Ayurveda---theory and practice

I. Introduction

Ayurveda is an ancient medical and philosophical system which as been used for thousands of years in the Indian subcontinent, Europe, Asia and the Americas.  Parts of it were incorporated into Tibetan Medicine by monks who would travel thousands of miles across mountains, rivers and deserts to study and codify the precious Ayurvedic teachings.

Ayurveda is considered the root, or base, of the study of Yoga and Tantra in India.  It is said that one should understand Ayurveda before going on to study Yoga and Tantra which are both truly vehicles for a complete awakening into the nature of who one really is and how to attain lasting happiness and peace.

The principles of Ayurveda come primarily from the Samkhya (meaning "Study of Truth) as realized by the sage Kapila.  It describes twenty-four principles of the universe, the most basic of which is Prakriti.  These principles will be enumerated below. 

This paper will address the basic building blocks of the Ayrurvedic health system, both around philosophy, diet, medicines and psychology.  In order to give the reader not only a tacit understanding of the building blocks of Ayurveda but also a way to possible implement simple principles into ones own diet and routine, this essay will simply glaze through the foundational principles of the Five Elements and Three Doshas and then tunnel directly into diet, pharmacology and psychology.  This will allow the reader to appreciate not only the vast scope of Ayurveda but also its precise methodology for addressing and eliminating physical, mental and emotional pain.

II.  Philosophical Foundation

Ayurveda is based primarily on the 24 principles of the universe expounded by Kapila, of the Samkhya Philosophical School.  It starts with Prakuti and Purusha.  Purusha is the basic male force of consciousness or awareness.  It makes no decisions, has no characteristics, form or color, and is simply aware.  Then is Prakuti, the feminine building block of the universe, which is the creative energy which has color, form, and other atriabutes with choice. It is like Divine Will, as described by Dr. V. Ladd, a major figure in Ayurveda today, and the director of the Ayurveda institute in Albequerque, NM.  Prakuti is the "one who desires to become many;" and the universe is her child, born from her perfect, divine womb.  So Prakuti creates everything and Purusha witnesses this whole process.

From Prakuti comes the three basic principles of the universe, also called the three gunas (described in detail below).  The first of these principles is Sattva, which is the pure essence, also known as Brahman in Hinduism.  It embodies the creation or increasing principle, and is basically all-good and all-pure.  The second principle is Rajas, which is the moving, sustaining and protective quality of existence.  In Hindu mythology is is represented by Vishnu, the sustainer God.  The final foundational principle born from Prakuti is Tamas, or the destructive, limiting principle, represented by Bhirava or Shiva in the Hinduism. 

These three principles, all coming from the original union of consciousness and manifest form, can be represented also by the three sounds of the Cosmic Syllable OM---the A at the start being the pure creation of existence, the O in the middle being the sustaining, moving quality of rajas and the MMM being the end or final collapse of the manifestation.  These three, according to Jonathan Lee, Ph.D., can also represent the three levels of consciousness that pervade every human and animals experience throughout life, namely waking consciousness, dreaming consciousness and the pure light of bliss, which is found and, through training, lucidly experienced in the gaps between thoughts, during orgasm and sneezes, at the moment between falling asleep and starting to dream, and also in deep, dreamless sleep. By training to be conscious of these different states of awareness while they are happening, one can enter into a more conscious and blissful experience which ultimately transcends the ups and downs of ordinary, modern existence and allows one to have a true perspective on this life, it's value and opportunities, and to move smoothly through the transition at death, which is likened to the experience of falling asleep by monks who, through deep meditative practices, have studies both ordinary and subtle consciousness.  (Subtle Consciousness is never dealt with in any modern Western Psychology or Psychiatry, but Eastern systems have been working with it for thousands of years). 


By following the basic Tenents of Ayurveda, and developing meditative awareness in waking activities, sitting meditation sessions to hone the tool of awareness to a sharp arrow that can take apart the seer and the seen until Bhakti, or devotional love-realization of reality itself, is accomplished, one can enter into a state of more perfect health and happiness. 


