In Conversation with Dr. Smita Naram, Co-founder of Ayushakti: Pioneer in Pulse Reading

Ayushakti, one of the leading and most trusted ayurvedic health centers around the world, is on a mission to heal people across the world. The ayurvedic health center offers services like ancient pulse reading (nadi pariksha), effective herbal remedies, authentic detoxification panchkarma treatments, customized diet plans, and marma (Ayurvedic pressure point) techniques. Dr. Smita Naram, who co-founded Ayushakti, and also a fifth generation Vaidya in her family, tells Reshmi AR of Sakshi Post on how Ayushakti is transforming the lives of people through ancient healing and more. Read on… 

1. What drew you towards Ayurvedic healing? Did you have a personal experience where it helped you recover? 

When I was 10 years old, I had a severe stomach ache. The pain was so acute that my parents suspected it was appendicitis and thought of rushing me to the hospital for surgery. However, my father called my uncle, who lived in our native village and was a leading ‘vaidya’ (medicine man) there.

My uncle gave him a recipe for a herbal cure and my father later made a concoction and gave it to me. And voila! the pain disappeared! What could probably be a major health scare was easily solved with a home remedy. This incident reinforced and strengthened my faith in Ayurveda. My uncle, grandfather, and forefathers were all Ayurvedic doctors and since childhood, I never took any allopathy medicines. If I fell sick, I was given ‘Sudarshan ghanvati’, and every Sunday, I had a spoonful of castor oil.

Many of such first-hand experiences and close proximity to ancient science made me choose to study Ayurveda. My late husband, Dr. Pankaj Naram, who I met in the later part of 1977, inspired me to join him in the study of Ayurveda very deeply too. Thus, with him together we started Ayushakti, with the intention of healing people across the world.

2. What do you think are the common misconceptions that Ayurveda works very slow? 

As per our experience when you have a problem which is not chronic, and you go to Ayurveda it can be controlled immediately. If there is expert guidance and you are not doing self-medication or just trying some home remedies and herbal formulas. But in general, people first choose to suppress the symptoms by going to allopathy and don't work on the root cause from day one. Because of that root causes only become stronger and stronger and finally when even the suppression is not happening with the allopathy, they go to Ayurveda.

Obviously, the root causes are so chronic and strong that it takes a long time to heal. But the great part is that Ayurveda can get rid of the root cause and provide long-lasting permanent relief. At Ayushakti, we have a track record of creating long-lasting relief for 1.5 million people, globally.

3. You are the 5th generation Vaidya in your family and also heading the Siddhaveda lineage of 2500 years old Ancient Healing. How can this ancient practice transform modern medicine? 

I believe that modern medicine has its own place where it helps in accidents, emergencies, certain kinds of infections, and in cases where you definitely need surgery. Hence, we should not think that Ancient Practice is a replacement for Modern medicines.

While Ancient practices, if done correctly, helps get rid of the root cause and thus more and more people can avoid surgeries or get freedom from becoming a slave to prescription medications. Hence, both have their own place. I believe that Ancient Healing can help prevent the problems if it is used in the early stage of illness. It can prevent it from becoming very chronic and incurable and if there is any old chronic situation, it can help get rid of the root cause and give long-lasting relief. 

4. How is an Ayurvedic treatment different from a typical medical treatment you might get at a hospital? 

Ayurvedic treatment or Ancient Healing treatment comes with the 6 tools of diet, lifestyle, herbal formula, home remedies, marma treatments and Panchakarma (Detox program). These help to remove toxins and remove chronic illness from the root cause, whereas other types of different medical treatments just suppresses it and can be harmful in the long run.

Our Ayurvedic treatments at Ayushakti are focussed on long-term results from chronic ailments. 

5. If you could say one thing to change people’s minds and get them to try ayurvedic ways of healing, what would it be? 

I would say that life with Ancient Healing lifestyle and diet prevent health issues, create anti-ageing, and have a long-lasting relief from chronic health issues. I would also add that do explore Ayurveda once, as it gives long-lasting vibrant health, with natural treatments.

