What I Learned While Touring Australia With My Ayurvedic Teachers | Dylan Smith #132

Embark on a transformative journey with me, as I recount a decade's worth of profound Ayurvedic wisdom and personal growth, marking Vital Veda's 10-year milestone.

Feel the anticipation as I unveil pivotal lessons from my health voyage and the enlightening encounters with my esteemed Ayurvedic mentors, the Raju family of Vaidyas (Ayurvedic Physicians), during their recent trip to Australia.

This episode is brimming with intimate reflections on my dietary choices and the eye-opening realities of addiction in Australia, all woven into actionable advice that promises to rejuvenate your digestion, boost your vigor, and elevate your well-being.

Savor the essence of ancient Ayurvedic practices harmonised with contemporary health challenges, as this conversation unfolds numerous gems of wellness. This episode is an open invitation to reshape your approach to health and join a community that's a decade in the making.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

🪷 Mixing Hot and Cold Drinks
🪷 Reheating Foods
🪷 Buttermilk (Takra) Consumption
🪷 Coffee and Caffeine Addiction
🪷 Breakfast Habits
🪷 Upcoming In-Depth Learning Opportunities

RESOURSES:

Learn More About The Raju Family Australia Visit April 2024 HERE

Book In With The Rajus in April HERE

Raju Family Retreat: Advanced Techniques in Marma, Pulse & Abhyaṅga with Vaidyas Harsha & Pavani Raju

Chapters

• 0:01 10-Year Anniversary
• 7:53 Aravetic Health Tips and Practices
• 17:53 Nutrition and Health Insights

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

So I think it will be so interesting for you to hear what they called me out on.

Speaker 1: 0:05

It leaves you feeling satisfied and these things are going to help, particularly your digestion, your energy levels, your overall health. First thing that they called me out on was, and on the contrast, drinking cold drinks is. It was something that I knew, but I didn't realise to what extent of severity this addiction is prevalent in Australia, and that is an addiction which is very common and that you may have. Welcome to the Vital Veda podcast. I'm your host, dylan Smith. I'm an Ayurvedic practitioner and holistic health educator and very grateful for you to join me here on the Vital Veda podcast, where we are approaching our 10th anniversary. Our 10 year anniversary of Vital Veda, which is a space for primarily. It start as an Ayurvedic clinic where I would see patients in Sydney, australia. It evolved to maintaining that Sydney clinic as well as online clinic, and a lot what we do is an education platform, online education, this podcast, articles on our website, instagram, vital Veda and collaborating with different doctors around the world, such as this episode today is when I had a couple of my teachers come to visit and lessons that I learnt when they were watching me closely, so we're going to get into all this. But if you'd like to receive we're going to be sending this 2024 May, when we hit our 10 year anniversary we're going to be sending a beautiful summary, like a little book, on Vital Veda of 10 years. If you'd like to receive that, please sign up to our newsletter at vitalvedacomau and there you will learn all the significant events that occurred over the 10 years. As Vital Veda is business as an Ayurvedic clinic and as a holistic health education platform, so I'd love you to join our newsletter. We send our newsletter about once a fortnight. We don't overspam you and it usually includes some personal words from me of what's been happening and what's been inspiring me and what I'm sharing with you, as well as special announcements of offerings, tours and discount codes, if and when they apply. So Vital Vedacomau to you. At the top you'll see newsletter and that's where you'll be updated with where I visit the world to consultant person or where I'm travelling with my teachers around the world. So sign up for the newsletter.

Speaker 1: 2:42

I toured nationally in 2023 with two of my teachers, two of my Ayurvedic doctors and teachers, over six weeks in Australia and New Zealand and we were living closely together and they observed my living and my eating habits closely. So although I've been an Ayurvedic practitioner for nearly a decade and I admit, and other people especially will say, I walk the walk I consider my lifestyle healthy. I have the reputation of being quite the Ayurvedic enthusiast. So when these two physicians called me out on a few things mostly around my food habits they were I took them wonderfully and I know that I'm always learning and will continually learn. So I think it'll be super interesting for you to hear what they called me out on and you can utilize that knowledge to refine your eating habits and your nutrition. And not only was it about me, but there was a couple things we are including in this episode what I learnt while on tour. One of the things was something that shocks them when they saw amongst the many patients we saw hundreds of patients across six weeks and there was a common theme around particularly patterns which shocked them. So, in the name of you learning from my mistakes, I would like to share with you for now about five things that I learnt on tour. And these things are going to help, particularly your digestion, your energy levels, your overall health, and because digestion is the root of many diseases, and my diseases and my imbalances and my week areas are different to yours. However, commonly, digestion will be the root. Now, this advice which I'm going to give you, which was passed down to me from them and which I learnt only last year, will help your health in many different ways.

