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Sunil Munot speaking at a conference
Speaking at a conference in Kolkata

How I came to this

My name is Sunil Munot and I live and work in Kolkata. I should begin by saying that I did not come to any of this as a believer.

Like most people, I was startled when I first heard that naturopathy and urine therapy were used as medicine. I was more startled still to learn that people drank it. My reaction was the ordinary one, and I record it here because anyone arriving at this site for the first time probably feels the same, and there is no reason to pretend otherwise.

Why I started looking

My search began about fifteen years ago, at a time when someone in my family was unwell and I felt I had run out of answers. We had spent a great deal of time and money without getting anywhere, and I began looking at whether there were older approaches worth understanding. Marta kya na karta — a drowning man reaches for anything.

I want to be careful about how I put that, because I know people read pages like this one when they are frightened. Looking further is reasonable. Stopping medical care is not, and I would say to anyone in that position what I would say to my own family: keep the doctor, and keep asking questions until you get a real answer.

Whatever I looked into, I tried on myself first, for a month, and paid attention to what actually happened.

What I studied

From there I began learning whatever natural healing methods I could find: water therapy, sun gazing, prana healing through air and ground, acupressure, Reiki, body cleansing, Vipassana, emotional and energy healing, pranic healing. Some I found useful. Some I found did nothing. Both outcomes taught me something, and I have tried to put both on this site rather than only the first.

Eventually I built this website around the five elements of nature, because that framework held all of it together better than any other I found.

What thirty years has actually taught me

If I had to reduce it to one thing: the body repairs itself. Every therapy and every medicine is only helping that process along, or getting out of its way. Nothing heals a body that is not already doing the work.

The second thing is that the person has to be part of it. If someone does not, in themselves, accept a course of treatment — of whatever kind — it tends not to go well. Doctors know this too; it is why adherence matters as much as the prescription.

The third is the most neglected and, I think, the most important: most healing happens while you are asleep. The body does an enormous amount of repair overnight — tissue rebuilt, hormones regulated, the brain cleared, the liver working steadily through the night. Modern sleep research has confirmed this in detail, and it matches exactly what the old traditions said about sleeping and rising on time.

Of everything on this website, sleeping properly and at a regular hour is the one piece of advice I would keep if I had to throw away all the rest.

I am not a doctor and I do not run a clinic. What I have is three decades of reading, correspondence, travel and personal practice, and a large collection of material that would otherwise be scattered.

Why the five elements

Indian thought holds that everything in creation — the human body included — is made of five great elements: earth, water, fire, air and space. Each is present in different proportion, and each is connected to the others. When the five are in balance we stay well; when one falls out of balance we do not. Every subject here sits under one of those headings.

How I have written this site

In rebuilding these pages I made two decisions worth stating.

First, where a practice is supported by evidence I say so, and where it is not, I say that too. A tradition does not need to be dressed up as science to be worth recording. I would rather a reader trusted this site than discovered later that it had oversold something.

Second, where a practice carries real risk — fasting, sun gazing, sea water, heavy-metal content in some preparations — the caution sits on the page rather than in small print. Anyone who takes these subjects seriously owes readers that much.

The tradition of Shivambu

The practice that gave the old site its name has a long history in India and elsewhere. It is set out in full on the Shivambu page, together with an honest account of what modern medicine does and does not support.

World conferences

Please read this first

This site is a personal account and a record of traditional practice, shared for information. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a treatment for any disease. I am not a doctor.

If you are unwell — and especially if you have a serious illness such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease — please stay under the care of a qualified physician. Nothing here should replace or delay that care.