Mother Of All Healing
Ayurveda is an ancient science that is one of the oldest systems of health care in the world. Often called the mother of all healing, it originated in India over 5000 years ago and was taught for thousands of years from accomplished masters to their disciples. In Sanskrit, Ayurveda means the "science of life."
The Purpose Of Ayurveda
Life is the integration of body, mind, and consciousness. The purpose of Ayurveda is to heal, to maintain a high quality of life, and to in-crease the longevity of the individual. It is a holistic clinical science as well as an art of daily living that has evolved from practical, philosophical, and spiritual insight.
Science Of Self-Understanding
Ayurveda places great emphasis on prevention and encourages the maintenance of health through right thinking, proper diet and lifestyle, as well as the use of herbs and other therapies. Ayurveda is a science of self-understanding.
Ayurveda Defines Disease
By understanding our own unique constitution, we can begin to understand how we interact with our environ-ment and thus make choices that will lead us toward greater health
Ayurveda Works By
An individual's dosha is made up--to varying degrees--of three doshas (types of energy): vata, pitta, and kapha. Vata energy is characterized as fast and light; pitta is quick and hot: and kapha is slow and heavy. Everything you do--how you eat, sleep, think, exercise, and relate to the world--will either intensify or tame these three energies.
Aggravate Pitta
You may aggravate pitta, for instance, by eating too many hot spicy foods, or vata by failing to maintain any routine in your life. An excess of a dosha energy can make you vulnerable to illness. To balance, or pacify, a dosha excess, you need to tame the energy that is aggravated. To pacify pitta, for example, you might eat more cooling foods, such as green salads.
Don't Wreck The Balance
Ayuryeda gives theindividual's constitution or prakruti is determined at the time of conception as a particular pattern of energy (and genetic code). Many factors, both internal and external, can disturb this balance and bring about changes in the constitution that may lead to disorders and disease.
Watch Out For The Stresses
Some of these factors include emotional and physical stresses, improper food combinations and choices, seasonal and weather changes, physical trauma, and work and family relationships. Once we understand how these factors affect us on a constitutional level, we can take appropriate actions to minimize or nullify their effects and eliminate the causes of imbalance.
Ayurvedic Philosophy
According to Ayurvedic philosophy, the whole cosmos is an interplay of the energies of the five great elements: Space, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. Vata, pitta, and kapha are combinations of these five elements that manifest as patterns present in all creation. Vata, mainly composed of Space and Air, is the principle of movement.
What Is Pita Made Of
Pitta, principally made up of Fire and Water, is the fire component that transforms food into energy. Kapha, mainly a combination of Water and Earth, is the cementing, constructing matter of the body.
Summer Pitta
Ayurveda states that like increases like. For example, the summer season has attributes similar to those of pitta--hot, liq-uid, light, mobile, and penetrating. Therefore, in the summer pitta in the body will be increased. Vata is light, subtle, dry, mobile, rough and cold.