Yesterday was the birth of a movement much larger than myself. The book I had the honor of authoring, Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda, became the #1 Best-Selling Ayurveda book on Amazon! In this episode I talk about all the process of how I came to write this book, why sharing Ayurveda is my soul’s mission and what’s next.

Order and review the book: https://www.amazon.com/Ayurveda-Idiots-Guides-Sahara-Ketabi/dp/1465462767

Available at Walmart, Target, Barnes & Nobles and wherever books are sold.

Join my private FB community Mind-Body Balancers to take the discussion further: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1213662491998309/?ref=br_rs

Follow me on Instagram, FB and Twitter @IAmSaharaRose

Intro and Outro Music: Silent Ganges by Maneesh de Moor

Transcription

Episode 025 – My Highest Self- Becoming the #1 Best-Selling Author in Ayurveda

By Sahara Rose

Namaste, it is Sahara Rose, and welcome back to the “Highest Self” podcast. A place where we discuss what makes you your highest evolvement. This is a really magical episode because this is when I’ve become my highest evolvement. My book, “The Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda” was just released two days ago and became the number best seller of all Ayurveda books. Which was something I truly wasn’t expecting. I thought maybe it could become the number one new release because those new releases are changed all the time. But to be the number one all around best-selling Ayurvedic book out there on the planet is the most insane thing, and a true testament to the own inner transformation work that I’ve been doing for years and years now that it’s working.

And when you shift your vibration from within the world without you shifts as well, and writing this book, having this book come through me is a better way of saying it has been the most outstanding experience of my life, my short life that I’m only 26 years old. And to have my book be next to the works of Deepak Chopra and Dr. Vasant Lad, and other Ayurvedic practitioners who’ve done so much amazing working is truly beyond describable words. And the book became the number three new release in all mental and spiritual healing books.

So my book is right now right in between “The Medical Medium,” who’s at number two, and “Dr. Mercola,” who’s at number four. So Dr. Mercola, like oh my god, I grew up reading him. How is my book in front of his right now? And “The Medical Medium” is just like insane, amazing medium who can tell what diseases you have just from looking at you. I’ve been subscribed to his list forever. So to be between these two is such an honor, such a blessing. And I can’t take the credit for it because it was all given to me by my spirit guides. It all has channeled through me, and to me, writing—I was just thinking that I actually feel more like myself when I’m talking and writing than when I’m silent. Because I was put on this planet to do this work, and it becomes more and more evident to me every single day.

I was given this voice that I receive so many comments all the time from you guys saying you just love listening to my voice. And I was given this voice so people would listen to the message. I was even given this face, I have a very friendly, cute kapha face. I was given this face so people would meet me face to face, and receive the message because it’s coming from, you know, like a sweet, innocent little person, but the message was deep.

Everything—I was given my curiosity towards psychology, and spirituality, and my health issues. Because if I hadn’t experienced them, I wouldn’t have gone to the self-healing route, and I wouldn’t have discovered Ayurveda. I was given my innate interest to anything Indian my entire life from the time I was a child and would eat everything with my hands, and dress up like Mother Teresa and Gandhi. I was given all of this for a reason, and it’s so amazing to look back at your life at the red string that has always been there tying things together.

And it only makes sense when you look at it from the back, but when you’re living it you don’t know when one thing that you’re experiencing could actually be the pivotal moment that you’ll look back on one day and say, “that’s exactly what shaped me into who I am today.” So every time something’s happening to me that I’m not happy about, don’t think that I’m always so ecstatic. We all have, you know, little things that happen. Like you get into a fight with your mom, or this, or that. Now, every time this happens to me, I think, “this isn’t happening to me, this is happening for me.” And how can I learn from this? What do I need to look at right now within myself that the situation is manifesting? And the moment I’m able to look at what that is, what spirit is trying to tell me through the situation, suddenly I feel this weight has been lifted off my soldiers, and it all makes sense. So I want you all to live your life that way because it’s such a beautiful way of existence, and the only way that we were meant to exist.

