What is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda is a five-thousand-year-old healing system from India and the oldest medical science in existence. Sanskrit for “the Science of Life,” it is a set of self-care guidelines that will help any person stay healthy and feel good by understanding the needs of his or her own mind and body. Ayurveda is intended to help each person be her best self-healthy, happy, and radiant with beauty. Ayurvedic treatments include skin care, diet, massage, and exercise routines that are customized for every person to reflect their unique needs.

Ayurveda recognizes that we are all different-that each of us have unique minds and bodies. After all, we look and behave differently from one another, and we all have different reactions to everyday situations. Everything from the foods we eat to the emotions we experience affect us each in our own way. We all have our own personal definition of what it means to be happy, healthy, and in balance-that is, feeling full of energy and life. And because we are each unique, we will all require different treatments and remedies to help us be our best. Ayurveda as a system includes tools to help figure out what these customized treatments should be.

Ayurveda acknowledges that the mind and body are not two separate entities but are closely intertwined. We’ve all seen how our thinking affects our body (say, when we’re worried or upset and then our skin breaks out) and how our body affects our mind (like the way our self-esteem plummets when we don’t get regular exercise). Ayurveda has two special terms to convey this idea. The physical body is our skin, bones, muscles-everything you would find in a Western anatomy textbook. The energetic body is that with which we feel, sense, spiritualize, emote, and think. So happiness and joy, emotional pain, psyche, perceptions, hunches, and intuition are all considered to form part of our energetic anatomy. Ayurveda works on healing both the energetic and the physical bodies, because one can never reach its full potential if the other is not strong.

Ayurveda teaches us how to stay healthy and balanced. Ayurvedic treatments-from digestive herbs to heavy oil therapies and detox programs-are intended to be gentle habits that can last a lifetime, not extreme regimes or quick fixes. Ayurveda is unlike many other health systems, those which oversimplify the variety of factors that affect our health and how we feel, and only address the symptoms, not the causes, of imbalance. Because many of us experience so much stress these days, and because “feeling stressed is really just another way of saying life is out of balance, Ayurveda is more useful and important than ever before. It’s the perfect antidote to stress because it addresses the whole person and how she is affected by her lifestyle.

The Origins of Ayurveda

Though its origins are lost to historians, Ayurveda is believed to have come from the Vedic gods over five thousand years ago, when a group of scholars and mystics met in the Himalayas to try to discover the secrets of longevity and the cures for illnesses of every kind. Through meditation and spiritual communion with the gods, the scholars and mystics arrived upon guidance for everything from everyday well-being to internal medicine and surgery. Ayurveda was an oral tradition in India for hundreds of years, until it was collected into three basic books called the Charak Samhita, the Sushrut Samhita, and the Ashtanga Hridayam, all three written in different time periods. Time periods are historical estimates not exact. The books are written in Sanskrit verse (Sanskrit is the ancient language of India, just as Latin is to the Western world). This vivid poetry articulates Ayurvedic philosophies and concepts. For this reason, it’s hard to define whether Ayurveda is an art or a science. It might well in fact be both, as the Sanskrit verses reflect both on the theoretical aspects of Ayurveda-the art side, and the practical knowledge involved in incorporating it into human lives.

Traditionally, most Indian villages had their own Ayurvedic doctor, who would advise the community about self-care practices and gather medicinal plants from the surrounding forests. This doctor would explain the meanings of the Ayurvedic Sutras, or teachings, to student apprentices, who then prepared and dispensed medicines according to his instruction. In the years, when India was a colony of the British Empire, the ruling powers tried to stop the practice of Ayurveda (amongst other traditional medicines) and it temporarily lost the cultural influence it once held. But after India became an independent nation in 1947, Ayurveda began to undergo a renaissance, and has since become popular all over the world.

Today, Ayurveda is a part of everyday life in many Indian households. For example, families drink water or water-based drinks that have been stored in a copper vessel, because Ayurveda recognizes that copper detoxifies the body and boosts the immune system. The sacred basil plant Tulsi, offered in prayer to the Indian god Lord Vishnu, is typically placed in the central area of Indian homes to clarify the mind from impure thoughts, and to rid the environment from microbes. Finally, herbal kitchen remedies form a natural part of every Indian housewife’s repertoire: common culinary items like turmeric, ginger, and dairy cream are used for beauty treatments and to heal minor ailments.

