It has been argued that this is an issue of judging and discriminating against an entire religious group due to the sociopathic actions of a select few, who were more politically motivated than anything else. If we put this “religious issue” in historical perspective, it changes the context. Hitler, a self-professed practicing Christian, committed atrocities on a much greater scale. His “final solution” was a crime of the most extreme religious bias. But at no time did anyone suggest that the construction of Christian churches be stopped, because it honors Hitler, or any other infamous, self-proclaimed, crime committing Christians. Somehow, we recognize that as myopic and small minded.

There are zealots in every religious sect. It is a personal trait, not a religious characteristic. Punishing all the Muslims is no different than the Nazi’s punishing all Jews. Not all Germans were Nazis, and not all Muslims are terrorists. We do not want to lose sight of the important question here: who is the enemy? Are all the Americans of German ancestry who fought in WWII, the enemy? What about the Americans of Japanese ancestry incarcerated in internment camps? And, on a not so global level, what about all the serial killers who claimed God told them to kill? God even told Abraham to kill his first-born son, which not only sets a precedent, but also adds credibility to the others. We haven’t stopped those who openly practice communicating with God because of the crimes of a few deeply emotionally ill people. We know better than that. So who is the real enemy here? Is it Islam? No. It is a small group of extremists cowardly hiding behind Islam to justify the indefensible.

Most people do not know that there is already a Mosque that is only four blocks away from ground zero. It is in a building that predates the Twin Towers. If we start censoring where people can build a house of worship, where do we stop? How many blocks away will be far enough? And what about Mosques that existed before the Twin Towers were built but are now considered too close to a sensitive landmark? Do we raze them because we find their very existence offensive? And what about free will? Are the builders of this proposed Mosque subject to different laws than anyone else following their heart in a land where they are proclaimed constitutionally free to do so?

Loving and caring for each other is the highest philosophical, moral, ethical and religious teaching in the Universe. America is a predominately Judeo/Christian country. We give aggressive lip service to valuing this ethical “love thy neighbor” compassion-based philosophical standard. Yet it is those people practicing religious beliefs based on the ethical gold standard of tolerance, compassion and forgiveness that are the ones protesting with the most vitriol. Do these same people protest that all Muslims should be denied access to Heaven? After all, how could Heaven permit any Souls from Islam to enter? It would be too offensive to the Souls who died in the Twin Towers to have to share paradise with them. And if growing beyond limitation, fear and hate is what Heaven is all about, how can we co-create manifesting Heaven on Earth if we practice a way of life that clearly violates the Spirit of Heaven and peace on Earth?

As prominent as religious hypocrisy is in this debate, there is a deeper issue. Responding to others in a manner the unifies everyone, respects the free will of others and honors the sacredness of all life, regardless of the “outer label,” is what the potential of this affair is truly about. Forget what religion the people who crashed into the Twin Towers claimed to be, for their actions represent them more accurately than their dogma. Clearly their real religion is disrespectful to human life and based on a love of hatred and mindless destruction. The Twin Towers attack was designed to divide our unity as a people and as a nation. The terrorist have accomplished their mission, all these years later, if we allow ourselves to focus on the negative and dwell on how that single event continues to fracture and divide instead of unify and heal us.

The real tragedy is if we participate in creating further division and separation within our own minds and communities. The danger we need to be aware of here is not the scrutiny of religions associated with terroristic acts. It is not where a Mosque is or is not built. It is the twisted and distorted concept that democracy is somehow served by justifying an argument of isolation and hatred. If we allow that to happen, we destroy democracy from the inside out.
When a bully intimidates you, that bully expects a certain reaction from you, his victim. That bully wants you to behave in a manner he is coercing. If you give away your power to that bully, he wins. Now is the time to stand our ground, in solidarity, and take our power back. This is the time to say, “No matter what happens to us, we are unconditionally the land of the free and the home of the brave. We do not recognize any other power: not the power of intimidation, fear, divisiveness, intolerance or bigotry. No matter what the world throws at us, we stand as one, and 911 only has the ability to makes us stronger and more resilient.”

When we choose to let the conduct of others divide us, we lose something infinitely greater than the Twin Towers and those who perished that day. We lose sight of ourselves as free, brave people. We undermine our individual and collective dignity; we erode our inner relationship with integrity; we corrupt our knowing of ourselves as sovereign. But most importantly, we compromise what we value most of all… the experience of ourselves as the greatest experiment in human freedom the planet has ever seen.

The reductionist fixation on the location of a building is distracting us from a bigger picture problem which is essentially how do we see ourselves? How do we choose to define and perceive ourselves? It would be a tragedy of the greatest proportion to permit the work of a few terrorists to set the parameters of our self-knowing, and self-actualizing. Allowing the actions of a few to skew and contort this critical point of focus is not what free, brave people choose.

Where a mosque is or is not built should not have the power to define us. A building is an inanimate structure that only has the meaning we imbue upon it with our thoughts and beliefs. If we choose to see ourselves as broken, victimized and wounded, we will see life through the filter of fear and outrage. We can take our power back and liberate ourselves from the gyrations of the outer world by choosing inwardly to see ourselves as free, brave people who have the power individually and collectively to grow beyond anything that has hurt us.

Next to the notions that one can achieve a body without cellulite and a life without suffering, the greatest mistaken belief is that there is one diet, one type of oil, one form of exercise, one hormone supplement, one mantra or prayer, one rigid organizational life structure, or one medication that will work for everyone. Most of us grew up with the “magic bullet” concept that science was going to invent this one universal panacea that would solve our problems throughout all of time. And if you operate from the Western mechanistic paradigm, which dictates that every person is basically no different from any machine, like your car, then this idea makes sense. 

Everybody has a heart, two lungs, kidneys, a brain and a digestive system; therefore all bodies are the same. However, the Eastern systems of self-healing – Indian Ayurveda, Tibetan Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine – see human life as a completely different construct. They operate from an energy paradigm and view every person as a Universe unto themselves; each one completely different.
 
