Biography

James is a third generation physician and health educator who has been living yoga and ayurveda for 20 years. He practices Oriental Medicine, acupuncture, Ayurveda and Yoga Tantra, aiding patients via acupuncture, clinical Ayurvedic techniques of Pancha Karma detoxification, Chinese and ayurvedic medical herbology, nutrition, marma therapies, pranayama, and meditation. His training includes 5 years (4000+ hours) of formal clinical studies in Oriental Medicine (Yo San University) and training in Ayurveda under such luminary teachers as Dr. Vaijayanti Apte (Dipl Ayu from the Ayurveda Institute of America), Dr. Subash Ranade, Dr. Avinash Lele, Dr. Vasant Lad, Dr. Robert Svoboda, and many Ayurvedic doctors and therapists in Kerala, south India where he spends time teaching and studying while on retreat each year. James teaches Ayurveda and Yoga Tantra meditation workshops worldwide. He is a contributing editor and former columnist for Yoga Journal, Light on Ayurveda, LA Yoga magazine and other wellness magazines. He served as an active Board member of the California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM), and is founder of Sevanti Oriental Medicine and Ayurveda in Santa Monica, CA.

Academic Training

Yo San University of Traditional Chinese Medicine

MATCM, Master of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine

Five year, 3000+ hour program in Oriental Medicine, Herbal Medicine, Acupuncture, and Taoist Philosophy

Ayurvedic Institute of America

Dipl Ayu, Diplomat of Ayurvedic Sciences

500 hour certification program in Ayurveda

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology

MPH, Master of Public Health

Tropical Medicine, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, International Health Development, Medical Anthropology

University of Texas, Austin (UT)

Department of Zoology

BS, Bachelors of Science

Major: Pre-Medicine; Minors: Ecology, Cultural Anthropology

Professional Licenses

1997 California Acupuncture Board

California License in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac.)

1997 National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM)

National License in Chinese Herbal Medicine, Diplomat of Chinese Herbology (Dipl. C.H.)

1997 National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM)

National License in Acupuncture, Diplomat of Acupuncture (Dipl. Acup.)

Professional Associations

California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM), Sacramento, CA, Board Member

National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA), Santa Cruz, CA

National Comission for the Certification of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM)

California Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (CAAOM), Santa Barbara, CA

American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), Silver Spring, MD

American Herbalist Guild (AHG), Roosevelt, UT

Herb Research Foundation (HRF), Boulder, CO

American Botanical Council (ABC), Austin, TX

The Seeds of Healing Service

I have been practicing seva (public service) since my late teens. My earliest inspirations were my father, Dr. Byron J. Bailey (photo left), a world renowned surgeon, educator and leader in the field of head and neck surgery, and Dr. Albert Schweitzer (photo right), who’s ethic “Reverence for Life” awakened me to the heart practice of humanitarianism, altr

uism and medical seva as a spiritual pra

ctice.

My father passed on to me the love of medicine, and medical seva. In his practice he never turned a patient away, seeing patients for free if they had no means to pay. Even now in his 70s, he spends time each year in Vietnam and Cuba on medical missions to treat patients and teach the doctors of those countries the advanced surgical techniques done here in the US.

Albert Schweitzer gave my practice a global vision, and a sense of compassion and altruism. His biography inspired me to travel and to serve as early as my late teens with philanthropic public health projects in rural mountain villages in Guanajuato, Mexico. Since my early twenties, my heros have been those who sacrificed much as they dedicated their lives to eradicating disease and poverty where it was most needed.

In 1985, I finished my pre-medical studies at the University of Texas at Austin and went back to my birthplace UCLA to study Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Tropical Medicine at the UCLA School of Public Health. My studies took me to Burkina Faso in West Africa were I studied the prevalence of a nutritional (vitamin A deficiency) related blindness (xeropthalmia) that was known to be aggravated by infection by the measles virus. It was the thesis of my maser’s studies that this condition was worsened by the live-attenuated measles vaccine as well. Our research would play a role in proving that well intended measles vaccination campaigns throughout the world were leaving a trail of blindness in vitamin A deficient populations that could be remedied by providing vitamin A supplements with the vaccines.

In 1988, upon finishing my masters degree (MPH) as an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist, I returned to Africa. This time I lived and worked for one year with Former President Jimmy Carter’s Global 2000 Project as an epidemiologist on the Guinea Worm Eradication Project in Ghana, West Africa. The guinea worm is a pernicious parasite, aquired from drinking infected pond water, and targeted by the WHO for eradication because it is endemic to agricultural regions of the developing world, having a broader detrimental effect upon food production and local economies.

