THE turning point in gerard Bodeker’slife came about in 1973 when he was nearly killed in a car accident. With tubes down his nose, drips on every vein and air being pumped into lungs, he wasted away half his bodyweigt in the hospital and the doctors did not hold out much hope.

"I had this crushing sense of being about to die and having done nothing with my life," he said.

This realisation bore down hard on him and forced him back to life. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, he started to recover. He put on weight and his blood levels came back to normal.

"I was still in the hospital for three monts after tat and had to have steel plates put in both legs, but was not the same anymore.

"I was filled with joy of living. Every minute, every second was a joy to be alive," he recounted

bedeker is the chairman of the newly-formed International Advisory Panel (IAP) for the development of the herbal industry in Malaysia.

He is also the chairman of Global Initiative for Traditional Systems (Gifts), an internationalpolicy collaborative based at the Institute of health Sciences, at the University of Oxford, and he coordinates the Commonwealth Working Group on Traditional and Complementary Medicine.

"…born in Autralia and educated by the Jesuits" as he puts it, his original traini g was as a clinical psychiatrist and he worked with the aboriginal communty in autralis for eight years in a community-based health and social development progamme.

At 30, he went to the US to do his doctoral studies in international public policy at the Harvard University.

"I really was very interested in the relationship between indigenous knowledge and public policy," he said.

Bedeker also did doctoral research for the World Health Organisation, on the link between trditional medicine and public policy using India and China as his case studies.

"After my doctoral studies. I was offered a job running the Lancaster Foundation in Washington DC, which supports research information on ayuverdic healthcare.

"I didi that for a few years and then worked for the National Meseum of Health and Medicine, also in Washington DC, where I ran a project on traditional medicine and public policy in developing countries," he said.

During this time, Bodeker also did some advisory work for the World Bank, looking for opportunities to support traditional medicine through World Bank health service loans.

Then in 1993, Bodeker was invited to come to the Oxford University as a visiting fellow. In 1995, he was invited to move his base from Washington to Oxford, which he did.

"I ontinued my work on traditional medicine I public policy through Gifts and last year, Gifts was invited by the Health Ministeries of the 54 Commonwelth countries to serve as secretariats to Ministerial Work Groups on traditional and cmlementary health systems.

"Malaysia is a member of the working group and it is through that I initially had some contact with the country," he said.

Bodeker came to Malaysia in Jult this year and met with members of the Ministries of Health and Entrepreneur Development. He also met with Tengku Razeligh Hamzah, who spelled out a vision for rural development and helping small farmers diversity their income.

"The ministers asked me to draw up a proposal to assist Malaysia in developing the herbal industry and to help set up an IAP similar to that which had already been established for hi-tech development," he said.

And on November 1 and 2, the IAP, put together by Bodeker, which features some of the leading authorities in the different disciplines relating to theherb industry, had its inaugural meeting in Kelantan.

And with all this on his plate, how does Bedeker, who was an already busy man, cope with the additional stress? Even through th interview, which was conducted between the brief space of time he had in between flying back to Kuala Lumpur following the inaugural IAP meeting and preparing a complete report, with the rest of the IAP members on te meeting, he exuded a suprisingly refreshing calm and serenity.

"There are a lot of demands placed on me and tere is no question in my mind that it’s the meditation and related practices that give me the energy and prespective to take on these demanding resposibilities.

"I have love of nature of course and I love to take walks by myself natural surroubdings. Quite, reflective time is extremely important to me. It allows me to collect my thought and reviewmy priorities," he said.

Bodeker said he learned to meditate after his near fatl accident, to keep that incredible joy of living, that he experienced when-he recovered.

"After some time of trying different meditation, a friend told me about transcendental meditaion and it was such a blissful, profound experience that I emmediately realised and reconised that this would help me fulfill whatever it was that I had to do.

"Since then there has been a very clear sense of my life unfolding according to its own plan. It has not always been smooth but it continues to be useful. And that is why I was allowed to come back.

Bodeker, who was the only one in his family who was born in Australia, come from a mixed heritage of English, German, Burmese and Goan.

"So I feel at home pretty much wherever I go.

"There’s a Sanskrit expression which says, ‘the world is my family’. Through my work and meditaion, this is what I have come to feel. And after my near death encounter, I know one day I am going to be back there.

"So if it ever strats getting turbulent on a plane, I don’t panic, because I know what it feels like to die," he said.

But he is going to stick around a little while longer as he still has much to achieve whatever he as to.

"I have a tremendous trust in the poser of he universe to organise whatever it would be to enable me to earn that right to go."