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I am Haimanthī Banerjee, one of the co-chairs of the conference. I would like to invite Mr. Kanchan Banerjee to welcome you all to our third International Conference on Integrative Medicine. He is also the managing director of the Boston Center of Excellence for Health and Human Development. Please welcome Kanchan, Mr. Kanchan Banerjee. Thank you, Haimanthī. Before I speak, I want to chant Oṁ. If you please, join me three times. The primordial sound of Oṁ. Take a deep breath. Oṁ. Good morning and Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Vanakkam. I’m Kanchan, and I’m one of the co-chairs, as Haimanthī said. I am really honored to welcome you all in this audience of so many scholars, so many gurus, and experts in medicine, yoga, and Āyurveda. And as you know, I am not a doctor. Many people call me a doctor. But I am really very privileged to do this job, what I am doing now. I want to recognize our guests, honored guests, some of them this morning, and I would request them to come to the stage once I read the names out, starting with, actually, I don’t have the list here, but I know who the people are. I will request the Honorable Consul General of India in New York, Mr. Sandeep Chakraborty, to be the chairperson for this event, as well as the chairman of our Boston Center of Excellence, Dr. Balram Singh. Advisor, Dr. Dinesh Patel; Dr. Vikashu Khatme, Dean at the Emory Medical, Emory University Medical School; Dr. Greg Frickeon, Director at the Benson Henry Mind-Body Institute, Dr. Sadbir Singh Khalsa is a professor and researcher at Harvard Medical School. And now, our honored Swāmījī, Yogī Amritsar from Florida, Viśvagurū Paramahaṁsājī, please. He has come all the way from Vienna. Our chair of this program session is none other than Gurujī Dr. H.R. Nagendra S. Vyasa, founder, chairman, and our chief guest of today’s event, is Dr. Vinay Shahsharabudhejī. Dr. Vinay Shahsharabudhejī is a member of parliament in the upper house. He is the president of ICCR, which is the cultural relations office of the Indian government, and he is also the national vice president of the Bharatiya Janata Party. I think a couple of people are missing here, so now I will call upon our organizing team members. Pramit is already helping people to sit, so if you want to go sit, if you want to stay here, yeah. So, Dr. Manoj Vasin, he’s at Beth Israel Hospital. He’s the co-director of the genomics project there. Now I have to look for other people, Dr. Prunima, she’s a surgeon and part of our organizing committee. And Dr. Manjunath, are you here? Dr. N.K. Manjunath, he’s director of research and international relations of S-VYASA University. Is Vikash here? Here, Vikāś Marchyā, I don’t see, I mean, you guys, you can also sit there, perhaps, if you want. So, I think some people are missing. I’m sorry, I cannot see them. So, this is our organizing team as well, and we are very happy to be together. So, first thing we will do is inaugurate this event by lighting the lamp, and unfortunately there’s a fire thing, so we have used technology. So I request Dr. H.R. Nagendrajī, Yogījī, and Paramahaṁsajī, and our Consul General, and Dr. Vinay Saraswati, come forward to the lamp stand here, and he will show you how to use these lamps. You also can join. Space is small, that’s why I did not ask everybody. We can extend to me. Yeah, yeah, you can stand from there. Many of you know, in case some of you are wondering, what we just did. Lighting the lamp is a very ancient tradition that lets light enlighten us through light, physically, knowledge, and more. So we are going to have a very good morning session, and I’m going to be here helping moderate that session, but before that, there are some messages that need to be read out. And I request Dr. Dinesh Patel, to read a message from the Prime Minister of India. You can use the mic. So, Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi has sent a special message for us. We are very, very privileged to have that message and are requesting Dr. Dinesh Patel to read this, please. This is the message from Pradhāna Mantrī, Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra is the one who started International Yoga Day, June 21st, 2014. So, we are celebrating International Yoga Day as well as the current meeting. The message is: I am pleased to learn that the third International Conference on Integrative Medicine, the role of Yoga and Ayurveda, is being organized by the Boston Center of Excellence for Health and Human Development in association with other reputed research institutes and Indian consulates during 22–24 June 2018 in Boston. Yoga, with its several millennia-rich history of insight and experience, holds immense promise for the contemporary world in its search for sustainable and innovative health management practices. Yoga embodies the harmony of body, mind, and soul, and in its holistic approach, it envisions unlocking the healing and emancipatory potential inherent in us. Ayurveda, the time-tested ancient health management system of India, also stresses this holistic approach, and the contemporary world is sure to benefit from the effective integration of both into modern health systems. I am sure that the conference will present a productive platform for all the researchers, practitioners, and policy experts to deliberate and work for exploring the new contours of integrative medicine. I convey my best wishes for the successful organization of the conference. Let the conference be impactful in realizing a better healing touch for the whole world in addressing its emerging health challenges. Narendra Modi. Next, may I call upon Mr. Sanjay Kahl, who is the Executive Board Member of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America. And he is going to read the proclamation by our Honourable Governor, Mr. Baker. Please, you can come here. Good morning. I have a message from the Governor of our state, Mr. Charles Baker. It’s a proclamation. It reads as follows: Whereas modern medicine has reduced pain and suffering and saves millions of lives, and whereas the cost of health care is increasing rapidly each year, and whereas side effects and the cost of pharmaceutical drugs are major challenges for health, and whereas the ancient traditions, such as yoga, Āyurveda, and naturopathy, are also helping millions for the prevention and cure of ailments for ages. Whereas a need has arisen for the modern healthcare system to take an integrative approach, and whereas integrative medicine and health reaffirm the importance of the relationship between the practitioner and the patient. Focus on the whole person is informed by evidence and makes use of all appropriate approaches. Health care professionals and disciples to achieve optimal health and healing, which is the core of some traditional health care systems, such as yoga and āyurveda, whereas the holistic approach to human health with equal emphasis on prevention as well as cure is overdue, and whereas the Indo-U.S. Health Initiative, in collaboration with the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and many other organizations, are hosting the third International Conference on Integrative Medicine on June 22nd through 24th at Harvard Medical School. I, therefore, Charles D. Baker, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, do hereby proclaim June 22nd to be Integrative Medicine Day. May I request Dr. Manoj Vaseen to read the message from the Health and Human Services Department of the State of Massachusetts, please. Okay. So this is the message from the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Dr. Monica Braille. She joined us last year, and due to some personal commitment this year, she couldn’t come, and Dr. Studer, so the message reads like this: Dear International Conference on the Role of Ayurveda and Yoga organizers, thought leaders, researchers, participants, and delegates, on behalf of Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services and Massachusetts Department of Public Health, we would like to thank the conference committee for the kind invitation to speak at the 2018 International Conference on the Role of Ayurveda and Yoga. Our agencies would like to thank everyone involved in the conference for their dedication to the health and well-being of all residents of the Commonwealth and offer our support for your important work in the field of Integrative Medicine. We wish you a successful event and look forward to learning more about the ways in which Yoga and Āyurveda can serve important roles in prevention, care, and treatment. Sincerely, okay. Dr. Studer and Monika Brahe. Thank you. Next, may I—I think Manoj Nesarijī is not here—so may I request Dr. Manjunath to read the message from the AYUSH Minister. Honorable AYUSH Minister, Mr. Śrīpād Nāikjī’s message. My privilege, reading out the message from the Honorable Minister for Ayush, Government of India. My ministry is very pleased to be part of the third international conference on integrative medicine, Yoga, and Ayurveda. I am glad to share that I attended the second international conference in 2017 at the same venue, which was a very impactful event. I know that the organizers this year have expanded the scope of the event to cover more experts and participants. I look forward to attending this year’s conference again, and my best wishes for a grand success of the event this year as well. And there is a separate personal message which has been forwarded from the Minister. He was supposed to be here, but due to some reasons, he couldn’t make it. Mr. Manoj Neśarī, Dr. Manoj Neśarī will be giving his personal message as well. But he really gave his all, his best wishes, because of his absence. He would like to give complete support for this event and to take the tradition of yoga, Āyurveda, and Āyush forward through scientific research. Thank you. And one more message is there. I will hold on to that. And we are a little bit running out of the time that I was allotted for, but I will make it quick. I have a short presentation, probably seven to eight minutes. Hopefully, I’ll finish it in that many minutes before we start today’s session. So, something. So, this is a quick presentation which was supposed to be setting the tone for the whole event, and then after that, Dr. Greg Frickeon will do the introduction, and we’ll have several keynote talks here. So myself and my wife, Haimanthī, we actually prepared this note. I have seven points to make, and it will take probably seven minutes. Hopefully, I will finish it in seven minutes. If not, then someone has to show me the clock, and I know nobody’s here to show me this, so some of you will see this all day today. So I am privileged. So the first point: myth about yoga. So, you know, I hope everybody sitting here at least agrees that it’s not the āsanas only, it’s not prāṇāyāma, it’s not the dhyāna. They’re all part of the yoga tradition, the yogic system, but it’s much more beyond that, you know, Dhyāna and then Prāṇāyāma. Aṣṭāṅga yoga of Patañjali, many of you are familiar with, is a very, very holistic system, and it has eight parts. My request to all of you is to explore more on yoga. Those of you who are gurus here know much more than I know. But yoga is even beyond