by Brad Willis
“Pooooiiiiint your toes! You are beeeuuuuutifuuul!” Jean-Pierre is also poetic and theatrical with his thick French accent. He has a knack for making every student feel that they’re the most special person in the world while pushing them right up to and then beyond their limits. “Reeeaaacccchhhh to the sky!” he says, almost singing this as he stands behind me with his hands firmly on my upper arms and all but lifts me off the ground. By the time class is over, all I want is a hot bath and a nap.
Even though this is purely physical Yoga, or more correctly, Asana practice, Linda and Jean-Pierre are the perfect complement to my work with Rene and my own studies and practices. I never would have attempted such rigorous poses without their guidance and encouragement; as a result, my strength and flexibility soon start soaring. It feels so exhilarating that I beg Pamela to go to class with me, thinking she will have the same experience and get interested in Yoga. It could be a shared interest, something that might help her understand me more and at the same time bring us closer together. When she agrees, I’m beside myself with joy as we find a sitter for Morgan and head to class.
As we practice side by side, I have visions of Pamela coming into my cave and doing Yoga with me in the early morning hours, joining me at the bay for sunrise and walking Morgan in his stroller afterward along the waterfront, and then ending the day doing Yoga with me on the beach at sunset. But it doesn’t work out this way. Pamela tries two or three classes on her own while I’m with Morgan and decides it’s not for her. I find myself feeling hurt and angry, and then have to catch myself, breathe deeply, and do my best to let it go. I’m taking charge of my life, I remind myself, but I’m not in charge of her life.
Because I’m at the studio several times every day, I become friends with Linda and Jean-Pierre and eventually share my story with them. They’re understanding, supportive, and inspiring, telling me about the many students they’ve seen make great strides in their lives. I feel some special synchronicity must have brought them into my life right when I needed them, just like Rene and Savita. One morning after class, Linda calls me aside and exclaims, “Over the past two-and-a-half months you haven’t missed a day. You’ve been at almost two hundred classes! I’ve never seen anything like it in all my years of teaching. I think one day you will be a great Yoga teacher!”
It reminds me of when I left the Pain Center and my Jin Shin Jyutsu teacher, Dawn, said one day I would help others heal. I thought she must be crazy, and now I think Linda must be crazy, too.
Thanks to the psychology of Yoga I’ve been applying to my life, my emotional state has continued to move from being dominated by depression, self-pity, anger, and resentment to optimism, gratitude, and humility. I have a deeply established faith now in my capacity to take charge of my life and effect true and lasting personal transformation. Yet I’m only halfway up the mountain. I’ve survived a little bit beyond the two years my cancer doctors predicted, but I still have periodic bleeding in my throat. My neck glands sometimes feel tender and swollen. Occasionally, it feels like the old malaise that signaled the arrival of cancer shortly after Morgan’s birth is trying to make a comeback.
I’m gripped by a silent fear every time any of these symptoms arise. It always shakes me to the core and tests my faith. I wonder if I’ll be able to continue my healing journey or if I’ll succumb to terminal disease. Can Yoga really help me heal from this? This is my contemplation this morning during my practice on the bay as the sun lifts fully into the sky. What can I do to face this challenge head on?
I close my eyes and listen for my inner voice, that deeper wisdom that has guided me throughout the year. Nothing. I silently chant “OM” with the rise and fall of my breath, being patient, staying focused, giving it time. Ten minutes becomes twenty, and then thirty. Finally, I begin to get a message.
You’ve been in avoidance of the cancer rather than acceptance, in fear rather than faith. Healing this must now be your utmost priority. You must embrace and thank the cancer, just as you have your back pain. Take your practice to a deeper level. Purify yourself in every way possible. Take it all the way.
I place my hands together at my heart and bow my head down toward my fingertips, thanking my Soul for providing this guidance.
CHAPTER 37
Organic Chemotherapy
IT’S THE END OF JUNE 2001. I continue to practice every morning in my cave, bike to the bay for sunrise, attend classes at the Yoga studio, and make it to the beach for sunset. My weight is down to 165 pounds, ten pounds lighter than I was as a senior in high school. Downward and Upward Dog, Sun Salutations, and Warrior Poses are now a breeze. So is Triangle Pose, balancing on one leg, and all the other rigorous postures Linda teaches at the studio. I can touch my toes effortlessly in forward folds, do a full backbend, and almost the full splits. I’m even starting to master headstands on my own in my cave.
But I’m a year and a half into my healing journey now, and still feel that I have to purify myself further. This morning, I get on the Google search engine and type in Yoga and purification. The first hit looks like the perfect answer. It’s a retreat at a Yoga center in the mountains outside of Santa Cruz in northern California, and it starts tomorrow. It’s being held by the center’s spiritual leader, who comes from India and is known as a master of Yoga. He only does this once a year. I call immediately. There’s space available. I’m in!