So, I wanted to share a little bit about the book, and the book-writing process. I go into depth about how I go this book deal. How I created this beautiful baby right here that’s sitting in my hands in episode two. It’s called “How I Discovered Ayurveda and Wrote ‘The Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda.’” So if you’re interested in learning everything about how I was chosen to write this book, et cetera, listen to episode two.

But in a nutshell, I was chosen for this book literally because it was my destiny. I, as I mentioned before, I had health problems, digestive issues, hormonal imbalance, amenorrhea, I was a raw vegan at the time, I was jumping from diet to another trying to fix myself. I decided to give Ayurveda a shot because I was volunteering teaching health and sanitation in the slums of India. So I decided, well why not, since I’m here, it could be a cool cultural experience, and decided to visit an Ayurvedic practitioner. And she took my pulse, she looked at my tongue, she asked me questions– the same thing that I today do with clients. And she told me that my vata, my wind, was so imbalanced that three things were going to happen to me.

• I was going to be infertile—I was at that time.

• I was going to suffer from osteoporosis.

• And Alzheimer’s.

Those were the things that were coming my way if I continued on this raw vegan diet, which I thought was the healthiest in the whole world.

And the reason that it wasn’t healthy was for me, was because my vata, my wind has got so low that my body basically became depleted; my internal heat. So your digestion is your fire, and when you’re not digesting foods properly, you’re not actually absorbing nutrients from that food. So basically all the kale and smoothies I was eating, I was not absorbing any of the nutrients, leaving me actually malnourished. And I lost a lot of weight, was about 90 pounds, more or less. And my hair was falling out, I was just getting dizzy all the time, even though I was eating all of the raw foods, all the smoothies, everything that tells you to do online when you follow these raw vegan bloggers.

And it wasn’t working for me, and I didn’t want to admit that fact because first of all, I was orthorexic, I was scared, and also I had an eating disorder in the past, it was also like this feeling of superiority. Like oh, I only eat raw foods, it’s so good for you, and not knowing that it was actually extremely toxic. Because when you’re living your entire life surrounded by what you’re going to eat, what’s your next meal, you’re planning one meal while you’re consuming the current one. That’s not a healthy way of living.

So I asked the Ayurveda practitioner what do you recommend? And she was like, “Well, you have to eat the ghee, you have to eat the dal, you have to eat the rice, roti. No more raw food, no more salad, no more smoothie.” I was like, “Oh, hell no, no. I’m not going to listen to you, like I’m going to eat my raw foods. This doesn’t make sense.” And she was like, “Okay, but the problems that I mentioned are going to happen to you if you continue on this path. Your agni, your fire is so low.”

So I went about my life, and tried paleo, tried autoimmune protocols, tried everything you could possibly imagine. My life became searching for diets, and protocols, and procedures, and this and that. So eventually it brought me back to Ayurveda because Ayurveda is a health system focused on digestion. And I decided to look more into it, but still didn’t want to eat the traditional Indian Ayurvedic foods. I still wanted to keep it vegan, cause that was really important to me. And I wanted to include just modern ingredients. I wanted to have chia seeds, and maca, and like you know, things that we have in the west that didn’t exist in ancient India.

So I started creating my own version. I started making kitchari with quinoa, which is today my three-day kitchari cleanse, which is on my website. I started adding, you know, sea vegetables to traditional Ayurvedic things, and doing it with, you know, coconut oil instead of ghee, and just modernizing the entire system. And I instantly noticed that not only my body changed, but also my mind. I realized that so many things—my insomnia, my incessant worrying, and just like always being in the future—was all related to my diet. And since my vata, my wind, was so out of balance, I was experiencing these symptoms in my mind as well.

So the moment I changed my diet to include more grounding foods, I mentally felt more grounding, too. Probably if I recorded this podcast episode at that time, I’d be talking super, super fast. So you can even hear it in my voice that I’m much more grounded, even though I still do tend to talk fast, but it’s because I’m trying to get as much information in here as I can in a short amount of time.

