Ayurveda is a guide to living a conscious life.
It's truly mind-body-spirit medicine, treating the whole individual rather than simply the physical or mental symptoms.
Ayurveda amritanam, which means "Ayurveda is for immortality," was announced by Ayurvedic sages thousands of years ago.
The essence of amritanam is divided into two parts:
- Ayurveda promotes health and longevity while also acknowledging that we are already eternal. Pure consciousness, unconstrained by space and time, is our true nature. It is neither born nor dies.
- However, many components of our hectic life, such as stress, limiting beliefs, weariness, and poisons, keep us from experiencing who we truly are. These factors can also cause imbalances in our bodies, which can lead to illness and disease.
As we awaken to our genuine, immortal self, Ayurveda is a manual for conscious living that teaches us how to make everyday choices that restore our natural state of balance and health.
What exactly is Ayurveda?
Ayurveda is a body of knowledge that aims to keep individuals alive and well while allowing them to reach their full human potential.
The sages of India developed Ayurveda, which is still one of the world's most sophisticated and successful mind-body health systems, thousands of years before modern medicine gave scientific evidence for the mind-body connection.
Ayurveda tells us that in order to be fully healthy, we must address the mind, body, spirit, and environment, as well as the physical body. This allows us to experience a level of totality.
Ayurveda is an experiential system, which implies that our choices about diet, personal relationships, sensory experiences, sleep, work, social interactions, and daily routine all have an impact on our bodies. Because our biology is the metabolism of experience, our biology changes as our experiences change.
Ayurveda has been practised for thousands of years. Ayurvedic wisdom was passed down verbally from teacher to student for years, evolving and refining before being written down in Sanskrit in the ancient Indian Vedas, or books of wisdom, which are among the oldest manuscripts in human history.
Ayurveda brings us back to our original state healthy state. Ayurveda's purpose is to assist us in returning to our original state of health and to recognise that our true self is pure consciousness, which is eternal and never dies.
The individual, not the condition, is the centre of Ayurveda.
In contrast to Western medicine, which has spent a great deal of time attempting to isolate the differences between various diseases, Ayurveda concentrates on the unique traits of individuals, emphasising that diseases differ primarily due to the diversity of people.
The Four P's of Ayurveda are a good example of this.
PERSONALIZED
All health-related measures, whether an exercise regimen, food plan, or herbal supplement, according to Ayurveda, must be based on a knowledge of an individual's unique mind-body constitution, or dosha.
An Ayurvedic doctor can tell which diet, physical activities, and medical therapies are most likely to assist a patient's dosha, and which are unlikely to help or even hurt them.
PREVENTATIVE
Furthermore, while Western medicine has tended to address disease symptoms, Ayurveda aims to remove illness by treating the root cause. An allopathic physician, for example, would likely recommend antidepressants and possibly counselling to a patient suffering from depression. An Ayurvedic doctor, on the other hand, would try to figure out what's causing the depression in the first place.
The Ayurvedic doctor would assess the patient as a whole, taking into account the patient's mind, body, soul, and surroundings. It's critical for the doctor to take into account the patient's lifestyle, activities, food, recent stressful events, beliefs, and mind-body constitution while recommending a treatment plan.
It's crucial to note that Ayurveda does not rule out the use of contemporary medicine, such as antidepressants and other prescription drugs.
PRACTICAL
The primary idea of Ayurveda is that we should use whatever healing procedures can help us restore health and balance to our bodies.
Lifestyle practises, behaviours, herbal remedies, dietary changes, pharmaceutical drugs, surgery, meditation, exercise, and psychotherapy are just a few examples. Ayurveda, first and foremost, provides useful tools that can be incorporated into one's daily routine.
PARTICIPATORY
Daily habits, according to Ayurveda, are extremely important in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It's crucial to make informed decisions about how to participate in the six pillars of health and live a healthy, balanced life.