III.  Five Elements.

In Ayurveda the human body is seen as a microcosm of the whole universe.  Created from the original Prakrti, the original OM, and influenced by the three gunas of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas, the five elements come into being as Space (which in its gross form manifests as the emotion of Hatred in the corresponding Tibetan system but is pure, all-pervading wisdom in its fully refined form).  From Space comes the movement principle of air (which can grossly manifest as the emotion of jealousy or, in its more accurate form, a perspective of genuine appreciation).  The air then creates friction which makes heat or fire (gross desire or genuine compassion depending on the frame of reference of the emotional manifestation) and then from fire comes water or wetness (anger or mirror-like awareness of what truly is without any distortions) which finally settles into the solidity of earth (which can manifest as stupid pride or, refined, as wisdom of equanimity, or the same quality of all phenomena including people, events, etc.)

These five elements have a corresponding function in the mechanism of the body.  The space corresponds to the spaces in the mouth, respiratory tract, throat, tissues and cells.  The air is the larger movement of the muscles, the pulsation of the heart, the expansion of the lungs, etc.  Each movement of the body is based on the stimulus and response of neurons and nerves and this whole process is governed by the air principle.

Fire, which basically comes from the sun, according to Ayurveda, works as the heat in the digestive system.  The thinking mechanism (in the brain cells) and the visual system are both functions of the fire element.  Water operates in the digestive system with the secretions of mucus membranes and the functioning of organs and bodily systems.  Water is very important to the body. Finally, earth holds all the bodily systems together and makes the solid structures---bones, teeth, nails, skin, etc. solid.

In Ayurveda each of the five elements corresponds to a sensory faculty.  Space corresponds to the sense of hearing, Air to touch, FIre to seeing, Water to Taste and the tounge, and Earth to Smell.  Each of these serves a function to the human organism, specifically, speaking, holding things, walking, procreation and excretion.

Basically, the human body and all of its sensory experiences are seen as manifestions of Purusha and Prakrti through the three gunas and five basic elements.  Imbalances in the body come from imbalances between the three gunas, and by understanding through diet, medicine or behavior how these basic principles are not being honored and understood by the human, the Ayurvedic doctor can diagnose and correct any problem whatsoever, to restore the human body back to its originally manifested state which is in line with the original intent of creation itself.  Instead of simply hunting down symptmoms of imbalance and then tricking the neurological system into not experiencing the symptom by introducing opioids or other pain blockers (not to discredit the powerful role of endorphins to good health), the Ayurvedic Medical system  finds the roots of a disorder and realigns the body to correct the problem completely. 

IV. Areas not covered in this paper but of interest.

Three Doshas

Diet for each Dosha

Music Therapy

Sexual Behavior

Anger and imbalances of Doshas

Peacefulness/ Mind

V.  Meditation according to Ayurveda

Basically, simple meditation instructions allow for the unfolding of ones inherent nature, which is the union of Prakrti, pure consciousness, with its perfect manifestation, Purusha.  This enfoldment, according to many meditation teachers, always happens in the present moment.  So in simple meditation, which is an important facet of Ayurvedic Health, One is instructed to focus on the present and let the thoughts, memories, anticipations, and good and bad, pure and impure impressions, simply arise and dissipate in the ocean-like simple awareness of now.  In Ayurveda this is referred to as "Tat Twam Asi"  or "That Art Thou.  Basically the self which has come into existence through numerous causes and conditions, experiences an outer universe of feelings, forms, perceptions, thoughts, and concepts (a concept is an idea that something is a certain way, for instance penguins are nice or dogs are mean.  All of these become habituated in our conscious midstream, and by gradually applying the spraypaint of simple awareness of now to the complex matches of thoughts, feelings, sensations and the like, we begin to disassemble the entire splitting of me and other, mine and yours which keeps a frozen, splintered "self" poised against a hostile or helpful universe, and the fight for autonomy slowly dissipates, leaving one with a feeling of spaciousness and connectedness that can be likened to a fish swimming through a lake that it has swam through many times.  Though it has been the same water that it has swam through, when awareness of now is applied to the whole messy process of relating to phenomena in an ordinary way, a new world opens up which is completely beyond limitation or reservation.  This is referred to in Hinduism and Ayurveda as "Moksha" or liberation, and is simply an expression of what is and how it really is, instead of how it appears to a confused self.  So there is less judgement about awakening being a good thing and confusion being bad.  Instead they are seen as two sides of the same coin, one which entails great suffering for the aggregated, fractured and mildly tortured self, and the other which is simply the understanding of things as they are in their own shining, fresh brilliance.  The best method for the practice of mediation is to let whatever arises simply arise freshly, without trying to control or edit the content of the murky waters.