During my time in Ghana, a pivotal experience occurred in my life: I developed a dangerously high fever, most likely malaria, which was highly endemic to the area in which we were living. Our Ghanaian neighbors suffered continuously from malaria. The treatment was attended over by a traditional healer from northern Ghana,

who used ancient healing music and a tea made from a small bag of dried, tangled herbs. Among the northern Ghanaian tribes, the musician family lineages were also the healers. Music and medicine were inseparable. The tea was extraordinarily bitter. A balofone (traditional xylophone) made from dried hollow gourds was played throughout the night next to my body while the effects of the bitter tea took effect. The music was entrancing. Burning up and delirious, I lost consciousness and went into a long deep sleep. When I awoke in the morning the fever was gone and so was my conventional view of medicine and healing.

From Africa, I travelled to India for a year of inner and outer exploration into the Vedic cultural expressions of life and consciousness. While there we studied Yoga, Buddhism and Vedanta, and in the process acquired 5 different species of parasites, all of whom thoroughly enjoyed my enteric environs, and nearly bled me to death. Severely hemorrhaging and losing strength, this time the healing was performed first by an ayurvedic practitioner in Tamil Nadu, South India who used herbs and homeopathy. I was so weak that I have only a vague memory of the actual doctor, however, his treatment was successful at stopping the bleeding. Later that year the critters were back, so I visited a 65 year old Tibetan monk physician at the Institute of Tibetan Medicine and Medical Astrology in Dharamsala in the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India. The monk doctor spoke no English and I spoke no Tibetan. No problem, he read my pulse for 20 minutes with eyes closed and diagnosed me entirely through palpation of the radial artery.

The herbal pills didn’t knock out the parasites completely (I didn’t renmain under his care long enough to see that happen), but it did stop the bleeding and afforded me the time needed to finally make my way home for more intensive treatments.

All of these experiences further confirmed that medicine and healing is a relative and creative paradigm that in most cultures arises from natural understandings. But I also learned that the best medicine is a collaboration between the old and the new. Upon returning to the US, after two years abroad, my experience with traditional forms of healing peaked new interests in Oriental Medicine and Ayurveda, which have been my life path since. Now 20 years later, I am enjoying a deeper understanding of the “Reverence for Life” through the lens of the “Wisdom of Life” teachings and medical practices of ayurveda. I travel to Kerala, south India to study, receive panchakarma treatments, and to teach yoga and ayurveda retreats once or twice annually.

Ayurveda and Yoga

In 1986 I began practicing asthanga vinyasa yoga at Yoga Works in Santa Monica, CA. This would be the start of a life long study into yoga and its deeper teachings. It would take us to India many times and open a world and community of amazing people dedicated to personal growth and spiritual development.

Its all about relationship. Yoga speaks of the relationship between the Self (Jivatman, Soul) and it’s Source (Paramatman, God). “Yoga” these two, and you are free. The human relationship is another big shakti. Ayurveda speaks of the relationship between our unique and very personal nature (Prakriti) and the nature of things in the world around us (also Prakriti). Everything we experience, or eat, or feel, or touch, or taste. or smell has an energetic nature as well. If the intermingling qualities between our nature and those of others (i.e., food, people, location) are harmonizing, than the experience or food will not only nourish us, but support our inner most equilibrium. This is yoga. If, on the other hand, the qualities are antagonizing, than disease (Vikriti) will ensue. As much as Ayurveda is a practice of medicine, it is primarily a way of life.

Many of my patients are practitioners and teachers of yoga. Early in my medical practice I vowed that I would encourage every patient to do two things: practice yoga and live ayurvedically. In doing so, they study themselves, and they naturally heal. We not only heal more quickly when we practice yoga and live ayurvedically, but we become better listeners to the messages of our body’s inner wisdom. I would like to think that I make them better yogis. For myself, there is no distinguishing between my medical practice and my yoga practice. It’s all yoga now, the two have become one.

Chinese Medical Oncology

The practice of Oriental Medicice, known here in the US as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), is generally taught as a general practice. Licensed practitioners spend 5 years and more than 4000 hours of training in Chinese internal medicine and a broad range of treatment modalities to support patients with diverse health conditions. The pond is broad, but could be deeper. In the last few years, specialty training programs in Pain Management, Orthapedics, Gynecology, and Fertility have appeared in newly emerging doctoral programs. Chinese Medical Oncology is one such focus appearing on the horizon of TCM specialty practices. With more than 500,000 deaths annually from cancer, this specialty field aims to support cancer patients during the course of western treatments, minimizing the negative side effects of radiation and chemotherapy, detoxifying and cleansing the healthy tissues of the body, supporting the immune system, and in some cases even weakening the cancer itself. Chinese Medical Oncology also aims to support the “healthy 95%” of any cancer sufferer. “Fu Zheng”, or “Support the Righteous” is a traditional Chinese medical term expressing the essential need to support the healthy 95%. Chinese Medical Oncology utilizes acupuncture and Chinese herbs to strengthen the body’s life force as well as clean out what is impure. Diet, yoga, qi gong, and tai chi amplify the efficacy of clinical treatments to vitalize the rigtheous qi and prana.