions in the world. through the daily practice of AMI Meditation, you can learn to skillfully construct, utilize and maintain the Bridge of yoga in your life. As you coordinate the four functions of the mind and employ the Bridge of yoga, the debilitating power of fear, anger, self-willed desires and faulty concepts can be transformed into expansive reserves of positive energy, will power and creativity. the Bridge of yoga coordinates the mind, body and spirit and facilitates “the most perfect union.” It can enable you–– and the nation––to experience freedom from fear, pain, misery and bondage.

11

Comprehensive Training in Yoga Science as

Holistic Mind/Body Medicine Conference October 25-29, 2016 • Cranwell Resort & Spa, Lenox, MA

AMI FACU LTY SPEA KE RS – 30 CMEs americanmeditation.org/cme

Leonard Perlmutter, AMI Founder Yoga Science Core Curriculum

Leonard is a noted philosopher and author of the Heart and Science of yoga.® He is a direct disciple of Swami Rama––who, in laboratory conditions, demonstrated that blood pressure, heart rate and the autonomic nervous system can be voluntarily controlled. Leonard has presented courses at the M.d. Anderson Cancer Center, the U. S. Military Academy and the New york times yoga Forum with dean Ornish Md.

Susan Lord, MD East Meets West and Food as Medicine

nEW for 2016

Susan graduated from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and is in private practice in Great Barrington, MA focusing on prevention and treatment through mindful living and lifestyle changes. She served as director for the Food as Medicine program at the Center for Mind/Body Medicine1996-2007.

Beth Netter, MD, MT Breath as Medicine and Relieving Physician Burnout Beth is an holistic physician and acupuncturist in Albany, Ny. A graduate of the University at Buffalo’s School of Biomedical Sciences, she completed her residency in anesthesiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Beth serves as Chair of AMI’s department of Medical Education.

Mark Pettus, MD Epigenomics/Inflammation/Allostatic Load Mark is a board-certified internist and nephrologist currently serving as director of Medical Education and Population Health at Berkshire Health Systems, and Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at UMass Medical School. Mark is the author of the Savvy Patient and It’s All in your Head.

Prashant Kaushik, MD Relieving Physician Burnout Prashant received a Bachelors of Medicine & Surgery degree from the All India Institute of Medical Services. A board-certified Rheumatologist, Prashant serves as Lead Rheumatologist at the Albany VA Medical Center, Associate Professor, dept. of Internal Medicine, Albany Medical College.

Anthony Santilli, MD Relieving Physician Burnout tony received his medical degree from the University at Buffalo, having completed his fellowship at Weill Cornell University and his post graduate training at Brown University. He is board-certified in Pulmonary and Critical Care medicine and practices in Schenectady and Amsterdam Ny.

Jyothi Bhatt, BAMS Ayurveda: The Science of Life

nEW for 2016

Jyothi holds a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine & Surgery (BAMS) from the Shri dharmasthala Manjunatheshwar College of Ayurveda in India. She is currently a Physician’s Assistant at the NewyorkPresbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and a faculty member of the Kripalu School of Ayurveda.

Sara Lazar, PhD Neuroplasticity: The Effect of Meditation

nEW for 2016

Sara is an instructor in the department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and an Associate Researcher in the Psychiatry department at Mass. General Hospital. A leading neuroscientist in the field, her team was the first to show how meditation and yoga influence brain structure and human behavior.

Jesse Ritvo, MD Alleviating Trauma /PTSD while Building Resilience

nEW for 2016

Jesse graduated from Harvard College and received his medical degree from the Brown-dartmouth Medical Program. Jesse is assistant medical director of inpatient psychiatry at the University of Vermont Health Center-Central Vermont Medical Center, as well as an assistant professor of medicine at UVM.

Jenness Cortez Perlmutter Psychology of the Chakra System Jenness has studied yoga Science and practiced meditation since 1977. She is the co-founder and faculty member of AMI and a direct disciple of Swami Rama of the Himalayas. She graduated from the Herron School of Art, and is a world-renowned artist.

12

mEdItAtION NEWS An Interview with the united States Surgeon general this interview is derived from a conversation with Joyce Frieden from medpagetoday.com.

Q: Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, Director of Medical Ethics, NYU Langone Medical Center stated that “We now have an epidemic of physician burnout.” What is your perspective?