The Eastern philosophy makes perfect sense for anyone who has ever noticed that no matter what you may do or ingest in your physical body, what works for one person may not work equally for another. Yes, your mileage may vary.  (That’s why a three-minute commercial for a prescription drug has two and a half minutes describing the side effects – because not everyone has the same reaction.) Most heavyset people have noticed that their thin friends can eat the same thing, or even a greater portion, and still not gain an ounce. Skinny people may have witnessed that no matter how many weights they lift, they still never get the muscular definition their larger-boned counterparts get after putting in half the effort and workout time. Others still may have become aware of the fact that one herb or medication that eliminated a family member’s illness had no impact on their own health dilemma. There are groups of people who feel healthier following a vegan diet. Some societies eat high fat diets including meat and live long lives with no adverse effects. This is not a conundrum; there is a good reason for all of the above.
 
The viewpoint of the Western medical system is quantitative. Its primary focus is on measurement: how much, how many, what size. All people are considered analogous. Height or weight will determine the medical action taken. Aside from that, if it works on one, according to allopathic medicine, it will be of service to all. Insurance programs also reflect this “one size fits all” medical approach in their policy construction and coverage of treatments.
 
Conversely, the Eastern perspective is qualitative. Quantity is not relevant. Eastern systems know that just because the packaging details, like number of organs or extremities, may be indistinguishable, that does not imply that the quality of energy making up each and every person’s constitution or medical issue is the same.  We are more than just the sum of our “parts.”
 
The Eastern system perceives everything through the filter of energy. What is each person’s energetic makeup? Just as no two snowflakes are the same, every individual is a manifestation of the unique signature energy frequency that holds their body together. These Eastern time-honored systems, which by the way have been around for thousands and thousands of years, take into consideration the wide differences in energetic characteristics. Some people have a bigger and heavier bone structure than their slimmer, less dense counterparts. Others have faster neurological responses and respiration. Some people can eat virtually anything, while others have an extremely delicate digestive system. Certain people are aggressive, hyper, motivated and competitive; some are calm, easy going and carefree.
 
These energetic differences are broken down into “body types” or “doshic constitutions.”  For the sake of simplicity we are going to separate these bodies types into three different Indian Ayurveda defined categories: Vata (air and space), Pitta (fire and water) and Kapha (Earth and water). All of us – people, cats, dogs, plants, insects, anything that is living, including the Earth itself – are comprised of all three of these energy elements, or we would not be alive. According to the Eastern healing sciences, the action of these energies coming together is the definition of physical life, and the disintegration of these energies is the definition of physical death. Furthermore everything that is living has its own organizational makeup and balance of each of these distinct energies. So, although one living being may have more Vata than Pitta, or more Kapha than Vata, everyone still has all three energy elements, or they would not be alive.
 
Each dosha has positive and negative aspects. Each provides an element needed to sustain overall life. But, there is no one energy that is better or worse than another. For example Vata, because it is air and space, governs all movement. Without Vata our eyes would not blink, our heart would not beat and our blood would not flow. Without Pitta there would be no physical, emotional or psychological digestion. The energy of Kapha allows for bone structure, muscular development and a sheath to protect the nervous system. The downfall of a physical body is an element that is out of balance. Any single energy can go out of balance, or all three can go out of balance. An out of balance Vata is responsible for wasting away diseases like Alzheimer’s or senility. Too much Pitta will create infections and blood disorders. Excess Kapha can form a tumor or cyst. All three out of balance is cancer. Furthermore, one element may show up primarily physiologically, while for another person that same element may manifest itself as predominately psychological. For the purposes of our sharing here, we are going to distill each element and not combine them as they normally appear in life, so that the distinctions in each doshic element can be better examined and understood.
 
Most Americans have a Pitta or fire primary body type. The classic fire body tends to be a lean, wiry body type that has a tendency to run warm. They can be aggressive or competitive and like things done a certain way. Pitta primary people make good engineers as they possess a strong mental fire, which allows them to organize concise thoughts, be attentive to details, and cut or burn through what is unnecessary. If the person is Caucasian then they frequently will have a fair complexion and can sunburn easily. Our digestive system is governed by the fire element. So, if the Pitta energy is balanced, a fire primary person will have a good strong digestive system. They may even notice they get warmer after eating as their internal fire is rising to combust the ingested foods. Pitta primary people can have a predilection for loose stools, oily hair and skin, and strong body odor. Emotions associated with an aggravated Pitta element are anger, jealousy, judgmental or critical, impatient, easily irritated and defensive. More balanced fire emotions would be reflected as a wise, thoughtful, fair and conscientious individual.
 
Vata body types normally have small, delicate body frames due to the large amounts of air and space that make up their constitution. Vata is also the wild card of the energy elements: it can manifest as an abnormally large or small stature. Conan O’Brien, the late night talk show host, is an interesting combination of Vata and Pitta. The fire element is evident in his red hair, a very fair complexion and a lean body frame. The Vata element making up his body shows up in his extraordinary tall, long and lanky frame with limbs that fly around as if he were in a perpetual tornado. Conan, like most Pitta primary people, possesses a quick, penetrating mind and a wiry body type. However his irregular, statuesque height is a classic Vata trait, since irregularity is a fingerprint of the Vata dosha. This is the reason Vata primary women are prone to irregular menstrual cycles. Other Vata primary or Vata imbalance symptoms include irregular appetite, irregular sleep patterns and irregular bowel movements, most likely constipation, but it can also swing back and forth between loose stools and constipation. Most Vata primary individuals are dealing with dry skin and dry hair. A Vata primary body type provides very little insulation between the skin and the nervous system, as the primary element is air and space. This means a Vata primary person, more than any other body type, is likely to suffer more traumas when involved in a mishap. Now wouldn’t that bit of information be helpful in dealing with insurance companies when it comes to assessing how badly injured someone was after a car accident? Out of balance Vata-influenced emotions will appear as worry, fear and being high strung. When balanced, Vata emotions are playful, light hearted and extremely creative.
 