Dream practices can also be used in Ayurveda for healing.  By setting ones intention before falling into the state of sleep, which is expressed in the Vedas as the expression of one purity of consciousness in its three forms of awakens, the moment between sleeping and dreaming, and the dream state itself.  They are symbolized by the syllables OM, AH and HUNG.    The moment between falling sleep and dreaming is particularly important for glancing into the true nature of reality, which is like the sun behind the stormy clouds, the stormy clouds bing the strings of thoughts which turn into the dramatic "stories" of our day, cemented together by the aggregate of our opinions about each event.  Behind these clouds is the pure nature of awareness, and it can also be glanced at or experienced in its purity in the gap between thoughts, which one can gradually train to recognize.  Another moment of this purity is during the sneeze and also the orgasm.  These moments of pure being are called the "ClearLight of Bliss", and is also experienced at the moment of death.  When recognized and apprehended, all other relative, low energy phenomena are subsumed and overwhelmed by the sheer brilliance of this light.  When it is ignored or overlooked, ones personal dramas in the form of dense, emotional thought story-lines, bleeds over and continues, leading to the habitual misapprehension of self and other, which slowly, like ivy growing over a wall, manifests as a universe of confusion and change which, because it involves our subconscious manifesting outside of our giant, sea-monster-like selves, is basically impossible to control and can only be experienced with joy and gratitude, attitudes which make both meditation and general day-to-day living, much more lucid, motile and enjoyable.  Finally, by acting with friendliness and generosity, along with sharp, penetrating intelligence which knows right from wrong by examining the nature of causes and their inevitable requisite effects, we accrue the power to overcome the most terrifying of demons, which are actually just expressions, natural manifestations, of a confused, selfish, caved-in existent, called a self.  The Hindus write that ultimately "Atman is Brahman" which means that our self, with its quirks, opinions and habits, is truly an expression of a perfect God, like a sun and its shadow on the earth.  by seeing and believing in this relationship, Hindus, and especially Advaita Vedanta (Non-dualistic school) Hindus, recognize a nature of being that is unparalleled in the history of saints like Ramakrishna, Buddha Shakyamuni and Jesus.  (Usually the systems are practiced inclusively so that the perfect result of meditation is accomplished systematically and not meanderingly.  Because humans are often fickle in their likes and dislikes, there can be a tendency to practice meditation like this, first doing something that seems helpful from one tradition and then trying something from another tradition, then a third tradition, in order to get to the end most quickly, which can work but often is more a waste of time or more specifically an expression of ego's likes and dislikes and desire for "fast-food" spirituality.

Meditation is most often taught from a teacher to a student, so that the student can realize that the true teacher is this present moment, the unstained awareness that moves through every situation, every uncomfortable pause and every angry outburst.  Sitting still and breathing is a very good way to train oneself to understand the nature of what is, as can be chanting a simple mantra like, "OM" or "Ram" or other names of God and its expressions.  By bringing devotion, love and enthusiasm to the table, the process is historically catalyzed, because of the emotional nature of our existence.  Also, being compassionate can be a very enlightening experience, and sometimes a simple gift to a poor person or a smile at someone who one doesn't care for, can open one's universe to the unlimited, effulgent nature of God, which is beyond boundaries and also full of forgiveness.  By bringing these practices into ones life, secretly, one can gradually enter into the nature of reality and eventually live and express it in their every action and even thought.  Seeing the nakedness of thrust and emotions lets things flow, while judging, condemning and living an otherwise constipated or judgmental existence, adds molybdenum to the steel jailbars of our lives, so that they become firmer and firmer until they are seem almost impossible to dismantle.  Still, sometimes, through the grace of the ultimate teacher, everything falls apart in one ecstatic  and explosive experience, which can be then be solidified into ones experience and built upon as a foundation