So I realized that there was a lot to Ayurveda. It wasn’t just this like, oh, it’s like going to an astrologer. It’s like wow, this is some potent stuff, and I really feel different from following these suggestions. What else is in here? So I decide to take an Ayurveda course in India, and I loved it so much that I stayed in India, and I was there for four months at a time, and I spent the next two years spending four months at a time in India. And then I went back and I taught a retreat in Goa at the center where organic India herbs are. And I was just living in India, and just part of the system. And that’s why I know India, and I relate to her so well because she was my home. And to me, like India is like the holy mother, and the holy mother is not always nice and pleasant when she teaches you lessons with love. And that’s what India represents to me.

So I started studying Ayurveda very, very in-depthly. And instantly, when I began studying it, I knew I had to write a book about this. I had to modernize this to today’s audience. I had to create something that would connect to people. Because people aren’t going to travel to India, and you know, spend all this time trying to research things, and create their own way with all this trial and error. I needed to create some sort of system that still allowed them to eat Italian food, Greek food, Thai food, whatever they want to eat, but still follow the Ayurvedic theories. Because I believe that true magic happens when we merge the east and the west, the ancient and the modern, and that’s what I’m all about.

So at that time, I didn’t have obviously a literary agent, a publisher, I didn’t know anything about the book-writing process, but I knew I had to write a book. I listen to that sole calling, and I started writing, and I thought it would just be like an e-book on my blog. So I start writing for an e-book, and it became 20 pages, 50 pages, 100 pages, 500 pages, 1,000 pages, 2,000 pages. And it’s 11:11 right now, beautiful. I couldn’t stop writing about Ayurveda. I would wake up, practice my ashtanga, I was doing a lot of ashtanga back then. And for the rest of the day, the next 16 hours I would just be reading and writing, reading and writing– books all around me.

And this continued for three years. For three years I was totally immersed into writing this book, which I called, “Eat Right for Your Mind Body Type.” So a lot of people are like, “Oh, how long did this book take?” I’m like, “Well, this book, or like the process it took for writing the book that became this book. Because they’re two different things, but both had to happen for this project to come to life.” So, people thought it was weird. They were like, “Why are you spending all your time and like secluding yourself to write this book that you don’t even know it’s going to come out,” and no one believed in me.

Definitely my parents didn’t. And it was definitely really a tough time in my life because people were like, “You need to get a job. You need to be more focused. You need to be more realistic, and clear,” and you know, my parents were afraid for me. Genuinely, because I ended up going to Bali, and I was living in Bali in the jungle for some time because I just needed to be by myself and write this book. It was so clear to me that you need to 100% dedicate yourself to Ayurveda and be living and breathing it, and studying with the very people who practice it.

And it wasn’t easy. I did panchakarma in some very, very intense places in Kairali, the oldest panchakarma center, which is definitely not for the faint of heart. I was in the slums and I would still go in the slums and teach, and I had got parasites, I’ve had dengue, I’ve had tons of diseases that you can imagine because I would eat whatever they ate. And if the villagers offered me, you know, water from the Ganges out of their hands, I would drink it. And I 100% immersed myself in the culture. And I truly feel like that carries through in all of the work that I do.

So I eventually finish writing this book, which took a really long time because I didn’t have a direction, I didn’t know what it was going to become. I didn’t have an outline, I didn’t—And the part that took me the longest was not the actual writing it, but it was that I would write, spend weeks and weeks on writing it in a certain way, and then I would suddenly be like actually, no, the tone needs to be like this. Or this chapter shouldn’t be here. Like should it be include non-vegetarian things? Should it include spiritual things? Should it include this? Should it include that? I had no one to bounce ideas off of, I didn’t know any single person who practiced Ayurveda. I was totally on my own. I didn’t have any form of community, I was like literally, I mean for a period of time, like six months I was just living by myself like with a Balinese family who didn’t speak English.

So very, very just deep within myself, which is why now I’m so comfortable with myself. Like vipassana silent retreat, like throw it at me, that sounds fun. Like I love being on my own, but I had to really go to deep places within to be able to create my best work. So that was a time of just isolation and dedication in my life. And I think when you look at like all great writers and authors and stuff, they’ve all gone through that. Like I don’t know who it was, some famous poet, he just like lived in like a log cabin in the woods by himself, and that’s how he would make his work, and that was the period that I was in.

