Herbs, Consciousness and Sustainability

by Pr@shanti de J@ger ©2006 for ‘Light on Ayurveda Journal’

Seduced into a materialistic myopic view of the world that places himself, instead of Gaia, in the center of the ecosystem, modern humanity careens up so many exponential curves of unsustainability that we now find ourselves not teetering at but catapulting over the proverbial precipice of untold environmental disasters. In mere years, likely a decade or two at the current trajectory, global warming could raise the sea level 20 feet, plunging coastal cities like Amsterdam under water. With a combination of unskillfullness, nescience, fear and greed we have placed a sword of Damocles looming above the heads of every living being on the planet and have already sent this hungry blade down to terminally devour millions of species of precious Life. We have to wake up now from the illusory dream that we can live our lives in any way separate from the Oneness of Nature. We can do it, it is not too late.

Einstein and Ayurveda tell us that seeing the world as a vast Newtonian array of distinct separate physical objects is quite deceptive and that closer to the truth is the Vikalpa, the model, in which everything is a unified field of various flavors of energy in constant flux. By now to say, ‘We are all connected,’ as this unified field, is, of course, a worn out cliché. But though many say it, who amongst us actually sees this as reality much less really lives it and vigilantly makes their choices from it. The ability to see and live this Oneness is proportional to how Sattvic our mind is, and I posit that it is this Sattvic mind, supported by Sattvic superfoods including herbs, that is the most sustainable gateway to sustainability.

In several of the Vedic cosmologies, including the Sankhya Philosophy that most schools of Ayurveda theory are based on, the three Gunas, Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, are extremely primordial, existing in balance before they fell out of balance in the Big Bang of creation. To illustrate the power that the Gunas have on the mind consider the metaphor of watching the moon on water. If the water is pure and perfectly calm, you see one single unmoving Moon on the water. This is the Sattvic mind, the clear, calm balanced mind that sees Oneness in and with the outer world. If the water gets agitated, then you see thousands of little moons dancing here and there on the water. This is the state of a Rajas mind, where one no longer can see Oneness, but sees duplicity, sees the world as ‘other’ which only creates more agitation. If the water is muddy, then you no longer see any moon at all, and mind goes into darkness, decay and destruction. This of course is when Tamas controls the mind. All three Gunas are required for Creation, for instance, our physical bodies could not exist without the gift of denseness given by Tamas and communication would be a quite a trick without Rajas. So I am not proposing that we live without Rajas and Tamas, but rather that we keep them out of the mind, that we keep mind as much as possible in its natural state of Sattva, literally ‘for the benefit of all beings.’

And when I say ‘mind’ I mean that in all ways: Our mind, the mind of the clients of our clinical practices, the mind of the producers and users of our products, the collective mind of our families, community and society. The only way to heal our planet is in the healing of ourselves, Now, and the truest way to heal ourselves is to turn our minds from seeing distinct objects of matter, separateness, to seeing and breathing the worlds as One, one huge beautifully woven ecosystem, one innately intelligent web of Life bursting out with Prana, one flame of consciousness.

As I read deeper into the ancient stories of the Tradition of which Ayurveda is a part I am intrigued by the legends of very sustainable races of humans who have lived this very view of Oneness. These cultures were comprised of beings who easily lived to be hundreds of years old. For instance in the 57th chapter of the Markandeya Purana several of these races are mentioned. Almost always, even if very little is mentioned about them, what is mentioned is what water they drank and what food they ate, which, according to Vedic exegesis, means then that their diet was of paramount importance in describing who they were and how they attained greatness. The adage, ‘Who you are is what you eat,’ is obvious quite ancient and is absolutely tied together with the fact that one of the ultimate Yagnas, Vedic fire ceremonies, is the feeding of your digestive fire. So what did these highly sustainable races feed to their inner Agni? Almost always they drank the water from pure mountain rivers, often glacial, and ate mainly raw fruit or fruit juices from what was called ‘Divine’ trees. In other words, their diet was about as Sattvic as it gets. Perfectly intertwined and mutually supportive was a Sattvic diet, a Sattvic mind, and Sustainability. Though these cultures had incredible longevity, and hence sustainability, they were obviously so Sattvic that they could live with nature in such a way as to not have left the type of scars and wounds that we have managed to inflict on this planet the last century or two.

