Healing herbs
Healing herbs
After a lifetime of dependence on modern medicine, it is a trifle difficult to think of ayurveda as a viable alternative or complementary option. But in Rishikesh, where swamis, healers and scientists were meeting and sharing experiences together with Indian and western ayurvedic experts, it was not all that difficult to get convinced.
We began to understand what ayurveda was all about. It was evident that with its stress on herbs, yoga, meditation, chanting and spirituality, ayurveda looked at the whole rather than the part and so is designed to enable followers achieve holistic well-being. There seems to be a kind of resurgence, a renewal of interest in ancient healing systems; both in India and abroad, Ayurveda is coming back in a big way, thanks to growing popular as well as scientific interest in its positive impact on lifestyle.
'Ayurveda and Yoga: Where Science Meets Consciousness' was the theme of a five-day international conference in Rishikesh, (February 17-21), organised by the Coimbatore-based Punarnava Ayurveda Trust. A yagna or sacred ritual fire was done to invoke Lord Dhanwantari, the god of healing, complete with the chanting of Vedic mantras and burning of incense, setting the mood.
Ayurveda's western face
The tall and willowy Robert Svoboda, the first licensed western practitioner of ayurveda in 1980 was clearly the star attraction at the conference. The Hindi-speaking, urdu poetry-quoting American Sanskrit scholar, yoga, astrology and meditation expert is a household name in the west.
Canadians Frank and his partner happily meditating in South Goa promptly enrolled for the conference when they learnt, on googling Svoboda, that he would be lecturing at Rishikesh. Ditto, Coen van der Kroon who runs an ayurvedic academy inAmsterdam. A dozen of his students were also in attendance.
Svoboda believes that allopathy scores in "trauma care and in a life-threatening crisis, but is of little help in teaching people to live healthy and avoid life-threatening crises. I salute modern technology, but air is still air, food is still food, and water is still water, and western medicine can't understand how these interact with living organisms." Ayurveda, on the other hand, encourages people to live right, to alter their lifestyle so that they stay fit. "Ayurveda would have been much more intact today if the British hadn't actively discouraged all forms of traditional knowledge," he adds.
If western science stymied ayurveda in the country of its origin, it was westerners who later rediscovered it and exported it back to their homeland. "India's richness of spirit", is what first attracted Hawaiin Myra Lewin to India to learn yoga and meditation. Soon, she was sold on ayurveda too.
"Don't sweat the small stuff," she now tells her students back in the US, while emphasising the importance of living a life in gratitude — for food and our health. "Treat food as something sacred, not as something mechanised and impersonal. Bring its richness back into your life," she advises. People are finally taking such advice seriously.
Ramkumar of Punarnava is grateful for this. "But it still needs a greater boost especially from the government," he stresses. "Conferences such as these inspire young ayurvedic doctors and students to delve deeper into ancient texts, while exposing them to the global need from ayurveda today," he says. "Look at lifestyle diseases today — allopathy hasn't a comprehensive solution," Ramkumar points out. "But ayurveda is excellent for conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic conditions," he adds.
Mind, body and soul
"Ayurveda combines all three: sharira or body, manas or mind and atman or spirit. It emphasises that their symbiotic balance helps a person become stable and strong mentally, physically and spiritually," says ashtavaidyan AN Narayanan Nambi. To lead an ayurvedic way of life, you should know your dharma, fulfil kama or desires in a dharmic way, and practice sukha sadhanam — that is, live right. For good health, necessary for sukha sadhanam, ayurvedic specialists use special healing herbs.
"Besides herbs, Ayurveda also uses minerals, metals, animal products or anything in the world that can be understood in a logical way and can be utilised to treat a certain condition. Ayurveda believes that there's nothing useless in this world; all letters are mantras and all roots are herbs; only that the person who knows it all, is rare," says Nambi. The ancient healing system doesn't offer quick-fix solutions. It explores the real cause of the disease and attempts to eradicate it completely.