Ayurveda is a holistic approach to health that combines the wisdom of ancient healing traditions with the finest of modern medicine to balance the doshas and achieve optimal health.
Ayurveda inspires and instils hope. An Ayurvedic teacher's primary goal is to educate individuals so that they can make better health and happiness decisions.
Ayurvedic Bodies
According to Ayurveda, human beings have three layers or "bodies" that correlate to the physical body, mind, and soul.
1) Sthula sharira: The physical structures of the organs, organ systems, bones, muscles, tissues, tendons, and ligaments make up the exterior body.
2) Sukshma sharira: The subtle body, which is immediately beneath the physical body and contains the mind, emotions, and sensory organs; the subtle body influences how we assimilate our experiences, and it continually generates and modifies how the body functions on a biochemical basis.
3) Karana sharira: The non-changing self or deepest body, also known as atman. The competing features of the mind and body don't bother us in this stratum. We transcend the boundaries of the physical body and mental/emotional body when we connect with this non-changing self, and we tap into a field of pure potentiality from which health might arise.
Chanting's vibrations awaken the knowledge that already exists within us.
The interconnection of all things is Ayurveda's guiding premise.
We are inseparable pieces of the vast field of intellect, not isolated collections of atoms and molecules. Health, in this context, isn't only the absence of illness or symptoms; it's a higher condition of consciousness that permits vitality, well-being, creativity, and joy to flow into our lives.
Illness, on the other hand, is a disruption, a barrier in the flow of energy and information that causes a sense of isolation or alienation from the intelligence field. Disease, according to Ayurveda, is the last manifestation of poisonous accumulations in the mind-body system.
Symptoms and illness are the body's way of signaling that we need to restore balance, remove whatever is causing the blockages, and reestablish a healthy flow of energy and information.
Ayurvedic techniques assist us in regaining balance and experiencing our natural state of health and well-being.
Doshas and Subdoshas
DOSHAS
Doshas are energies that regulate a person's body and mind's physiological and psychological qualities.
We've looked at Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, the three main doshas. There are five unique subdoshas within each of the three doshas.
SUBDOSHAS
These five subdoshas are the second regulating energies within the dosha, and they are responsible for overseeing certain acts, organs, or emotions. They are dispersed throughout the body in various regions and components.
Despite the fact that all three doshas can be found throughout the body, the primary location of each dosha is:
Vata: the colon.
Pitta: small intestine
Kapha: the thoracic area, including the heart and lungs
The subdoshas work to assist the body in carrying out all of its functions. The fifteen subdoshas and the three doshas work in tandem.
THE VATA SUBDOSHAS
Prana: responsible for perception, inspiration, and thought
Udana: responsible for speech
Samana: responsible for the rhythm of peristalsis
Apana: responsible for elimination of wastes, menstruation, and reproductive function
Vyana: responsible for circulation
THE PITTA SUBDOSHAS
Sadhaka: responsible for healthy heart function and good memory
Alochaka: responsible for good visual perception
Pachaka: responsible for initiating digestion of nutrients
Ranjaka: responsible for balancing blood chemistry, nutrients levels, and detoxification
Bhrajaka: responsible for healthy complexion
THE KAPHA SUBDOSHAS
Tarpaka: responsible for supporting the brain and spinal cord
Bodhaka: responsible for perception of taste
Kledaka: responsible for lubricating the digestive tract
Avalambaka: responsible for supporting and protecting the heart, lungs, and lower back
Sleshaka: responsible for lubricating the joints
When studying Ayurveda I learned from Dr. Suhas a Vedic prayer from the ancient scripture Brhadaranyaka Upanishad:
SANSKRIT-ENGLISH
Asato ma sad gamaya.
Lead us from untruths to the eternal truth.
Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya.
Lead us from darkness to light.
Mrtyor ma amrtam gamaya.
Lead us from mortality to immortality.
Om shanti shanti shanti.
Om peace peace peace.