So finally finished the book, I hired—with my own money I paid for editors, I got graphic designers, I did a lot of the graphic design myself. I would teach myself everything, even my website like teach myself HTML, teach myself everything because I had no budget for any of this. It was literally just a college girl on her own trying to create something out of nothing. So when you guys tell me, “Oh my god, I want to be a healer, I want to do this, I want to do that, but like I don’t know how.” It’s like just do it, just do something. Do whatever feels right. You don’t need to have the end goal, you don’t need to have a plan, just be working, just be in motion. And as soon as you’re in motion, and soon as you’re acting, then things start moving. But if you’re not moving, things won’t get moving.

So finally finished the book three years later, and at that time I was like kind of living in—I was between Los Angeles and India. I didn’t really want to live in America, I didn’t like the shopping malls, and the culture, and I thought it was really intense. But things had gotten really bad with my family that I sort of had to be in the U.S. because they didn’t want me traveling anymore. So I was like oh, I’ll just stay in Los Angeles because my parents have a place here, and I’ll just stay here until I can figure out a way to go to Ecuador. That was my next destination.

So while I was here, a friend of mine invited me to a dinner. At the dinner was my friend Maria Marlowe, who I mention in the episode, and I have an interview with her coming up, and she wrote a great book as well called, “The Real Food Grocery Guide.” And she had a book coming out, so I was like can you like tell me a little bit about the process or what it’s like? So she ended up introducing me to her literary agent. I sent her literary agent my book, and she loved it. So she was like, “Okay, like let’s shop publishers and I’ll represent it.” So I signed the contract with her, and literally the day later—I kid you not– the day later or like two days later maybe, she gets a call from “The Idiot’s Guide” group at Penguin Random House Alpha Publishing, and they’re looking for someone to author “The Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda.”

And they had an author, and she was four months in, you have six months to write the book, and after four months she quit, and it was too much work for her because this book is super systematic, it’s super hard to write. You have to outline like every single paragraph, every single detail before you write, and you must stick with it, and you have to have every page and a half have like a fun fact, this, that. It’s not like you’re just sitting there like channeling information, like how I was for three years before that; total opposite.

So long story short, basically they’re like, “here’s the table of contents that that author wrote. They sent it to me and they were like revise it, let’s see how you would outline the book. You can change it if you want, or you can just leave it the same, it’s fine.” So most people would probably leave it the same, change a few things, and I had a week to do it. And I changed every single thing. There was not one point in there that was different, I added like sections on yoga, and self-healing, and tons of stuff about spirituality, and digestion, and nutritional disorders. And all of these things that, for me, have been paramount in my own healing experience.

And I felt like if I wished to have a book on Ayurveda, it would be this book. Because I spent so long just sifting through Ayurveda books, and texts, and like some had some good information, but they didn’t have that many, they were either too basic, or they were too like old school. Or I couldn’t find anything that was like had it all, the information, but still accessible, it didn’t exist. And what a shame because there’s such beauty to the system.

So I put it together and I sent it back to them that same day. And they were really amazed that I was able to put together such an in-depth table of contents, and for a 400-page book. And table of contents, not just like the chapter names, it’s like every part of the chapter and the subchapter after that, and all of it. So and again, pure channeling, pure source coming through, how could I have known. And also the fact that I’d spent three years writing an Ayurveda book before primed me for being able to very quickly explain this concept and know exactly how to teach it.

So they gave me another week to write the first chapter, so they could see my writing style. And again, that day came through, and I sent it back, and I was immediately hired. And at first I was like, “Okay, well, I guess I’ll just like do this book and it’ll be my foot in to get ‘For Your Mind Body Type’ published,” cause that was really what I wanted to do. Like this book was like “Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda,” like what? And you know, I didn’t think it was going to be what it is right now, to be honest. I thought it was just going to be like kind of like something I did to just say I’m an author so I can then do my own book.

