Introduction:
Welcome to our introductory guide into Ayurveda, an ancient holistic healing and medical system that offers profound insights into achieving balance and well-being, in this body, in this lifetime. In this post, we demystify Ayurveda to make it easy to understand for the everyday human.
Ayurveda is the 5000-year old system of health, wellness, natural medicine and holistic alignment born out of India, and recorded and preserved in Sanskrit texts, one of the oldest known written languages. It is a massive volume of living knowledge that continues to expand daily and globally. For our sake, we touch on the basic principles without getting too academic, focused primarily on the pillar of Right Digestion. There are ample free and paid resources online to explore for deeper understanding. I also highly recommend a book by Vasant Lad, called The Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies.
In a nutshell and for our purposes, Ayurveda identifies that absolutely everything on Planet Earth, living and not living, is comprised of a balance between the Five Natural Elements – Air, Water, Earth, Fire and Ether (the Space in between). And this includes the Human Body and the Human Mind, with all of its emotions, intellect and psychology.
Each Element has its own unique qualities. For example: Fire burns, Air moves, Water flows, Earth grounds, and Space is the realm of infinite expansion, as well as the glue that fills everything in-between. But when there is excessive movement of Air, grounding of Earth, flowing of Water, expanding of Space or burning of Fire - the efcects of these Natural Elements are experienced in a different manner to when they are in balance and harmony. The same goes for when they are in lack. For example, excessive movement of Air brings hurricanes, excessive grounding of Earth brings stagnancy, and when put together with lack of flow of Water, we get clumping and rot. Excessive Fire leads to alot of burning, and excessive expansion of Space, leaves things floating and ungrounded. These are just simplistic examples, there's obviously more depth, but for where we are, this is enough. Now, these qualities can be seen in Nature as well as the Human Body-Mind. For example: Fire is is seen in the digestive process as the digestive fire, it is seen in the Mind as passion and anger, it is seen on the skin, in excess, as rashes and intolerance to heat. Air is seen in the Body as activity, and in the Mind as creativity and movement of thought. There are similar explanations for Earth, Water and Ether that we are not delving deeply into here.
Now Ayurveda has identified Three Primary Energy Forces that are related to the balance of Natural Elements, and these energy forces are called doshas. According to Ayurveda, everything that we are and experience in the Body-Mind system, in relation to the world that we are moving through, is controlled by and related to the balance of doshas.
Vata dosha (Air and Space)
Pitta dosha (Fire and Water)
Kapha dosha (Earth and Water)
Each dosha has specific qualities and behaves in a certain way, and Ayurveda looks at all these factors. For example: vata dosha is dry, light, cool, rough, subtle, and mobile. So, having a vata-predominant dosha - for example - means that these qualities express themselves generously throughout your mental, emotional, and physical make up. And you might find dry stools, dry skin, chapped lips, cold feet and hands, restlessness, anxiety, flatulence and bloating, just as a few examples. And for pitta and kapha doshas, in excess, we find similar expressions according to their unique qualities. Excess pitta dosha can lead to anger, digestive acid, ulcers, skin irritation and rashes, and inflammation of joints, to name a few. Excess kapha dosha can lead to lethargy, depression, weight gain, heaviness . . . and so it goes . . .
When doshas in the Human Body-Mind are out of balance, then Ayurveda says we have a state of imbalance. And all disease, discomfort, illness and disharmony, Ayurveda says, is a result of imbalance. Â Ayurveda therefore, is not about addressing symptoms and trying to relieve these symptoms, because Ayurveda recognizes that all symptoms are only manifestations of imbalance that flow from the Root. For this reason, Ayurveda seeks to bring balance and harmony to the Root, as its main priority, understanding that a healthy root generates healthy shoots.
Now, towards this end, Ayurveda further identifies every food item in terms of its make up of the doshas. For example: Beans are predominantly vata dosha, Chilli Peppers: pitta dosha, Sweet Fruits: kapha dosha and so it goes. Again, I'd like to remind the reader that we are speaking in introductory terms; there is far greater depth and complexity to everything I'm sharing here. Although what I am sharing, for the sake of where we are, is enough. Now, Ayurveda says, simply through what we feed into the Body, we are able to control the doshic balance (balance of Natural Elements) of the Body-Mind system. Read that again. If you suffer from anxiety and disturbed sleep, anger and skin irritation, bloating and digestive discomfort, struggle to concentrate, joint and muscular aches, fatigue and fluctuating energy levels . . . any one of these (and a whole lot more), Ayurveda says – and I testify – can be resolved and brought back into balance simply by addressing What we eat and How we eat it. Food is medicine. And right knowledge is truly powerful.
Stay tuned for this entire series on Ayurveda, Holistic Wellness and Enhanced Living, and you will be guided in gentle steps.
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With love,