The Kapha element is energetically about Earth and water. People who are Kapha primary usually have a larger bone structure. Like Earth and water, Kapha body types have a tendency to hold on to energy. They are prone to gaining weight easier than either Vata or Pitta body types. However, when a person with a predominate Kapha dosha does work out and eat well, they will develop a large, well-defined muscular structure. The Incredible Hulk comic book character is the perfect example of a strong, ripped Kapha body type. The Kapha body type has a tendency to live the longest. Like the competition between the tortoise and the hare, a Kapha primary person may start out slower, speak slower, take a longer time in organizing their thoughts and words, but in the end, they have the accumulated energy of endurance on their side. Most Kapha primary people have thick hair, big eyes and lovely facial features. All classic beauties are either Kapha primary or secondary. Angelina Jolie and Marilyn Monroe are the perfect examples of Kapha beauties. Because the Kapha element holds on to energy, it is in the best interest of a Kapha primary person to get up by 6am and get in a workout right away. A Kapha primary body will start to gain more weight every minute they sleep in past 6am. Working out gets that sluggish energy into motion and initiates the fat burning mode instead of energy accumulation and weight gain. Getting up and engaging directly into motion are more Vata and Pitta friendly activities. The last thing an Earth body type wants to do is get up early and work out; they tend to be your typical couch potato. Kapha excessive emotions are anxiety, depression, feelings of isolation and heaviness. When Kapha-related emotions are balanced, they are compassionate, understanding, sensitive and patient.
 
These descriptions are an extremely brief introduction to these profoundly complex concepts. Of course everyone will see some aspect of themselves in every description, as we all are comprised of all three doshic energies to vastly varying degrees. The basic idea is that each body type is energetically, qualitatively different from the others: Vata people are prone to being dry, Kapha people will gain weight easily, and Pitta imbalances are the underlying cause of inflammation and ulcers. The bottom line is that there is never going to be one pill, one diet, one exercise routine that works for every body. Some bodies need cooling, others need warming, some require adding lubrication, while still others benefit from drying out. There is no pharmaceutical Holy Grail that every body can take resulting in a miracle cure. There is no cookie cutter health program that will universally accommodate the energetic needs of every person, anywhere, at any time.
 
Understanding your energetic body type and determining your proclivity for imbalance are absolutely essential for organizing a hands-on personal health management routine. This is the first step in knowing what will or will not work for you. Individually and collectively we would all benefit from maturing beyond the concept that we live in a “one size fits all” world. The solution to our health issues and life management dilemmas lies in the wise understanding of what energies are coming together and forming our personal and individual human experience. The longer and more deeply invested we become in finding that one “magic bullet,” the further we stray into ignorance of how to heal and maintain balance in our lives. After all, a robust and consistently healthy quality of life is the desire of every living person. The Western approach to wellness is not going to work for every person. If you are fortunate enough to have found a therapy that is working for you, you have accidentally stumbled upon an energy match for your issue. If you are like so many others that have not found a solution inside your cultural paradigm, may I suggest looking outside your culture? The idea that we are energy and not mechanisms is not a new or original idea. Modern physics is verifying and proving this to be the case with greater conviction and clarity every day. It simply makes enlightened sense to wisely respond directly to the energies that are contributing to and holding together your human experience of life.
 
Vaishali is a columnist for the Huffington Post and was a featured quote of the day on Oprah.com and a guest on the Dr. Oz Show. Visit http://www.purplev.com/mediakit
 
To book a Self Emergence Session w/ Vaishali:
 
To book a phone session go to: http://www.purplev.com/make_an_appointment.html
To book an in person session in Los Angeles on Oct 2nd or Oct 5th  go to: http://www.purplev.com/make_an_appointment.html call 239-513-3313

Imagine the value in being able to ask a dream character or image: Who are you? Who am I? What can I do for you? What would you like to tell me? What do you feel I should know? Imagine the dream interpretation problems that could be solved by going immediately to the dream character and getting the skinny directly from the source. Imagine the possibility of rapidly accelerating the amount of growth done in a single evening’s nocturnal journeys. Imagine the benefits to be had when the dream state you experience is fully “awake” to the reality that this is what you are trying to tell yourself; this is what is going on behind the closed doors of your own mind. Once lucid, what was previously the circuitous road of nonlucid dreaming could now be traveled instantly, directly and most importantly, clear to question and answer discourse. It is like the know thyself quest gone completely, psychedelically accessible in a Kurt Vonnegut sort of way!

As a hardcore dream worker I’d read about experiments at the Lucidity Institute by Dr. Stephen LaBerge on the DreamLight before this device hit the streets — or the sheets as it were. The DreamLight is a creation designed to augment the dreamer’s state of awareness from the typical R.E.M. into the hyperspace state of dream lucidity. The dreamer wears a mask that flashes when R.E.M. is achieved to signal to the dreamer that he is experiencing a dream-produced reality. Imagine my surprise when my pal, Howard Rheingold, then editor of The Whole Earth Review and coauthor of “Exploring The World Of Lucid Dreaming” with Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D., asked me if I was interested in helping the Lucidity Institute refine the DreamLight.

“Am I interested?” I asked Howard, flabbergasted, “Of course I’m interested! I would walk naked down Market Street in downtown San Francisco for the chance to try the DreamLight!!” Howard was hardly impressed. From his perspective I would have walked naked down Market Street just for the hell of it. So Howard, completely unfettered by my vocal dramatics, told me that Dr. LaBerge was soliciting the assistance of established lucid dreamers to support the Lucidity Institute in the final phases of completion of the DreamLight. This marked the beginning of my relationship with the Lucidity Institute.

All the people I met who were associated with the Lucidity Institute were like a dream come true themselves. They were all very generous with their time, open-hearted, caring, lovely people. Doing dream work in groups can provide amazing support and insight. Everyone at the Lucidity Institute was motivated by the need to direct their attention to self-growth and self-mastery. I learned so much from those group sessions and sharing — everything from technical tricks of the trade to how to recognize and overcome personal limitations.

