Filmmaker Overcomes Himalayan Difficulties to Bring Rare Yogi Interview to Those Seeking Yoga ‘High’
By Victor Demko
Two landslides on a road in the Indian Himalayas tested holistic health filmmaker Victor Demko’s resolve to get an interview with Yoga Master Swami Sundaranand. Demko encountered this challenge while traveling from Rishikesh to Gangotri, the site of the historic head water of the Ganges River and longtime home of the 79 year old Swami Sundaranand, one of the last hardcore Himalayan yogis.
Mr. Demko founding director of www.thecenterforhealingarts.com undertook the trip to ask “Swami-ji” to be the first guest of his new virtual healing arts center. The center provides an intimate in-depth encounter with a carefully selected healing arts practitioner on DVD to members every other month.
“So many people have time and financial restrictions but really would like to spend time with some of these great meditative/healing beings so my thought was to seek them out and make them available to people in their own homes”. Says Mr. Demko.
“When we came up to the first landslide, the road had slid 800 feet down the mountain and a very thin dirt ledge was being cleared to pass on — we were one of the first cars to risk driving on it. The second land slide closed the road between Uttrakashi and Gangotri for three days and my heart momentarily sank with the thought of not being able to get through. We went ahead anyways and when we arrived at the landslide, a heavy duty army bulldozer was working on clearing rocks and carving a ledge road into the side of the mountain. A whole bunch of people had been waiting to run across the piled debris for a long time and when the machine took a break we gingerly climbed across the loose landslide rocks with about a 1200 foot drop off below us.”
“There was a bit of pandemonium as people tried to get a ride for the rest of the trip and no one was speaking English. With all that camera equipment equaling over 30 years wages for the average person in that area, packed in our knapsacks, we were a little nervous being stuck in such a remote spot, as we left the safety and protection of our car and driver behind and hoped we’d be able to get a ride on the other side of the slide. We were blessed that someone helped us for a moment and we were lucky enough to get the only jeep there to take us on the rest of the trip.
“Once in Gangotri, we were able to determine quite soon where Swami-ji lived. He’s been there since 1948. At that time only he, his teacher, and one other Yogi lived there and for 25 years Swami-ji lived in a cave. We knocked on the gate of his modest property with the roaring Ganges just steps away and were received with total graciousness. He really invited us into his life of mediation and spiritual practices. He’s extremely knowledgeable about Yoga, good health, and overall well being, as well as being an accomplished photographer of the natural beauty of the Himalayas” says Mr. Demko. “There’s such depth and simplicity in his manner that viewers can benefit from. We left Gangotri enriched by our encounter with Swami’ji as well as having his blessing for both the center and to all those that see the film.”
“It was worth the difficulties. The difficulties have turned into a sweet perfume that is the first in-depth encounter with a great healing arts practitioner on film for the center’s series. I’ll always be deeply grateful to Swami-ji for his blessings.”
For further information and to order the film please visit http://thecenterforhealingarts.com
The Center for Healing Arts is a worldwide community of healing arts practitioners and those interested in healing and wellness. Members receive six DVD sessions a year, one every two months, that features a personalized, in-depth encounter with an adept practitioner of the healing arts. Guest practitioners are carefully selected for their experience, knowledge, spiritual and heart qualities, and for representing a particular tradition in the vast range of traditions the DVD sessions series will explore. Each is recorded as if speaking to an intimate friend. The focus is on presence rather than on commercialism. Each DVD can stand alone as an independent session or film. Taken together, however, the films will form a voyage of discovery, exploring the many types of healing used across the earth.
Victor Demko ,The Founder and Director of http://www.thecenterforhealingarts.com
A Rewarding Career In Healing Arts
By Tony Jacowski
This study includes alternative treatments and medicines that assist in the process of natural healing. You can get a Bachelors Degree in Healing Arts after two years of study. If you have a degree from an accredited school, you could very well qualify for a number of professions. Prospective employers always look for a Bachelor’s degree in this field.
Courses Available
There are several schools throughout North America. These schools offer a variety of healing arts programs and courses for the personal and professional development in wellness, healing and health. Schools of healing arts offer variety and flexibility in their study programs. There are practical education courses to satisfy the interests of students. You can even attempt specialization in the field. Students can choose from a number of school degrees and certificate programs.
Medical schools in most areas of North America are collaborating with healing arts schools and institutions for clinical, educational and research ventures in alternative and complimentary medicine. The focus of the programs is medical education, clinical activities and the monitoring of herbal products and herbal medicines.
