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Good health is so natural that most people often pay attention to it only when they are sick. Even most doctors become experts in one type of illness. It is very rare that medicine focuses on health. Yet the ancients focused much more on keeping individuals healthy. Ayur-Veda, the ancient Indian knowledge of life focuses extensively on how to maintain and improve health. |
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Ayur Veda focuses on the entire person- mind and body, senses, the environment, and relationships. The idea that is so prevalent in America today, that the mind and body are separate, and what you think and feel has no effect on your health is completely opposite to the Ayur-Vedic approach to health. Ayur -Veda deals with the entire person, body, mind and spirit. It talks about developing consciousness, restoring the body's intelligence, diet and lifestyle in addition to medical herbs. |
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Ayur Veda originated in the ancient Vedic tradition of India, the oldest tradition of knowledge in human history. The Vedic seers used a totally different method of gaining knowledge than the analytic tradition of modern science. Instead of going outward, they went inward and explored the principles of life in the depths of their own consciousness. Just as Einstein formulated the laws of Relativity years before they were demonstrated in a laboratory, so the Vedic seers explored the depth of their own minds in deep meditation. Ayur Veda is referred to as the "mother of all healing", since it predates and influenced Chinese, Greek, and holistic healing. Ayur Veda reached its peak in ancient India, and through wars and conquests, declined to a shadow of its former self. In recent years, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is leading a revival of this ancient knowledge, and this revived knowledge is often called Maharishi Ayur Veda. |
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One of the essential qualities of Ayur Veda and all traditional medicine is the recognition that consciousness is inseparably connected to both mind and body. Maharishi's Ayur Veda has three levels or classes. First class Ayur Veda deals with the source of life, the root source of all health and ill-health- Consciousness. It uses meditation techniques to restore the connection between mind and body and re-enliven the root of all life in the individual. Second class Ayur Veda enlivens biological memory, and is designed to reset the body's internal healing mechanisms. Third class Ayur Veda is what people normally think of when they discuss medicine. It uses herbs and outside procedures to restore health. |
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Modern medicine has spent countless billions to produce chemical substances to modify the health of the body. Mind- body medicine notes that these chemicals work because they mirror those produced by the healthy body. Traditional medicine therefore focuses on training the body to correctly produce its own chemicals to maintain health. The purpose of medicine is to make us whole, but too often medicine attends to us in parts- we run from the eye doctor to the back doctor to the surgeon. Since modern medicine employs a disease model rather than a health model, only names diseases can be treated, the vague distress that cannot yet be named goes untreated. Health in this system is just a lack of disease. |
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In contrast, Ayur Veda focuses on creating and maintaining health, and has developed a system for dealing with minor problems that modern medicine cannot name or treat. The way Ayur Veda deals with these minor problems is by developing a holistic understanding of the basic structure of the body. In Ayur Veda this understanding is quantified in the understanding of the three doshas, or the three fundamental psycho physiological principles that are responsible for governing the body. Balance of the doshas leads to health, and imbalance leads to disease. |
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The authors deal with Ayur Veda from a women's perspective, and several of the sections on childbirth and other feminine topics are dealt with in a truly enlightening way. They also focus on the way that emotions play through the feminine physiology to create a unique set of circumstances that influence women's health. Anyone who is interested in traditional medicine for women would be well advised to read this book. |
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