The first thing that I learned from my work in the lucid dream realm was how uncooperative my own mind was with itself. I was shocked and astonished to discover how uninterested my lucid dream characters were in responding to my questions or in helping on any level. Could I really be a house that deeply divided against itself? Could the major activity of the unconscious/unintegrated aspects of mind really be giving each other the bird? When working with other lucid dream workers, I found that they too had not made their minds their friends. In fact, one of the first things that people who start this conscious interaction with their dream characters report is that the dream characters either ignored the presence of the dreaming personality, or were not forthcoming in providing information when asked.

There are two pieces of advice that I got from Dr. LaBerge that I will never forget. The first is that dream characters will never tell you what you expect. This completely makes sense; after all, the other dream characters are fragments of our own mind that we are experiencing as separate. That is why they are appearing as “separate” from ourselves. The second bit of advice was the old Christian adage to “love thy neighbors.” I still remember the forcefulness of Dr. LaBerge’s face and voice when he leaned over to reinforce the power of this approach. “It works in your dreams! Love everyone you see in your dreams. Just like the old Christian adage ‘Love thy neighbors’. It really works in your dreams.”

That was the piece I needed! I needed to unconditionally love myself in order to make my mind my friend. The lack of cooperation absolutely coincided with the absence of unconditional love these various parts of mind suffered from. I have spent years following that advice and speaking and acting in an unconditionally loving manner in my lucid dreams. I have focused on remembering that what I am looking at is my own mind. The message I most want communicated to it is that it is one with unconditional love and acceptance. The results have been phenomenal! I have gone from disengaged, disinterested dream characters to dream characters that come and teach me new things. Dream characters even come to me when I am in a nonlucid state, make me look them directly in the eye and remind me, “We met here last night … remember? We met here last night.” Until I finally do remember that I met them in a dream, and they are showing up now to assist me in waking up!

Whenever other lucid dreamers come to me and share their disappointment in their lucid encounters, I always try to underscore that what they are looking at is their own lack of unconditional love and acceptance within themselves. It is merely showing up in their lucid dreams, because this is an arena we cannot fake it in. We are either unified, or we are not; we either love, accept and cooperate with ourselves, or we do not.

The first step is to honestly see where we are in relationship to embracing ourselves with love and tolerance, versus how much of our interior have we fragmented and divided with criticism, doubt, impatience and fear. Prior to my lucid dreaming, if someone had come to me and told me that I was not making my mind my friend, I would not have believed it. I would have assumed that they had mistaken me for someone else or were on some kind of perceptually distorting pharmaceutical. I had to experience it for myself. I had to run straight up against my own inner resistance to personal wholeness before I was willing to admit there was a problem. “We have seen the enemy and it is us.” And to think, all this time I’d been “Sleeping With the Enemy.”

Lucid dreams are an incredible experience. They are very, very vibrant, amazingly alive with brilliant color. There is a sense of seeing with enhanced dimensional clarity. What I have most enjoyed about lucid dreaming, aside from the advantages of these immediate self-love healing sessions, is the opportunity to have a realm in which I can practice showing up utterly fearless. I know I am dreaming. I know I have an immortal dream body that cannot be harmed, injured or killed. Therefore, I can literally face my greatest inner demons and transform them into loving angels. In many lucid dreams I have made a request such as, “to encounter a part of my mind that has a gift for me.” I can then take off flying and allow that moment of meeting to come to me. I have learned not to force life from my lucid dreams, but rather to surrender into unconditional trust. I know and trust that I will be there for myself, guiding myself when and where I most need it.

The insight I have gained on how my mind works and what the different parts of it look like, is simply astounding and life altering. I remember once in a lucid dream coming across a dream character that was a two-faced, disembodied head that lived in a box. When I asked my personal “Jack in the Box” who he was, the answer that came back was perfect. The two-faced head introduced itself as “the ego.” Of course! A part of the mind that is thoroughly disconnected from the wisdom of the heart, that is deceitful, that resides in an altogether limiting place. I remember how hard I laughed, how flawless this imagery was, how sobering its effects are whenever I take myself too seriously. And, no, I didn’t get the large fries!

There are no limits to where one can go in a lucid dream. Well, none that I have found yet. It costs nothing but awareness on the part of the dreamer. The feeling of invincible wholeness I have upon awaking from a lucid dream is the greatest drug of choice I have ever found. For me, lucid dreaming has solidified the Eastern concept that we are all dreaming this waking reality level of existence. Lucid dreaming is the last thing I devote my attention to when falling asleep at night and the first thing I celebrate upon “awakening” in the morning. I could not encourage people enough to attempt this state of focused attention. I have neither found a downside to lucid dreaming, nor have I come close to exhausting its potential. I always try to include lucid dreaming in all the spiritual teachings and writings that I do, because if there was a faster, better way to grow, love and liberate oneself, I’d be doing it.

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Next to the notions that one can achieve a body without cellulite and a life without suffering, the greatest mistaken belief is that there is one diet, one type of oil, one form of exercise, one hormone supplement, one mantra or prayer, one rigid organizational life structure, or one medication that will work for everyone. Most of us grew up with the “magic bullet” concept that science was going to invent this one universal panacea that would solve our problems throughout all of time. And if you operate from the Western mechanistic paradigm, which dictates that every person is basically no different from any machine, like your car, then this idea makes sense. 

Everybody has a heart, two lungs, kidneys, a brain and a digestive system; therefore all bodies are the same. However, the Eastern systems of self-healing – Indian Ayurveda, Tibetan Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine – see human life as a completely different construct. They operate from an energy paradigm and view every person as a Universe unto themselves; each one completely different.

