“As long as we are not living in harmony with nature and our constitution, we cannot expect ourselves to be really healed. Ayurveda gives us the means.”
- David Frawley
Ayurveda, or ‘the science of life’, is a 5000 year old holistic medical system or health modality that considers diet, lifestyle, and mindset as integral parts of health. It is based on the Vedic understanding that the individual and the universe are interrelated. The material elements that exist in our environment are also present in our own body and mind. The interaction between these elements - when in balance - brings health, and when out of balance - disease. Ayurveda is known as the ‘yoga of healing’, a branch of the same tree that yoga grows from.
Ayurveda can be incorporated into a ‘lifestyle’ that provides an excellent foundation for health management. Its framework helps us recognise the interaction of the material elements (doshas) within the body and the influence of the maha gunas (three qualities that govern nature, consciousness, lifestyle, and environments) to discern the root cause of imbalance or disease. It encourages us to have a harmonious relationship with mother nature and spirit (life force) through right living. The importance of spiritual nourishment is acknowledged in Ayurveda in a non dogmatic way. It doesn’t advocate for any one approach to satisfy the desires of the living being or ‘soul’. Spirituality supports change, stability and fulfillment.
The challenge and beauty of Ayurveda is that it doesn’t provide a ‘quick fix’ for our physical or mental problems. In fact, ‘medicine’ is given a secondary place next to the ‘two pillars of health’ - eating right for your individuality and living a lifestyle that has exercise, joy, challenges and a routine that optimizes your personal performance or creative ability. (Atreya Smith) The Ayurvedic path of wellness invites us to become more attuned to a range of factors in our environment and our lifestyle, and to changes that occur over time (daily and seasonal rhythms, as well as through aging) that impact our lives in different ways. Deep transformation from a state of imbalance to balance requires our full participation, as we work on optimally nourishing and moving the body, and keeping the mind balanced and aware. We thus become more empowered and shift into a life lived with more positivity, creativity and higher purpose.
Ayurveda’s holistic nature offers a perfect complement to other health modalities (including allopathic/western) and can even provide solutions to problems that other modalities could not. It seeks to solve the deep seated problems or the original cause of many of the symptoms of disease or imbalance that other modalities seek to treat. When it comes to healing disease, instead of adding some substance like a pharmaceutical product to take away the symptom or ‘extracting the offending organ’, Ayurveda seeks to bring back a state of balance so that the body may heal itself.
From this point of view, Ayurveda may be superior to other health modalities in its depth of understanding and its potential for maximum healing, balance, harmony, peace and fulfillment.
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