The crashes of some of these cultures are also described. The typical mechanism is that attachment arose to these sources of Divine food. Soon after attachment arose the mind turned Rajasic and the ‘Divine’ trees disappeared, simply vanished, and other food sources, much more dull and Tamasic, like wheat, appeared. When they started to eat relatively dull food like cooked grains their lives shortened, their minds became filled with Rajas and Tamas, and their cultures deteriorated. I have been growing and wildcrafting herbs for decades and when I read this it gave conclusive certainty to something I have been ‘seeing’ more and more over the years: that just as plants need a certain pH and other soil conditions and terrains to grow, their growth, not to mention even their presence, also depends on the ‘pH’ of the terrain of human consciousness. Yes, we need Sattvic herbs and superfoods in order to become more Sattvic and sustainable, but equally as important, plants, and especially herbs, often need a psychic terrain of Sattvic human consciousness or no human consciousness at all, in order to grow and be sustainable themselves. Plants are far more aware and intelligent than we can imagine, they can know the quality of our consciousness better than we do, and some will only ‘partner’ with those humans of a particular quality. Examples of this abound once you see it.

On our fields of herbs in India, especially on every one of our Tulsi fields in Azamgarh, at the exact moment of sunrise and sunset, we perform Agni Hotra, a very small Yagnya, fire ceremony, where we burn certain items like ghee in a copper pyramidal fire pit, and chant simple but powerful mantras invoking Agni. Like a fire purifies gold, this Agni that is invoked purifies the psychic terrain of the herb field and the farmers, making it more Sattvic and empowered, and thus makes the herbs more Sattvic, stronger, more pest resistant, with higher levels of active constituents. One of the main Sanskrit words for herb is Aushadhi, and one meaning of this word is ‘carrier of light.’ By increasing the psychic purity and subtle power of the environment Agni Hotra increases an herb’s capacity to be an Aushadhi. Though many western scientific studies verify this Vedic scientific technique, you can see the results for yourself by performing this in your home and watching the health of your houseplants bloom. Similar studies and results have been found with Shiva’s Maha Amritunjaya mantra chanted in fields 4 hours daily and continuously during new and full moon. The Tulsi and the other herbs are hungry for higher human consciousness and in turn invoke it. Conversely, I sense that Rajasic and Tamasic human consciousness is experienced by the plants as a type of smog or stench.

Have you ever noticed how you only see many of the wonderful herbs and flowers in really remote places, far away from humans? Here we find another example. Often when I wander up Himalyan mountains or into any wilderness in search of herbs I will come to an altitude or place where I sense a change in the psychic terrain that I now know to be an absence of Rajas and Tamas human consciousness. Then I know I will start finding the herbs I am called to find, like Jatamansi or Orchids like Salam Punja and Salam Misri and other reclusive but powerful healers like the Polygonums Meda and Mahameda, all of which, interestingly enough, along with Tulsi and Brahmi, are actually some of the herbs most capable of creating a Sattvic mind. It is not about physical pollution because some of these places with Rajasic influence can be very pure physically, it is about the ‘pollution’ of certain states of human consciousness. I believe that the most precious herb of all, Soma itself, though existing still in a subtle form in the Himalyas, does not readily exist in the material plane for this very reason. There are no suitable human partners, much less cultures, for her. And if she does exist she likely grows only in the ‘presence’ of a powerful and pure Yogi or Yogini.

The dying off of Oaks is another example. Oaks have always been associated with and symbolic of Truth throughout many cultures. Oaks invoke Truth, which is why the cabinets and counters of banks and other institutions used to be always finished in Oak. But now as the American culture lives such lies, for instance those called the Iraqi War and also 911, there seems to not be enough Truth ‘in the air’ for the Oaks to survive. We have plant allies willing to support us, but if we do not support them then eventually it all fails catastrophically. Conversely, every little bit of support we give to these allies gives back 100% in returns as our Sattvic step toward them helps them to take a step towards us.

Of course, some herbs like Fennel, which I see growing copiously in the sidewalks and vacant lots of cities like San Francisco, or Dandelion, which thrives upon the lawns of America, and Chamomile, which, as Shakespeare said in Henry IV, ‘The more it is trodden upon, the faster it grows,’ do grow better in a Rajasic human psychic terrain. I see these herbs more as exceptions, as ‘Mother Teresa’ type healers, as compassion herself, Sri Daya, taking the form of a plant. But even in these cases the point stands: plants are significantly affected by the psychic terrain of human consciousness. Yes, I am saying that we, through Dharana, Sankalpa, Mantra and Yagnya techniques like Agni Hotra, have the power and responsibility to host and heal our healing plants and herbs, and the rest of our biota for that matter. If we want to have plant allies with higher vibrations to help attenuate the tsunami of unsustainability by empowering us with a Sattvic mind, then we have to make daily if not hourly choices that will raise our consciousness. All the apexes of the triad of Sattvic mind, Sattvic plants/food and Sustainability must all iteratively rise together, and at this point in our trajectory over the cliff, as much as possible, every single action we do must nudge at least one of them up. This need to perform the right actions leads us to explore another aspect of Vedic sustainability, Dana.