But then as I was writing it, so at first when I started writing it I was like, “Well, I can’t put all of my information ‘For Your Mind Body Type’ in there because then no one’s going to read that book if all the information’s in here.” So it was like really tricky, because I was like well, how do I not put the information? Cause it’s like necessary for Ayurveda. I can’t like think of all new information because it has to be based off of the “Charaka Samhita,” the ancient Ayurvedic text. So, I was like you know what? I’m just going to put everything in there, and then rewrite “For Your Mindy Body Type” will just be a little bit more of like just nutrition stuff.

So, I gave myself an outline: every single day you’re going to work on one chapter. I had a standing desk, I used a standing desk the whole time, and I just powered through. I would every single day practice yoga for two hours, come home, eat my lunch or smoothie—something light—eat a piece of chocolate, and then start get to work. And in the afternoon I would just stop to walk my dog Chubby, who I had just gotten at that time. He was a tiny little baby. And I would just walk him outside, be by the ocean for like, you know, maybe an hour, and then come back and get back to work.

People asked me was it a super stressful time in your life? No, not at all. In fact, I love writing books. For me, it’s way more stressful to like try to go find, promote it, and write all these blog posts, and all these things. That’s like way harder for me, or like answering just all the emails I get. That’s way harder. Writing books is like, I could do this all day. Cause I just, I’m just a natural born writer. That’s what I do best. So also the fact that I was writing about self-care really made me practice it because how can I write all day about how good it is to like put oil on your body and not put oil on my body. So, so many times when I would be like writing, I’d be like, “I need to go do this practice like right now,” and I would like go run and like scrape my tongue and like come back.

So it actually really helped with my self-care practice. And before that I used to not mindfully eat, even while writing the book. Mindful eating is something that I really struggle with because I’m someone who always wants to be doing something, I have a really hard time just doing nothing. So for me, just sitting and eating it’s like, well, why don’t I use that time to also do some stuff on the computer, check e-mails, go on Instagram, respond to people, blah, blah, blah.

So that was the biggest game changer for me because now, after writing the book, every single day I eat a meal, I sit down, I breathe at least ten times, I come into a state of presence, I look at my surroundings, I touch my heart, I honor the food, I smell the food, I take small bites, I cut it up. I make sure everything that I need is there on the table so I don’t have to keep on getting up. Like I would not do any of that before. I would just kind of like chop up some random things and eat it standing up in the kitchen, like stuff it in my face and like throw a bunch of tahini on and be like running back and forth with my laptop, and then like throw some apple cider vinegar on it. Like it was a mess.

And just that one thing, like if you’re going to take home one thing from the book, just like mindfully eat, even if you’re eating like a hot dog, like it’s going to change the way that the hot dog affects you when you’re being mindful about it. So yeah, I got more into the story about later how I met Deepak Chopra. I have a whole episode on that, that’s a whole long other story, so look at that. I think it’s episode 14, which is my lucky number. So now the book is out, and it’s amazing to see that my thoughts are physical, you know. It’s like you think of something, and then you’re holding your thoughts in a way.

Like I remember Danielle LaPorte, who’s a great writer. She said, “I paid for this house with my thoughts.” And I love that so much because imagine, you know, currency is energy, it’s value. And to be able to create value on your thoughts is such a wonderful thing. And I wish how everyone could make their living not based off of their body, or not based off of the money that they already have or something.

Imagine if we all just got paid based off of our thoughts, and that’s what the currency was. And you can be a philosopher. Like I think now with the divine feminine era, we are coming back to that. Like people are bloggers, and in a way they’re thought leaders, and we all have the potential to become thought leaders. You don’t need to already be a blogger, anyone can be a blogger, and that’s the beauty of it. You don’t need a connection or anything. I was literally just a random person, just like me, or you, or anyone else who had a dream and a vision, and I created all of this with my thoughts. So I just love that idea of like building a house based off of your ideas.

And to see my name, wow, next to Deepak Chopra’s name is just crazy to me because it was so not long ago that I met him, and I wasn’t sure it was going to happen, and just it all went so beautifully and smoothly, and to have him as a mentor in my life now is just such a blessing. And the book really has so much. I look through the book and I learn from it, even though I wrote every single word. Because when I was writing it, it was coming from a higher source and from a higher power.

