Exploring Ayurvedic medicine and how it can impact your health positively. Read this introduction post to understand Ayurveda.
In the English-speaking world, there’s a tendency to take in small bits of other cultures and traditions.
We either inflate them into something magical, or dismiss them outright as primitive and somehow beneath what we’re taught in the West.
When Westerners hear about Ayurvedic medicine they may hear it and picture a vaguely mystical Indian tradition of some kind, but have no real idea, what it refers to exactly.
So what is Ayurvedic medicine?
The answer is simple if you just look at the literal translation of the Sanskrit word Ayurveda:
“Knowledge of Life.”
What does Ayurvedic mean?
Balance and connections
Literally, the practice of Ayurveda or Ayurvedic medicine refers to an ancient set of delightful concepts. Western medicine and philosophy are only slowly coming to terms with these concepts on their own, some 3000 years later. Ayurveda states that all life is interconnected.
Ayurveda recognizes that within individual organisms, between us as individuals, and between humans and the larger world, there are definable, demonstrable connections.
These connections can affect our health and well-being, and we are ignoring those links at our peril.
For instance, Western medicine has only recently begun acknowledging that something as endemic to the Western lifestyle as stress and overwork can have real-world, physical consequences for the individual human organism.
How long might it take for the powers-that-be in the West to realize the following…
This type of individual sickness may well be reflected in a sick society altogether.
Ayurveda, on the other hand, is a tradition spanning thousands of years. It has at its core a philosophy that disease and illness are caused by imbalances.
The imbalances can be stress in a person’s consciousness, imbalances in their body and imbalances between the person and the world, to mention a few.
Using natural therapies and lifestyle interventions to restore balance between the mind, body, spirit and environment, Ayurveda seeks not only to heal the illness with which the patient currently presents, but also to help them create a more balanced, harmonious way of existence moving forward.
In this manner, Ayurveda seeks to help prevent future illness as well.
Ayurveda Meaning in Practice: Finding Harmony
Ayurvedic medicine also recognizes that seeking wellness for an individual organism of necessity means seeking to harmonize both the internal world and the external one.
Ayurvedic treatments are centered around a purification process that mostly includes:
- a special diet
- a special daily routine
- yoga
- herbal remedies
- massage therapy
- meditation
All of the above aimed at restoring balance.
Ayurvedic treatments seek to eliminate impurities in diet and poor lifestyle choices. Hereby giving the person reduction in symptoms. Additionally, increasing an individual’s ability to resist future disease, reduce stress and worry, and increase their sense of harmony throughout their life.
The History of Ayurvedic Medicine
In India, Ayurveda is recognized as a form of medical intervention on a par with modern Western medicine.
Practitioners of Ayurveda in India must undergo rigorous, institutional, state-recognized training before being licensed to practice, just as medical doctors must do in Western nations.
The training to be a practitioner of Classical Ayurveda is also available in the West and the popularity is heightening.
But where does this grand tradition of Ayurveda come from?
Ayurveda Definition
Some sources claim Ayurvedic medicine is as much as 5,000 years old, but most scholars settle on 3,000 years as being the most likely time span of the practice.
Stemming from the root words ayur (life) and veda (science or knowledge), Ayurveda is usually translated as “knowledge of life,” or sometimes as “science of life.”
It’s based on an ancient oral tradition passed down from practitioner to apprentice. It’s been formed over the millennia out of a system that was developed to describe the way the universe works and how we function within it as human beings.
Us being seen as smaller parts of the larger organism of the planet and life itself.
Ayurveda tells us that the five human senses – sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell – serve as doorways between the internal and external realms.
We employ these senses to bring into ourselves pieces of the world around us. We incorporate those pieces of the external world within our own being.
Ayurveda elements and doshas
The five great elements as described by Ayurvedic teachings – ether (space), air, fire, water, and earth, known collectively as pancha mahabhuta – make up all of creation, including ourselves.
The swirling symphony of these elements in turn create three basic types of energy called doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.
What Is Ayurveda and How Does it Work?
We won’t get into tremendous detail as to what these energy types represent in this article. Except to say the Ayurvedic doshas are meant as leverage to help return people to health.