Speaker 1: 4:31

Before I get into it, I want to introduce these doctors. This is Dr Harsham Parvani Raju. You may know of them you may have heard me speak about my teachers, the Raju family, one of the few families of ayurvedic physicians that have an unbroken lineage of knowledge, because so much ayurveda has been lost, it's been misunderstood, it's been confused, and that's due to a lot of invasions. We had the Mughal invasion into India, we had the British invasion into India, we had the suppression of the Vedas, and really only around the 60s 70s did this Vedic knowledge begin to revive, starting with meditation, because meditation is one part of the Vedas and yoga is one part of the Vedas. And then ayurveda became revived significantly and the Raju family were a big component in that and reviving ayurveda amongst the world. And then, of course, jyotish Vedic astrology is also being revived, and still some Vedas are yet to be revived even more, such as Dhana-ruveda, the Veda of warfare, the ways to interact with certain relationships and do certain negotiations and also increase worry energy. So there are so many aspects of the Veda, the laws of nature, and that's what we speak about on this podcast show, the Vela Veda podcast, and Araveda has been lost, but luckily there's a few families that have the knowledge and that have kept this and so much lost knowledge, especially pulse diagnosis and marma therapy, which is where acupuncture points come from, and banana treatments, certain hormonal therapies. All these have gracefully, gratefully being maintained by the Raju family. So we had a visit from Harshram Parvani I toured, and that was in 2023. And they're coming again in 2024. And that is on.

Speaker 1: 6:18

Starting on April 8th in Melbourne, we have a big free community event in April in Melbourne, on April 8th at 5pm, and that is at the Consulate of Melbourne in Melbourne, cbd. You've got to sign up on Vada Veda website, but that's one event. We're doing an event online. If you're listening online, this is integrating Jyotish, which is Vedic astrology, and Araveda, so all these expressions of the Veda. Araveda is just one, but then we have Stapachya Veda, which is Vedic architecture, and we have Araveda and we have Jyotish, vedic astrology. So knowing the influence on biological health, but also expanding that to how do the planets influence us, just like the seasons influence our health. Araveda, we talk about the seasons, but now we're kind of getting a bit more sophisticated and integrating another layer, another subtle layer, but a very powerful layer, and that is the influence on planets, on biology.

Speaker 1: 7:16

Even the great, great physician, hippocrates, said a physician is not a medical physician if he does not know astrology. So it is definitely important to understand and even for me I still haven't fully delved into Vedic astrology. We've got a few episodes on this podcast, but I personally haven't studied it because I'm still busy studying Araveda. So I like these gradual little introductions to Vedic astrology. And what a better way for me isn't someone who loves to learn Araveda to learn medical astrology and learn Jyotish or Vedic astrology with an Aravetic view and with integrating with Araveda.

Speaker 1: 7:53

So that's an online masterclass lecture we are doing on April the 12th in Sydney, but it's online as well. So if you're in Sydney, you can join us on April the 12th at Bondi Meditation Center and if you want to join us online, everyone will get the recording. Who attends that, whether you can make it live or not, and for that you can also check out our website and head over to the resources and click on the Rajya Family Tour it's also that event is also on the website of Bondi Meditation Center and then these doctors will be touring around offering pulse consultations, which is very valuable to receive pulse diagnosis. Like people go for their annual blood check-ups or their annual mammogram or endoscopy, whatever tests you want to do, that's great. It's also wise to receive a regular Aravetic pulse consultation from an expert in pulse, from someone who really understands and can see the body on a deep level before disease even manifests. So it's very valuable to understand which parts of the body need to be attended to, which parts can you prevent disease and also, especially if you're undergoing any niggling health condition which you can't put a finger on, what's going on, pulse can be very effective as a diagnostic method. So that is available in Sydney, melbourne, byron, birmingham, there's a few other places. So you Gold Coast, that's that, and also the famous banana treatment, which is a phenomenal free treatment by donation, and that is all for hormonal health for everyone except for pregnant woman. So you can look at all that on Raju Family, australia visit April 2024. On the vital beta website. We hit up vital betacomau for slash Raju dash, april dash, 2024. That's this year, next month.

Speaker 1: 9:50

But for now I'm gonna share with you what I learned last year when they were here. The first thing that they called me out on was don't mix hot and cold drinks. Now I kind of know this, but for me, like I know, it's ideal not to mix hot and cold drinks. So if I boil the kettle and I'm really thirsty, what I would do is because I like warm water. And if you've listened to me before and just in case you don't know this, sipping hot water is a very powerful technique.