Dana typically means giving and so it is usually used to describe the act of ‘right giving’ to charities, etc, but there are many rules around it. Again the Puranic literature is filled with these rules, for instance the 11th and 12th chapters of the Narada Purana. Recommended gifts include money, food, water, land and teachings. What I find very interesting is that there are strict rules of who you can give to and to whom you should not. Highest of the list of who to give to are the keepers of the Sattvic sustainable wisdom traditions. If a sustainable society is a car then you want to first give to the driver of that car so it can continue being driven in the right direction and not off the nearest cliff. Top of the list of who you should not give to, in fact, who it is criminal to give to, are the violent and the hypocritical, the blatantly destructive and unsustainable, those who use fear and anger to exploit and manipulate. So to give money to an organization that researches how to grow herbs in a more sustainable way will accrue good Karma for you. But to give anything to a corporation that exploits resources and third world nations or to a government that is violent, that uses fear and mass murder to control its citizens, and that imperialistically attacks weaker countries, is actually a crime and pours difficult karma into our Sanchit.

But Dana also means communication, purification and restoration. By how we choose to give we have the power to communicate our beliefs, to purify our society, and to restore our planet and our relationship to Her. What the Vedic view has always known is just catching on now and is being called ‘Market Driven Sustainability.’ Every dollar that we spend supports something. Do you know what you support? Are the herbs that you buy for your clients grown Organically and Biodynamically and are they a result of trade that is fair to all, including the earth? Unless our medicine heals the planet it will not truly heal us. Being a principal player in one of the largest Ayurvedic herb companies in the world I tend to know who buys what and I am amazed and actually reel in disgust at how many ‘conscious’ Ayurvedic and Herbal schools, companies, teachers and clinicians do not buy herbs based on their quality or sustainability but solely on their price. I read their product literature on which they say they use only the highest quality ingredients but I know for a fact that they will buy the cheapest herbs they can find, even if they are far inferior, and even more preposterous, they do not care at all if the herbs come a source that is unsustainable. It is as heartbreaking as it is hypocritical as it is a Vedic crime to support. Herbal medicine that is not good for the planet is in the end toxic. We are not separate, healing ourselves and healing our planet must be one in the same.

And of course, it is not just herbs, but all the food and gas and clothes, etc, that we buy, because our dollars are the food that feeds what corporate ideologies and policies will survive. Money talks, big time, there is no activist organization nor movement as potentially strong as the good old American consumer, since we consume most of the world’s resources. So we can sit down, make a list of what we want to survive in this planet, and feed our dollars to that. Only then will our dollars cease to be toxic and instead will become medicine for the planet, only then will our clinical practice truly be Holistic. Our whole life must be our clinical practice. Just as we give herbs to our clients to bring them into balance, so our dollars spent wisely, Sattvically, are the ‘herbs’ that we can give to our Society to bring it into balance.

Dharma Rakshatih Rakshatah: ‘Protect the Dharma and it will protect you.’ Like an act of devotion or worship, if everything we do nurtures the Shakti of ‘Healingness’ at its very root of planetary sustainability then this Goddess will come back and sit on her lotus in our clinic, in every herbal capsule that we distribute, she will smile in our fingertips whenever we read a pulse, radiate from our palms during every Abhyanga, she will whisper the right diagnostic in our ear, and when we make a mistake, she will graciously correct it. It is when we are myopic, short sighted, and self-centered that we invite Nirrti in, the sister of the Shakti of Healing, and believe me, we do not want her nor her calamitous companions sitting at our reception counter.

Ayurveda, the knowledge of Life, is a vast science as large as Life itself. ‘Ayur’ comes from ‘Ayus’ and this does mean ‘life,’ as any student of Ayurveda knows, but pick up your Sanskrit dictionary and read on: it also means the ‘totality of all individual incarnate living beings.’ As Ayurvedic clinicians we have the responsibility to strive to be great Yogis, we have to be Shamans, we have to see deep and take those actions which will bring great Swasta, great health and balance, to ourselves, to our clients, to our healing plants, and to our Mother Earth. Imagine the world if all our actions said: May there be Peace and Love among all Beings of the Universe, Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti.


