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Dr. Karta Purkh Singh Khalsa, you are considered to be one of the foremost natural healing experts in North America. How did you start down this path? What inspired you?
When I was 10 years old, I was diagnosed with a slowly progressing fatal degenerative condition. The pain started then and continued, gradually increasing, through my teenage years. No cure, said the teams of doctors. High doses of morphine and early, painful death was the future, according to them. Even so, in spite of being in pain every hour, I stayed as active as I could. The first relief from pain I had was in a Kundalini Yoga class. As a teenager, I was taking the class for spiritual reasons, and had no thought of physical benefit for my "incurable" condition. Still, I figured that if there was one thing that could relieve my pain, there might be others. Sure enough, a whole world of health and wellbeing, physical, mental and spiritual, opened up to me. It was love at first sight. I fell in love with yoga. Shortly thereafter, I met Yogi Bhajan and he invited me to study herbs and Ayurveda with him, an apprenticeship that lasted for the next 32 years, until his passing. You have spent many years deeply studying Ayurveda and healing. What are some of the most important lessons you learned in that study, which are missing from our modern "machine and lab" based approach to medicine?
Yogi Bhajan planted many seeds for the future in the arc of his teaching me. One example of hundreds is that I had no inkling of ever being a writer. Shortly after we met, he assigned me the project of writing a book on herbal medicine in 40 days. Yikes! I delivered the manuscript on day 40, and he shrugged, like it was so obvious it hardly deserved mention. As of today, I have written over 3,000 articles and written or edited 30 books. He saw something very early and nurtured it to maturity, as he did with so many people, and, in my case, so many other aspects of my character. You have a reputation for being able to help people with certain conditions that modern medicine may not be able to serve. What thought process do you go through when working with clients? The body wants to heal itself. In a way, a person's entire life is the struggle between that self-healing energy and the laws of the Universe, that we all wind down, because we are ruled by the cycles of time. I look for what is not there, those resources that could help a person make progress in healing, and help to supply them. God does the healing. In Ayurveda, we have some very specific routines that we go through to direct the diagnosis and design of treatment plan, including a meticulous physical exam, observation of all parts of the body with all the five senses, and an extensive history. Every single person is absolutely unique, which is why it stays so fresh. How is the natural medicine approach unique? When I first started studying with Yogi Bhajan, the natural healing scene in America was very rudimentary. We had to make do with what we could get. I often studied an herb that I would not see in the flesh for years. Yogi Bhajan encouraged me to study with many other mentors, and to grab knowledge wherever it could be found. He sent me to numerous experts to glean pieces of the puzzle, and it slowly began to come into focus. In hindsight, I see that he was orchestrating the entire journey, although he never would show me the sheet music. Since my apprenticeship was so long, and so diverse, I now have the advantage of a very expanded toolkit that includes techniques from many traditions. Yogi Bhajan told me many times, very specially, that he was teaching me a treatment for a specific case I was going to see in the future, and that has now happened, many years later, so many times it seems normal. Yogi Bhajan had to teach the pioneer generation of his students in this underdeveloped environment, so he was often improvising, and concepts came piecemeal. Now, over 40 years into the process, and having studied a lot of formal Ayurveda over the years, I see that he was unmistakably steeped in traditional Ayurveda and that what he was teaching was straight from the scriptures and the tradition. Using this base of Ayurveda, he instructed me to embellish with extensive studies of Western natural healing and Chinese medicine, so I have many perspectives to bring to a situation, as well as many possible remedies. What is your favorite hobby or passion outside of medicine? I like to get outdoors and enjoy the open air. Hiking and exploring. What is the most difficult thing about the work that you do and what is the most rewarding? The most rewarding first. That's when someone is able to get well when it seemed so difficult. The frustrating part is that the holistic healing Renaissance started 40 years ago in the West, and we are still fighting to make it legitimate. These methods work so well, it seems obvious that everyone would see the value right away. Things change more slowly than they could. If there is one thing you would like people to understand about health, what would it be? Natural medicine and holistic living is not that hard. You do have to be committed, and you have to get used to some new ideas, but the results are well worth any feeling of deprivation. When you pass on a doughnut because you know that you will feel better later for not eating it, you know you have passed a milestone. The way you feel when you are not eating doughnuts far surpasses the momentary pleasure of the taste of that doughnut. SikhNet would like to invite you to do a monthly column with us, where you answer questions from our readers. Readers, please leave questions for Dr. Karta Purkh Singh in the comments below. To learn more about Dr. Karta Purkh Singh and his work, please visit: www.kpkhalsa.com |
Thanks for this opportunity to discuss these important ideas with you. I appreciate the invitation.
By the grace of my master, I got a head start on understanding the connection between the body, mind and spirit. Yogi Bhajan was a very challenging teacher, but he was also a very thorough teacher. He taught in a very nonlinear way, and created many opportunities for me to learn lessons for myself. He taught me about the Ayurvedic concept of energetics, by which we assess the individual's health. Rather than "find a bug, chose a drug", Ayurveda and yogic healing seeks to discover deviations from the perfected human, and to find resources to help a person regain balance. It individualizes treatments, so that people truly get well, and then have the tools to stay well.