"Yoga and Ayurveda are sister science. Together, they show a way to live naturally and achieve radiant physical, mental, and spiritual health."
- FOREWORD, PRACTICAL AYURVEDA -
A beautiful, practical guide to living happily ever after, according to principles of yoga and Ayurveda. Ayurveda is the science of life. Ayurveda study body information to achieve healthy living and treating disease. Ayurveda focuses on living the right way, and yoga focuses on enlightenment.
"Both are practical systems with a holistic perspective - people are seen as beings with a unified body, mind, and consciousness."
This book introduces us to the four goals of life, Dharma - the right way of living, Artha - material wealth, Moksha - enlightenment, and Kama - sensory pleasures. As the next step in the introduction, we are presented with exercise and essential questions:
What are my goals?
What is my purpose in life?
How can I contribute to this world?
What are my values and how can I uplift them?
What gives me the greatest amount of contentment?
What is the next step in my development?
Have you ever asked yourself these questions? Maybe is the right time to ask yourself. I have heard these questions years ago when Deepak Chopra had a conversation with Oprah Winfrey, and I have marked these questions in my notebook. Little I knew at the time, how important and significant these questions are. Maybe I have asked myself back then, but I really don't remember. As classic says: "All ways lead to Rome." and as a friend of mine told me once "Each river flows where it belongs.". This is how I am feeling right now. Once you embark on the journey of enlightenment, balance, care of your body, mind, and soul, ultimately, the source of energy draws you where you belong.
Back to Ayurveda and this beautiful book. The book is divided into 8 chapters:
YOU AND YOUR BODY
We need to understand our bodies first. A healthy body means balanced doshas - energies, healthy Agni -digestive fire, which leads to healthy Dhatus - tissues, which produce healthy Ojas - immunity, and ultimately the body's excretion - Malas. Healthy excretion - urine, stool, and sweat, keep the body balanced and clean of all the byproducts and waste. When we eat, we need well digest and all the byproduct of digested food has to go out. When the fire is weak, we don't absorb the nutrients, we won't build the tissues, and our immunity will go haywire. It is what it is. And if we don't get rid of the waste, we become waste containers, aiaiai.
As you may know, western science and medicine have developed some constitutional systems of the body. This isn't anything new to the thousands of years old ayurvedic system, which has developed far earlier the constitution system, as three doshas. Three doshas go far beyond the physical constitution of the body. As mentioned above, they are energies. Each and every body is composed of five main elements: Ether, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth, and each dosha is composed of two main elements. Our body is composed of all elements, where some are dominant, and so is or are some doshas in our body. The three doshas are VATA, PITTA, and KAPHA. Doshas system encompasses physical characteristics, mental characters, and behavior. It is a complete system. Dosha system encompasses also life processes, phases of the day, and so on. And it teaches us to live according to our constitution, and not only
THE AYURVEDIC LIFESTYLE
A healthy lifestyle is key. We need to learn a healthy lifestyle, this isn't anything given, and it is about the routine. We learn to look after our body and in easy steps to work, achieve and expand our healthy lifestyle.
MAINTAINING GOOD HEALTH
When our lifestyle isn't healthy, it may cause an imbalance in our doshas and we may develop as a result some problems or disease. Each disease manifestation according to Ayurveda is also based on the dosha system and thanks to its principle we can recognize the problems and learn to pacify the elevated doshas causing the problem. The problem can be also caused by weak Agni, the digestive fire. Ultimately we are what we digest.
FOOD, DIET, AND RECIPES
In Ayurveda, the food is considered to have healing power. The food has six tastes, and each taste has its own healing properties and effect on different dosha. And we are presented with another very important principle of Ayurveda and yoga the gunas: SATTVA, RAJA, and TAMA. Gunas are energies, with different characteristics, and to maintaining good health we need to focus on a Sattvic diet, fresh food, eat and prepare the food with love and a calm environment. It is not only about the structure and composition of the food, but also the way we eat it, what thoughts we are thinking, and what emotions we are feeling. Food should be freshly cooked, cooked with love, from fresh ingredients, and eating with ease, feeling peaceful, and thinking positive thoughts. In this chapter, we learn more about herbs and spices, ghee, sugar and honey, and the diet style for each dosha. The chapter is complemented with a handful of recipes, with alternations for each dosha type and for support Agni, the digestive fire, and also fasting.
YOGA: ASANAS, PRANAYAMA, AND RELAXATION
These are three aspects of yoga. This book focuses on HATHA YOGA in this chapter, and to asanas, pranayama, and relaxation to unblock and channel prana - the life energy. Asanas keep our body and the joints, muscles, ligaments, and all moving parts of our body healthy, increasing flexibility and strength. Pranayama, breath control helps us to revitalize our body and mind on the energetic level and boost our oxygen supply. The relaxation, we learn few easy exercises to surrender all the tensions with no effort or minimum.
POSITIVE THINKING AND MEDITATION
The complex yoga system teaches us how to live in harmony with ourselves and others. Positive thinking creates good karma. Good karma and positivity come from our thoughts, words, and deeds. And we learn in this chapter the ten principles, or refining values and to live according to them and gain sattva with our actions. In other words, positivity and good karma.
Meditation helps us consciously let go and be an observer of our thoughts. Our thoughts may have sattvic, rajasic, or tamasic nature, and when we observe the nature of our thoughts, we can better understand our mind. When we observe our thoughts, when we meditate, we gain control, we remove the resistance, overcome agitation, increase harmony and empty our mind of thoughts. And we come to the realization, that if we can observe our thought, we are not our thoughts, and that we are something far bigger, the consciousness.
In this chapter, we also learn about mantras and their healing power, and the importance of affirmations.
SEEING AN AYURVEDIC PRACTITIONER
An ayurvedic practitioner can help us to learn more about our constitution, optimize our health and get us treatment if we feel unwell. There are specific ways of assessment and diagnosis. The assessment is holistic. The practitioner looks at the whole picture and tries to get a full understanding of us as a person. Our lifestyle, our diet, our personal and professional life, our medical history, and any current problems. The practitioner accordingly chooses the body treatment, which can involve cleansing, detoxifying treatments, adjust diet, and Ayurveda medicine.
HOME REMEDIES FOR COMMON AILMENTS
This is a really beautiful chapter because we can learn a little more about the principles of treating ailments by dosha, how the remedies are prepared, and what and when we could apply at home.
When I was studying Kundalini yoga in the yoga teacher training, our guru repeated very often to get a closer look at Ayurveda and to apply Ayurvedic principles in our lives. After I have attended the 50 hour Ayurveda Yoga Teacher Training because, during the study of anatomy, everything was explained from an ayurvedic point of view, and when I was talking to my mom about it, she just got it right. It is just the whole system, it encompasses everything. And if we want to take control of our health, and bring balance in our life, we have to study about ourselves, as a whole, the body, the mind, the soul, the thoughts, the emotions, and take responsibility for all our thoughts, words and actions.
We get all the basics covered in this book. Beautiful, easy to comprehend, and easily applicable. This is a beautiful guide and textbook. And I would recommend it to everyone who wants balance in life and everyone who is practicing yoga as beautiful initiation to Ayurveda and a complex healthy lifestyle.