Patañjali. Patañjali’s system is a great system; it’s a great framework to practice. But if you think about yoga, you know, these are the four paths of yoga. Normally we know jñāna, bhakti, karma, and haṭha. But look at this Bhagavad Gītā, it has 18 chapters. Each chapter is called a yoga. So that gives us a hint that yoga is not just āsana, prāṇāyāma, dhyāna. Yoga is much more. And what yoga is, we’ll learn from the learners and scholars here later. My next point is: yoga and Ayurveda are two separate systems. It’s, again, it’s a misnomer because they cannot be separated. They are all the same. This is life in balance, using yoga and Āyurveda. This is one. Somewhere in the last few hundred years, it got separated somehow. Our goal is to bring them together. Point three, longevity. You know Ayurveda, Āyu means the lifespan, or how long you live, and Veda means knowledge, or expressions of knowledge. So Ayurveda is basically knowledge about our lifespan. I want to just ask you, do you know what scientists say about the lifespan used to be for the hunter-gatherers like a few thousand years ago, 20,000 years ago? Scientists and researchers say 35 was the average age people lived, but that has become a myth. We find now there are fossils that lived much more than that. Do you know how long Socrates lived when he was given poison? He was 70 at that time. You know how long Hippocrates and other Greek scholars, like Plato, lived? They lived well beyond 80. In the 60s, the world lifespan average, like life expectancy, rather was close to 60. And then today, I think around 79 in America, 68 in India, 69 in China. So something went wrong, if... People lived in the past for such a long period, you know, so many years. Something went wrong. I want to give you some examples. Some of the Chinese documents talk about people living up to 180 years. There are many, many references to Chinese medicine, Caraka and Suśruta. If you look at their treaties, they talk about people who lived for up to 200 years. You may think these are all myths, but there is evidence now that we can live up to 120 years. So those using different rasāyana and other methods of yoga lived much longer than 60 years. My point is, so what did they do to live that long? As you know, the four āśramas, the varṇāśrama, you know, the brahmacarya, gṛhastha, the vānaprastha and sannyāsa, each one is supposed to be 25 years. That adds up to 100 years, and this knowledge is transferred by people for hundreds of years. So people must have lived at least 75 or 100 years. So that is about Āyurveda. Fourth point: do you know who said this? "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." It was Rudyard Kipling in his poem. And do you agree with this? I see many heads saying no. We’ll come back to that. Quickly, a bit of history. Pythagoras lived around 570 to 490 BC. I just ran through. I was shown the number at that time, so these are the ages of these people. And look at Suśruta, who’s supposed to be the first known surgeon in the world. He lived around 800 BCE. And Caraka, 700. And Patañjali around the 2nd century. Now there’s a connection between East and West. And I’m talking about the connection now. So Pythagoras, Hippocrates, these are all the different ages. So we all know in modern medicine we go by the Hippocratic oath, and he is supposed to be the father of modern medicine. And there is a direct connection between Greece and India. So it is known that Pythagoras went to India and learned our system in India, both yoga and Āyurveda and mathematics, and many systems he brought back, and Hippocrates came late. So you will see many, many influences in Greek medicine from those days. And if you look at the Hippocratic oath and look at Caraka’s oath, you will find that Caraka had like fifteen different oaths you had to take. The Hippocratic Oath is a subset of that, and I’m not wasting time reading it. You can check it later, what I’m trying to say is that East and West met in the past, and it can meet again. I’ll just quickly go through the branches of, you know, the Caraka Saṃhitā. There are 13 branches, how similar they are to our... Modern medicine, this was true 2,700 years ago, written. These are the surgical instruments; some of them are used by Suśruta. He used 123 instruments, and these are the replicas of that from 2,800 years ago. All right, fifth point, cancer. As you know, cancer is called Karkaṭa Roga in Āyurveda, so cancer was known. There’s a report by the Cancer Research Fund. They said that as more countries adopt Western lifestyles with sedentary living and obesity-causing foods, cancer rates are expected to spike 58% by 2035, causing 24 million global deaths per year. The researchers said, however, that the onus to prevent cancer does not solely lie with individuals. They stressed urging governments to prioritize cancer prevention policies. Modern medicine, as you know, I’m not going to read through. These are the data. The number one cause of death is heart attack. Next is cancer. Third is lower respiratory disorder. But people forgot that modern medicine is also causing death at a high rate. And look at these numbers. In 2013, 225,000 people died from iatrogenic, that is, relating to medical care, causes. And that is the third major cause of death in America, which is a health care problem. Then the fourth one is supposed to be the stroke. And this has to do with the drug side effects and misuse of pharmaceutical drugs. So we have a challenge. You have a problem, not only price, but also a lot of side effects, a lot of problems. So then, my last point, I’m done: integral approach. We have to, we have to come back together, look at every person as a whole. And look, don’t treat them as people with diseases, but treat them as they have—they have their entire system has to be looked upon. So, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat, however, he said later, "But there is neither east nor west, border nor breed nor birth when two strong men stand face to face, though they came from the ends of the earth." That means, in our case, all the great leaders, researchers and scholars from East and West, when they stand together, are the creative power that is going to heal the world. That’s what we are doing today and for the next two days. Thank you. Now, I request Dr. Greg Frickeon to please introduce, to do some introductory remarks. And as you know, Dr. Frickeon, I’ll just introduce you. Okay. Thank you, Kanchan. That was a wonderful, synthetic, introductory talk. I really found that stimulating. It’s a privilege to be with you all this morning on this beautiful Boston morning, the second day of summer, so enjoy it. And it’s also an honor to introduce Vikas Sukhatme, a real old friend. We miss Vikas already. In fact, I was coming on the shuttle from Mass General, where Vikas trained, and I was with a colleague of mine, Professor Ted Stern. When I mentioned Vikas’s name, Ted Stern, who usually doesn’t show a lot of affect, just... beamed because he remembered the young Vikas who caught me on the wards at Mass General. So it’s really, he’s a very, very special person to us and to everyone. We’re really very happy for him that he’s down at one of the world’s greatest medical centers and medical schools, Emory, where he’s the dean of the School of Medicine, and he’s the chief academic officer of Emory Healthcare. Prior to that, he was Victor J. Aresty Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief academic officer and dean for academic programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. You know, he has a doctorate in theoretical physics from MIT, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s also interested in the spirit. And then he went to the Harvard-MIT program in health sciences and technology and graduated from HMS Klumblau in 1979. As I mentioned, he did his internal medicine and nephrology training at MGH and then did an immunology fellowship at Stanford. He was a Howard Hughes investigator at the University of Chicago from 1985 to 1992, and then came back to Harvard. He’s made seminal contributions in a number of basic and clinical research areas. He has defined signaling pathways in genes involved in kidney cancer. He’s helped us understand how statins cause muscle damage, how tumors grow a blood supply, and how blood vessels leak in patients with sepsis and other serious infections. He’s also looked into interventions that elicit anti-tumor immunity, which, as you know, is the hottest area in oncology, and he’s a pioneer in that area. He’s also somehow found time to set up an NGO, Global Cures, which seeks to conduct clinical trials for promising therapies without focusing on financial reward, and he’s really looking at new ways that we can build innovative treatments for oncology, and so we’re really happy today that he’ll be talking to us about affordable, untapped opportunities for the treatment of cancer. Dr. Sukhatme. Thank you, Greg. That was short and sweet. My privilege to introduce Dr. Vikas Sukhatme. He is the Dean at Emory University Medical School. He’s a distinguished physician, scientist, and the current Dean there. He serves as Chief Academic Officer of Emory Healthcare and as a Woodruff Professor, Dr. Sukhatme was Chief Academic Officer at Harvard Faculty, Dean for Academic Programs at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, and the Victor J. Aresty Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. So please welcome Dr. Vikas Sukhatme for his keynote address. What we will do, I will get some, we’ll get you loaded later. Sorry, there’s a confusion. You get it. So I will call you. Sorry about the confusion. I don’t know, we’ll get it. He has a powerful presentation. We’ll get it, and so we will have to then introduce our next speaker, looking at the schedule. So again, my honor to introduce Vishwa Guru Paramahaṁsa Swāmī Maheśvarānandajī, founder of Yoga in Daily Life, he has come all the way from Vienna, and I’ll read a little bit about him: His Holiness Vishwa Guru Panchayati Mahanevraj Akhara, affectionately called as Swāmījī. He is the disciple and successor of Hindu, and his font is so small, Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa Śrī Svāmī Madhavānanda. He founded the International Sri Dev Madhavananda Ashram Fellowship, a not-for-profit humanitarian organization with member associations in roster consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, Council of United Nations in Vienna, Austria. So, let us please welcome Paramāṁśa Swāmījī. Please, salutation to the cosmic light. Lord of our hearts, omniscient and omnipresent, in the divine presence of our Lord, my dear sisters and brothers, our respected Gurujī Nāgendrajī Yogī Varas, and all my brothers and sisters here, the Council of India. This event is something to change our life and change the life of others, in order to lead a life that is healthy, happy, and long. I know that there are many, many dear doctors and professors here, and I was thinking I could have also studied to be a doctor. But I’m just simply a yogī. The difference between a yogī and a doctor is a little different. One doctor, who is a great doctor, has so many medicines and injections and everything in his suitcase. And one simple yogī practicing yoga. So both together