And the way Ayurveda was created was it was an orally passed down tradition for several thousands of years before it was ever written down in the vedas, which was written 5,000 year ago. And the vedas are the world’s oldest recorded texts. The word “veda” means “knowledge.” And Ayurveda is the knowledge of life, it’s basically how you should live your life for optimal well-being. So wellness, food, nutrition also, but yoga, spirituality, meditation is all part of Ayurveda. People say like, “Oh, well I don’t know, I don’t want to eat a certain way, or this, that, like all of it.” It’s life, it’s life style. It’s how you wake up in the morning, how you go by everything, how you feel emotionally.

This is all part of Ayurveda, as well as medical systems, surgery, all of that. It’s all part of Ayurveda, and in fast, western medicine comes from Ayurveda. And I explained in the book where Ayurveda comes from, how it passed through the Silk Road, and it made its way to the east towards China, became traditional Chinese medicine, became macrobiotics, went through the west, became herbology and modern western medicine. So it’s truly the foundation of all health systems.

And who came up with it? So the rishis are the basically the spiritual people, pundits in India, and they were very, very deep in meditation. And in this meditation it came through them that they must share this work, these very specific techniques, and information, and doshas to help mankind. And they began to orally pass down this tradition, it went down generation to generation. They don’t know how long, but at least 2,000 years until it was recorded in the vedas.

So there’s no one founder of Ayurveda, it is a group—it is like a group-created thought. You know, like an amazing idea that like people have all around the world, it’s basically—it’s basically what happens when highly, highly spiritual people allow their thoughts to open up an come through them. And it is the system of healing given by the gods, essentially. And I truly believe that when I wrote this book those very gods were coming through me because this book is magical.

And it would be cocky if it was like a memoir of myself, and I was like, “this is magical, guys. This is amazing.” Or even a novel. I’m like, “it’s so well-written.” But I can say that because I’m not taking credit for it. I’m just the vehicle for it. I’m just the person who wrote it, and I was the one who was chosen to share it because I have a loud voice, and because I like to talk, and because I will work endlessly around the clock to share this message. And that’s why it chose me to manifest and come through, and I know that this is just the beginning. And I will do whatever I can to make sure that everyone in this planet is able to benefit from this work.

So you don’t have the book in front of you now, what you waiting for? But it goes through lifestyle practices for each dosha. From yoga and meditation tips, the times according to dosha, which is like the circadian rhythm of having certain times of days where it’s best to do certain things. So I talked about this a bit in the virtual launch party, but 6:00 to 10:00 is kapha time, 10:00 to 2:00 is pitta time, 2:00 to 6:00 is vata time, and then again it goes back into kapha time at 6:00 to 10:00 PM. 2:00 to 6:00 AM pitta time, 2:00 AM to 6:00 AM vata time.

So I go into depth about that in the book if you’re like wait, what does that even mean? It’s the basically the best times of day to do things, the best time to eat, the best time to exercise, the best time to meditate. It’s all actually based on how your energies are at that moment. And I also share in scientific research to back everything up. I share insights on from the “Scientific American” about how like it’s actually proven that when you’re using electronics at night, throwing off your entire system, and it’s decreasing your levels of melatonin, and a lot of actually really most of what Ayurveda is about now is being proved by science and medicine. And something that Deepak and I want to do is create a publication that proves Ayurveda with western scientific medical research. Because that’s the way that it will be funded more, and it can be part of hospitals and things like that.

So that is really the next step for me after I’m going to write a cookbook, and my “Highest Self” book. But afterwards, I want to get this institutionalized and get this recognized. Because that way, when Ayurveda’s recognized, then we can have Ayurveda practitioners, we can have a board of Ayurveda, we can have insurance cover it, we can have preventative medicine. Because now it’s happening with acupuncture. It’s happening that acupuncturists are being covered by some insurance policies, not all. But it’s been a fight, you know, before chiropractors were like no one visited a chiropractor, and now so many people visit it, so normalized. And I think part of my mission on this planet is to make Ayurveda normalized, so watch this space.