Thanks to Yoga, driving my car is no longer a challenge, but this is an all-day trip and I’m feeling sore when I arrive. After a few standing stretches in the parking lot, the tenderness in my back melts away and I’m flushed with joy. Sitting high on 355 partially wooded acres overlooking Monterey Bay, the retreat center is like Heaven on Earth. It’s a massive complex, with residential units for guests and small, woodsy homes for the community of dozens of live-in students who run the center. As I’m registering and then being shown to my room, I realize once again how vibrant and healthy everyone looks, just like Savita, Rene, and Linda, and all the other devoted Yogis I’ve met thus far.
Dinner is being served before the evening program that commences the retreat. When I enter the dining hall I’m astounded. There must be at least three hundred people here for this. Maybe more. They’re all calm and quiet, yet warm and friendly. I immediately feel at home, like finding a family I never knew I had. The food is vegetarian, of course, but I notice most of the dishes also have signs that say “vegan.” I ask the person next to me what that means and they explain that veganism is the purest form of vegetarianism: no dairy, no eggs, no fish, no animal products whatsoever. I decide to experiment and eat only the vegan items. Because I fasted all day before arriving, I heap my plate with a colorful assortment of salad, vegetables, beans, and grains. My meal is beyond delicious.
I read early on in my healing journey that the three greatest killers in the first world—heart disease, cancer, and stroke—are all linked to the Western diet, which is predominantly based on meat and dairy products along with processed and junk foods. Weighing in at a bloated 225 pounds, I was a great example of what the Western diet can do. Although my current vegetarian diet has largely consisted of organic vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains, and nuts, it hasn’t been vegan. I’ve regularly included four foods I still love: wild-caught fish, free-range eggs, organic milk, and cheese. After dinner, one of the retreat assistants tells me new research has shown that the protein in dairy and meat products, including milk, cheese, and fish, tends to nourish cancer tumors, while vegetable protein tends to shrink them. That’s all I need to hear. No more fish or eggs, no more milk or cheese. I’m going vegan from here on out.
In the days that follow at the retreat, we practice hours of Yoga poses and meditation, but the purifications are what captivate me. These include rigorous breath techniques that are far more advanced than any I’ve ever done. We also pour medical water through one nostril and out the other to cleanse the sinuses, perform self-induced vomiting to cleanse our digestive tracts, and take medicated enemas to cleanse our i
ntestinal tracts. It’s incredibly intense, and I have to overcome tremendous resistance to trying each practice. Of course, the old me would have dismissed all of this as completely absurd. Even now, my ego screams so loudly that I have to repeatedly remind myself: I’m in all the way.
The nasal cleansing repulses me at first, and it’s tricky to perform. I have to pour water in one nostril and let it flow out the other. The moment I tilt my head and start to pour the water in, my eyes flood with tears. I inadvertently breathe in through my nose instead of my mouth, get water in my windpipe, and choke and cough like crazy. I’m not alone. Most others in the group are also struggling. After a while, though, I get the hang of it, and when it’s over I feel renewed and refreshed. It makes me think of the assault Dr. Chasan used to perform with the nose-cam before my radiation sessions to look at my throat, only now it’s my choice!
The self-induced vomiting requires drinking several large glasses of warm, salted water, which soon triggers regurgitation. I do this back in my room, of course, not with the group. The idea of throwing up has always given me a sense of fear and revulsion. I have to force myself to gulp down the final glass of water. Then I feel nauseous as bitter acid rises up from my stomach. It tastes horrible, and at first I hate every moment of it, but by the end of the process my entire digestive system is tingling and I feel inner sweetness and space.
The enema is just as daunting. Another extreme violation. But again, once I’ve completed the process, I feel light and clean.
By the third day of the retreat, I find out that the purifications I’ve been doing are from a thick and detailed Yoga text called the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, written back in the 1400s. I buy a copy at the retreat center bookstore and begin to devour it. Hatha refers to the physical aspects of Yoga practice, and Pradipika means illumination, like shining light on these ancient teachings. Along with Yoga poses, and the practices I’ve already done, the book includes numerous scientific techniques designed to detoxify the body at its deepest levels, including prolonged fasting. I read through half of the Pradipika’s 600 pages before the retreat ends and, even though it’s radically beyond anything I’ve ever considered, I’m convinced that it’s just what I need.
Yes, these are far from mainstream aspects of Yoga. They’re incredibly extreme. So is cancer. This is my only shot, so I’m going all the way. There’s no turning back. No picking and choosing what seems easiest. I’m committed to the whole deal. This is it…Get up, Daddy!
By the time the retreat ends, I have my plan. I’ll stay vegan, fast as often as I can, take off at least another twenty pounds, and cleanse myself down to the cellular level, trying all the techniques in the Pradipika that I can handle. Then I’ll thank the cancer for what it has taught me, embrace it as a catalyst for personal growth and transformation, and ultimately invite it to leave. As I drive down the California coast for home, I decide to call this plan my “organic chemotherapy.”
I thought it would be a great struggle, but after a few weeks, veganism isn’t as daunting as I feared, especially because I’ve turned the entire process of creating a meal into a meditative ritual. I thank Mother Nature as I choose each vegetable or piece of fruit at the store. Slicing into a banana or a zucchini is an incredible wonder. I notice the color, the texture, the aroma, the seeds filled with intelligence and potential. Once the meal is ready, I say a silent prayer of gratitude to the earth, water, and sun that have joined forces to produce this miracle of nourishment. I contemplate the fact that this food will soon become me, that we are merging as one. I deliberately take smaller portions, eat more slowly, and savor every bite as delicious, healing medicine, being as fully present to the experience as possible.