they were walking from one village to another village. Twenty kilometers, they came to one beautiful little lake. Very pure, clean water, forget it. That clean water is gone. We have polluted the whole world. It is very rare to get pure water. I’m telling, taking the story about our previous speaker told, living two years, 200 years, 500 years, or many ṛṣis are still living. There was a very beautiful, clean, crystal clear water, and they, both friends, the doctor and the swa yogī, decided to have their lunch. So both of them had a lunch with them. The doctor ate his lunch, and the yogī had also, he had. Then they went to clean their hands and drink the water. So the doctors cleaned the little hands and just cleaned his mouth, and that’s all. And the yogī, he began to drink the water, drink the water. Doctor said, "What are you doing?" He said, "I am drinking water. One should not eat immediately after eating. You could have drunk a little before." He said, "Okay, I will eat more." So he ate more, five, six chapatis. The doctor said, "This rule is not for you yogīs. This is for us, those who are living now in this world: ācāra, vicāra, āhāra, and vihāra." This is the principle of the yogī. Ācāra, discipline, vicāra, positive thinking, and our diet. Ācāra, vicāra, āhāra, and vihāra, where to go and where not to go, where to inhale air, etc. The Āyurveda says the first mantra of Āyurveda is, "Pehla sukha nirōgī kāyā." The first wealth is good health, but how to gain health nowadays? I came to breakfast this morning, and whatever I wanted to taste, everywhere was sugar, sugar... really. Finally, someone went somewhere and got some kind of daliyā, what we said, and my body said, "Thank you." So this conference is that, of course, they are scientists, they have a lot of research, but if we cannot make a discipline of our food, we will not become healthy. And if a doctor tells someone, "Don’t drink alcohol," but the doctor drinks it himself, then it’s not correct. Yoga, yoga karmasu kauśalam, we have to do that kind of karma. Bhagavad Gītā said, yoga karmasu kauśalam. Then, after, he said, "Yoga agni, karma dagdhani," that fire of the yoga practice, all our karmas will be burned, and that we can achieve our life of liberation. Out of 8.4 million different creatures, we humans are here. From where did I come? For what did I come? What am I doing? And where will I go? What is the aim of human life? You understand, all English and Hindi speakers, my dear. Khana, pina, bhogana, pasubhi parumsudana, eating, creating children, and sleeping—every creature can do. If a yogī, yogīs, when people are sleeping, yogīs awaken. And when yogis awaken, people are working. Yoga nidra, yogī janakī yoga nidra, vīra sant janjanī hai. That virala, rare person knows how to practice the yoga nidrā. So yoga is that science of body, mind, soul, our consciousness, and our divine ātmā. Practicing yoga. Now, dekha dekhi sāje yoga, ghaṭhe kāya bade rog. If you are just imitating the yoga from the books or television, etc., yoga, dekha dekhi sājhe yog, ghaṭhe kāya bāḍe rog, your body will cease and disease and disease will come. We need a proper yogic master like our Gurujī. I don’t want to say again and again to him because I saw one in New Delhi, something Gurujī, Nāgendrajī. He had a wound between his toes and index finger. And there was, like I said, "Gurujī, should I bring some cream?" He said, "No, no, it will be okay." I said it will not be okay. After half an hour, I don’t know what he did, it was gone. It was gone. Gone. I’m sorry, Gurujī, that I’m again and again repeating this. So that is called yogic power. We have to practice yoga. Our practicing of yoga will not help anymore if we do not stop all these pesticides. What you in America, I’m sorry, America is very good and we are happy and good and everything, but the nourishment here is not good. So we can try everything, we can have many conferences, but our illness will not disappear, our life will not go anyhow, it is the time is gone. I had very nice experiences. I’m teaching yoga 55 years and organization of yoga around the whole world. Millions of people have learned yoga, they have become healthy in many, many ways, but this I don’t want to give my ego. Part 2: The Cave of Diamonds and the Power of the Navel There are two experiences I made long ago, which Nāgendraji reminded me of, and which I have practiced intensively over the last three years. If you don't mind, I will take a few minutes to share them, for tons of theory is nothing compared to a gram of practice. Many scientists are here. It will be... but our navel, the Nābhi Maṇipūra Chakra, is where our life begins. Our life is there; immortality is there. The Bindu Chakra, Amṛta is in the Bindu Chakra, but it is all in the navel. Many, many diseases can be cured. In the last three years, many people have become very healthy. Depression has gone away. Schizophrenia is becoming better and better. Those who have headaches, migraines, crying every third day, etc.—this is what I have found. There are two techniques. There are hidden powers in humans: chakras and Kuṇḍalinī. I have written one book about chakras. Now, we are all chanting Aum. If I may make a little correction—if you don't mind, my dear ones—please all sit straight. If you don't want to, don't do it. Afterwards, you will say, "Oh God, I should have done it too." There is one little story, a caveat, I will tell you very quickly. There were five students. They went into a cave, and one was a scientist. They went far, far into the cave, and one person said, "Where are we going? Let's go back, it's getting darker and darker." That student who was studying some science... he wanted to take some sand or stones from that cave from far away. A sound came: "Careful, if you take anything from here, you will be sorry." But this boy, who tried to make some experiment, again tried to kneel down and get stones. The voice said, "Careful." The others said, "Crazy boy, come on." They halted and tried to go back. A voice came again: "But I tell you, if you will not take, you will be sorry." They thought, "Oh God, there's a 'sorry'—we will be sorry if we don't take anything?" But still, he went down, took some stones, and went out of the cave. He looked, and they were all diamonds. The others said, "Oh God," but the cave had disappeared. So that cave is just now here. If you want to have the diamonds from your "Oṁ" chanting, you will experience something very good. Otherwise, it doesn't matter, my dear sisters and brothers. But then you will be sorry. Okay, Gurujī, you are giving me five minutes more. Thank you. Now, in our Devanāgarī letters or alphabets, whatever you said, begins with "uh." Please place your hand near your navel and say "uh, uh." Always, first from the navel, the sound comes from the navel when we speak. Double, "uh, uh," till the navel or the heart. A very good vocal cord. And that area near what we call our vocal cord—many have thyroid gland problems. Cure the problems only with these three-fourths. So again, we have to come to the navel, the nābhi. And the Nābhi bīja mantra is Rām, so Oṁ and Rām. This has developed into a beautiful technique, and many people have lost or cured their headache, depression, schizophrenia, thyroid issues, and are furthermore researching yoga in their life. So, thank you very much. I am sorry to take more of your time. How do you feel now? After this very short practice, we can probably spend more time with him when you find time. My personal apologies to Dr. Sukhatme for the presentation not being here earlier, but now we have it ready. So, please welcome Dr. Sukhatme again. Kanchan and, uh, Greg—let's see where Greg is. Thank you, thank you very much, and thank you to all of the organizers for this invitation. Untapped Opportunities in Cancer Treatment Lots of distinguished folks are here, and I’m absolutely delighted to be back in what I say is my home territory. As you all know, I moved just a few months ago to Atlanta, but this is where I grew up. So, thank you again for the chance to be here. This morning, I’d like to share with you some thoughts about untapped opportunities for cancer treatment. The theme here is that these ideas are affordable—amazingly affordable—very similar to what one could achieve with such things as yoga and Āyurveda. I’m going to tell you about repurposed drugs, primarily. Let me start with a question for you. Do any of you happen to recognize this slide? This is a tough one. If you’re not in this field, it’s hard to know. But this is a slide... I’m sorry, go ahead. It is a power plant, and it’s emitting some bad things, and it has to do with global warming, actually. So this is the cover of Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth. The reason I put this up is because this will probably be what you remember from this talk, because I’m going to tell you two more inconvenient truths. The first is that our current state of cancer care leaves much to be desired. I think most of you are aware of that; that’s a fair statement. And the second is that there do exist promising ideas that have scientific basis for treating cancer and other deadly diseases, that are not being developed because there is little financial incentive. In fact, it is because these ideas are remarkably affordable that few people are interested in them. So let’s go back to the first issue. What is the state of cancer care in 2018? I’d like to contend that it has three aspects: it’s costly, it is often toxic, and it is not always on target. A typical new cancer drug is now tagged at $100,000 to $150,000. There are some therapies now that are $400,000. Toxicity is non-trivial. Of course, chemotherapy—we know the side effects very well. But even some newer drugs are not exactly a walk in the park, and we often have very limited efficacy. Let’s be honest. First-line therapy for most solid tumors—if by efficacy we mean the ability to cause regression of the tumor or get rid of it—very roughly, what is that number? Is it 10%, 50%, 90%? If you’re lucky, it’s 50%. Most are 25% to 50%. And the duration of that response—how long before the tumor starts progressing again—is of the order of one year. In some cases, it’s two years. In rare cases do we cure. So there’s a lot to be desired. The fact that there are 600,000 U.S. deaths every year, 8 million worldwide; 1.7 million new cases in the U.S. and 14 million annually in the world, just tells us that our ability to prevent cancer, to prevent it from coming back after removal, or to treat advanced cancer still leaves quite a bit of space to work in. Given this data, you would think that if there were opportunities of the type I will tell you about today, we would have recognized them and done something. One of my goals is to convince some of you—perhaps folks in the Indian government—to take a lead in this and show the world, not that we’re followers, but that we can actually take a lead and teach something from these to the rest of the world, and benefit India as well. Very quickly, how do therapies reach patients? There has to be scientific promise at the beginning, typically animal data. Then, clinical studies, and after that, routine use in patients. These processes themselves are, first of all, costly. Typically, trials take