The main concept is that everything you see, think, taste, feel, or even believe is thought to have a shape, an energy and a quality.
Called gunas in Sanskrit, these qualities are broken down into 10 sets of paired opposites, i.e. heavy/light, soft/hard, cold/hot, etc.
Ayurveda is founded upon identifying excesses or imbalances in these pairs of gunas, which then lead to imbalances in the doshas.
From there, the imbalanced doshas cause illness and disease.
With Ayurvedic medicine, the idea is to supplement deficiencies or tamp down excesses in the gunas in an effort to restore balance to one’s doshas. Hereby restoring health to the organism as a whole.
Where Ayurvedic Medicine and Western Medicine Meet
While the terminology may be unfamiliar to people raised under Western society’s rigid and rather unforgiving regime of medicinal thought, the concepts shouldn’t be.
That’s because they closely match what Western medicine knows about how the body works.
For instance, the Ayurvedic principle of agni, or transformation, is understood to be the portal between the internal and the external.
Practitioners of Ayurveda believe agni manifests as our digestion, converting food into the nutrients energy we need to live. The nutrients turn into our tissues, in Sanskrit called dhatus. The waste products and toxins, malas, are byproducts of that process.
But in addition to merely being another set of terms used to describe the mechanics of digestion, agni is also believed to encompass a larger principle: that we simultaneously transform information from the outside world into internal, experiential knowledge.
Our bodies then use this knowledge to differentiate between the nutritious material we consume and the byproducts or toxins that we need to flush out.
And when there are imbalances, Ayurveda tells us, we run into trouble like disease and illness.
Ayurvedic Medicine, Western Medicine, and Imbalance
Anyone who keeps an eye on developing health news has heard something about how inflammation is being identified more and more as a precursor to cancer, diabetes, heart disease.
Plus a whole host of other difficult-to-manage and complicated illnesses.
And where does inflammation come from? Poor diet, too much sugar, too much salt, not enough exercise, not enough whole foods.
Those are all issues you could call imbalances.
What practitioners of Ayurveda has understood for millennia: imbalances cause problems.
There’s now a number of Ayurvedic medical ideas that are gaining traction in the West.
For instance, what besides an acknowledgment of the interconnectedness of all the realms of our existence are studies showing how work/life balance can affect your heart health and a plethora of other systems?
There are other factors involved, of course, but what we’re talking about here is exactly the concept that everything is connected.
The outside environment will mirror the inside of human beings.
Ayurvedic Treatment
When we talk about the basics of Ayurvedic treatments, it can’t be stressed enough that it’s the aforementioned balance that is all important.
Treatment by a practitioner of Ayurveda isn’t going to reflect a traditional Western approach.
Whereas a traditional medicine patient might present with a rash, be prescribed a cream, and sent on their way, in Ayurvedic treatment it’s crucial to identify several factors.
The practitioner will not only want the symptoms and the first to come to mind underlying cause, but they will want to dig into the person’s overall composition.
Any Ayurvedic treatment regimen is going to encompass discussion of your mental/psychological balance for starters.
It will be including questions about the stress in your life, your general diet, and a discussion of your lifestyle.
Your Ayurvedic practitioner will then analyze and synthesize all of that information and break it down into terms that describe your unique physical and emotional makeup, as well as your primary life force.
Only then would an Ayurvedic practitioner start to look at possible changes to your lifestyle. They might be using various herbs, minerals, oils, massage techniques, enemas, laxatives or other treatments to attempt to restore your needed balance.
Ayurvedic Medicine Conclusions
Preventative wellness today has never been more cutting edge than when it is using the 3,000 year-old techniques of Ayurveda.
Consultations with a trained professional practitioner of Ayurvedic medicine can enhance any wellness program and help you find a better balance in your life.
It could be in terms of your diet, lifestyle, and human relations, as well as in the very way you process the world around you.
When used in concert with Western medicine, sustainable good habits and an all-around healthy outlook, Ayurvedic medicine can change people’s lives.
Begin the journey toward a healthier, more balanced you – reach out to an Ayurvedic counselor today to learn more!
