I first started offering cleanse course in a reactionary response to the high expense of traditional ayurvedic detoxification methods. They aren’t expensive in India due to the vestiges of the ancient caste system coupled with a population explosion that renders labor cheap. Traditional ayurvedic cleansing from India (aka Pancha Karma) may last 30 days and involve a few care-givers (massage therapists) rubbing various herbs, oils, and other substances into your skin, applying heat, leeches or whatever your condition demands to move the toxins out through the various waste channels the human body offers.

A service like that in this country would be upward of $6K for the mere labor involved. So, we’ve watered down a serious procedure, akin to holistic surgery and married it to our American culture of speed and convenience into a 7-day process offered at Ayurvedic centers around the country. This generally costs about $2K and comes complete with a rejuvenating environment, yoga and meditation classes. Not a bad thing to do if you have $2K.  Most people I know with savings still don’t spend their money this way.

That left me to devise a way back in 2003 to help people move the ama (toxins) out of their system in way that is cost effective. My cleanse courses were born. The course currently underway is the largest, due to an idea of encouraging yoga teachers to recruit their students into a community (kula) endeavor.

Cleansing, once you know what you’re doing, is  free. Just like meditation, yoga, vegetables grown from your garden, and nettles carefully harvested by the stream in the woods. The learning how to do it is where the investment comes. Simply taking the leap and mustering the discpline is much easier when you join a course. And now, as I travel to yoga studios around the country, I notice that education on cleansing and fasting, this essential part of human health , what Dr. Kacera (author of Ayurvedic Tongue Diagnosis) considers to be the missing link of Western Nutrition, is becoming readilyavailable. And if there isn’t a local guide, you can always find guidance online.