one to two billion dollars to move forward. A typical new drug approved by the FDA in the U.S. costs over a billion dollars. They’re inefficient. Only one in ten drugs that enter phase one clinical trials ultimately gets approval. So we need to learn how to do trials better. The process is lengthy, typically taking seven to ten years before new drugs come to market from the time they first leave the laboratory. Pharmaceutical companies, understandably—and this is not blaming pharma; pharma brings together novel ideas for the most part—have to recoup their costs. They do an analysis: Is there price exclusivity? Intellectual property? How large is the market? Will it be reimbursed? What are the chances of success? Is the idea too crazy? If the return on investment is estimated to be too low, then these scientifically promising ideas just sit around. We’ve coined the term "financial orphans" for these ideas. Here are the big buckets of financial orphans. First, drugs already approved by the FDA that are now generic. Some are for diabetes or heart disease, where there is data they might help in cancer treatment. I’ll show examples. A second category is nutraceuticals or herbal products—Āyurvedic preparations, for example. I’m not talking about these today, as there are more expert people, but there are clear examples with significant scientific promise. Then, dietary or lifestyle manipulations. Of course, yoga falls in this huge bucket. If I were to tell cancer patients, "Do not eat sugar," because 70-80% of solid tumors are incredibly sugar-avid—a cancer cell takes in 10 to 20 times as much sugar per unit time as a normal cell—there is animal data suggesting high sugar intake makes tumors grow faster. Yet there’s not a single piece of advice telling you, "Do not eat sugar if you have cancer." Why? Because human data is not there in black and white, and no drug company will sponsor that. In fact, intravenous preparations in cancer therapy are mixed in sugar, which strikes me as odd. And there is candy at some of the world’s best cancer centers—also odd. The real tragedy is this: the ideas I’m going to tell you about are absolutely ready to be tested in rigorous studies, if one had the money and the willing people. Some can have a big impact, as I will try to show. And you’ve heard about the affordability. This is the value proposition: immediacy of testing, potential impact, and affordability. I like to solve problems. So does my wife, who’s my partner in many of these ideas, so we decided to start the nonprofit mentioned earlier: Global Cures. To be honest, it’s a bit of a mom-and-pop show. We have volunteers, and we’ve been at this for several years. We’re now at an inflection point. This is what it is: we look for these ideas. The focus has been on cancer. Where is there evidence? Sometimes it’s phase one studies, single-arm phase twos, case reports, or animal studies. We start a database—that’s what we’ve been doing. The idea is to raise enough money, if the ideas have enough scientific support, to actually do the clinical study. In some cases, additional preclinical studies are needed. I’ll give examples. We’ve been creating a database and developing a framework for thinking about cancer treatments. If you ask ten different oncologists how to treat cancer, there are many ideas. We’ve started developing a framework a bit different from mainstream ideas. We use that framework to prioritize ideas, generate additional data if needed, write protocols, convince people, and raise money. We even have ideas about starting a clinic to treat patients who have no time to wait, understanding the complexities around compliance, regulations, ethics, and payment. One reason I moved to Emory is to move some of these ideas into a university setting. A university is uniquely equipped to move this mission forward. A bit about cancer frameworks: is there a unifying framework? We should ask, why is it so hard to cure cancer? In one word: it’s a moving target. Cancer changes with time. A given tumor is heterogeneous; one cancer cell is not the same as the next. The primary mass is different from metastatic disease. That heterogeneity arises because cancer evolves. HIV is another evolving disease. Fast-forwarding, it was patients who demanded attention to HIV by combining drugs. Keep that in mind. One direction I’m going in is using FDA-approved drugs, not necessarily for cancer, in novel combinations. Cancer is hard to cure because it keeps changing. Single therapies often don’t work because the tumor is heterogeneous and changes. There has been acknowledgment of this. The initial focus was on the cancer cell itself and mutations. Then, heterogeneity, then non-cancerous cells that feed cancer cells: blood vessels, fibroblasts, immune cells. There is an ecosystem around a tumor. What about trying to collapse that ecosystem? That should be the goal, not just killing the cancer cell. The attention is slowly changing to this. I believe it should change further: think not just of the tumor tissue, but how it affects the whole body. The first thing you see in advanced cancer is emaciation, loss of muscle mass. The whole body is responding. These few kilograms of cancer cause a systemic effect. We’re just starting to recognize that. Here is the tumor microenvironment. Lots of cells are playing around. We’re starting to understand the interplay, and our chances of curing cancer go up if we pick off one or more components. I’ll simplify: how does evolution help the cancer cell? It either adapts to its environment or it moves. Growing a tumor, cells in the middle are hypoxic—not enough oxygen or nutrients. They have to adapt, or they die. Or they jump ship—what my wife and I call the Cuba effect: metastasize, move, take chances. So you adapt, move, or die. Look at the consequences. When you adapt, you survive; you’ve figured out how to get around treatments. If you go somewhere else, you metastasize. If you die, you might think that’s great—a cancer cell killed. But I’ll show data that even in death, these cells do bad things. The body’s response to a dying cancer cell creates immunosuppression. Events can awaken remaining cancer cells and dormant micrometastases. There are consequences of dying that very few recognize. What about adaptive responses? A cancer cell, due to oxygen shortage, has a hypoxia response. Due to nutrient shortage, cancer cells often eat parts of themselves—autophagy. I argue that common drugs exist that intercept one or more of these adaptive pathways. These drugs have existed for 20 years and are not used in cancer therapy. Here’s an example: a cancer cell eats part of itself because it can’t get enough nutrients. It loses differentiated functions but stays alive and duplicates. You can block this autophagic process using rapamycin and its cousins (used in cancer for other reasons) and a drug we in India know well: chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. This combination—inducing a cell to eat more of itself and then preventing it from finishing—can mess a cell up. Theoretically, there’s animal data. Is there human data? Here’s a study of 25 stage 4, widely metastatic cancer patients in China. They had no clinical response to first-line therapy and metronomic therapy. These patients were salvaged by adding these two drugs. The overall response rate was 40%—diminution of tumor size; nobody had complete regression. 40% had stable disease. Here’s somebody with prostate cancer: PSA falls when therapy starts. Look at responses in lung, colon, breast cancer patients. Remarkable data. It has never been replicated. There’s no trial in place. Another example: itraconazole, an antifungal drug. It blocks a critical pathway in maintaining cancer stem cells—a small group within a heterogeneous tumor largely resistant to chemotherapy. Here’s a trial with itraconazole. Look at the survival curve. The p-value is pretty good; hazard ratio is 0.2. Look at the increase in survival. A small study, but if this were pharma, the stock price would go up tenfold. Nobody has done the phase three trial. The author, a world leader in thoracic oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering, couldn’t get it funded. He told us, "If you can get it funded, we’ll do it." Now, about the dying business. When a cell dies, lots happen—what I call an injury response. Platelets come in and coagulate; an inflammatory response asks if there’s infection. If no infection, there’s immune suppression for repair—not what you want if cancer cells are floating around or have already spread. If you create a surgical wound while cells have spread, they can be woken up. Drugs can block the injury response: platelets can be blocked with non-steroidals; mast cell degranulation with cimetidine; neuronal excitation with propranolol, and perhaps meditative practices. I’ll give an example. We try to prevent cancer, treat it when localized (typically with surgery), or treat advanced disease. Let me talk about the second bucket: approach when cancer is localized. We typically operate, sometimes with chemo before or after. I’ll tell you about a therapy costing five cents, given once before surgery, that can affect long-term outcomes and recurrences. It was noticed that in breast cancer recurrence after surgical resection, some patients recur quickly within two years, then the probability trickles out. This suggests something in the act of surgery speeds up recurrences. Why do recurrences occur after removing the tumor? Only three reasons: cancer cells outside the surgical field that spread before or during surgery; surgery awakening dormant micrometastases; or de novo tumor genesis. Here’s evidence dormant cells exist. Fifty years ago, cells were implanted in the liver; after five months, no tumor growth. But if you do multiple surgeries away from the site, months later, plenty of tumors appear. This tells you injected cells stay alive long periods and can be awoken by surgery—scary stuff. A trial looked back at 300 women who underwent mastectomies and asked if anything at surgery decreased recurrences. It found that one dose of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory Ketorolac (Toradol), given preoperatively, decreased recurrence chances by about 60%. Here’s the curve. In the first two years, the peak disappears with preoperative Ketorolac. We tried to get this funded. There’s a trial in Pune, India, in head and neck cancer, and one in Belgium. But in the U.S., we failed; people said it can’t be true. For the last two and a half years, working with Manoj and Deepak Panigrahi and others, we’ve gathered data. I’ll show a few slides. In animals with implanted tumors, if you take the tumor out, the lungs are filled with micrometastases on the day of resection. Give one dose of Ketorolac. If you do nothing, all animals die within 20-30 days (control). If you give postoperative Ketorolac (standard practice), nothing changes. If you give one dose preoperatively, half live longer and the other half keep living. After one year, we looked inside. I’ll give you two choices: either a tumor in the lungs or not. How many vote for tumor? How many for disappearance? We seem to have a few more in the disappearance category. Part 3: A Paradigm Shift in Cancer Treatment and the Role of Integrative Medicine