Learn The Law Of Nature, The Science Of Life, And How To Live Your Life In Harmony
Dr. John Douillard on the secret of life and the fundamentals of Ayurveda.
John Douillard, DC, CAP, is a renowned Ayurvedic educator, host of the Ayurveda Meets Modern Science podcast, former Director of Player Development for the New Jersey Nets NBA team, and author of seven health books, including Eat Wheat and 3-Season Diet.
Describe the moment when you decided you were ready to commit to this path.
I was in chiropractic college at 19 the early 1980s, taking an acupuncture class, and I heard the word “Ayurveda” for the first time. And I was like, “What is that?”
I went to my first lecture in Los Angeles, and there was an Indian doctor giving a lecture on Ayurveda and meditation and breathing. I asked him, “I’m training for an Ironman Triathlon. What do you think about doing an Ironman from the Ayurvedic and yoga meditation perspective?” He asked, “What is an Ironman?” I told him, a two-and-a-half mile swim in the ocean, a 26-mile run, and 112-mile bike ride. He asked, “Why do you do that?” I had no answer for that. No one had ever asked me that before.
He asked, “Do you meditate?” I said yes. “Do you sleep when you meditate?” he asked. I said, “It’s the deepest sleep. I start meditating, I conk out, I wake up, and start studying.”
And he said, “You’re exhausted. All this exercise is making you so tired, you can’t really meditate.”
And I asked the best question I ever asked in my life. I said, “What if I was able to not fall asleep in my meditation, could I do all this exercise? Would it be okay?
He said, “Yes,” and nodded his head.
Those were my marching orders. I started training less, meditating more. I started going to weekend meditation retreats to do yoga, breathing, meditation. I went on a two-week meditation retreat, no exercise, no nothing, breathe, yoga, meditate. And I came out of that like I was shot out of some kind of a cannon.
In my book, Body, Mind, Support, I call it “jet fuel.” I went into a three-month runner’s high experience in everything I was doing. I went from being a good competitive triathlete to winning in my age group and getting medals and competing on an elite level. My friends thought I was on steroids, and some started to meditate, too! I just couldn’t get fatigued. I was in my clinical internship at the time, and I had a level of bandwidth academically that I never experienced in my life. I was in the zone for three solid months — and then, as soon as it came, it disappeared.
In 1986, I went to India for three weeks to hopefully reclaim that “zone” experience and maybe learn Ayurvedic medicine. I found a teacher there. Surprisingly, he invited me to stay permanently. I had a busy practice in Boulder, Colorado at the time, student loans and taxes and America, you know. I called my partner, on a very scratchy phone from New Delhi — it took like, an hour to get a line, and finally did — and I said, “I’m not coming back.”
I stayed there for about a year-and-a-half, studying Ayurvedic medicine. I met Deepak Chopra; he invited me to come back and co-direct his center in Massachusetts. I taught the doctors’ training program for about eight years. I realized I had to speak their language, which was science. I started translating the Vedic knowledge into western concepts and backed it up with modern science.
If you’re at a dinner party, how do you describe what you do?
If I go to a dinner party and I say, “I practice Ayurveda,” they go “Ayur—what?” I might tell them I have a natural medicine practice, and I write about and teach ancient medical wisdom and modern science together. That’s what I do on my website, LifeSpa.com. I connect ancient medical wisdom and modern science. Our business model is to give all the knowledge away for free. I’ve been formulating herbs for 30, 40 years now, and we have an Ayurvedic store.
What are the essential things you’d like people to understand about your work and your mission?
My mission is to make a dent. It was obvious to me that the culture was going in the wrong direction. We get very distracted by our environment and that sometimes affects us — we get addicted to the outside world providing our satisfaction.
Ayurveda says there is a world that allows you to experience a level of contentment and happiness and joy for no reason, not because something happened. That comes from experiencing your inner space, the silence within.
Ayurveda is a system that brings a level of purity and calm and stillness and self-awareness back into the physiology with the hope that we are able to realize this experience of inner silence is way more profound than what we get from the outside world.
That’s the human condition at its best — to thin that veil, refine the human instruments, and perceive subtle energy like no other instrument can. That’s the secret of life, I believe, and the basic fundamentals of Ayurveda.
When you were a child, did you have any signals or interest that hinted that you were going to go in this direction?