Speaker 1: 10:20

It's very good to sip hot drinks in our Reddit. It, like hot water, washes grease off the dirty dishes. When you sip hot water, as you're drinking water, it melts the toxins in your gut and flushes them and dilates channels to allow blood circulation and opens capillaries to take blood pressure relief and headache relief. It goes on. Sipping hot water is such a powerful purification method. It hydrates you. I've talked about it. You can check out my work on Insight Timer. I speak in length about it. And, on the contrast, drinking cold drinks is, it's not good. It puts out the metabolic fire which we call agony. It constricts the channels, like cold water, makes leather hard. It hardens the internal tissues and organs but, like hot water, makes leather soft. When we sip hot water it softens the internal organs and makes them soft and flexible and being able to absorb blood and nutrients. So we wanna be drinking warm drinks or hot drinks and definitely don't wanna be drinking cold drinks.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Minimum room temperature For me if I'm really hot. I get home from a hard day work, whatever I'm doing out in the garden, and I get home and I want to have that cold coconut water in the fridge which I forgot to take out in the beginning of the day. Or I have that sugarcane juice in the fridge which I forgot to take out earlier. So it would cool down, warm up whatever, and I would serve a chilled drink and then I would add some boiling water to adjust it. Or if I was out at someone's house and all they had is chilled drinks from the fridge, or I would add boiling water just to make it that room temperature which I much prefer to drink, as well as on a taste level, I would do that and add the hot water.

Speaker 1: 11:56

But they stopped me on that and they said no better, even you drink it cold or put it in your mouth and just let it warm up a bit. Or just take the hit, dylan, and just wait a bit and I know you're thirsty, but just wait a bit till it warms up. That is because if you mix hot and cold together, this chemical reaction of mixing that creates an incompatible liquid product which is then hard to digest. So once again, don't mix hot and cold. And if you haven't even learned this like if you get, okay, I'm gonna stop drinking cold drinks boil the water and let it cool. Don't add cold water, but fully boil it. It's important to fully boil. And then still, if you wanna drink quicker, don't add the cold or don't add the hot, drink it cold. So that was one thing that I learned that it's actually worse to add the hot water to the cold drink, as I was doing. It's even better if you drank more cold drinks. That was the first lesson that I learned. The second lesson that I learned is to avoid reheating foods after even a mere few hours. So I know this.

Speaker 1: 13:01

Obviously, I know leftovers is not good. I personally will not eat leftovers the next day, not even if it's my best ever, organic, home cook with love. I will not eat leftovers the next day. What I would do is, potentially, I would cook my lunch and I'd have a bit leftover and I would utilize it. I would have it again at dinner or I would add something to it and have it with dinner.

Speaker 1: 13:24

And they said, no, even I would cook lunch, for example, travel with it with the doctors, and then we would arrive like I'd cook it in the morning. I'd make in the morning, because we don't like to buy food out for different reasons, we prefer home-cooked foods. So I would cook it in the morning, I'd take it with travel, get to the next city and we'd get to our combination ready to eat the food. And Usually what I would do is I would heat it up, I'll just put it on the pot. I'm not hanging in a microwave, no way. That's castling genetic poison. I would just put it on a pot and quickly just give it a bit of heat.

Speaker 1: 13:57

They said, no, don't do that, let's have it room temperature. That is better, that is better for digestion, that is better for the prana, the life force in the food. We don't want this fluctuating of temperatures. This is a similar thing of when you cook food a Vegetable for example ideally it's not straight from the fridge into the hot pan. Ideally you've taken it out that morning and let it sooth the room temperature. We want that gradual transition of heat and cold, similar to the first thing of not mixing hot and cold. We want to be more sensitive to the temperature and to every time that we put ugly to food, that we heat food, that we put fire to Food, it in it, it transforms it. This that's the role of ugly, that's the role of fire Transformation. So we want to be sensitive to the amount of transformative actions we administer to food and how we do it. How many times does the food want to get cooked? I learned only once.

Speaker 1: 14:54

The third lesson is about my buttermilk. So I drink takra and if you do not know what takra is, it's buttermilk, also known as thin lassi. Takra is one of my most important Food items in my life and especially my most important drink in my life. I kind of need to have takra every day. Takra is I call it the super nectar aerobic beverage that is beyond divine and very, very simple to make.