The Eastern philosophy makes perfect sense for anyone who has ever noticed that no matter what you may do or ingest in your physical body, what works for one person may not work equally for another. Yes, your mileage may vary.  (That’s why a three-minute commercial for a prescription drug has two and a half minutes describing the side effects – because not everyone has the same reaction.) Most heavyset people have noticed that their thin friends can eat the same thing, or even a greater portion, and still not gain an ounce. Skinny people may have witnessed that no matter how many weights they lift, they still never get the muscular definition their larger-boned counterparts get after putting in half the effort and workout time. Others still may have become aware of the fact that one herb or medication that eliminated a family member’s illness had no impact on their own health dilemma. There are groups of people who feel healthier following a vegan diet. Some societies eat high fat diets including meat and live long lives with no adverse effects. This is not a conundrum; there is a good reason for all of the above. 

The viewpoint of the Western medical system is quantitative. Its primary focus is on measurement: how much, how many, what size. All people are considered analogous. Height or weight will determine the medical action taken. Aside from that, if it works on one, according to allopathic medicine, it will be of service to all. Insurance programs also reflect this “one size fits all” medical approach in their policy construction and coverage of treatments. 

Conversely, the Eastern perspective is qualitative. Quantity is not relevant. Eastern systems know that just because the packaging details, like number of organs or extremities, may be indistinguishable, that does not imply that the quality of energy making up each and every person’s constitution or medical issue is the same.  We are more than just the sum of our “parts.”

The Eastern system perceives everything through the filter of energy. What is each person’s energetic makeup? Just as no two snowflakes are the same, every individual is a manifestation of the unique signature energy frequency that holds their body together. These Eastern time-honored systems, which by the way have been around for thousands and thousands of years, take into consideration the wide differences in energetic characteristics. Some people have a bigger and heavier bone structure than their slimmer, less dense counterparts. Others have faster neurological responses and respiration. Some people can eat virtually anything, while others have an extremely delicate digestive system. Certain people are aggressive, hyper, motivated and competitive; some are calm, easy going and carefree.

These energetic differences are broken down into “body types” or “doshic constitutions.”  For the sake of simplicity we are going to separate these bodies types into three different Indian Ayurveda defined categories: Vata (air and space), Pitta (fire and water) and Kapha (Earth and water). All of us – people, cats, dogs, plants, insects, anything that is living, including the Earth itself – are comprised of all three of these energy elements, or we would not be alive. According to the Eastern healing sciences, the action of these energies coming together is the definition of physical life, and the disintegration of these energies is the definition of physical death. Furthermore everything that is living has its own organizational makeup and balance of each of these distinct energies. So, although one living being may have more Vata than Pitta, or more Kapha than Vata, everyone still has all three energy elements, or they would not be alive.

Each dosha has positive and negative aspects. Each provides an element needed to sustain overall life. But, there is no one energy that is better or worse than another. For example Vata, because it is air and space, governs all movement. Without Vata our eyes would not blink, our heart would not beat and our blood would not flow. Without Pitta there would be no physical, emotional or psychological digestion. The energy of Kapha allows for bone structure, muscular development and a sheath to protect the nervous system. The downfall of a physical body is an element that is out of balance. Any single energy can go out of balance, or all three can go out of balance. An out of balance Vata is responsible for wasting away diseases like Alzheimer’s or senility. Too much Pitta will create infections and blood disorders. Excess Kapha can form a tumor or cyst. All three out of balance is cancer. Furthermore, one element may show up primarily physiologically, while for another person that same element may manifest itself as predominately psychological. For the purposes of our sharing here, we are going to distill each element and not combine them as they normally appear in life, so that the distinctions in each doshic element can be better examined and understood.

Most Americans have a Pitta or fire primary body type. The classic fire body tends to be a lean, wiry body type that has a tendency to run warm. They can be aggressive or competitive and like things done a certain way. Pitta primary people make good engineers as they possess a strong mental fire, which allows them to organize concise thoughts, be attentive to details, and cut or burn through what is unnecessary. If the person is Caucasian then they frequently will have a fair complexion and can sunburn easily. Our digestive system is governed by the fire element. So, if the Pitta energy is balanced, a fire primary person will have a good strong digestive system. They may even notice they get warmer after eating as their internal fire is rising to combust the ingested foods. Pitta primary people can have a predilection for loose stools, oily hair and skin, and strong body odor. Emotions associated with an aggravated Pitta element are anger, jealousy, judgmental or critical, impatient, easily irritated and defensive. More balanced fire emotions would be reflected as a wise, thoughtful, fair and conscientious individual.

Vata body types normally have small, delicate body frames due to the large amounts of air and space that make up their constitution. Vata is also the wild card of the energy elements: it can manifest as an abnormally large or small stature. Conan O’Brien, the late night talk show host, is an interesting combination of Vata and Pitta. The fire element is evident in his red hair, a very fair complexion and a lean body frame. The Vata element making up his body shows up in his extraordinary tall, long and lanky frame with limbs that fly around as if he were in a perpetual tornado. Conan, like most Pitta primary people, possesses a quick, penetrating mind and a wiry body type. However his irregular, statuesque height is a classic Vata trait, since irregularity is a fingerprint of the Vata dosha. This is the reason Vata primary women are prone to irregular menstrual cycles. Other Vata primary or Vata imbalance symptoms include irregular appetite, irregular sleep patterns and irregular bowel movements, most likely constipation, but it can also swing back and forth between loose stools and constipation. Most Vata primary individuals are dealing with dry skin and dry hair. A Vata primary body type provides very little insulation between the skin and the nervous system, as the primary element is air and space. This means a Vata primary person, more than any other body type, is likely to suffer more traumas when involved in a mishap. Now wouldn’t that bit of information be helpful in dealing with insurance companies when it comes to assessing how badly injured someone was after a car accident? Out of balance Vata-influenced emotions will appear as worry, fear and being high strung. When balanced, Vata emotions are playful, light hearted and extremely creative.

