111. We Have No Idea What Health Is – Anoop Kumar
Anoop Kumar has started a health revolution. Through an enterprise that bears precisely that name, he and his associates want us to understand that healing is possible. In Western culture, we have no idea what health is. Modern medicine is the true complementary medicine. What should be defined as conventional medicine are the methods of healing that have been around for millennia. Anoop Kumar talks about four engines of health: nutrition, movement, connection and rest. And they work in our physical as well as our mental bodies. ”What does the placebo effect suggest? It suggests that the line between the mind and the body is not concrete”, he says. Anoop got in touch with the Hindu spiritual school of advaita vedanta already as a child. It is similar to what is often referred to as non-duality. He had a hard time combining those insights with western materialism. But he realized that they are both valid. After his medical training – he is an ER doctor – Anoop decided to dedicate himself to bridging the perceived gap between east and west, body and mind, spirituality and science. He does not want to label his philosophy as idealism, advaita, non-dualism or anything else. He has developed an explanatory model he calls the three minds framework. ”Everything is consciousness, and consciousness is everything”, Anoop says. ”That doesn’t mean there's no bodies, no minds, no personalities. It doesn't mean that this is all just a dream and it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that we can’t work with the body or that modern medicine is useless.” ”None of this is true. There are so many misconceptions associated with this.” One oft-used metaphor to understand how consciousness is fundamental is that consciousness is the ocean, and we and everything else we perceive as separate are the waves, or even the ripples. Different expressions of the ocean, but all water. ”At deeper levels of reality, as we go deeper into that ocean, there is a radiant non-duality. The best word we have for that is consciousness.” There is a real shift happening in health care right now, according to Anoop. And not just in health care. The bigger picture is that amazing things are happening, but at the same time, darker things also have to surface. ”It's almost like an abscess. We’re getting to that eruption phase.” Anoop Kumar has published two books; Michelangelo’s Medicine and Is This a Dream? Health revolution Online course (at a DISCOUNT) Anoop’s website Anoop’s books