I periodically fast for a few days at a time, and always fast one day per week. Before this, the only time I ever went more than a day without food was in the mountains of northern Iraq. It wasn’t by choice. I just couldn’t catch the chicken. Now, fasting is a central part of my plan. Every Monday morning I have a breakfast of fruit and grain, then make Morgan his favorite organic pancakes with maple syrup. I skip lunch and dinner, drinking only warm water with lemon. The following morning, I have no breakfast, then break my fast at lunch with a light, organic, vegan meal of steamed vegetables, rice, and some salad. This gives me a twenty-four hour period without food but still provides some nourishment each day. The first few times I do this I think I’m going to die of hunger as images of steaks, pork chops, and salmon smothered in raspberry sauce float through my brain, taunting me.
Within a few weeks, however, my weight is plummeting like never before and I feel radiantly healthy. Still, hunger pangs arise almost daily. When I contemplate the hunger, however, I realize it’s mostly a result of habit. I’m not really as hungry as I feel. All I need to do is slowly sip herbal tea or lemon water while visualizing that it’s providing everything my growling stomach needs. It works most of the time, and soon I’m past the cravings for meat or fish—but I have to admit that instead, I now have periodic visions of heaping portions of brown rice smothered in stir-fried vegetables and a plate piled with fresh, ripe fruit that dance through my mind when I haven’t had food for a prolonged period of time.
I rinse my sinuses with the water every morning. Once a week, I shorten my nighttime practice and head upstairs to the bathroom for the more radical procedures of regurgitation and enema. These practices still repulse me and I have to summon all my mantras, remind myself of my commitment, and compel myself to do it. I never get used to it, but I realize how purifying it is, especially on one occasion when I fast for four days and am amazed on the final night when I do an enema and continue to release waste materials even with no food in my stomach.
There’s more. A practice I haven’t mentioned. The Pradipika also maintains that drinking one’s own urine can effect great healing. Oh, ancient sages, how could you do this to me? I’ve totally bought into this science on every level, and now you want me to do this? The Pradipika says it has profound effects, especially on cancer, but I can’t imagine anyone remotely considering such a repugnant idea.
I think about it for weeks on end. Go for it, I tell myself every morning. You must be kidding me, another inner voice chimes in. This is as gross as it gets. Finally, I get the courage. I’m all in. I get a glass, go into the bathroom, and fill it half way. I hold it in front of me. I’m totally disgusted. A deep breath now. I begin to bring the glass to my lips. Then I freeze. There’s no way. I’m all in—except for this. Even a fanatic has his limits. I just found mine.
The Pradipika also confirms what all my Yoga texts agree on—purifying the mind is as important as purifying the body. With all the noise of society—busy highways, bustling cities, mass media, and television sets blaring everywhere—our minds can’t help but be highly agitated and polluted. I now avoid all this as much as humanly possible, especially the television. Whenever I walk into a room where one is on, it feels abrasive, unnatural, and unhealthy, almost like an assault. It’s now hard to believe that I was a reporter on television for more than two decades.
Along with avoiding sensory overload, I speak less and spend more time in silence communing with nature. I choose my words more carefully with Morgan and invite him to explore the silence with me. Tonight, as I’m readying him for bed, he jumps into my arms and says, “Daddy, carry me downstairs. Let’s go sit on the front porch and listen to the dark.” It inspires me that he would come up with such a beautiful concept. I bundle a blanket around him and we tiptoe down, slip outside, and sit on the front stoop.
Without speaking a word, we cuddle together and “listen to the dark,” feeling the gentle breeze on our faces while gazing at a sky splashed with stars. The silence is like a symphony. Our closeness is beyond words. When I sense Morgan is drifting off, I carry him to bed and slip back into my cave. This is when my emotions feel most at ease, my mind stills more quickly than usual, and my evening practice becomes even more sacred.
Avoiding media and overstimulation, eating vegan
and organic, fasting, performing daily purifications, and practicing advanced Pranayama are cleansing both my body and mind. It’s easier now to slip into a state of meditation and be fully in the present moment. I feel a sense of calmness and inner balance that are deeper and richer than anything I’ve ever experienced. I sense an inner harmony in my organs and tissues—even my bones—that seems to whisper to me that a great healing is taking place. This is it.
In the “Himalayan Cave.”
CHAPTER 38
Sacred Science
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your Soul and Spirit fly…
I WAS MESMERIZED by Van Morrison’s song “Into the Mystic” when I first heard it back in the 1970s. Now, all these years later, I feel something deeply mystical during my practice. It’s beyond words, inaccessible to the intellect I’ve always relied upon to define my vision of life, and yet palpable—like something in the atmosphere that can almost be touched yet remains ethereal and elusive. It’s the same sense of approaching life as a sacred, metaphysical journey that permeates the ancient texts of Yoga and offers a vision of inner exploration and transformation.