The answer is, there was nothing. Wait a moment. The slide appears to be deleted. The bottom line is: we found no tumor in the lung. We examined dozens of animals, and there was no tumor in the lung. How can that be? This indicates you unleashed an immune response at the time of surgery. Here is the basic idea: you remove the tumor. Tumors generally cause immunosuppression for various reasons. You decrease that immunosuppression, but you replace it with the injury response from surgery, which is also immunosuppressive. If you administer Ketorolac before surgery and mitigate that situation slightly, you can unleash an underlying immune response. We have extensive data on this and are about to publish a paper. The bad news is good news, but the bad news is that it is an immune response. We can show it is T-cell dependent, and so on. This means that if you give chemotherapy, potentially before or after surgery—and we have some data on this—it may eliminate this beneficial response. I am concerned that if this approach were tested in a trial where chemotherapy is a standard part of treatment, it might not work. In other words, within the cancer treatment community, we may have taken a slightly wrong turn. Chemotherapy is helpful for eliminating proliferating micrometastases, but in fact, these dormant cells can be awakened. This represents a significant paradigm shift, with more to come. A great deal of money could be saved. To conclude, I will address a question I promised to return to: Is it time to consider a clinic where, even without definitive clinical studies, we could start treating some patients with promising ideas of the type I have described? This is, needless to say, quite controversial. Such an endeavor must be done with suitable oversight, financial transparency, and clear tracking of outcomes—the numerator and denominator. The goal is to maximize the chances of success. It may even require developing novel diagnostics to better assess progress, diagnostics that are not being developed today because they are not immediately reimbursable. This is another entire area we could address. I envision such a clinic having a centralized group that generates a knowledge database, advises physicians, and tracks outcomes. A network of these "innovation clinics" could teach us a great deal. Finally, I wish to discuss potential collaborations between our work on this side of the Atlantic and initiatives in India. We are close to establishing a Center for Affordable Medical Innovation at Emory. Its goal will be to conduct preclinical and clinical studies on "financial orphans"—not just repurposed drugs—in the broadest sense and to set up an innovation clinic within the cancer center, initially focused on cancer. Other centers might focus on other diseases. Our organization would maintain a database and explore similar initiatives in a place like India. I have been reading about developments in India, such as the NCI (National Cancer Institute) taking shape. This could be a coordinating center for affordable cancer medicine, facilitating an exchange of ideas: creating databases of financial orphans, designing studies suitable for the U.S. or India, developing supporting preclinical data, conducting studies, helping set up clinical trial infrastructure in India, including advanced instrumentation and diagnostics, standardizing protocols, and exchanging scientists. Enormous opportunities exist here, requiring initiative from both central and state governments. To end, one of my favorite quotes is from Albert Einstein: we must stop doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. Despite all the wonderful progress in cancer research, this field is certainly one where this applies. Thank you all very much. Thank you, Dr. Sukhatme, for enlightening us on the world of cancer and research. For those who wish to meet him, he is available during breaks. Now, I request Dr. Manoj Nesari, Chief Advisor to the Ministry of Ayush in India, to deliver a personal message from the Honorable Minister. Dr. Nesari: Thank you for this opportunity to express a few words on behalf of the Honorable Minister for Ayush and the Ministry. I am here representing the ministry. The Government of India is committed to promoting traditional medicine. Consequently, the erstwhile Department of Āyush, part of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, was elevated to a separate Ministry of Ayush—the Ministry of Traditional Medicine—on November 9, 2014. Since then, the ministry has been committed to promoting traditional medicine. In the last three to four years, we have established collaborations with many countries and institutes and undertaken significant research projects, some of which have been published. We are also looking forward to cooperation at the federal level with U.S. government authorities like the NIH and FDA, having had several rounds of meetings. We have also organized two national conferences between India and the U.S. for cooperation, attended by the U.S. Ambassador to India. We are trying to establish institute-level collaborations with different universities, and some of my friends here are exploring collaboration through MOUs or collaborative research and academic programs. The ministry is open and welcomes proposals. We can extend cooperation and explore how Ayurveda can be part of integrative medicine. AYUSH is an acronym: 'A' for Ayurveda, 'Y' for Yoga, 'U' for Unani, 'S' for Siddha, and 'H' for Homeopathy. The ministry has also moved a proposal for AYUSH to be recognized as a word itself representing traditional medicine, which has been officially accepted—a significant achievement. I am thankful to the organizers. The Honorable Minister was very willing to attend despite a packed schedule. As you know, June 21st is the International Day of Yoga. The main program in India was organized in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, with the Prime Minister and the Minister in attendance. ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) collaborated with the Ministry of Ayush for real-time mapping of yoga demonstrations across the country and the world using satellites—a program performed with great enthusiasm. We are here to learn more about your work. I am especially thankful to Dr. Balram, Dr. (Mrs.) Kanchan Banerji, and Greg Fershan for this initiative. I also appreciate the presence of ICCR Chairman Dr. Vinay Saraswat, a long-time friend who has cooperated with the Ministry of Ayush. We have gifts to be given on behalf of the Minister. Since Dr. Vinay Saraswat is here, I request him to felicitate a few experts at the end of this session: Dr. Balram Singh, Dr. Kanchan Banerjee, and Dr. Greg Fershan. The ministry celebrated the International Day of Yoga yesterday, and we have brought yoga t-shirts to give to all dignitaries on the dais. Thank you to Dr. Vinayaji and all the organizers. We look forward to stronger cooperation. Thank you. That was unexpected and generous. Thank you, Dr. Nesari, for being here in the Minister's absence. We are running a little late, but I intentionally switched the order so our Honorable Consul General, Mr. Sandeep Chakraborty, could see the proceedings before addressing us. Please welcome Mr. Sandeep Chakraborty. Consul General Sandeep Chakraborty: Namaskār. I am neither a yogī nor a doctor, so it is a hard act to follow such masterly presentations. I am a diplomat. In diplomatic school, they say: when a diplomat says yes, it means maybe; when a diplomat says maybe, it means no; and when a diplomat says no? He never says no. So when Kanchan Banerjee asked me to speak at this conference of doctors and yogīs, I couldn't say no. I congratulate this initiative, which we in the Government of India, including our presence in the United States, believe in and support. Yesterday, we held a two-day conference on yoga at the consulate on its science and tradition. I will speak on a topic close to my heart: the environment, and the link between environment and yoga. My topic is sustainability. How much time do I have? Twelve minutes? Please wave if I exceed my time. Sustainability Inside Out: The Significance of a Culture of Yoga as a Means of Transformation Recently, on June 5, we celebrated World Environment Day with great concern about plastic pollution, dying rivers and oceans becoming dumping grounds, climate change, and sustainable development. These are buzzwords from classrooms to boardrooms and world summits. Underlying this concern is a deep-seated conflict between modern human lifestyle and Mother Nature. This conflict is the root cause of all crises: environmental degradation, climate change, global warming, water scarcity, food insecurity, conflict, migration, anxiety, depression, suicide, addiction, gun violence, broken relationships, and pervasive despair. Our day-to-day disconnect with nature is near complete. Once, we drank from rivers or streams and plucked fruit from trees. We produced and consumed only what we needed. Most ailments were treated with herbs and minerals and dietary modifications, addressing underlying causes. Today, water comes through pipes; we drink it unmindful of its origin and abuse it, unaware of depletion and pollution. Many children believe water is made in supermarket bottles. We consume food without knowing its origin or the cost of its production, unaware of the fragile food chain. The medical industry primarily treats symptoms with synthetic chemicals that often have harmful side effects. Greed and exploitation have skyrocketed. Chronic undernutrition in some parts of the world is matched by profligacy, waste, overconsumption, obesity, and lifestyle illnesses elsewhere. We have collectively realized the severity of planetary degradation, resource depletion, and the threat to human safety and survival. But have we fully understood the underlying cause and the holistic, lasting, transformative solution focusing on the human as the singular agent of change? I humbly posit we have not. I propose a different way to approach this unprecedented challenge. High-level meetings address climate change. The Paris Agreement aims to strengthen the global response by keeping temperature rise well below 2°C this century. To achieve this, financial flows, a new technology framework, and capacity-building are to support developing countries. This is fine, but does it address the fundamental issue? I think not, because amidst the hubris of technology and investment, it fails to mention the principal actor: we humans. Nation-states don't pollute; humans do. Pollution impacts humans across political boundaries, yet no communiqué mentions the human, how he or she behaves and will contribute. The Paris Agreement mentions internationally and nationally determined actions, but what about individually determined actions? Does any talk of the human being changing, being austere and frugal, consuming only what is needed? Does anyone talk of changing consumerism, reducing demand? Is anyone conscious that most things made today are thrown away, often unused, like food? No, because that contradicts economic theory, growth, and the market economy. Austerity and frugality are bad words, considered antediluvian. The Upaniṣad proclaims, "Ahaṁ Brahmāsmi"—I am all-encompassing existence, universal