Speaker 1: 15:22

I've done a whole podcast episode on takra because I'm so divided. That's episode number 75, all on takra, which is just buttermilk, simply so simple. And what I do is what I used to do is I literally get about one tablespoon of yogurt, one cup of water, put in a cup, mix it with a fork. That's my takra. I repeat one tablespoon of yogurt, one cup of water and mix with a fork. It's just diluted yogurt. That is takra.

Speaker 1: 15:48

And it has so many powerful Therapeutic effects like anti-inflammatory, very cooling, very good for pit the dosha, the best thing to finish a meal with, because it finishes the meal, it just tops the meal up, it leaves you feeling satisfied, not craving sugar and sweets and after, on the contrary, the sweet taste Sweets. You just keep wanting more because the salivary glands keep salivating and activating. But the takra, it's an astringent taste. It just completes. It's called stumbana, which means it stops the digestion. It's just like, okay, I'm happy, a nice sweep of probiotic from the takra and I'm good.

Speaker 1: 16:23

But what I learned? Although I love takra and I will continue to love it, I should not have plain takra. They said takra is too astringent, the when it is plain, dylan, at least add just a pinch of salt or a dash of rose water, because I preferably will add rose water and if I'm feeling really lux and have extra time, I'll chop up some fresh coriander, some fresh mint and add it. I mean, I do that if I have it. I don't always have those kitchen herbs, but I will usually add, definitely rose water because it's very easy. But when I'm on the run and when I'm traveling, I wasn't didn't have rose water where I was, so they said no, and I'm not really the biggest fan of salt, but I'll still have it because I love my takra. We saw no problem. So they said no, just add a bit of salt. And so that is one thing I learned.

Speaker 1: 17:10

Lesson number three was If you drink your takra, if you drink your buttermilk which is the ultimate beverage to have with your meal and to finish with your meal Then don't have it plain like I used to had a little something, even if it's a bit of mint, a bit of coriander, a bit of salt, a bit of rose water, all the above, whatever you like. So if you want to learn more about takra, the super nectar beverage, check out vital beta podcast, that vital penta podcast, episode 75. So lesson number four was not about me. Lesson number four was about Observing the hundreds of patients we saw and it was something that I knew, but I didn't realize to what extent of severity.

Speaker 1: 17:53

This addiction is prevalent in Australia especially, but also in New Zealand and that is an addiction which is very common and that you may have. Have you guessed it by now? Yeah, I'm talking to you. By the way, listening you, you may have this addiction may not talked about in the podcast before. It's the coffee in the caffeine addiction and I knew it's not great, I know, but after there being in hundreds of consultations with the doctors and seeing the effects and seeing their reaction to when they're feeling the patient's pulse and how influential it is, impacting that imbalances and diseases, it's very influential and I underestimated the effects of caffeine and the impacts of it, so it's overlooked by many. And that's just one thing I will give for food for thought. I'm not going to go into it.

Speaker 1: 18:43

If you want to go more into it, you can check out episode 121 of the Vital Vada podcast that is to upgrade and establish a healthy relationship with coffee and caffeine. That's the Vital Vada podcast, episode 121, with Myra Lewin from Hale Pulei, where we speak about the science. We speak about the science that says caffeine is good or coffee is good, that coffee is bad. And we go into all these addictive qualities and how to upgrade your relationship with it. Ultimately, because the problem becomes when you're dependent on it, when you're relying on it from energy, when you're relying on it from bowel motions, then we get adrenal issues and it's just the reliance in general, this habit, this strong habit.

Speaker 1: 19:27

The fifth lesson that I learned from the Raja doctors and this was a personal one again for me on my food habits was for me to not skip breakfast. Now, this was a funny one, this was one where it took. You know, I'm still working with to be honest with you, my dear listener, I'm still working with my skipping breakfast because I haven't had breakfast. I haven't been eating breakfast for a long time, years, because in Ayurvedic, two meals a day is ideal and also for me, two meals a day is ideal and not for everyone. I want to make it really clear. We speak about fasting and different intermittent fasting and different rhythmic fasting with the certain months and lunar calendar in our Ayurvedic nutrition course the essence of Ayurvedic nutrition, where we have a whole fasting module. Whenever I get questions on fasting, I'd like to not answer it because it's too sophisticated, it's too detailed. We need to really talk in length about it. So I don't want you to take any advice on fasting from this podcast episode and that's also why I reject answers. Sorry, questions asked in my lectures on fasting. I just refer to the essence of Ayurvedic nutrition course, where we have a whole module on it, because it really requires a great understanding.