Also largely unknown is the fact that ayurveda has comprehensive treatment for emotional and mental wellbeing. Meditation, yoga, and herbs that make your brain strong is the treatment prescribed — not suppressants for the overactive brain as in allopathy.
Customised treatment
Modern biotechnology promotes designer drugs best suited to the genetic makeup of an individual. Interestingly, ayurveda has always advocated customised treatment. "The vaidya gives specific medication in specific doses in accordance with the specific needs of the patient after careful examination of his naadi or pulse, and his tongue, eyes and ears. Instead of relying on lab reports, the vaidya uses his mind and insight as a tool to test and investigate the problem at hand," says Nambi.
Ranjit Pawar, a delegate, who graduated last year and now practises ayurveda in Mumbai, says: "My treatment plan includes guidance on lifestyle and spirituality as suggested by ayurvedic texts".
In ayurveda, costs are lower and remedies are non-invasive with very few side-effects, if any. Critics point out that random studies have shown high metal content in ayurvedic preparations. "However," says Renu Gulati, an Ayurvedic practitioner in Rishikesh who did her Masters in the UK, "metals have a powerful healing effect, but the process for preparing medicines with metals is time-consuming and intricate, and some fly-by-night outfits have bypassed ethical manufacturing guidelines and unwittingly increased the volume of such components that are meant to be just a miniscule part of the medicine. But such concoctions are exceptions." Gulati suggests that patients should avoid self-prescription and visit only a reputed practitioner who will prescribe safe brands.
Harmony healing
Ayurveda works at a holistic level, addressing the physical, mental, spiritual, social, and environment conditions — leading to complete mind-body harmony. Subhash Ranade from Pune has till now trained 3,000 European doctors in ayurveda, evidence that ayurveda is viewd as a serious option abroad. "Maharashtra had 16 ayurveda colleges earlier. Now it has 55," he says. Alternative healing systems like that of ayurveda can be complementary; there is no great divide that demands abandoning one system for the other. The good news is that they can all co-exist in a spirit of co-option, and not competition. It's all about achieving a comfortable rhythm that's life-enhancing.
We began to understand what ayurveda was all about. It was evident that with its stress on herbs, yoga, meditation, chanting and spirituality, ayurveda looked at the whole rather than the part and so is designed to enable followers achieve holistic well-being. There seems to be a kind of resurgence, a renewal of interest in ancient healing systems; both in India and abroad, Ayurveda is coming back in a big way, thanks to growing popular as well as scientific interest in its positive impact on lifestyle.
'Ayurveda and Yoga: Where Science Meets Consciousness' was the theme of a five-day international conference in Rishikesh, (February 17-21), organised by the Coimbatore-based Punarnava Ayurveda Trust. A yagna or sacred ritual fire was done to invoke Lord Dhanwantari, the god of healing, complete with the chanting of Vedic mantras and burning of incense, setting the mood.
Ayurveda's western face
The tall and willowy Robert Svoboda, the first licensed western practitioner of ayurveda in 1980 was clearly the star attraction at the conference. The Hindi-speaking, urdu poetry-quoting American Sanskrit scholar, yoga, astrology and meditation expert is a household name in the west.
Canadians Frank and his partner happily meditating in South Goa promptly enrolled for the conference when they learnt, on googling Svoboda, that he would be lecturing at Rishikesh. Ditto, Coen van der Kroon who runs an ayurvedic academy inAmsterdam. A dozen of his students were also in attendance.
Svoboda believes that allopathy scores in "trauma care and in a life-threatening crisis, but is of little help in teaching people to live healthy and avoid life-threatening crises. I salute modern technology, but air is still air, food is still food, and water is still water, and western medicine can't understand how these interact with living organisms." Ayurveda, on the other hand, encourages people to live right, to alter their lifestyle so that they stay fit. "Ayurveda would have been much more intact today if the British hadn't actively discouraged all forms of traditional knowledge," he adds.