My mom’s 91, she’s still my biggest fan. When we were young, she was into health food. We didn’t eat junk food, and we meditated. She was a real maverick, she was a real seeker, and still is. One of the most beautiful people that I know, really deeply, deeply spiritual and all about thinning the veil. She’s done that her whole life, and she’s been a great model for me.
When I was younger, I started reading books about longevity, like Paul Bragg, and started doing colon cleanses following Bernard Jensen. I was into being really healthy. I was always into sports. I played college tennis and was a triathlete and ski racer and ski instructor.
When I went to Los Angeles, I lived next to a stunt coordinator. I went to his stunt school in Santa Monica. He taught me how to ocean swim. We would go out for two, three mile swims in the ocean, and do scuba diving together. We’d jump off his roof, do high falls together. I started getting beat up. One of my high school friends was at the chiropractic college in LA. I went to check out the school and get some treatment. I was treated by the admissions director, and he blew my mind. I just never felt anything like that before. I was sitting straight, my posture was completely changed — I was a fan! So I started seeing him and he helped get me into chiropractic school.
What do your children think about what you’re doing?
We have six children. I have such a great and close family. I don’t ever feel like they look at me like I’m some kind of special, super-accomplished person. I felt the best way to teach them was to model behavior, and practice what I preach.
When they were younger, we made sure they ate really good, healthy food. Now that they’re older, they all have a level of appreciation for natural medicine and what I do. It’s just a beautiful relationship.
What are the differences between how you and most other people look at the world?
I have a spiritual side of me, but the way I live my life, I feel very approachable and like an average American guy. There are people who can teach Ayurveda in the real traditional Vedic Sanskrit, way, way better than I can. I’m not even in that league. I’m so in awe of the Ayurvedic doctors when I go to conferences and hear them speak, how much knowledge they have.
I just try to take little snippets, translate them into English, and help them enter the mainstream — help people realize there’s a better way than drugs for symptoms that don’t treat the cause. One of my teachers told me, “Ayurveda is not an Indian system. It’s a universal system of nature. It’s a study of nature.” This applies to everything, everywhere, not just India. So I teach it that way.
When does your path bring you the most comfort?
There are two places where I get the most comfort. One is digging into the research of the Vedic texts and then trying to find the science to prove it. When I first started writing articles about ancient wisdom and modern science that backs it up, I thought I’d write two or three. But there’s an unlimited amount of science! When I find these ancient secrets and help translate them into English — I just think it’s the most magical connection. I feel like I discovered something, like Magellan!
The other piece is connecting with my patients. My teacher in India said that when you have a relationship with your patients, it’s soul-to-soul, your soul with their soul. When I practice with my patients, it’s such an honor. And we have this heart-to-heart thing, because we’re both feeling safe to open up, and there the healing really does take place.
Are you sometimes still in awe of what you receive and of what you are able to do? When does that happen?
You know, when I go to an Ayurvedic conference, and I get so much appreciation and gratitude from people, that’s overwhelming to me. We get a lot of gratitude from online patients saying, “Thank you for giving out so much knowledge.” My staff and I work so hard to give the knowledge away for free and that makes everybody feel really good.
People are reading my stuff, and we are maybe making a dent. I still have a dream to bring this knowledge out in a more mainstream way and get more people to understand that Ayruveda is not scary. You don’t have to convert your religion or anything crazy — you learn the laws of nature, the science of life, and how to live your life in harmony.
With all the competing messages about nutrition and health, it can be confusing to try to seek out what’s best for yourself. How can we know what is right for us?
Should I be a vegan? Should I be a carnivore? Should I do Keto? Everything keeps changing and no one really knows what is real — studies alone can prove whatever they want. In Ayurveda, the rules never change. For me, when you combine the ancient wisdom with modern science — that is a safe place for us all to start when seeking health, longevity, and happiness.
Dr. Douillard reveals Quantum Ayurveda techniques in his exclusive online event with The Shift Network. Learn more here.
Dr. John Douillard is a globally recognized leader in the fields of Ayurveda, natural health, nutrition, and sports medicine. He has more than 40 years experience helping over 100,000 patients in his practice and on his website, LifeSpa.com, where he validates ancient Ayurvedic wisdom with modern science in articles published weekly, for free.