consciousness. The Chāndogya Upaniṣad proclaims, "Tat Tvam Asi"—so are you. Both were written between 600 and 700 BC, according supremacy to human consciousness and its oneness with all creation and the creator. Swami Vivekananda, who visited Boston 125 years ago, said, "Nature is homogeneous. Differentiation is in manifestation." The Sanskrit word for nature is Prakṛti, meaning differentiation. All is one substance, manifested variously. The five elements—earth, fire, water, air, and ether—are as much us as the mountains, forests, rivers, plants, and animals. These are differentiated manifestations of a homogeneous substance. This is not mere metaphysical speculation; modern quantum physics leads to the same conclusion. Albert Einstein said, "A human being is a part of the whole called the universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Our oneness with creation is not just spiritual speculation; modern science leads us here too. Climate change and environmental concerns cannot be divorced from our inner lives. The problem, its implications, and the solutions are not outside us; they are part of us. It is a consequence of how we think and act. Although we may not be conscious, we experience it every moment. The essential oneness of humans with creation has been articulated unequivocally over the ages. Many want minimal environmental damage and try methods from individual behaviors—reducing, reusing, upcycling, recycling—to activism. Many consider converting entire lifestyles to sustainable ways. This is great, but is it enough? Assuming technology and money will clean the dirt is a fallacy; they cannot be a panacea. We will forever be in mitigation mode, not primary prevention. Understanding nature and approaching environmental protection in a fragmented, piecemeal way will not work. We must see it comprehensively and holistically in terms of connectedness. How do we approach the problem holistically, harmoniously, and sustainably? Where do we begin? What cultural and paradigmatic shifts are needed for true transformation, not incremental changes constantly catching up with unmet needs? Can the science and culture of yoga, where we strive for oneness with oneself, surroundings, and the universe, help? It is easy to understand interconnectedness intellectually, but intellectual understanding does not ensure transformation. We know smoking is harmful, but why do we still smoke? Why is there a deep conflict between knowledge and action? Only when we connect to our inner consciousness and resolve inner contradictions between knowledge, thoughts, emotions, and actions will we embrace the fundamental truth of existence: the essential interconnectedness and oneness of life. Then we will be in total harmony with our inner and outer lives and creation, recognizing its true beauty. Until then, we remain schizophrenic humans. How do we resolve this contradiction? How do we awaken our inner consciousness about our environment and realize it in conscious actions? Yoga provides a potent technology. Yoga means union—of the soul and the entire creation. Yogic practice enhances consciousness and sharpens perception, leading to total harmony with creation, a state where all boundaries disappear and contradictions resolve. Once conscious that we are part of the whole, how can we pollute the water we drink, contaminate the air we breathe, or poison rivers and destroy forests? Mahatma Gandhi said, "There is enough in this world for everyone’s need, but not enough for one’s greed." This is the central yogic message. Yoga is about self-awareness, conscious decisions, and actions. Consciousness distinguishes āsanas from exercises. It is about being reflective, not impulsive. Sustainable living must be practiced first at the individual level, then society, then globally. Where will motivation for individual action come from? Not from the Paris Agreement or scientific tomes. We can believe in climate change not just by clinical evidence, but by looking inside ourselves. The answer is simply within. Along with oversight, we foremost require insight into ourselves and our real self-interest as conscious beings. Environmental control seldom works; self-control almost always works. If we decide from within to live in harmony with nature, we need no accord, agreement, investment, or fines. We will do it as habit, as our nature. Inspiration for combating climate action must come from within. Every action contributes to some aspect of the world. Just being conscious of that will keep us inspired. Inspired souls change the world. The operative word is inner. If you are convinced in your innermost cells that we must change environmental abuse, we will do so naturally. If convinced from your inner calling that vegetarianism is good for yourself and the world, it won't take a second to stop eating meat. If convinced from within that plastics are destroying marine life, it doesn't take a second to stop using plastics. We don't need a straw for our Starbucks coffee. All behavioral changes come when we have the strength to make the inner journey—this is the essence of yoga. Śrīla Prabhupāda, founder of ISKCON, said a conscious person is humbler than the grass and bowed down like fruitful trees, discharging duty with great responsibility. Can a conscious person inflict pain on Mother Nature? The answer is an emphatic no. The life of yogīs is replete with messages of austerity and simplicity. Yoga engenders consciousness, sensitivity, and the need for balance. This is the culture of yoga that needs to pervade the world. Paramahaṁsa Yogananda said, "It is not your passing thoughts or brilliant ideas so much as your plain everyday habits that control your life. Live simply. Don’t get caught in the machine of the world. It is too exacting. By the time you get what you are seeking, your nerves are gone, the heart is damaged, and the bones are aching. Resolve to develop your spiritual powers more honestly from now. Learn the art of right living. If you have joy, you have everything. So learn to be glad and contented. Have happiness now." What greater joy than living in the lap of nature in total harmony? How will we attain this without the culture of yoga becoming world culture? The UN Commission on Environment and Development states, "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Conventional wisdom cites three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social, and economic. But where is the pillar for humans? I say the absent fourth pillar is the most important—it has to do with us, our body, mind, and soul. Nature or divinity resides within us. When we realize this, we gain the strength and courage for the inward journey. Then we not only discover ourselves but also realize we can only prosper spiritually and materially if we are in harmony with others and nature. I was told that while speaking in Boston, one should always quote a Bostonian. I quote Emerson from his essay "The Over-Soul": "Within man is the soul of the whole, the wise silence, the universal beauty, to which every part and particle are equally related to the eternal one, and this deep power in which we exist, and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen." Part 4: The Seer and the Spectacle Are One The seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree, but the whole of which these are the shining parts is the soul. I seek your indulgence for one minute more. I would conclude my talk with a quote from the Ṛg Veda. I think this is the earliest, the oldest green prayer that was ever written, composed between 1500 to 1200 BC. From the Ṛg Veda, it says: "May the plants be sweet," that is, filled with nature’s bounty. "May the sky and the air be sweet," filled with nature’s clarity. "May the world’s waters be sweet," filled with nature’s purity. "May the space be sweet," that it may remain unpolluted. "May the Lord, the Creator, be sweet to us, and may we be devoted followers of the Creator." That is, may we take gentle recourse to nature’s bounty and prosper. Thank you for your attention. As he said, he is a diplomat. I did not expect this from him. There was a wealth of knowledge in his presentation. Thank you so much, Mr. Chakraborty. Quickly, we’re going to have—we’re running a little late—we’re going to have a couple of quick announcements. No? Okay. I request Dr. Pūrṇimā, who is a part of our organizing committee, to introduce our chairperson, Dr. H.R. Nāgendraji. Thank you, Kanchan. Namaskār. It is with great pleasure, it is actually an honor for me to have this role of introducing Dr. H.R. Nāgendra. He is the president of S-VYASA. He is chairman of the International Day of Yoga Experts Committee, chairman of the Task Force of Ayush, and chairman of the SAC of CCRYN, Government of India, Ministry of Ayush. Dr. Nāgendra is now Chancellor of Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Saṁstha in Bangalore. It is supposed to be a university. He has published 30 research papers in engineering, authored and co-authored 110 papers on yoga, and co-authored 35 books on yoga. He has guided nearly 20 PhD students. With great pleasure, I ask everybody to welcome Dr. H.R. Nāgendra. Congratulations to Kanchan and the entire team who have organized this third international conference to bring about the essential features of yoga and Āyurveda and their possible applications to develop integrated medical programs. What a wonderful thing to hear Sukhadmejī, who gave a new perspective as to how we have to look at cancer. Similarly, Kansaljī told how we have to bring about sustainability. The essential feature, as has been given by Yoga and Āyurveda, is to take less and less for ourselves and give more and more to society. What has happened now is we want more and more for ourselves as we grow. In the name of economy, we want to have more and more for ourselves and less and less for others. This has to be reversed. That only can bring the sustainability that is through austerity and simplicity. Looking at Yoga and Āyurveda and the entire Āyur system, the knowledge base is not limited only to the physical dimension. Modern medical science, based on modern science, is limited to the physical world. For 400 years, we have made great strides to understand everything about the physical world. Every object is made of molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons, fundamental particles made out of quarks, and energy packets. Everything is nothing but energy, we have understood. The whole physical world is nothing but the manifestation of that electromagnetic field, the energy field. That’s where we have achieved. But our ancient seers, thousands of years back in India, fathomed the entire creation. This is the grossest form of the universe. Then we have the prāṇic field, often translated as the bioplasmic field. Then we have the mind field, called the astral field. Then we have the vijñānamaya kośa, the wisdom field. And the causal field is the ānandamaya kośa, the bliss field. So there are five fields which are in continual operation to bring about this total generation, the entire creation called Jagat. And as the word indicates, Jagat, Jagatyān Jagat, that which goes on changing and changing and changing, features the Jagat, or the creation. So if everything is changing, is there something that does