Speaker 1: 20:42

But there is a general shloka, a general verse in Ayurveda that says one meal a day is for yogis, ekabuktam yogi, thvibuktam yogi. Two meals a day are for people who enjoy life and thvibuktam yogi. Three meals a day are for patients, for those who are sick. Now, I'm not sick and I'm not a yogi. Sometimes I'm a yogi on certain festivals where I'll have one meal a day, if any, and I'll fast, but most of the time I would consider myself someone who enjoys life. I wouldn't consider myself as a patient or as a sick person. So some people are and some people should not have two meals or one meal. They should have three or maybe even more frequently eating. So do not take this as medical advice or do your own research. This is for educational purposes only.

Speaker 1: 21:30

But in my personal case, which I'm sharing with you two meals a day. I've been on for a long time but I have a strong digestion. I have a thichna agni, which means a strong digestive fire. And Dr Parvani, she took like a bit of, I could tell, like she didn't tell to me straight away, she was gentle with the way she did it because she knew it was big news for me. But she basically ended up telling me to start eating more in the morning because I wouldn't usually have a chai or hot milk. That's my usual breakfast with some herbal paste, some racinas, but that wasn't enough. So my lesson here that I want to share with you is that if you intermittent fast, even if you think it's great and it's healthy, very well maybe and I'm still navigating and I'm still experimenting with different things, but I have learned to honor hunger in different ways and sometimes to eat a bit more than just my milk and to have something in the morning, particularly when it's winter, particularly when I'm exercising more, these things are when the digestion is stronger.

Speaker 1: 22:36

I still will say that intermittent fasting and two meals a day can be very, very powerful metabolic intervention. But depending on your person, depending on the digestive fire, okay, if you have a strong digestive fire. Maybe you need to eat more so that the pit of the fire doesn't burn up the healthy tissue, but if there is some fat metabolic conditions, then definitely intermittent fasting can be valuable. Once again, I recommend working with a practitioner. You can book an online consultation with me or an in-person consultation with me in Byron Bay area or Sydney area or Melbourne area, where I'm traveling South America at the end of 2024, or rather, yeah, beginning of 2025. So that is on vitalvetacomau. You can book health consultations and we can refine what's good for you as well as provide advanced herbal remedies and make you more self-sufficient in your own health, so you don't need other people. You can learn to become a sovereign person who dissipates and allows the diseases and the imbalances to dissolve at a root level. All right, I hope you got out of this.

Speaker 1: 23:38

If you want to listen to those two doctors, dr Harshad and Dr Parvani, speak, I did a podcast episode with them on this podcast show way back in the end of 2019. And that's episode 24. It's called Authentic Airveter Innocence and Purity for Maximum Health with Dr Harshad and Dr Parvani Raju. That's episode 24. We've got YouTube lectures with them on reproductive health, on fertility and on general sexual health. And we've got, of course, a retreat coming up on pulse diagnosis, on self-pulse, on self-healing at a deep level, marama, which is where acupuncture points come from, where we are talking about more advanced self-abhiyanga practices, so integrating Jyotish Vedic astrology into abhiyanga, into this self-practice of oil massage. And if you don't know about oil massage and you haven't given yourself an oil massage regularly today, or at least a few times this week, or once this week, at least you need to listen to my podcast episode on abhiyanga, on Ayurvedic oil massage, because it's a crucial, fundamental daily routine to implement. Just like you shower every day, you should be putting oil on your body. So, on the retreat, we're going to be learning advanced techniques for self-abhiyanga as well. As if you are a practitioner who practices massage or abhiyanga on other patients or clients, we will be learning advanced techniques on that and so much more. On the Raju family retreat for all the offerings of the Raju family, visit wwwrudhavediccomau and you can hit up the services page and check out the Raju family tour.

Speaker 1: 25:11

We will be planning I'm just saying here now some special things in the future. I'll leave it at that. So, and in other places around the world and around Australia and New Zealand. So we've added a few dates. We've added some more dates for April. May we're hitting up Burma, gowee, south Coast. We're hitting up Northern Beaches, sydney for three days, banana treatment, we're doing Byron Shire and Gold Coast.

Speaker 1: 25:34

So I hope you got out of this episode. Let me know what you think, let me know if you are going to implement some of these changes and I'll review them. Number one don't mix hot and cold drinks. Number two avoid reheating foods, even after an hour or two. Number three don't have plain butter milk. Number four coffee is a serious addiction. Reassess your relationship with it. And number five consider intermittent fasting. Is it right for you? So I hope you enjoyed this episode, folks, and if you want to learn more, check out the Vatal Veda podcast. There's so many wonderful topics and guests on Ayurveda, on health, on conscience, on spirituality, on Vedic wisdom. All right, my friend, till then, much love, hope to see you in person soon.