6. You train hundreds of doctors so that they can master this ancient practice. How was your training experience? 

In my training experience, I have noticed that within 90 days we can train Western Medical doctors, Indian doctors, Chiropractors etc. to check the pulse and find out the deep-rooted imbalances and let the client know what is going wrong in their body, mind, and emotions. This is mainly due to our training structure that they are normally 70% to 80% correct.

This is something amazing as pulse reading was considered to be done by only a few masters in India while we at Ayushakti have been able to train people across the world in becoming a master in this very rare Science of Pulse Reading - Nadi Pariksha.

Another observation is that Ayushakti has recorded the process of healing more than 350 health conditions based on 1.5 million-plus people’s experiences. We can train using the modern technology of Satya Software where we have all the doctors create the same predictable results for every health challenge. and that is why our results are predictable and 90% of people get definite improvement in their health challenges.

7. How is Ayurvedic training different from general medicine training? 

The practice of Ayurveda incorporates a healing system, a philosophy, and a way of life. In Ayurveda, the focus is on treating the root cause and not just the symptoms. It helps to reduce or eliminate the toxins which are created from years and years accumulated in the body. It comes with no side effects as it is Natural. Ayurvedic training is different as its success is on pulse reading, finding deep-rooted causes, and finally creating a healing pathway to reverse all the deep-rooted causes.

This training does not require years of medicinal studies, but rather an approach of deep understanding and sympathy towards unhealed individuals.

8. You realised that your purpose on Earth is to transform people’s life, how did you come to that realisation? 

I and my late husband Dr. Naram started as practitioners in 1987 across the world and we started travelling to Europe, America, Australia and New Zealand, and were already training more than 20 Western Medical doctors from different parts of the world. Some of them actually started asking questions that we have seen some great results from you in your practice, and if it can be possible for us too as we are so positive. People already can see a healing effect that is proof that it can work on everybody.

So, we told them that they start researching on the patients and publish the research papers in the world so that they will be also convinced, and others will be convinced too.

And that way there were more than 12 European medical doctors who published research papers on Dermatitis, Depression Anxiety, Infertility, Respiratory problems, Joints problem, etc. where they demonstrated to European Universities that this Ancient Healing is having a proven effect.

By 1999, we were super busy and we could not see any patients anymore personally and we realised based on research papers published that we are something that is important for humanity and it has to reach the masses. For that reason, each time I meditated, I asked the Universe to send me a vision by which I can touch and transform people’s life on this planet. And one day in my meditation, a vision like a blueprint came where I realized that the best way would be to train lots of doctors and support them to become successful practitioners on this planet. Because if you want to grow in genuine Ancient Ayurveda practice then self-medication is not the way, selling the products is not the way, the way is that we train more and more doctors. This way we will find the individual cause of a person and create an individual plan so that it has a deep long-lasting result and that is why we opted for the path of training and create support structures for doctors in the form of Ayushakti Clinic to practice this powerful Ancient method.

In the last 20 years, we have seen proven results in ailments like Blood Sugar, Arthritis, Skin problem, Depression, Anxiety, Infertility, Respiratory problems, Joints problem, etc. I want people on this Earth to be happy and healthy but I alone cannot reach out to everyone so I have trained doctors and practitioners globally and with their help, we have helped people on this planet dealing with chronic ailments.

9. Ayushakti changed the lives of over a million people, did you always know that your endeavours were going to be this successful? 

When you start a journey somewhere, you don’t know where or how it will go. The same is with me. I did not embark on this road, to be successful, but rather to help people heal. Today, I am very grateful to my entire team of Doctors, and the supporting team across the world in manufacturing, finance, and legal, for registering the products and following the quality standards of the countries like Germany, Netherlands, USA etc. My marketing team who is constantly creating and inspiring education for the masses and lastly and most importantly, my late husband, Dr. Pankaj Naram who always supported me in my dream and allowed me and gave me the freedom to do what I love to do as a vision.