If western science stymied ayurveda in the country of its origin, it was westerners who later rediscovered it and exported it back to their homeland. "India's richness of spirit", is what first attracted Hawaiin Myra Lewin to India to learn yoga and meditation. Soon, she was sold on ayurveda too.
"Don't sweat the small stuff," she now tells her students back in the US, while emphasising the importance of living a life in gratitude — for food and our health. "Treat food as something sacred, not as something mechanised and impersonal. Bring its richness back into your life," she advises. People are finally taking such advice seriously.
Ramkumar of Punarnava is grateful for this. "But it still needs a greater boost especially from the government," he stresses. "Conferences such as these inspire young ayurvedic doctors and students to delve deeper into ancient texts, while exposing them to the global need from ayurveda today," he says. "Look at lifestyle diseases today — allopathy hasn't a comprehensive solution," Ramkumar points out. "But ayurveda is excellent for conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and other chronic conditions," he adds.
Mind, body and soul
"Ayurveda combines all three: sharira or body, manas or mind and atman or spirit. It emphasises that their symbiotic balance helps a person become stable and strong mentally, physically and spiritually," says ashtavaidyan AN Narayanan Nambi. To lead an ayurvedic way of life, you should know your dharma, fulfil kama or desires in a dharmic way, and practice sukha sadhanam — that is, live right. For good health, necessary for sukha sadhanam, ayurvedic specialists use special healing herbs.
"Besides herbs, Ayurveda also uses minerals, metals, animal products or anything in the world that can be understood in a logical way and can be utilised to treat a certain condition. Ayurveda believes that there's nothing useless in this world; all letters are mantras and all roots are herbs; only that the person who knows it all, is rare," says Nambi. The ancient healing system doesn't offer quick-fix solutions. It explores the real cause of the disease and attempts to eradicate it completely.
Also largely unknown is the fact that ayurveda has comprehensive treatment for emotional and mental wellbeing. Meditation, yoga, and herbs that make your brain strong is the treatment prescribed — not suppressants for the overactive brain as in allopathy.
Customised treatment
Modern biotechnology promotes designer drugs best suited to the genetic makeup of an individual. Interestingly, ayurveda has always advocated customised treatment. "The vaidya gives specific medication in specific doses in accordance with the specific needs of the patient after careful examination of his naadi or pulse, and his tongue, eyes and ears. Instead of relying on lab reports, the vaidya uses his mind and insight as a tool to test and investigate the problem at hand," says Nambi.
Ranjit Pawar, a delegate, who graduated last year and now practises ayurveda in Mumbai, says: "My treatment plan includes guidance on lifestyle and spirituality as suggested by ayurvedic texts".
In ayurveda, costs are lower and remedies are non-invasive with very few side-effects, if any. Critics point out that random studies have shown high metal content in ayurvedic preparations. "However," says Renu Gulati, an Ayurvedic practitioner in Rishikesh who did her Masters in the UK, "metals have a powerful healing effect, but the process for preparing medicines with metals is time-consuming and intricate, and some fly-by-night outfits have bypassed ethical manufacturing guidelines and unwittingly increased the volume of such components that are meant to be just a miniscule part of the medicine. But such concoctions are exceptions." Gulati suggests that patients should avoid self-prescription and visit only a reputed practitioner who will prescribe safe brands.
Harmony healing
Ayurveda works at a holistic level, addressing the physical, mental, spiritual, social, and environment conditions — leading to complete mind-body harmony. Subhash Ranade from Pune has till now trained 3,000 European doctors in ayurveda, evidence that ayurveda is viewd as a serious option abroad. "Maharashtra had 16 ayurveda colleges earlier. Now it has 55," he says. Alternative healing systems like that of ayurveda can be complementary; there is no great divide that demands abandoning one system for the other. The good news is that they can all co-exist in a spirit of co-option, and not competition. It's all about achieving a comfortable rhythm that's life-enhancing.
(source:the times of india)
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