E196 - Dr. Vasant Lad: The Doctor From India: The Forgotten 5,000-Year-Old Science of the Human Body (Ayurveda

Dr. Vasant Lad is the founder of the Ayurvedic Institute and the man most responsible for bringing Ayurveda to the West. He has spent over 40 years teaching this 5,000-year-old science of life to practitioners across the world, and in this conversation, we sat down together at SoHum Mountain Healing Center in Asheville, North Carolina, where I had just completed a week-long Panchakarma. What unfolded was one of the most quietly profound conversations I have had on this show.

What We Dive Into:
• ​ Why unprocessed emotions don’t simply pass — and how grief settles in the heart, anger in the liver, and fear in the kidneys until they’re physically released.
• ​ How your tongue, pulse, and face reveal what’s happening inside your body, often before any symptom appears.
• ​ Why your original constitution (prakruti) shapes everything from your digestion to your temperament — and how modern life pulls you away from it.
• ​ The gap between two breaths, and why Dr. Lad calls it an ocean of awareness available to anyone willing to sit in it.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS:

sohumhealing.com/panchakarma-retreat
Code AndrePK2026 for $500 off your Panchakarma

functionhealth.com/KNOWTHYSELF
Code KNOWTHYSELF25 for $25 off membership

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00:00 Intro
01:58 What Ayurveda Actually Means
02:40 The Five Elements, Three Doshas, and the Body
06:18 Prakruti, Vikruti, and the Root of Disease
08:00 The Sankhya Philosophy Behind Ayurveda
13:33 The Goal of Ayurveda
15:26 Dr. Lad's Path: Guru, Calling, and Coming West
18:06 Where Western Medicine Falls Short
22:05 Ama, Agni, and the Ayurvedic View of Disease
25:56 Pulse, Tongue, and Face: The Art of Diagnosis
34:29 Reading Psychological Nature Through the Pulse
39:00 The Gap Between Breaths: Awareness and Mysticism
44:37 How Repressed Emotions Crystallize in the Body
47:39 Panchakarma: Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Cleansing
51:52 Ojas, Tejas, and Prana: The Vital Essences
56:18 Sexual Energy, Celibacy, and the Cultivation of Ojas
1:00:07 Life as Meditation: The Unified Field
1:06:00 The Ayurvedic View of Death and Dying
1:14:56 Dinacharya: The Daily Routine as Spiritual Practice
1:18:48 The Doshic Clock and the Yugas
1:25:22 Relationship, Self-Knowledge, and the Closing Message
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