The Kapha element is energetically about Earth and water. People who are Kapha primary usually have a larger bone structure. Like Earth and water, Kapha body types have a tendency to hold on to energy. They are prone to gaining weight easier than either Vata or Pitta body types. However, when a person with a predominate Kapha dosha does work out and eat well, they will develop a large, well-defined muscular structure. The Incredible Hulk comic book character is the perfect example of a strong, ripped Kapha body type. The Kapha body type has a tendency to live the longest. Like the competition between the tortoise and the hare, a Kapha primary person may start out slower, speak slower, take a longer time in organizing their thoughts and words, but in the end, they have the accumulated energy of endurance on their side. Most Kapha primary people have thick hair, big eyes and lovely facial features. All classic beauties are either Kapha primary or secondary. Angelina Jolie and Marilyn Monroe are the perfect examples of Kapha beauties. Because the Kapha element holds on to energy, it is in the best interest of a Kapha primary person to get up by 6am and get in a workout right away. A Kapha primary body will start to gain more weight every minute they sleep in past 6am. Working out gets that sluggish energy into motion and initiates the fat burning mode instead of energy accumulation and weight gain. Getting up and engaging directly into motion are more Vata and Pitta friendly activities. The last thing an Earth body type wants to do is get up early and work out; they tend to be your typical couch potato. Kapha excessive emotions are anxiety, depression, feelings of isolation and heaviness. When Kapha-related emotions are balanced, they are compassionate, understanding, sensitive and patient.

These descriptions are an extremely brief introduction to these profoundly complex concepts. Of course everyone will see some aspect of themselves in every description, as we all are comprised of all three doshic energies to vastly varying degrees. The basic idea is that each body type is energetically, qualitatively different from the others: Vata people are prone to being dry, Kapha people will gain weight easily, and Pitta imbalances are the underlying cause of inflammation and ulcers. The bottom line is that there is never going to be one pill, one diet, one exercise routine that works for every body. Some bodies need cooling, others need warming, some require adding lubrication, while still others benefit from drying out. There is no pharmaceutical Holy Grail that every body can take resulting in a miracle cure. There is no cookie cutter health program that will universally accommodate the energetic needs of every person, anywhere, at any time.

Understanding your energetic body type and determining your proclivity for imbalance are absolutely essential for organizing a hands-on personal health management routine. This is the first step in knowing what will or will not work for you. Individually and collectively we would all benefit from maturing beyond the concept that we live in a “one size fits all” world. The solution to our health issues and life management dilemmas lies in the wise understanding of what energies are coming together and forming our personal and individual human experience. The longer and more deeply invested we become in finding that one “magic bullet,” the further we stray into ignorance of how to heal and maintain balance in our lives. After all, a robust and consistently healthy quality of life is the desire of every living person. The Western approach to wellness is not going to work for every person. If you are fortunate enough to have found a therapy that is working for you, you have accidentally stumbled upon an energy match for your issue. If you are like so many others that have not found a solution inside your cultural paradigm, may I suggest looking outside your culture? The idea that we are energy and not mechanisms is not a new or original idea. Modern physics is verifying and proving this to be the case with greater conviction and clarity every day. It simply makes enlightened sense to wisely respond directly to the energies that are contributing to and holding together your human experience of life.

Wouldn’t it be great if life came with an owner’s manual and a warranty with a double your money back guarantee of complete satisfaction? That would be the ideal fantasy – no suffering, no fuss, no muss, no headaches, no assembly required. However, life does not come with any legally binding contracts of unconditional happiness. What most us here have already realized is that life is not a success only journey.

So how do we make the most of our time here on Earth? How do we learn to move forward when we have no idea of what direction life is taking us? These great and classic questions require great and classic wisdom. Over two thousand years ago in ancient Greece the quintessential philosopher, Socrates, said it best when he uttered those immortal words, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” To this day no one has improved upon this basic truth for owning and operating the human experience. So, let’s start here.No one can live an examined life without developing a mature, healthy and functional relationship with his or her own mind… with consciousness. Consciousness is something we are never without – no vacations, no coffee breaks not even death. If you are asleep, then you are experiencing dreaming consciousness. Even if you are in a coma or heavily medicated, you are still experiencing some form of consciousness even if it is a trance-like state of existence. Consciousness is inescapable. Being aware is the reflexive action of conscious examination. And examining our lives by being aware of what we are giving our attention to can be a shallow and fragile relationship, as well as a state from which we are easily and frequently distracted.

Living an examined life denotes paying attention to what you are doing with your mind. It is about knowing when your attention has wandered off to a self-sabotaging or self-loathing place that is damaging, life diminishing and bringing it back from these distractions. The mind is like an undisciplined child running off and creating havoc with its unfocused energy. This is why, for thousands of years, meditation has been practiced and taught as a means of becoming self-actualizing. Try this awareness experiment: just take one day out of your life and write down what you find yourself frequently giving your attention to. Take note of what inner dialogue and stories your consciousness gravitates or constantly returns to. Notice what non-life sustaining habitual crevices your mind repeatedly slips into. Most of us are extremely loyal and faithful to what we give our attention to, even to the point of being grossly repetitive, or successful in producing only one result: unhappiness.

The ultimate purpose of living an examined life is to make your mind your best friend and most supportive ally, instead of your worst enemy – an undermining, toxic, intimate relationship. To begin to determine how friendly you are with your own mind, just acknowledge how often you tell yourself something harsh or deliberately hurtful… something that you would be reluctant to articulate to even your least favorite person on the planet. The truth is, if there is one relationship you need to make a loving and reliably comfortable place, it has to be your own mind. After all if there is one consistent element in life, it is that you will always be in relationship with yourself. That will never change. And, since no one knows how to “do it to you” like you, whether that is extending a patient voice of comfort and inspiration, or giving voice to the critical, sharp-tongued inner harpy, it is a intimate dynamic you are destined to live with in an up-close and deeply personal way. You know you have the comprehensive capacity for being both self-supporting and self-deprecating. Which quality is the one most likely to rule your life? The one you practice most frequently giving your attention to, of course. 

How much of your attention goes into worrying and torturing yourself compulsively with thoughts about events you have absolutely no control over? Have you ever noticed that over 90% of the time, the things you focus on that create such misery and stress in your life never come to pass? These are the most common ways we relate to our own mind in a most insidiously adverse fashion. Then we heighten the damage by faithfully poking the sensitive spots over and over again, as if that ever improved the situation!

