James G Bailey, LAc, Dipl Om, Dipl Ayu, E-RYT is a third generation healer, CAM physician, Yoga educator, and Yoga teacher trainer who has been living yoga and ayurveda for 30 years. He practices Ayurveda, Marma Therapies, Acupuncture, and Wellness Counseling to aid patients towards their true nature of well being. His training includes 5 years (4000+ hours) of formal clinical studies in Oriental Medicine (Master of Traditional Chinese Medicine from Yo San University) and training in Ayurveda under such luminary teachers as Dr. Vaijayanti Apte (Dipl Ayu from the Kerala Ayurveda Academy), Dr. Subash Ranade, Dr. Avinash Lele, Dr. Vasant Lad, and many Ayurvedic doctors and therapists in Kerala, south India where he spends time teaching and studying while on retreat.

James teaches Yoga, Ayurveda and 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 Wellness in Santa Monica, CA.

Academic Training

Kerala Ayurveda Academy

Dipl Ayu, Ayurveda Practitioner

Yo San University of Traditional Chinese Medicine

MATCM, Master of Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine

Five year, 4000+ hour program in Oriental Medicine

University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology

MPH, Master of Public Health

University of Texas, Austin (UT)

School of Life Sciences

BS, Bachelors of Science

Professional

2009    Yoga Alliance, Experienced Yoga Teacher, E-RYT500

1997    California Acupuncture Board

            California License in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, Licensed Acupuncturist (LAc)

1997    National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

            National License in Chinese Herbal Medicine, Diplomat of Chinese Herbology (Dipl CH)

1997    National Commission for the Certification of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine

            National License in Acupuncture, Diplomat of Acupuncture (Dipl Acu)

Professional Associations

National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA), Life-time Member, Santa Cruz, CA

California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM), Former Board Member

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

Merging 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 me 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, individuated soul) and it’s Source (Paramatman, God). “Yoga”, or unite these two, and you are free. The human relationship is an enormous energy. 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 that connection will not only nourish us, but support our inner most equilibrium. This is yoga.  If, on the other hand, the conection is 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 (svadhyaya), and they naturally heal (svabhavoparamavdha). 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.

History

Just how does one come to practice Ayurveda, Oriental Medicine and Yoga? I’m sure each practitioner has a unique story to tell. This is mine. . .

From as early as I can remember, I wanted to practice medicine. Along the way I encountered a physician father, a reverant humanist, and a traditional sound healer who would redirect my vision to an  naturopathic wisdom of life.

My earliest inspiration was my father, Dr. Byron J. Bailey, a great father, role model, world renowned surgeon, educator and leader in the field of head and neck surgery. He passed on to me the love of medicine, and medical service. In his practice he never turned a patient away, seeing patients for free if they had no means to pay. Even into his 70s, he spends time 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.

In college I discovered the writings of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, who’s ethic “reverence for life” awakened me to the heart practice of humanitarianism, altruism and medical service as a spiritual practice. 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 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.

During my time in Ghana, a pivotal experience occurred in my life: I acquired malaria, which was highly endemic to the area where I was living. Our Ghanaian neighbors suffered continuously from malaria. My treatment was attended over by my balafone teacher, a traditional healer from northern Ghana, who used traditional African 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.

From Africa, I travelled to India for a year. While there I studied Yoga, Buddhism and meditation, 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 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 physician, however, his treatment was successful at stopping the bleeding and I recovered.

Later that year the critters were back while living in Dharamsala in the foothills of the Himalayas in northern India. I visited a 65 year old Tibetan Buddhist monk and practitioner of Tibetan Medicine at the Institute of Tibetan Medicine and Medical Astrology. 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.

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.