How Ayurveda Works

Ayurveda teaches that health is the result of a powerful energy within us. The more of that energy we have in us, the better we look and feel. Maximizing this energy is the essential goal of Ayurveda. This energy is called Ojas (pronounced oh-jus), which means “that which invigorates”. It is the life force, the energy that flows through every person and living thing. Like Chi in Chinese philosophy, Ojas is the force that makes us feel happy and alive. Responsible for wellness, harmony, and spiritual growth, it makes our eyes shine and puts a spring in our step. High levels of Ojas bring bliss and happiness, which those around us see as radiance, poise, a glowing complexion, and a sharp intellect.

Ojas connects people and living things, and is present in every aspect of life, from our emotional well-being to the foods we eat. For example, soil with strong Ojas is rich in nutrients. It has the capacity to nurture a healthy apple tree that will root itself deep in the ground and grow to substantial heights. Filled with a high level of Ojas, this tree bears lush and nutritious fruit. The woman who eats the fruit absorbs not only vitamins, but Ojas, which provides strength and longevity to her mind and body. When her own Ojas potential is maximized, this woman is energized, inspiring everyone around her. The wheel turns full circle when the apple core goes into the compost heap and is recycled back into the environment, feeding the soil that gave life to the original tree.

When Ojas is low we are like dried leaves-tired, worn out, and brittle. We experience a breakdown in the normal functions of our mind-body system and become susceptible to illness, both emotionally and physically. The best way to keep our Ojas up is to live a balanced lifestyle that is pure and close to nature. An overactive lifestyle (known as rajas), or a dull, inert lifestyle (known as Tamas), both cause stress and deplete ojas. We must strive for a state of purity and balance, a third way of life called Sattwa. Inner beauty will unfold naturally if you protect the mind and body against unhealthy influences and live in harmony with the natural laws of the universe.

The Building Blocks of Balance

We know that living in balance is the key to achieving and maintaining high Ojas, the ultimate destination of our Ayurvedic journey. But what does it mean to live in balance? Ayurveda teaches that each of us is a unique individual, in the way we think, move, act, how we react to stress, in the foods we like to eat, and in the activities we enjoy. So balance will mean something different for each person. Ayurveda will help you determine the makeup of your mind and body-your natural tendencies and preferences. With this knowledge, it’s a simple step to learn what to do (and what not to do) to even out those characteristics and achieve balance.

Ayurveda tells us that each person is composed of five elements: space, air, fire, water, and earth. The qualities of these elements are apparent in our physical bodies and our energetic bodies. For example, the light and mobile quality of air gives us the ability both to move our bodies and to be flexible in our thinking. The smooth and liquid quality of water gives sheen to our hair and makes for a nurturing disposition. But these five elements do not exist separately within us. Instead, they unite to form three distinct energetic forces, called doshas. Each dosha is a combination of two of these five elements, and are all present to some degree in each person.

The three doshas are called Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Understanding how the elements come together to form each Dosha will help us learn what we need to bring them into balance.

Air, which provides movement, and space, which provides vastness, unite to form the Vata dosha, which has an overall light, cold, dry, and dispersing quality. Vata initiates movement in the mind-thoughts, ideas, and creativity and also physical movement in the body, impulses in our nervous system, our blood and lymphatic circulation, walking, and even gesturing with our hands.

Fire, which provides heat, and water, which provides fluidity, unite to form the Pitta dosha, which has an overall heating, oily, sharp and penetrating quality. Pitta controls transformations in the mind such as intelligence, reasoning, passion, and the operation of the senses, as well as physical transformations such as metabolism, hormonal activity, enzymatic behavior, and body temperature.

Water together with earth, which provides solidity, unite to form the Kapha Dosha which has an overall heavy, cold, oily, and cohesive property. Kapha provides nurturing and lubrication to the mind, and helps preserve our memory. It also binds and lubricates our physical tissues with mucus, body fluids, and plasma, making the body stable and firm.

The individual proportions of the three doshas in each person is called Prakruti, or mind-body constitution. Understanding your Prakruti is like knowing how to read the blueprint for your own house. In the next chapter, you will learn more about Prakruti, the three Doshas and how to determine your own dominant Dosha, which is the first step towards Ayurvedic healing.