So in the book I discuss morning rituals, nightly rituals. I go into depth about neti pot, nasia, oil pulling, dry brushing, tongue scraping, all of that self-care stuff, which I know a lot of you guys are interested in. I go very, very deep into nutrition, because I am a nutritionist, and I talk about the digestive fire, the six stages of digestion, the different types of digestive fires, and what they all mean, and the right foods for them, nutritional disorders, qualitative disorders, the seven dhatus, the body parts and what each body part is.

I put tons of tables and graphs like everywhere, the publisher was like, “there’s so many graphs in here,” but that’s how I learn. I’m a very just like visual learner. And if it’s just a bunch of words, sometimes it can be hard to understand. So I love creating charts. So I have charts all in there. You can see on page 192 there’s a great chart on the dhatus, which are the different layers of your body. And what body part they’re related to, what it’s like when it’s balanced, what it’s like when it’s imbalanced, and in too much and too little. Because imbalance can go two ways: increased or decreased. So like what happens if you have excess fat, too little fat, excess bone marrow, too little, excess reproductive tissues, too little, et cetera. So I’m really excited for you guys to read that, that’s in chapter 14. All these 14s showing up.

And I go into the tastes of Ayurveda, the six tastes, which tastes each doshas should have. So in Ayurveda they didn’t use calories and macronutrients, they did everything based off of taste. So sweet foods were foods that had more grounding properties and more building like fruits, and sweet potatoes, and things like that. Salty foods, again, they’re more binding like sea vegetables, and they contain minerals, but too much can make you retain water. Then we have like bitter foods, which are very detoxifying, pungent foods, which are really kind of heat-inducing like onions, garlic, spices. And astringent foods, which is like dry or raw—like turnips and green beans. And it’s also very cooling and drying. And on page 204 I have a chart that explains all six tastes, what action they’re related to, what source they’re from, what dosha it increases and what dosha decreases.

So, guys, it’s a lot of information in here. I’ll do some other podcast episodes where I go into a specific chapter and I talk about. And I’m also going to be leading a live program as well if you want to dive in, it’s called “Doshas and Dharma.” And it is I think I’m going to make it a four-week program. I’m not sure exactly how long, maybe a little longer, and it will be a group coaching program all about how your dosha is connected to your dharma. How you were born with your specific prakriti, the dosha constitution you were born with, for a reason so you can serve your higher purpose.

So I’m really excited for that, and I also this week only doing half off my 12-week “Eat Right for Your Mindy Body Type” guided program. So if you want to learn step-by-step how to apply this ancient Ayurvedic wisdom into your modern lifestyle, and have my guidance through videos, and audio files, and guided meditations, and recipes, and all sorts of workbook activities, and really just everything that I wish I had in my own journey. So you don’t have to travel to India, and you can just do it right there on your computer. So that’s a 12-week program, “Eat Right for Your Mindy Body Type” program. I will have the link in show notes. If you go on my website, iamsahararose.com, you’ll see it right there on the menu, it will lead you to that page.

And I invite you guys to join, it’s half off this week only, so I really recommend taking advantage of that. And if you’re listening to this later on, then I still recommend doing it because its’ really going to change your life. You can see the testimonials on the website as well, and it’s incredible to see the results that people have gotten. Like I’ve seen 180 degrees in people’s lifestyles, everything. The way they eat. The way they act. I’ve had so many of the participants like later on become health coaches themselves because it was like the exact push they needed. And I can truly say that if you complete the program, your life will be changed forever. So check it out on my website.

And people ask me, they’re like, “How can I support this podcast? How can I support your work?” The number one thing that you can do for me is to write a review. To write a review for this podcast and to write a review for “The Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda” on Amazon. Because reviews are basically how the algorithm sorts things out, and the higher—the more positive review something has, the more it’s going to be shown to other people. So writing the review, it’s not so I can just like hear your nice words—even though I love it. It’s so more people can find out this work and so we can help more people. And if you’re here listening to me this deep in, I’m sure this work is just as valuable to you as it is to me. So please, please, please, leave a review for this podcast, and for “The Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda” on Amazon.

