Panchakarma III

So day seven has come around. This is the time of the internal cleanse. The idea behind the massage, and the herbs and oil being put on the body in different fashions for the last week was to get the toxins out of the cells in the body and either bring them to the surface, the skin, or into the blood system where the body would then place them into the only other way out; the digestive tract.
For what ever reason, Daren was one day ahead of me with this part of the treatment, perhaps because of the extreme heat that I was building they needed to cool me off, or maybe he was more responsive to the treatments. I’m not sure why, but I got to see what he was going through before I did mine. Not sure if that was a good thing or not.
This cleanse is very simple. To drink a bottle of castor oil. Now depending on who you talk to, you will get different answers about how much castor oil you need to take. Daren says that the bottle of oil was 3 - 4 oz. I’m quite certain that my bottle of castor oil, which of course was the same size, was about a gallon and a half. The doctor said it was best to drink with a glass of warm milk. It goes down easier that way. Daren was smart and actually had chocolate milk! So off to one of the restaurants I go to get myself a glass of warm milk to mix with my gallon of caster oil.
Now, castor oil has no smell what so ever! You open the bottle, sniff? Sniff again? Nothing! This isn’t going to be bad at all. I begin to pour the bottle of oil into the milk and it’s GREEN!!! And not a pretty green either. Its the kind of green that people made carpet out of in the 70’s, the same stuff we had in our house. In this century it’s not a color of green you would ever want to use for any reason what so ever!
Hey, no smell, close your eyes and this will be a piece of cake. Oil and water do no mix, and I’m here to tell you that castor oil and milk don’t mix either. I have this small glass of warm milk with this green stuff floating on top, something that looks toxic and could only come out of Dr. Seuss - Green milk and ham! I stir the tonic up really fast to mix as much as possible, close my eyes and drink up.
OH!!! DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN, WHAT ON EARTH HAVE I EVER DONE TO DESERVE SOMETHING THAT COULD EVEN POSSIBLY TASTE THIS BAD!!! People, there are not words in any language, English or other, that can describe what that tasted like. It took me a moment, after I stopped snorting, and cleared the tears from my eyes, to realize that I had fallen out of the chair and was sitting on the floor in absolute shock over what had just transpired. I think I was still gasping for air when I got back up and sat back down for some composure. For those of you out there that know and understand what paregoric is, I would much rather drink an entire bottle of that stuff as to suffer the taste of castor oil and warm milk - EVER AGAIN!
Since Daren has taken this stuff before, many times, the lunatic, he wanted to take it during the day so that his sleep would not be interrupted. However, he was also nauseous all day after drinking it so I decided to do what the doc said and take it at bed time. I know why he was nauseous as I would be too after drinking that. There was a table with a couple of guys having dinner next to mine watching me drink the toxic mix, and one of them had also been through this before, so he smiled, and with great sympathy told me to go for it. We have since become very good friends on this trip.
After getting it all down, I must admit that I didn’t feel nauseous at all and was able to get back to the hotel room on my own two feet, and even at this point in time felt pretty good, and the warm milk helped me fall asleep that evening.
The next event happened about 6 hours later. I don’t really need to talk about this one much, other than to say I’m quite certain I lost about 10 pounds in a matter of, Oh I don’t know, maybe 30 seconds. I’m not going to mention that it was green either! :)
So, the next step was to go and have breakfast at the doc’s place. Needless to say, I did not do any practice that morning as I would have been afraid that there might be something still left over in me that decided to work its way out during a twist or a backbend. Of course after thinking about it a little more, there could not have possibly been anything left! Anyway, breakfast was very simple; a small amount of rice, and I mean small amount, in lightly salted warm water. At this point in time I realize that I’m actually paying someone to put me through this torture; I mean process. Breakfast wasn’t bad tasting actually, there just wasn’t much to eat. They want your system to slowly get used to food again. My body is in such shock at this moment I don’t think it really matters what I did with it.
I would then have my regular session at noon, massage, then something new, an oil bath, and the oil on the forehead. After that, I had the pleasure of eating that uh, incredible rice soup again. Then they gave me permission to go somewhere and eat some boiled vegetables. Boiled Vegetables?!?!? We are in India, full of incredible curries, sauces, spices, chai tea, and sweet rice desserts. I’m to eat plain boiled vegetables. Even Canyon Ranch would tell me to prepare them some other way! They can’t be raw for two reasons, one we are in India and things like this should be cooked, and two, raw veggies are hard for the body to digest when it has been put into shock. So off I go looking for boiled veggies. I must admit that those were the best boiled veggies I have ever had in my entire life!!!
Part four will be coming soon to talk about the last week of the treatment.