Surgeon General Murthy: Medicine is a profession in which emotional well-being is sorely lacking. The suicide and burnout rate is very high, and this is concerning to me because we’re at a point in our country where we need more physicians, not fewer.

If we have people experiencing burnout, it goes against our needs. I am particularly

interested in how to cultivate emotional well-being for our healthcare providers. If these professionals aren’t well, it’s hard for them to heal the people for whom they are caring.

Based on the science developed over the years, we know that emotional well-being is an important driver of health.

People might think that emotional well-being is something that just happens to you––things line up in your life: you have the right job, you’re in good health, and you have healthy family relationships. But there’s a growing body of science that tells us there are many things we can do individually to develop our emotional wellbeing proactively, that in turn, can

Vivek murthy, md mbA United States Surgeon General

have a positive impact on our health. Promoting well-being does not require reinventing the wheel. There are already worthwhile programs focused on emotional well-being that have significant outcomes for health and education, but people just don’t know about them. Sharing success stories is going to be an important part of expanding our prevention efforts.

dEAR PHYSICIAN: Change Your Perspective, You’ll Change Your Experience AMI’s Heart and Science of Yoga ® physicians’ conference October 25-29, 2016 at the Cranwell Resort & Spa in Lenox, MA is uniquely designed to offer you a refreshingly new, clearer and kinder perspective on yourself and every personal and professional responsibility you face. Through engaging lectures by an accomplished faculty, instructive practicums and ongoing Q&A, you’ll gain experiential knowledge that will integrate Yoga Science into a dynamic self-care program.

In 2009, in support of the American Meditation Institute’s continuing medical education accreditation for physicians, AMI conducted a retrospective case study of participants who completed Leonard Perlmutter’s “Heart and Science of Yoga” curriculum.

The findings included these positive, repro-

ducible, long-term health-promoting changes: significant reductions in stress and fear, decreased anxiety and depression, lowered blood pressure, lowered heart rate, improved restorative sleep, improved energy levels, Increased creative capacity, diminishment of migraine headaches, elimination of irritable bowel syndrome, enhanced happiness and optimism, reduced cholesterol levels, diminished or extinguished acute and chronic pain, weight loss and increased breathing capacity.

As a result of attending this conference, you’ll return home with a set of practical tools that can empower you to make conscious, discriminating and reliable choices to enhance your creativity, well-being, happiness and success. Regardless of how challenging your circumstances might feel today, the science of Yoga can help.

13

By Eknath Easwaran Photo: julettemillien.com/

Modern medicine has one serious limitation: it looks for a cause of illness in something outside us. This approach is valid on the physical level, but it is incomplete; therefore it is inadequate. Of course external circumstances or agents can cause sickness. But there is also a mental factor, not only in socalled psychosomatic ailments but in every case of illness, because of the effect the mind and senses have on the immune system. So when the Buddha says, “All that we are is the result of what we have thought,” it includes our illnesses; it includes our general health.

Yoga Psychology goes a step further than modern medicine. It includes not only the physical body but also the mental or subtle body, which is closely linked to the physical organism by a very quiet correspondence. In this view, for an illness to develop, bacteria or bacilli are not enough; you must also have developed a susceptibility to that illness. How is it that of ten people who are exposed to the same bacillus, nine may succumb and one escape? Some say chance, others luck. Most physicians would offer the explanation that there are innumerable differences in individual physiology and genetic makeup, including resistance to disease, but this is still on the physical level and only begs the question. The explanation given is that the immune system is not just a physiological or biochemical network; there is a corresponding mental network also.

Resistance is not merely physical, and 14

among all the myriad factors it involves, I would give the mind primary importance.

The ramifications for the healing professions are tremendous. If you want the highest resistance to any kind of illness, including burnout, then a deep desire to live for others is a tremendous immunological force. The same is true for resistance to the ravages of time. From my own experience, I can testify that the vast majority of problems associated with old age––problems with vitality, memory, attention, endurance, resilience––need never arise at all.

Today I have probably ten times the vitality I had when I was thirty, and perhaps a hundred times the capacity to contribute to life. I may not be able to run the way I did then, but my judgment is sounder, my understanding is deeper, and my endurance is greater; I can work long hours without tension or fatigue.