Note: Photo above is a valley in Uttarkhanda Himalya near Tibet at about 9000 feet.

Dear Tribe,

I would Love to have your help. In 1990 I started an Ayurvedic clinic in India but could not find good enough herbs so I started an herb company to support it that has since grown to be the largest supplier of sustainable certified organic & biodynamic Ayurvedic herbs and supports over 100,000 people. Recently we won the award for the “Most Socially Responsible Company” in the entire Natural Products Industry. It is all about Market Driven Sustainability so without you, the consumer, the health professional, the herbalist, the store clerk, etc, it is impossible to sustain sustainability. You are the Market so your dollars determine what survives in this world. We are doing really good work. Please support us by supporting the health and well-being of yourself, your friends, family and clients with really wonderful, powerful, potent and pure herbs. Below is a longer description and under that is a list of some of the herbs and prices. Thanks so much for your help. Thanks so much!

Pr@shanti
p r a s h a n t i @ igc.org
415.663.5441
Please use this number or email to communicate with me whenever possible as tribe.net is so slow for me.


Here is a partial list of many of the herbs that we grow and wildcraft. It is all sustainable and all Certified Organic by either SGS (Swiss) or SKAL (Dutch). Many of the herbs are also Certified Biodynamic (Demeter-German). Where Organics is about purity, Biodynamics and the ancient Vedic techniques we use are all about power and potency. We also have ISO 9002 and GMP certifications which are certifications in manufacturing and processing precise accountability and we are much more fair trade than the ‘Fair Trade’ certifiers require. Our Vision is to not only supply the highest quality herbs but to also to create financial, cultural and environmental sustainability in the world and specifically in rural India. As one of the largest Organic Herb companies in the world we have converted over 2000 farms to Certified Organic, snatching them away from the fangs of Monsanto, and have trained over 25,000 tribal people to sustainably wildcraft in the mountains of Northern India and the Jungles of Central India. All told we support about 100,000 people in India, a number which grows at least 20% per year. It is such a huge honor to serve so many people and gives me incredible deep joy to see the smiles on their grateful faces as the health and strength of themselves, their children, their animals and their land increases by the month.

Included in this blog is a picture of myself with rural village women in India plucking the Tulsi leaves used to make our Tulsi Tea. These women come from extremely low income families or are living on their own. The typical work that they get is usually very strenuous, stressful, demeaning and difficult. Working for us in a shady mango orchard plucking an anti-stress healing herb like Tulsi, an herb that they consider sacred, and earning 2 to 3 times more than any other job available, is a dream job for them. In just this one aspect of our business, the Tulsi harvest in the fields of Azamgarh, we employ 1000 women everyday for four months straight. More than just a healthy job it also gives them the community of each other. Paying such high wages and all the extra expenses we incur in taking care of the soil and the environment are just two reasons why we need your continued support.

Another example of supporting challenged farmers is that we actively seek out and support women who farm alone due to the death, delinquency or disappearance of their husbands. Just as dilapidated old houses are completely restored and renovated in gentrified neighborhoods, so these women's farms, soil, techniques, profits, health, well-being, and the well-being of their children are radically improved when we have the pleasure of working with them.

Since there are few adequate schools in most of rural India, we have also started and funded a separate organization called the ‘Organic India Foundation,’ dedicated to building schools and providing a high quality education to the children of our farms, eventually a better education than what is available in most metropolitan cities. In November of 2005, at a festival celebrating our Autumn harvest, Amar Singh, an eminent member of the Indian National Parliament was so deeply moved by what we have accomplished that he spontaneously gave out of his own pocket 50 lakh Rupess, equivalent to $125,000, to the foundation. ‘Seeing is believing’ as they say and he was obviously impressed with what he experienced.

Though I started on this project in 1990, only recently the work we have been doing for many years was recognized on a large scale in America when we were voted the Most Socially Responsible Business of 2005 in the entire Natural Products Industry which is composed of about 20,000 companies. To me this is like winning the Nobel Prize for Planetary Sustainability.

Coming out of such a beautiful socially responsible and sustainable context, I can offer you a line of well tested and effective bottled encapsulated formulas and single herbs for dozens of indications, from Men's and Women's energy tonics to Liver/Kidney care, Diabetes support, Lung health, Intestinal cleansing and many more. We also have a line of Teas based on the aforementioned herb Tulsi, meaning “The Incomparable One’ in Sanskrit, which is an anti-stress adaptogen, immune system stimulant, as well as being wonderful for the mind and spirit.

