My friend, Dhru Purohit, and I have two things in common: we both grew up in Kenya and we both enjoy fresh, real food.
I guess when you grow up in a beautiful country like Kenya, it’s hard to not love that which is fresh and pure. As a child, I still remember walking the dusty streets of Nairobi to the market or the butchers; handing over Shillings in exchange for roasted corn with chili powder on the side of the road. I remember picking mangoes and pomegranates from the trees in my garden, and walking barefoot in the sun.
Dhru had similar experiences. Growing up, he was taught the importance of a healthy diet by his parents, “My parents really loved food and always promoted healthy eating,” he says. But much like any teenager, he found himself rejecting his parent’s healthy ways. Moving to the US, he began to consume the average American diet and soon found there were some consequences:
“It all started when I was graduating high school,” he recalls. At the time, he was suffering from acne and he wanted to try anything to make it go away. “Someone suggested I remove dairy from my diet and when I did, my acne went away. I was pretty shocked and I started investigating food further.”
In the meantime, Dhru was beginning a spiritual journey. “I was born in the Hindu tradition and as I got older I started to question my own beliefs, as young adults naturally do,” he says. He realized that he had a spiritual calling that was pushing him to do something. But try as he might, he couldn’t fit into any religious denomination. And so, he began to meditate and look within.
“The more I got into meditation and service the more I realized that I didn’t need a specific religion or title to encompass my spiritual world. I believe in a higher power, but not a father-type-figure who is in the sky. I believe in what Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwit calls, “the Divine Love of God that is alive in every fiber of our being, waiting to be released through us onto our world.'”
He believes food and spirituality go hand in hand. “To me spirituality is the same thing as presence or, ask Eckhart Tolle calls it, “present moment awareness.” When we are present to our food, and pay attention to our food, we realize that there are some things that make us feel and look good and some things that don’t.”
So he began to start questioning the food he was putting in his body. He noted the things that were bad and the things that were good.
While learning to eat healthy, he came across a man named Dr. Alejandro Junger. “I saw Dr. Junger on TV one day and thought, ‘man, that guy seems really smart. I have to meet him.'” Says Dhru. “I reached out to him a few months later and we became friends. One day, he invited me to New York to check out his medical practice and it was there that I learned about his cleanse that he used on patients. He shared his vision on bringing it to more people with me and I knew we could make great business partners and help a lot of people.”
Together, they worked to form the Clean Program, “a twenty-one-day program designed to support the body’s natural ability to heal itself.” The program, which has been revered by stars like Gwyneth Paltrow, “focuses on cleansing and detoxification through a mixture of dietary change and supplementation.”
Today, he continues as CEO and Founding Partner of the Clean Program. He tells people that everybody is different, but to find the health program that works for you. Over the years, he has been thankful to mentors and says, “Find people who are genuinely happy and content. Hang out with them, learn from them, study them.”
Through his journey, he has found a beautiful balance between eating healthy and living spiritually. Like his favorite author, Eckhart Tolle says, “Life will always give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of you consciousness.”
Main photo credit.
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