Most of us are very adept at sleepwalking through life. We allow our attention to go into an autopilot type of functioning mode. Whenever we are not conscious of what we are giving our attention to, the unconscious mind takes over. It continually regurgitates the undigested, unreleased inner waste that we have not recognized as useless and fraudulent. It obsesses over whatever we have not consciously chosen to separate from. This is why we say or do such stupid, embarrassing things when we are not paying attention. Because the conscious mind is asleep at the wheel, and the unconscious mind has taken over. 

Making your mind your friend is how you raise yourself from an infantile, self-indulgent form of semi-consciousness, to a mature, disciplined and balanced experience of self-awareness. The interior process of raising your mind is very similar to the exterior process of raising a child. Every time you find yourself giving your attention to something limiting, self-defeating, mean-spirited, critical…  STOP! Then like a dutiful parent you tirelessly remove that myopic focus of attention from your mental grip and then refocus it on what is healthy, expansive, productive and freeing. 

For example, replaying the thought that you do not have enough money is like a child who keeps putting their hand in the fire. Fixating on that “not enough” story that “I am lacking” has never solved a single problem. It has yet to add additional dollars to your bank account, put more cash in your pocket, support you in feeling better about yourself, actualize your highest potential or help you sleep at night. Quite the contrary. Adjusting your mental lens to focusing on the scarcity issues attracts feelings of hopelessness, loss of power, disposable and unloved. You become a victim. It has inflamed your level of suffering and left you feeling physically and emotionally burned out. Like a child that has not yet predictably learned that putting their hand on the stove is how they get burned, unbroken loyalty to that line of self-inflicted, limited awareness repeatedly scars, disfigures and deeply pains you.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating for denial, self-delusion or burying one’s head in the sand. What I am pointing out is that there are many, many things that happen in life that you have no control over. At the end of the day, you may not be able to control if you get that dream job, if a loan or that house sale goes through or even if you are going to have a bad hair day, but what you always do have control over is what you give your attention to and how you feel about that. So, instead of everything in your life revolving around the notion, the minute details of where you do not have enough, what if you shifted your field of attention to being grateful for the money you do have, the health you do have, the loving, caring relationships you do have? At the end of the day would the exterior details of your life be any different? Maybe. Maybe not. But here is the essential difference: you would feel more comfortable in your own skin with an increased sense of relaxation about your experience of life. If all you do have power over is how you feel at the end of the day and what quality of life you are actively creating, what would that be worth to you? That is the payoff in making you mind your friend.

If feeling better about yourself is not sufficient motivation, let me point out the mind/body connection. The body responds in a powerful way to what you give your attention to. You do not need all the scientific research that proves visualizing the body’s immune system destroying viruses, bacteria even cancer cells produces healthy, revitalizing results to understand this. You can prove this to yourself. Notice how you feel when you think about something in your life you deeply regret or something you value that is now gone, whether that is a loved one, your dream job or financial investments that evaporated into thin air. Now think about someone you love with all your heart. Remember a time when you where blissfully happy and full of positive energy. Notice that your body is responding in kind to your thoughts. When you are frightened, stressed or overworked, the body reflects its physical version of your physiological and emotional realities.

Your thoughts and what you give your attention to do not exist in a vacuum. You are a hard-wired being. There is a direct and immediate relationship between what you think, how you feel and the way your body responds to all of the above. Your body eavesdrops in on your thinking; it is a feedback process.  You are continually reacting, neurologically and chemically, to the emotional and thought process. Making your mind your friend is about harmonizing the mind, body and emotions, because your mind is more than just the brain, the white and grey matter in the cranium. The mind is the sum total of all the forms of intelligence that make up the totality of the human experience: emotions, thoughts, perceptions, experiences and beliefs. If you value and desire vibrant and robust health, you will need your awareness to be a willing, co-creative partner in that journey.

As I have mentioned previously, the one eternal relationship, that one persistent, unyielding component in your life, is you. No matter where you go there you are. Self-knowledge starts with realizing that the inescapable, unchanging component to life is you… and how you relate to yourself and how you feel about yourself. The body, as a lifelong partner in our personal growth, has a very important role in the know thyself quest. The body does not have an ego or unconscious agenda. It is simply reflecting and responding to what you do with your attention. Anyone who has ever struggled with weight issues knows how the inner unresolved needs for comfort, and to experience life as sweet, show up as additional physical pounds that are put on in a futile effort to eat away unhappiness or boredom. People suffering with high blood pressure or ulcers know all too well how the body takes the brunt of heated thoughts and emotions run rampant. The origin of these biological ailments begins with our internally chosen responses to external stimuli and situations that go unexamined, uncontrolled and unmanaged. Proof once again that the unexamined life is not worth living. Anytime you think you have dealt with a troubling issue, take a look at how your body is responding. After all, it does not lie or deceive, unlike the ego or elected political officials.

In the process of making your mind your friend and harmonizing your body/mind connection, there is a very simple but powerful habit you can practice. That is giving your attention to what you do want… and not to want you don’t want. It may seem incredibly self-evident, however for most people their mental landscape is absolutely cluttered with an obsessive inner dialogue that focuses on lack, scarcity, bad-faith in oneself and a non-productive disparagement about everything from global political issues to does this outfit make my butt look big? Just watch all the stories your attention plays through over the time frame of a single day. How many times a day do you imagine bills you cannot pay?  How many times do you envision others not finding you acceptable or worthy of love?  How many times do you re-enforce, with your attention, that you will never be happy? Just to underscore this point ask yourself how many times do you think, “What else can go wrong?” Why not ask yourself, “What else can go right?” Different sides of the same coin, yes, but the real question is: every time you flip that coin does it always land on ‘tails’ and never land on ‘heads’? 

Most of us are laboring under the misguided notion that focusing on all the possible things that could go wrong or might blow up in our faces is the most effective hyper-vigilant strategy to ensure that all the things we do want, which by the way is getting precious little of our attention, will infallible come to us. It is like watering and feeding all the weeds in your garden yet expecting only the flowers and fruit bearing plants to bloom and grow.

