Ayurveda the ancient wisdom and way of living – newly discovered
Ayurveda is an ancient holistic health system. Originally from India and goes back to 5000 years ago.
Principles of Ayurveda still hold true today and are being confirmed and backed up more and more by science and western medicine. For example studies conducted about the efficacy of ginger or turmeric.
The beauty of Ayurveda is that connection are simple and logical. Somehow we forgot how simple it is following those rule and tips in our daily life.
Being a holistic system it is simple yet intertwined on so many levels, and at first in can be overwhelming. To give you a glimps I have listed below some of the main terms used in Ayurveda. Personally I am true believer in using Sanskrit names to keep it as original as possible.
- Elements: Ayurveda has similar to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), 5 elements of which everything around us is composed. These are, from more suble to dense:
Space/Ether – Akasha
Fire – Agni
Water – Ap
This term is key and indicated the combination of body mind type that we do all have. There are 3 Doshas and all of us have all of them, but in very different amounts and therefore in very different unique combinations.
The 3 doshas are:
- Vata: consist of wind and space. People with a predominance of this Dosha are usually very flexible, talkative, interested in a 1000 topics, dynamic, always on the go, sensitive.
- Pitta: consist of fire. A Pitta predominant person is strong willed, fierce, with a strong intellect and a very good digestion.
- Kapha: consist of the element of earth and water. People with high Kapha parts are usually very grounded, patient, calm, caring with a very good long-term memory.
This represents just a few short list of characteristics to give you an idea.
- Prakriti: Represents our basic body mind type, our constitution with which we were born. It’s the status in which we are in equilibrium with ourselves. When starting a therapy or nutritional advice this will be assessed to find out where adjustment need to be made to bring back to balance
- Vikriti: Is the alterated state, so when the relation within the doshas does not correspond anymore to our prakriti. It has shifted and therefore it can cause smaller or bigger problems and illness. Vikriti as well will be assess when starting your journey with Ayurveda.
A person born with a pitta constitution (means more Pitta than Vata and Kapha) can for example have a Vata imbalance. Means the Vata parts are currently too high and need to be reduced.
- Agni: is our digestive fire, our metabolism. The better our Agni works the better we feel. Often therapies do start with re-enforcing Agni so that the whole system starts going better, and Ama (Toxins, see below) can be burned and gets out of the system.
- Ama: Stands for toxins. Everything that can not be properly digested, stays in our system and accumulates. When in combination with an aggravated state of one doshas it will manifest as light or serious illness.
- Rasas: indicate the 6 tastes. Ideally an Ayurvedic meal contains all of them. So it should have something sweet (madura), salty (lavana), bitter (tikta), sour (amla), pungent (katu), astringent (kasaya)
- Gunas: Similar what the Doshas represents for the body the Gunas stand for the Mind. There are 3 Gunas: Sattva, Rajas, Tamas.
Sattva stands for the quality of light. Sattva is also cultivated for a sattvic nutrition. One particular type of Ayurvedic nutrition that I would like to support especially.
Rajas is the principle of activity and passion
Tamas stands for darkness and ignorance