Keep them in balance and the body looks after itself. Let one fall out of balance and illness follows. That idea is older than any of us, and it is the thread running through everything on this site.
I am Sunil Munot. For more than thirty years I have followed and written about natural living — what we drink, what we eat, how we breathe, and the traditions that came long before modern medicine.
Choose an element to begin
Everything on earth is made of these five, in different proportion, and each one is related to the others. Balance them and you stay well; disturb one and the rest follow. Each section below gathers what I have learned and collected about that element.
The body is mostly water. What we drink, how we cleanse, and the oldest traditions of self-healing all begin here.
What we eat becomes what we are. Vegetarian living, food combining and the case for eating closer to the source.
Sunlight, digestion and warmth. Solar energy, sun gazing, and the fire that drives metabolism.
Breath and oxygen. Air quality, pollution, and why how you breathe matters as much as what you eat.
Space and energy flow. Acupressure, Su Jok, Ayurveda, yoga and meditation - the subtler element.
Beyond the five lies what we do, and what follows from it. The element that holds the other five together.
This is a personal record — three decades of reading, practice and conversation, kept in one place so that others can look through it. It is not a clinic and I am not a doctor.
Everything on this site is a personal account and a record of traditional practice. It is shared for information and reflection. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a treatment for any disease.
If you are unwell — and particularly if you have a serious illness such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease — please stay under the care of a qualified doctor. Nothing here should replace that care or delay it. Talk to your physician before changing anything about how you eat, fast or treat yourself.
Over the years, film crews, radio programmes and writers have come to Kolkata to record these traditions.