not change? For the question that took place. And as most of you know, the great Buddhistic philosopher said and brought about this Kṣaṇikavāda. He said, in the world everything is changing and changing, and he developed a new model of this entire creation. But one of his brilliant students asked him a question: "If everything is changing, is there something that does not change?" He did not answer that; he kept mum. But the later group, the Mahāyāna group who came there, they said it is śūnya. They are called śūnyavādīs. A zero vacuum. But when Śaṅkarācārya came later, how is it possible? This fantastic world that we have, can it come from a zero? Can it come from a vacuum? Can it come from a śūnya? No. It should be pūrṇa. He brought the Advaita Vāda and wrote a big thesis, saying that that also should be full. Pūrṇaṁ pūrṇam udacyate. This word is pūrṇa, that also should be pūrṇa. Don’t say that is śūnya. So what is the relation between the two? Pūrṇaṁ pūrṇam udacyate. This word comes from that pūrṇa. When this pūrṇa comes from that pūrṇa, what happens to that? Well, it becomes zero. X minus X is zero. But that is the law of the finite world. The law of the infinite world says infinity minus infinity can be infinity. Pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādhāya pūrṇam eva avaśiṣyate, it is said. That when this jagat comes from that infinite, that remains unchanged. This is the whole knowledge base that our ancient seers fathomed and gave us. So then the jagat, which goes on changing and changing, is featured by consciousness. And Patañjali said it is mind, citta. Citta is the mind-stuff. Just like we have energy at the base of this physical world, the mind is at the base of this entire creation. Manomayaṁ idaṁ jagat. As it is said, this entire jagat is made out of mind. What characterizes the mind? It is featured by consciousness. It can change by itself. It can expand by itself. It can contract by itself. And there are various dimensions of the mind. And Patañjali talked about five dimensions of the mind: Pramāṇa, Viparyaya, Vikalpa, Nidrā, Smṛti. Essentially, they can be Kliṣṭa or Akliṣṭa. These five dimensions can cause a lot of problems for us, creating tensions, stresses, diseases, challenges, and imbalances. Everything can be created, or this can also be neutral. They may not create any problem, and we can have this thing. So each of these five dimensions has two, Kliṣṭa and Akliṣṭa, they say. And then the manifest and the unmanifest thoughts: The Vyakta and the Avyakta, the kinetic and the potential. Pramāṇa, Viparyaya, Vikalpa, are the three manifest forms of this mind. The unmanifest are the Nidrā and the Smṛti, that is the deep sleep in which we don’t have dreams, called Suṣupti, and the whole storehouse of our memory is called Smṛti. So we have the manifest and the unmanifest. This forms the entire creation, and all these things are changing and changing. So now, when we are in the state of complete knowledge of the Pramāṇa, the right knowledge, then you have no disease. You have no problems. You are in the state of highest bliss. You are in the state of perfect health, in the state of all power. And people who lived in this, the Vijñānamaya Kośa is called, they are called Trikālak Jñānīs. And they can fathom through the time dimension fully, and all their actions are governed by this total knowledge. And it is not only the epic characters such as Śrī Rāma or Kṛṣṇa, but India excelled with such great masters in every state. We are Sant Jñāneśvar from Maharashtra. We are Śaṅkarācārya from Kerala. We had Swāmī Nārāyaṇa from Gujarat. We had a large number of Siddhas from Tamil Nadu. We had Raṅgavendra Mahāsvāmīgal and others from Andhra and Karnataka. And we had a host of Haṭha Yoga masters of the highest renown from Madhya Pradesh. We had Lāharī Maharṣi, Yukteśvar Giri from the western part of Calcutta and West Bengal. And if you go to the things here, Punjab, we had Guru Nānak, greatest of the seers. And in Kashmiri Śaivism, hosts of the greatest of the Kashmiri, so India abounds with such great masters of the highest renown, and they can do and undo things. They are the ones who set the entire set of laws for leading the ideal social order, and that is why India is not just a Puṇya Bhūmi, but it is a Divya Bhūmi. So that’s the reason of Pramāṇa, the highest knowledge base, the total knowledge base, and when you are tuned to that, you have no disease, you have no tension, you have no stress, you have infinite bliss, you are in the state of perfect health. That we can call the highest level of realization of the purport of jñāna, let us say. Then you come down, and the jñāna starts reducing. Then you start developing various forms of jñāna. The first thing that happens is the viparyaya. The viparyaya is the wrong knowledge. That’s the root cause for many of the elements that we see. What is the wrong knowledge? You have got jaundice, and you think the whole world has become yellow. And you are going in the evening, something long is there, you think it is a big serpent. But when you put the torch, it is just a rope. Seeing a snake in a rope, rājju sarpa. Or you are rid with fear, and you are going, you see a ghost in a post. These are all features of viparyaya. So, because of this viparyaya, many things start happening. Schizophrenia at the mental level is one such. So I have a wrong notion embodied, and it creates such a great problem: schizophrenia. But when it comes down to the lower level, it can cause cancer; it can cause diabetes. And as Sukhadmejī was mentioning, we have a new way of looking at it. Similarly, look at it from the yogic and Āyurvedic perspective, cancer in a different way. Cancer cells are not powerful viruses from outside. They are all born in our body. In every body, a billion cells are created every day, and a billion cells are destroyed every day. Every day, out of these billion cells that are created, maybe a thousand or two thousand are created as naughty children. They are the cancer cells. They escape the law of apoptosis, programmed cell death, and our immune system has that capacity. It knows who is a friend, who is an enemy. That is the specialty of our immune system, a defense. And it governs all such things because it knows cancer cells are my enemies and takes care of them. Not only thousands of cancer cells, but a large number of viruses and infectious things, they also come from outside, are all gobbled up by the immune system, and we are all normal. But somehow something happens, and the immune system gets into that viparyaya, a wrong knowledge. It thinks that my, these cancer cells are my good friends, you know. And when it thinks it is a good friend, then it doesn’t gobble them up. Therefore, they go on increasing. In five years, ten years, fifteen years, they become tumors, they become cancer cells, and, as I said, it is impossible to do these things. So, what is the root cause for the cancer that Yoga and Āyurveda look at? That is the wrong knowledge, the viparyaya. And the result of viparyaya is the prajñāparādha, the wrong notions. If cancer is one form of viparyaya, there is another form of viparyaya in diabetes. In diabetes, we have the insulin being produced in the beta cells of the pancreas. And normally when we take food, the sugar level goes up, and it sends the signals to the beta cells to send the insulin to come. And the insulin is produced, it comes there, and the sugar level is maintained under control. But somehow, something happens to this immune system. It thinks that insulin is a big enemy. So when the insulin is coming from the beta cells of the pancreas, "Oh, you want to go and spread throughout the body? I will not allow you." It creates the autoimmune barrier. It’s called autoimmunity. And though the insulin is produced here in the beta cells, it’s not available to the bloodstream. Therefore, again, it sends a signal: "Hey, what happened? Two seconds back, I asked you to send insulin. You have not sent it." Signal. What is to be done? Again it produces more insulin. Again it’s contained. This is another form of the viparyaya, that thinking that the insulin is an enemy. In cancer, you think that cancer cells are my good friends. This is a distorted perspective that comes up. So unless you remove this jñāna, unless you remove this wrong notion, unless you remove this viparyaya, you have no solution. And what is the result of that viparyaya? Then you start doing things which are not to be done. It’s called prajñāparādha. Every diabetic knows that they should not eat sweets. But when you go there, the doctor says, "Now I know you love your sweets, but you have to put a complete stop." Because your sugar levels are going so high—500, 600—and the HbA1c level is going to 9, 10, 15. Stop all sweets. Oh, without sweets, what is life? Doctor, doctor, at least can I have some sugar in my coffee or tea? No, that also you should not. And life becomes so insipid, and somehow you are carrying on. Fifteen days later, there is a big party lined up for your friend’s daughter’s marriage. And you go there, and you see nowadays how the marriages occur. And it spreads everywhere at all number of sweets, and you start looking at them. And what happens? The Kurukṣetra war. Kurukshetra war. The tongue is demanding, "Come on, go and eat, go and eat." Buddhi, endocrinologist, endocrinologist, nothing, nothing, nothing. A big war starts. That is the war, not of the Kurukṣetra war, but of the war that goes on inside on a daily basis. And the tongue says, "Come on, come on, eat. After all, what’s going to happen? Go to a diabetologist, take one more diabetic tablet or maybe one more insulin pill. Come on, eat. Life is for enjoyment. Come on, go ahead. And you are not doing anything wrong. It’s a great selfless service you are doing. How? If you don’t do that, how do the endocrinologists survive? How do the doctors survive? Come on, go and eat." So he started going, eating, and all these things, and he had done something which is wrong, which is not to be done. That’s called prajñāparādha in Āyurveda. And as a result of that, a big imbalance is created. The mind goes haywire and gets into such turmoil. The same thing happens in depression, in addiction, in asthma, and many other things, in the wrong notion. And then it percolates down and causes imbalance at the prāṇa level. The prāṇic field completely gets disturbed and comes to the body level and becomes an ādhi, a stress reaction. And that is called as daivāhāti. This is the whole understanding of yoga and Āyurveda in the dimensions of treatment of these modern NCDs. And what is the solution? Unless you remove this viparyaya, unless you remove this prajñāparādha and do the action rightly, you don’t have a solution. That’s why you do all the things, even early diagnosis of cancer you do, and after one or two or three or four years, again you get back because the root cause you have not removed. So all that we do is radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery, and we have no solution. So, therefore, we started doing this integrated approach of yoga therapy and Āyurveda therapy for the last 35 years and have treated a large number of such people. And we found that this can be remedied very effectively. Even cancer patients at the third