Earning A Degree
You can work towards earning a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in alternative and complimentary medicine. The schools work towards making the students capable of developing an understanding of the alternative healing arts, along with the methods of integrating alternative and complimentary medicines into the conventional medicine practice. Many schools also offer post-graduate programs. These schools blend both the forms of medicine with conventional medicine practices. Healing arts schools are frequently rated by the Accreditation Council or CME and by the states. Multidisciplinary schools often promote a sense of balance, harmony and beauty in wellness and healing. The areas of study in Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees programs include clinical nutrition, bodywork and massage therapy forms, herbalism, yoga therapy, Asian therapy, hypnotherapy, life coaching and hydrotherapy.
You can enroll in a healing arts school to attain an alternative healing degree in several natural health modalities. You could study acupuncture and Oriental medicine and naturopathy too. Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery or B.A.M.S. is considered equivalent to an M.D Degree program. It is among the many interesting and unique alternative healing degrees that several natural health schools offer. Alternative healing degrees are unique substitutes to traditional academic degrees and offer an array of educational options. The degree is an essential asset for conventional medical professionals, who are constantly attempting to integrate complimentary medicine into established medical practices. The sphere of influence is growing and becoming increasingly popular, today. A career in healing arts is both monetarily rewarding and satisfying.
Tony Jacowski is a quality analyst for The MBA Journal. Aveta Solution’s Six Sigma Online offers online six sigma training and certification classes for lean six sigma, black belts, green belts, and yellow belts.
An Emerging Healing Arts Language
By Victor Demko
Interacting with a great many people, in a great many settings, has led this one me to believe in the language of the heart, of friendship, and the deeply shared joy of the human condition, as well as its pain and suffering.
If the goal of all is to move toward an integrated state of wholeness and wellness, what would support that?
If we look at our lives, one thing we will notice is that there is a deep need in the human condition for being seen for who we are and, more important, for being accepted as we are by both those most significant in our lives and those we interact with. This deep seeing and understanding is often cited as the basis for fulfilling friendships in our lives.
Who are the people we value most in our lives? If we were to ask oneself this question honestly, we might find it is those who have a deep sympathetic resonance and understanding of us.
There is no need here in this article to cite examples of world change, but what might be examined is the need for recognition of a new language that is emerging out of that change a healing arts language.
Does a healing arts language already exist? Is there a need for a supportive language of understanding and openness?
Some might argue that a healing arts language has always existed, that, in fact, it is one of the gifts of the creator for movement in any communicative interactive model towards wholeness. A language of understanding has always existed among people in whatever time they have lived in.
Interpersonal dialogue and communication take place on many levels from the physical realms of nearness and proximity, to the realm of the emotions and communication of the heart, to the mind world and beyond to higher soul levels.
Healing and support happens on so many different levels. One of the most basic is communication among first our most loved, our families, our friends, our community, our country, and the planet. By approaching our interactions with openness and the desire to be seen, we help ourselves unveil the subtle tricks of our own ego, which often misdirect us away from optimum fulfillment.
As a young boy of nine or 10, laying awake at night, I often used to wonder What do people talk about? as those muffled voices of my mother and older sister, still awake, rose up to my bedroom. Today I would rephrase that question to: What is the real meaning in our communication? Where is the real meaning to be found?
No doubt, meaning is found in many realms of life, but what I would like to further examine is that need for meaning in our own wellness journey how we support each other and what is the nature of that support. Certainly there are as many ways and methods as there are people, yet one of the common links is a need to be seen and understood. In this changing world, this is now more important than ever and there appears to be momentum and a greater calling for understanding of this need as never before. Development of modes of interaction are being called to emerge from new levels of creativity, both collectively and, most importantly, on an individual basis.
Individually, we all have something to contribute to that emerging language that is evolving from openness, a need to be seen, as well as to really see others. With the imperative nature of our own health and the health of the geo-political and ecological systems we are part of, it appears that the call is for personal wellness and wholeness first for our own peace and happiness but also as a model and basis for offering insight for the changing larger picture.
In summary, if we look around carefully, we will see a new healing arts language emerging, one of openness and understanding, one of both personal and planetary wellness and wholeness. It is both our own ability, desire, and openness to assimilate that language as a unique personal interactive style and our communities desire to embrace it that will ultimately lead to further unfoldment both individually and collectively.
Victor Demko is a holistic health filmmaker and founding director of http://www.thecenterforhealingarts.com . His most recent film shot in the Indian Himalayas Personal Time with Swami-ji examines the healing art of inner yoga.
