MC (f): Let's welcome Dr. Hegde for his keynote address. (Dr. Hegde(m): Thank you very much.) Pleasure.

Dr. Hegde(m): Good morning everybody, especially the future generation who are here. How do we survive on this planet? Why do we get ill? And why should we become sick and how to avoid all that? So I've been working on this for the last half a century to be very precise, a little over that. Ever since I joined the medical school way back in 1956, I've been worrying about this human being. What is health then? Enthusiasm to work. Get up in the morning, the first thing you ask is, "Do I want to go to school? Do I want to

go to the office? Do I want to work?" And if the answer is yes, you're very healthy. You can have a serious disease and still be healthy. Have you heard of Stephen Hawking? Steve is the professor of physics in Cambridge, who had a peculiar disease 42 years ago, which is called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

And if you read a textbook of medicine, it tells you a amyotrophic lateral sclerosis diagnosis offers a death warrant. Patients should be dead within six months to two years after the diagnosis. Forty-two years that man has defied this diagnosis and this definition, and is still continuing very productive, writes books, etc. Can't talk, can't eat, can't sit, can't do nothing, can't even lift his hand, can't even lift a finger, but he's very healthy because enthusiasm to work. Do you know when you

have enthusiasm to work? When you love your work.

So you have to be enthusiastic to work. The second thing is you have to have enthusiasm for compassion. You should love this whole universe, because we are interconnected. I'll show you very quickly

how interconnected we are. Health is a state of perfect subatomic communication.

This was a gentleman, Albert Popp, who in 1970 showed that every cell in the human body, the DNA emits a light, and this light, if it's in sync in the whole body, you're healthy. When there's de-sync in the whole body, you're unhealthy. Not only that, this, my light will probably vibrate with Shankar's light, if I like Shankar. And if I hate him, then there's disharmony, and my health goes bad. Can you believe that? So you have now, scientifically, proof to say that you have a beautiful system inside. Human beings are built to last as long as you live, but today we have changed the atmosphere completely. We have started eating all kinds of animals. We've polluted the whole area, we have chemicals in everything that you eat, water you drink, the milk you take - everything has chemicals - so you get diseases. Otherwise you should not get disease. So why are we suffering? Situations have changed drastically; this is not unusual these days. And the most important thing is the immune system. It is a handyman which keeps you alive, has been knocked down by our modern lifestyle. Now, how do you know you're well? The best definition is in Ayurveda. “Samadhathu,” I'll read that:

“You eat well, you have appetite. You sleep well, you get good sleep, and you have enthusiasm to work and you don't hate nobody; you're very healthy.” Did you get that? You get up in the morning, and say, "Do I have all this?" You are very healthy. That's the sign. So you don't have to go to the doctor, you can know it yourself.

This was the first textbook of medicine written in 1733; those days there were no industries to influence the doctors. And this was the first professor of medicine in Vienna, and his name is Charles Scharshmidst. In 1773 he wrote a beautiful book, where he says, “most diseases can be changed by these three things,” which is true even today: Change of mode of living - that's the essence of this conference, “change of mode of living,” true - tranquility of mind; last, drugs rarely, if ever. Now, where is the mind? “Mind” is a single word in the English language, but in the mother of all languages, Sanskrit, there are five words for a mind. The mind of a child, newborn child which can just recognize, maybe after a few months, is called manas, M-A-N-A-S. That is something like a dark room with a window. So the child sees something in the window, it smiles. Do you know how many times a young child smiles in a day? Roughly, young lady? 500 to 1000 times it smiles. Ask yourself how many times you smiled yesterday? The less number of times you smile, the regular is your heart rate, and when you don't smile, you may get a heart attack. So keep smiling.

And when you smile naturally, you relax so much, your blood pressure comes down, your heart rate comes down, and you'll be surprised, even headache disappears.