I am also thankful to more than 1.5 million people on this planet who put their health in our hands and followed our advice with commitment so that we can create transformation in them from hopelessness to happiness and Vibrant Health.  

10. As a successful female entrepreneur competing in a competitive business environment, what were some of the challenges you faced? 

I never believe that there is any competition for females or males in the external world. I believe competition for females is within themselves. Most females feel restricted to do things because they think “I am female”, because “I cannot do this”, because “my in-laws are not supporting”; but in reality, I have seen that when I supported my own family, all the family members supported me whenever in the manner in which I needed the support.

For eg: I stood by my all-family members in their health challenges or when they needed my support to take care of their children unconditionally and they also did the same whenever I was travelling. They took care of my son like their son unconditionally. So that is how even after my son was born and he started going to school, and I could not travel with him around, I was lucky, my family members like my Bhabhi, my all 3 Sister-in-Law took care of my son.

In the business environment, I have been part of the Board of elected committee members in Chemexcil which is a semi-government organization. I was the only female member elected and I didn't find any discrimination by the other board members against me. I believe, as a female and as human beings, we create our own limitations inside out. The outside world always stands by you when you break your own limitations. For this reason, I will only say that you should expand your inner horizons. Your outside world is always what you are in your inside world.

11. If you had to give a piece of advice to other fellow female entrepreneurs, what would your advice be? 

I will only say in Hindi, one thing that:

इरादे नेक हो (create a goal which is helping society)
इरादे पक्के हो (never give up on your goals, temporary defeats should not shake you up) 
जो इरादे सच्चे हो (then you will realize your goals and you will achieve your goals definitely) 

12.  You went the extra mile and researched how ancient healing techniques are still helpful to this day and got the research published, how did that feel? 

Today we have published more than 30 research papers in peer viewed Journals of America and Europe. The peer Viewed Journal means these research papers are approved by scientists who were considered the authority in those days, and it takes a minimum of 6 to 8 months to even approve the publication of these research papers by them as they are asking for a lot of proof from us.

In these research papers, we have actually demonstrated that lots of problems like degenerative bone tissues, PCOS, Type 2 Diabetes, Genetic Skin disorder, chronic respiratory issues and so on can be reversed as per the scientific research produced by us and screened by them. This is making me feel very happy because I feel I have contributed to the direction of creating credibility for this Ancient Science.

More than 100 modern concepts have been invented in the last 50 years which were already described in Ayurveda like Chromosome genes, surgical concepts, even sterilization processes before surgery for prevention of infections and many more are already described 5000 years ago. So, I believe Ayurveda is actually ahead of modern science.

But, unfortunately, currently, we are slaves of modern research and science hence we have to publish papers to convince the world in modern scientific journals specifically from European and American countries. And I am very happy that we have been successfully doing that. I believe that if I have done 1% of the work in comparison to what is necessary on this planet. I keep praying to God to give us the energy to keep publishing research papers in proving that Ayurveda is effective in certain chronic health challenges.

13. Personally training over 500+ doctors must require a lot of motivation, passion, and drive, how do you manage to keep yourself motivated? 

I keep my motivation by staying focused on my vision of contributing to this planet beyond my life, by creating health transformations in billions of people in the next 25 years. That keeps me focused. Besides, when the practitioners, Doctors, Naturopath, and Ayurvedic doctors get trained in pulse reading and create long-lasting remarkable relief based on proven methods of Ayushakti, they help hundreds of people every month which makes me feel extremely happy and motivated to do more and more in that direction.  With each passing batch, I am more than happy to train western doctors, practitioners, and Naturopaths because my mission is to reach each and every one of them to get relief from chronic ailments, and with the help of training I can do so.