and fourth and tenth stages were treated very effectively. And we did a lot of research, randomized control trials, and then mechanism studies. Really, we wanted to see whether the immune system is really going to blossom. So we positioned all the immune parameters, and Dr. Raghavendra in the C.G. is going to tell our work that we have done in the scientific way, and that’s how we have been able to show. And then we want to understand what is going to happen to the DNA repair mechanisms and what happens at the apoptotic level. Can we change this dimension? All that we have measured and shown, this yoga could be very, very effective. And therefore, we have a big research project going on in Houston, Texas, here in breast cancer. And 3-ohm trial and 660 patients of breast cancer are being treated by yoga as an adjunct. And the results are very enchanting, and in a few more months we are going to complete this dimension. Therefore, using this number of papers that we have been able to publish, we took up this big project on integrative cancer research in India. Similarly, in diabetes, we took 2 years back, we did screening of 2.5 lakh people in 60 districts, and we measured all the parameters. Thanks to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, we were able to bring them together and got wonderful results, and we are going to publish papers in the high-end journals there. And now it has become a national program in India, thanks to our Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Nadaji, who said, "Yes, we have to bring these benefits to everybody in the society." So it has become a national program. Similarly, for cancer, we are taking up two crores of people to screen throughout the country in 120 districts, and we measure what the things are. That is, then bring the awareness for early diagnosis and prevention through Āyurveda, the prevention of cancer. Then we have a big RCT trial that is being planned, and a big multicentric trial on 10,000 people for oral cancer and cervical cancer. And the understanding of the mechanism, how it works at various levels. And then the most important is the palliative care. Unfortunately, when cancer patients go into the third and fourth stage, there is not enough support for cancer palliative care. Therefore, we have developed the integrative palliative care, in which we have the modern medical system and also the Āyurvedic system. All the Ayush experts came together and joined to give the remedies for the main symptoms of this palliative care. There are twelve symptoms that have been identified for each of these things. We have got remedies from yoga, naturopathy, siddha, yunānī, homeopathy, and āyurveda, and this has been developed as a protocol for dealing with different symptoms, and we are trying to bring them together and see that it goes. And this is how now we are taking up this thing in a scaled-up model in the country and seeing that it completes. So this is how the integrative approach can bring about a new dimension based on a very strong theoretical base and philosophical base, and can bring about the things. So we have to prove it by modern scientific research. Combining the best of the East with the best of the West is what Swami Vivekananda said, and that’s what we are doing. And this conference on integrative medicine is another step towards this dimension, and we hope with the experts who are joined here, we will be able to bring these cohesive things by synergizing the efforts of all yoga, Āyurveda experts and modern medical experts are coming together to evolve a new dimension of total health care delivery system, which should be very effective, have no side effects, and be evidence-based and cost-effective. This dimension we have to develop. That is going to be the role of the integrative medicine that we are going to bring about. And once again, I congratulate Mr. Padmajī and Kanchanjī and Balramjī and all this wonderful team who have joined to form this wonderful Integrative Council Conference. And I wish you all the best. You know, I wish we could hear more from him. As you know, he is a scientist. To begin with, he was at NASA and at Harvard for some time, doing engineering-related science work. He went back to India and started this S.V.Y.A.S.A. Institute, the world’s largest yoga research institute, and therapy, and all this is going on. So, those of you who are interested to get actual experience of what he was talking about, tomorrow morning at 7:30, he will be doing a guided meditation. And, special, he has developed a cyclical meditation, very special. You can attend that at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow at the Rotunda, which is on the third floor. So there are a few people signed up. It’s first come, first served. So don’t be late, otherwise you’ll miss it. I know we’re running late, but before we go, there are two small things. One is, I request Mr. Pramil Makode to read a message just came from the Honourable Health Minister of India, Mr. J.P. Nadda. Pramit is our co-chair of this event, and he’s an IT professional and one of the directors of our board. Thank you. Thanks, Kanchanjī. Two months ago, our delegation met with the Honourable Health Minister of India, J.P. Naddājī, and we all got inspired by the knowledge and the passion that he had for integrative medicine, and particularly his interest in cancer. He was very much willing to come to Boston and be part of this, but again, because of the time constraint, he could not. Last week, he promised that very soon he will be visiting this innovation capital of the world, so we will be welcoming him very soon. I will quickly go through his message. His message: I am delighted to know that the Boston Center of Excellence for Health and Human Development, S. Vyāsa, Bengaluru, in collaboration with Indo-U.S. Health Initiatives and other institutions are organizing the 3rd International Conference on Integrative Medicine: Role of Yoga and Ayurveda from June 22nd to 24th at the Harvard Medical School. It is a well-known fact that since ancient times, India has established a very unique health care system for the benefit of not only human beings but also for animals. The world knows well the names of Dhanvantari, Caraka and Suśruta, albeit without a definitive time frame for when they walked on the earth to give tremendous knowledge and a system for human well-being, not just physical but also mental, emotional and spiritual. The ideas embedded in Yoga and Āyurveda are all about integration. Integral approach to health is the need of the hour. It is so heartening to see that the organizers of the third international conference on integrative medicine, which is bringing modern medicine together with yoga and Āyurveda, have incorporated a truly integrative approach in their program schedule. This event is going to be a major milestone for the integrative medicine community around the world. I wish the organizers great success for the conference. Thanks, Jagat Prakāś Nāḍā. Thank you. And as a concluding part of this session, as you know, we are honored to have Dr. Vinay Saraswat. He has come all the way from India, the member of parliament and also the president of ICCR, and would like to say just a couple of words. I know he was hesitant to speak now because he’s having a keynote later on today, but I’m requesting if you please suggest, say a few words. Thank you, Kanchanjī. In fact, having heard Dr. Nāgendra, Dr. Nāgendraji, perhaps it is not required even to comment for a couple of minutes, as was… as has been proposed by Kanchanji. But nonetheless, as a part of formality, I am just sharing four points with you. First of all, whatever originates in the East, and more particularly in India, is considered mystic. Something about which people don’t know, and they believe that it’s very difficult to know about or to understand. And therefore, I believe whether it is yoga, Āyurveda, or anything else, it requires to be demystified. That is perhaps the agenda point number one, as I understand. I mean, I must confess that I am certainly not any kind of researcher into yoga and Āyurveda. These are not my subjects, but still, whatever as a layman I understand, I believe what is required is demystification. Secondly, while on the one hand, Āyurveda and Yoga are considered extremely simple, on the other hand, they are also considered deeply profound. And therefore, I believe the simplicity and profoundness need to go hand in hand. We need not underscore the profoundness at the cost of simplicity, or vice versa. Thirdly, I believe, since we are talking about traditional medicines and the conference is also about traditional medicines, although the current conference is basically focusing on Yoga and Āyurveda, there are many such traditional medicinal systems, as I understand. There is a Tibetan system. There are certain systems in the Romans, and maybe in Latin America also, there could be some systems of those who are believing or who are adherent of the Maya culture and things like that. So, whether all these traditional systems can be brought together on one platform, and then whether we can also learn from each other, I am sure we will find, at the end of the day, several commonalities which will help us in our health care regime in general. Lastly, I would suggest that wherever traditional medicine is being practiced or some research is being undertaken, like the S. Vyāsa University, which is founded and led by Honorable Dr. Nāgendraji, some young researchers of what is called modern medicine and things like that need to be taken over there, need to be shown about it, need to be undergoing some experience of the therapies that are being conducted. Unless and until we do that, the kind of common ground that we are all looking for perhaps cannot be achieved. With these words, I extend all my best wishes for the success of this conference. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Saraswatī. We are going to end this session, and right away we’ll start the next session. But before we do that formality, I request all our organizing committee members to come, and we’ll take a quick group picture. It will take just a couple of minutes, if you please. I’m not calling anybody’s name, and just one quick announcement. The next session, the two sessions have been switched because one of the speakers will have to leave, you know, because we’re running a little late. And while we are all gathering, I want to thank all the people sitting in the audience. Some I know, someone, so two people came from all the way from China, where is Young and Trishi, and, from all the way from Germany, we have our Maharṣi Maheś Yogī representative is here, we have people from Austria and many, many countries from around the world, from Austria. Who are the people, please raise your hands? And I don’t remember all the countries, I think someone from Australia. So thank you all for being here, and our special thanks to our Dr. Darśana Śaṅkarjī, he came all the way with bad health. He came, Dr. Viśan Patvardhanjī, Dr. Mutalik, and many, many of you. I don’t see everybody’s face, so thank you for being with us, and we’ll listen to you later in the sessions. Thank you. Come, sit here. I’ll sit here. Thank you. Done, right? Thank you. Not here.