Worrying is just another name for the well-practiced habit of empowering more of what you do not want to bring into your life. This self-sabogoting, re-enforced mindset is not natural. No child is born obsessed with giving their attention to worst possible scenerios. They are too busy playing and being present for what they do have. Remember when you were a child. When you played house or doctor, did you ever imagine that you would not be able to pay your bills and the bank would take back your home or business, or you would get sued for malpractice? Did you ever imagine that the insurance rates were too high and one good flood would wipe you out? Of course, not. You had to learn how to eclipse your present point of focus and assert potentially destructive things into your line of thought. You learned this inner behavior. You can now learn something else… something better.

Creating a new learning pattern for how to organize your mind begins with the little things. Start by releasing the grasp you have on the smaller things you faithfully imagine conspiring aganist you. Next time you get in a checkout lane at a store, or change lanes on the highway, stop telling yourself, “Watch, now that I’m in this line it will become the slowest.” Cease cultivating the story that money is scheming its way out your wallet and bank account everytime you pick up your checkbook or go to the mailbox and see a bill. Stop envisioning annoying, micro-brained people going out of their way to ruin your day. Most events that find us in life are the perfect oppportunites for taking our peace of mind back. After all aren’t these minor set backs exactly how we practiced giving our personal power away and tormenting ourselves in the first place?

When you practice on the more manageable, minute details, you will have the skill when you need it most: for maintaining balance when the really big things come your way. No one on the planet Earth is immune to experiencing the whole of life: the good, the bad, the pleasant, the unsavory. Making your mind your friend is priceless should you ever find yourself dealing with a divorce, bankrupcy, sensitive legal issues, challenging medical diagonsis. Now is the time to gain mastery over what you willinging choose to invest in with your attention. There is a plethoria of things in the world that legitimately do not have your best interest at heart… no reason to make your relationship with your mind one of them.

Vaishali is the author of Wisdom Rising and You Are What You Love. She is a columnist for the Huffington Post and an international health & wellness speaker who has appeared on The Dr. Oz Radio Show and Oprah.com. Vaishali learned to transform her life from the threat of two terminal disease diagnoses, domestic abuse and financial devastation. Completely recovered, she shares her wisdom @ www.purplev.com/mediakit  or email press@purplev.com

Vaishali is the author of You Are What You Love  http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-What-Love/dp/0977320006

Consider that most same sex couples do not have children to drain any trace of disposable income from their bank accounts. To quote Sam Austin, “Homosexuality is God’s way of insuring that the truly gifted aren’t burdened with children.” In addition a majority of these relationships are two income households. How could all the florists, caterers, photographers, stretch limo drivers, high-end venues, designer label clothiers, jewelers and wedding planners have missed this one? We are talking big ticket spenders here! Remember Liza Minnelli’s last wedding? $3.5 million. It was the envy of every gay couple. Just envision mini versions of this gold-splashed, fairytale, no-expense-spared wedding orgy scattered across this financially starved country. Small business owners everywhere would put on their sequined outfits and dance around the ATM machine shouting, “Fabulous! Marvelous! Work it baby, work it!”

And the lawyers, my God, how could we forget the lawyers! I’m surprised they haven’t already formed their own special lobby to push gay marriages through the legislative process in record time. Look at all the money they stand to make on everything from prenuptial agreements to long, drawn out custody battles over who pays for little Merlot the Chihuahua’s massages and grooming, and who gets visitation rights on holidays and weekends. The income that lawyers rake in from heterosexual marriages gone awry is immeasurable. It has evolved into a legal specialty unto itself. Why limit your clientele? Like same sex couples won’t get messy divorces? When the comic on this talk show first uttered those immortal words, “Let me appeal to your greed,” it should have been like a drop of blood in a shark tank to every divorce attorney in the land.

And let’s not forget the fees and taxes involved here as well. Marriage license? Fifty dollars give or take. Good thing it doesn’t come with an expiration date… then again, maybe not. Sales taxes would be collected first on services such as engagement parties, hotel rooms, airplane tickets, dinners, jewelry, weddings, liquor, clothes purchased and formal attire rented, and then on divorce proceedings, Vegas annulments, restraining orders, pet detectives and the list goes on. And assuming all these businesses pay their income taxes … well, you do the math. Why, gay marriage alone could underwrite the entire healthcare program.

Ask any wedding-related business out there (and trust me there are a multitude) if they really care if their next big spending client is gay or straight, and I suspect the answer you would get most frequently would be, “As long as their credit is good, who cares?” Or, assessing the economic aspect in military terms, “Don’t ask, don’t tell, doesn’t matter.” Unfortunately, what is lost economically is only incidental to our greater loss.

Up until now, we have correlated consumers and business owners on this issue, but we have ignored the aspect of how we are all inter-related as a Nation and as a people. Whenever we make it illegal for any group of people to be treated with dignity and respect, it costs us all, everywhere, in every imaginable way. We all lose something when any one group is targeted as not worthy of receiving basic human rights. No matter what the reason, this cannot be justified. But leave it to comic and late talk show hosts to tease out the basic common denominator that hits us in our most sensitive spot — our wallets!

The level of hypocrisy in this controversy is absolutely toxic. We trust gay people to teach our children, even adopt and raise children, perform life-saving surgeries, serve as police officers, pilot airplanes, rescue people from burning buildings and fight our wars. Yet at the same time, we deny them the simple right to legally protect their union with a loved one? We allow women, nuns, to marry “God.” That is not even a marriage within the same dimension, although you could call it a match made in Heaven. At what time did we all vote on that? But we do not allow gay marriage? We pretend all people are created equally, but we do not live that self-evident truth.

There is a saying in the gay community, “Dorothy, lose the dress; keep the shoes!” I suspect there is great wisdom there when applied correctly. In the case for gay marriage, “Lose the prejudice; keep the economy.” People looking to share in the equality of the American dream, while spending cold hard cash during an economic recession, seems like a no brainer. Finally, a union everyone can agree on.

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