If you lead the kind of life many people do, of course, the problems of senility are inevitable. Living for oneself, indulging the senses, having no overriding goal, all make tremendous demands on energy (prana), and in the latter part of life we do not have prana to lose. But if you have an overwhelming desire to contribute to the welfare of others, your faculties will be magnified––your memory, creativity, energy, resources, and your capacity to inspire for other people. All this happens naturally when prana is conserved and channeled skillfully.

Psychologists talk about the importance of the will to live, but that generally means no more than the will to live mostly for oneself. Generally, it can go no deeper than the ego––beneath which lie vast worlds of consciousness. Because we see only the surface of personality, we cannot understand how shallow the ego’s will to live often is. But the will to live for the whole of life, because it goes so deep, preserves and strengthens us down to the core of our being. When choosing to serve the whole by basing your outer actions on your Inner Wisdom, countless little choices made throughout the day floods the immune system with prana, strengthening it immeasurably.

As I said earlier, sickness is caused by an external agent with the cooperation of an internal agent: the mind and senses. An attachment for personal pleasure that’s in conflict with Inner Wisdom, for example, can manifest as a constant overindulgence in eating––and not only eating, but watching food shows on TV, talking about food, cooking, observing, thinking, tasting and imagining food. Dwelling constantly on the pleasures of the palate has consequences. Over years, what began as a small, innocent mental habit takes over the sense of taste and becomes a physiological compulsion with very real physical problems.

The implication is acutely practical: because such problems are not caused only by something outside us, they cannot be cured only by something from outside us. I sometimes wonder how much drugs can actually cure an illness, regardless of how much they may help with symptoms. To solve even a physical problem you have to get inside the mind, which is the purpose of meditation, listen to the mantra and coordinating the four functions of the mind.

Take the most pronounced characteristic of our contemporary society, rage. When a person is full of rage, he will find himself drawn into situations that provoke those proclivities. Without realizing it, an angry person will seek out circumstances that enrage him; he will get into situations that make him more hostile or resentful. These are the natural consequences of an anger habit pattern known in Sanskrit as a samskara. And its

purpose, if I may so call it, is to teach us to change our way of thinking.

If we do not learn, however, the samskara gradually invades the body. This can happen in many ways, depending on the individual.

We have to remember that each of us comprises countless samskaras, which can reinforce or counter each other in patterns as complex as those of the ripples that dapple a lake. One angry person, for example, may develop peptic ulcer; another, some pulmonary disorder: anger changes the breathing rhythm, and chronic anger can lead to chronically disordered breathing. As soon as he finds himself in contexts that provoke him––an angry home, an angry teacher, angry classmates, an angry partner––the physical problem erupts.

The positive side is this: Meditation can help you use the same situations, formerly detrimental, to improve your health and state of mind. The same circumstances that once would have wrecked your health can actually be used to rescue it. That is why I say when you face some stressful opposition in life, face it cheerfully; provide selfless service and do not withdraw. It will help that person, but it will help you even more, by helping to solve your physical and emotional problems too.

This is tough, I agree. But isn’t surgery tough? That is the way the Buddha talked; he always called a spade a spade. Surgery is a frightful procedure. It amazes me to see how willingly people in this country submit to it.

Instead of getting myself into an untenable health problem and then paying through the nose to go through the trauma and indignities of surgery, I much prefer to take my health into my own hands.

You do not have to attain enlightenment to do this, but you do have to change not only your life-style but your thought-style. Then as meditation deepens and you can listen to your mantra from a deeper level of awareness, prana is gradually withdrawn from old habits of the personality and consolidated as vitality, resilience, and resistance to stress and disease.

Reprinted from “to Love is to Know me,” by Eknath Easwaran, Nilgiri Press, Petaluma, CA.

15

American Meditation Institute Self-Care for Healthy Living Tel. 518.674.8714 • americanmeditation.org 60 Garner Road, Averill Park, NY 12018

“The Heart and Science of Yoga® curriculum represents the oldest and most effective holistic mind/body medicine in the world. It can relieve and prevent burnout, heal disease, manage addictive habits, alleviate stress and inflammation, and assure healthy life-work balance.”

Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev) Founder, The American Meditation Institute

Photo by Jenness Cortez Perlmutter