Even if you didn’t buy it on Amazon, you can still leave a review on there. I think you just need an Amazon account, but you don’t need to have bought it from Amazon, but it helps so much. So I just want to read some of the reviews that I’ve gotten just to share with you if you haven’t read the book yet, this might make you want to. So I love this one by Victoria R., so sweet. “I do not think a mirror view will truly express the power behind this book and the gratitude I feel for Sahara Rose’s guidance. To say this book will change your relationship to yourself, food, and how you view your world is an understatement. As someone who has suffered from eating disorders and body image issues, Sahara’s words on her blogs and in this book have filled me with a newfound hope and positivity. Filled with ancient wisdom, her guide creates a very different approach to healing to than what the western world experiences. In reading through, the information is presented with compassion and absolutely understandable. She beautifully melds the old with the new. Plus, it is fascinating to read. It seems as though I am entering into knowledge that has been locked away from me for a long time. I feel the love permeating through the work. All is written from a place of utmost care. If you wish to heal your mind, body, and soul, take the step to purchase this amazing gift. Give it to people you know, tell everyone.”

Oh my gosh, thank you so much, Victoria. So sweet, so kind, thank you so much for sharing this, and it truly means the world to me that you find it as a gift, and that my words can relate to you and help you in any way. So thank you so much for inspiring me and sharing this with so many others. I want to share another one by Betty W.

“Oh, Sahara, you sweet and loving soul. Thank you so much for this gift. This book is exactly that: a gift. I’ve only just begun, but the connections are already being made. Ayurveda can bring us back home to our most natural state, which within we can thrive beyond our wildest imaginations. We cannot achieve our dreams without our health, and I sincerely thank you, Sahara, for creating this guide that gives us all the opportunity to be our highest and most authentic self. You’re shifting the consciousness, girl.” Oh my god. So amazing, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Like oh my god. This is everything that I could have wanted for people to receive from the book, so I’m so happy.

So I won’t bore you guys and read tons more, but I kind of want to because all of you deserve so much respect for taking the time to write these reviews for me. And every single day, I come out here and I do this work, and I share with you, and I create these posts, and I respond to all of you because I want this affect, and I want this affect to ripple out. Because when you feel amazing, you’re going to treat everyone around you amazingly. You’re going to transform the entire vibration of the planet because you’re operating from a place of love. So someone else was saying how the book gives you oils, and recipes, and practices, and how this shows you that it helps you to become your highest self. And that’s really what it’s all about. Because when we’re taking care of our bodies, when we know what the chakras are and things like that, we’re actually making ourselves better people.

So it’s not selfish to take care of yourself. It’s not selfish to read a book and to take time off, and to do what’s right for you. In fact, the most selfless thing that you can ever do because the people who say, “Oh, it’s so selfish if you’re taking that time.” They’re operating from a lower vibration because they’re not seeing the big picture. The big picture is that when I am at my highest self, the world changes. And if we all took that responsibility of making ourselves the highest self, then naturally we’re going to help one another. It’s just going to come as a natural result. Whereas if we’re depleting ourselves, we’re exhausted, we’re tired because we’re trying to help everyone else around us, well what happens if you don’t put your safety mask on first? Everyone’s going to suffocate.

So please, please, please if you feel like I don’t have the time to read a book, I don’t really read books anymore, I get it, but you need to. And it’s not selfish, and if you have time to watch TV, to go meet your friends for a drink, to go to a yoga class and you have time to read because this is yoga in practice, this is union with your higher self. And I can truly say that reading this book is going to help you more than really any other practice that you can do in your life because it continues all of the practices, and it contains the tool book on how to utilize these practices to best benefit you. I had people say they finished the book in one day because they couldn’t put it down. And I feel like if you’re someone listening to this podcast, you’re going to be one of those people.

So I just want to thank you guys so much. It means the world to me to be here. As your guruji—guruji is a teacher—and I’m just here to shift the consciousness through inspiring you, through informing you, through engaging you, and through living out the saraswati that channels through me. So thank you so much for all being part of this paradigm shift. Thank you for your reviews. Thank you for your love and support. And we’re just getting started, balancers. So I’ll see you guys in the “Mind Body Balancers” Facebook group, and I look forward to hearing from you all. Namaste.

Episode 025 – My Highest Self- Becoming the #1 Best-Selling Author in Ayurveda