To assure you of our credibility, we are well established in the International market and sell by the ton to dozens of the largest herb/tea/supplement companies in the USA and in Europe. If you are connected to a larger business I can sell bulk herbs and foods by the ton, or we can 'private label' for you and give you bottles of encapsulated herbs and/or boxes of Tea. But just because we sell by the ton does not mean I don’t appreciate every single bottle sold directly to the end user, I really do, especially as an ayurvedic practitioner. It is one form of social activism as the more healing herbs are used the more balance there will be on the individual, then on the familial, then on the community and finally on the entire Society.

As you can see, working with us supports an inner and outer world of sustainability, supports indigenous cultures, ancient herbal wisdom, self actualization of health and well-being, and supports the Earth.

If there is something not included here we can grow it, create it, or possibly source it for you.

I have 17 years experience as an herbalist and Ayurvedic/Vedic health practitioner and am happy to use my expertise to help you determine which herbs are best for your constitution and health needs.

If you are a professional and/or represent a community house, a store, clinic or spa, and you need a discount in order to resell the herbs, you can get 40% off the bottled encapsulated herb supplements and the pound packages and 30% off the price of teas if you order $100 or more, mix and match. Below are all the prices. I am not too strict on that minimum and if you are not a professional but actually go through a lot of herbs, like I do, we can work something out.

~Please keep this posting around for future use
~Please forward it to anybody you know: family, friends, professionals, lists, etc
~Feel free to see me for a consultation at a big discount of my normal rates
~Feel free to call me for any clarification needed or for a free mini-consultation
~Please stay in touch for Classes I will be teaching
~Let me know if you want to get my Ayurvedic eNewsletter
~In a few months I will do a clinical trial on Turmeric and I need 1000 of you!

Note that everything here is certified Organic, except the sandalwood, but that is wild cultivated responsibly in Australia and is a gorgeous alternative to the non-sustainable Sandalwood from India.

TULSI TEA (coughs, colds, flu, immunity, adaptogen, anti-stress, anti-inflammatory)
18 flavors!

HERBAL SUPPLEMENTS (Glass bottles, Veggie caps)
Ashwagandha root - 108 capsules $15.95 Warming deep core energy tonic
Flexibility Formula - 108 capsules $15.95 Joint health, deep tissue cleansing
Gotu Kola Formula - 108 capsules $15.95 Mind, circulation, Liver
Neem leaf, twig & flowers - 108 capsules $15.95 Antibiotic, Skin, Liver, Blood cleaner
Shatavri root - 108 capsules $15.95 Cooling deep core energy tonic
Triphala Formula - 108 capsules $13.95 Colon cleanse and tridoshic rejuvanation*
Tulsi (Holy Basil) - 108 capsules $15.95 as above
Turmeric Formula - 108 capsules $15.95 Anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, skin, etc.*
Certifed Organic Psyllium 12 oz. Can $7.99 Have you ever seen Organic Psyllium?
*(note that Turmeric is considered the best all around herb for daily use on the planet by many herbalists and that Triphala is considered the best all around formula)

POUND PACKAGES (65 gauge food grade plastic and nitrogen flushed)
Amalaki fruit pulp - powdered (Emblica officinalis) $16.00
Ashwagandha root - powdered (Withania somnifera $20.00
Ginger root (Sonth) - powdered (Zingiber officinale) $14.00
Krishna Tulsi leaf - tea cut (Ocimum sanctum) $22.00
Rama Tulsi leaf - tea cut (Ocimum sanctum) $22.00
Vana Tulsi leaf - tea cut (Ocimum gratissimum) $22.00
Neem leaf- powdered (Azadirachta indica) $22.00
Turmeric rhizome (Haldi) - powdered (Curcuma longa) $12.00
Original Tulsi Tea Mix - tea cut $22.00
Triphala Formula - powdered $16.00
Shatavri root - powdered (Asparagus racemosus) $20.00
Sandalwood - powdered 1lb (Santalum spicatum) $30.00
Sandalwood - powdered 1/2lb (Santalum spicatum) $15.00

I can take orders by phone or by email. Cash, checks, Visa, MC all work! First time orders get 2 for 1!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! We need to sell thousands of dollars worth of herbs everyday of the year in order to continue this Vision of sustainability and individual and planetary healing. I so need your help. Call or Write soon and remember to forward this please. Thank you!

Pr@shanti de J@ger

p r a s h a n t i @ igc.org
Home/Office 415.663.5441
Cell 415.246.1248