Where the Trouble Starts

Ayurveda describes life as a flow of energy and information through form.

When the flow stops, life stops. This flow is characterized by change. Life is constantly transforming from one form into another, breaking down from complex into simpler substances and growing from basic elements into more intricate expressions.

To be alive is to be growing, changing, and dying.

Creation, sustenance, and transformation/destruction are happening simultaneously, everywhere, all the time. In yogic terms, life is the dance of Shiva and Shakti, Consciousness (information) and Energy/Matter (Energy is matter; check with Einstein: E=mc2).

In Ayurveda, the principle of transformation within the bodies of all living things, including Earth herself, is known as agni. Agni is fire, light, and heat. It is the capacity to break down and release energy, and it is the energy itself in the form of radiance. Agni is cause of photosynthesis in plants and metabolism in animals and humans.

In our body, agni governs the processes of digestion. A major part of digestion is breaking down inputs into building blocks that can be used by the cells to generate new tissues. Agni works intimately with our life force energy, prana, to separate nutrients from toxins and wastes, assimilate and absorb nutrients into tissues, and expel/eliminate waste. Agni performs this same function at the mental and emotional levels. When agni is healthy, we are able to take in and digest information, think and perceive clearly, and make decisions. We feel light, energetic, and hungry to experience life in a good way.

You can see how agni is essential to life and to health. In fact, disease cannot develop on any level, physical or mental, without an imbalance, disturbance, or dysfunction in agni.

When digestion, metabolism, and elimination are working perfectly we are all systems go. Our immune system is resilient and fully functional, we are in symbiosis with our environment, we are producing healthy body tissues, and we are able to eliminate wastes and toxins from our system. Weakness develops when some aspect of this flow is disrupted.

This means that our digestive processes are THE key to health. Period.

There is not a single disease which does not include some type of disturbance to digestion or metabolism. Disease begins as a subtle imbalance, develops into niggling concerns, and if left unaddressed, eventually progresses until it alters body tissues and real symptoms start to manifest.

Western medicine rarely recognizes the connection between a change in our digestive capacity and the development of a problem until we are in the latest stages of disease. By contrast, Ayurveda is about disease prevention. It teaches us about the workings of our bodies and minds in detail and teaches us how to observe, assess, and correct, and optimize as necessary.

If you are only going to learn one thing from Ayurveda, learn how to assess and tend to your agni.

Some of the core work we do together with Ayurvedic Health Counseling is centered on this.

Want to learn more? Keep reading! And schedule an Ayurvedic Health Consultation with me.

The Great River

The goal of Ayurveda is to support human beings in living a healthy, peaceful, harmonious, and long life. Ayurveda mentions the normal human life span at more than 100 years. Longevity is as much about quality as length of life.

The image used to help us understand longevity is that of a river.

The river begins high in the mountains, fed by snows and springs. As it descends, it gathers water and gains speed…trickling, gurgling, rushing… eventually roaring. Where the banks are narrow and the bed is shallow, the water forms a torrent, tumbling toward its inexorable destiny, at last discharging into an even larger river.

These Great Mothers, the lifelines of the Earth, guide all the smaller rivers to their ultimate merger in the sea. Roiling whitewater is thrilling to behold. Yet the silent power of a Great River is awe-inspiring. The banks are wide; the bed carved deep. An unfathomable amount of water is moving in that channel, sliding almost soundlessly. I experienced this on the banks of the Columbia. Camping near Castledale, British Columbia, I was enthralled by her palpable presence: the embodiment of gravity in motion, a stunning magnitude of energy. I’ve experienced several other powerful rivers, but the sheer volume and depth of the Columbia at this place was mesmerizing. I’ve never seen so much water, moving so quickly and silently.

Ayurveda teaches that longevity is like this Great River.

At the beginning, the river’s inputs are greater than the output. As it grows into a dynamic stream, smashing against narrow banks, its output is greater than input. When the river becomes a Great River, its capacity to receive is balanced by the energy it flows out, and this balance creates exponentially more power and strength.

True, lasting health and longevity have to do with balancing our inputs and outputs and expanding our capacity to allow life to flow through us.

As a highly trained over-achiever, I’ve found this concept to be challenging to consider. Yet I have lived long enough now to see the tendency toward a raging torrent in myself, and to understand the consequences of time spent where outputs > inputs.

My opinion is that we stand to benefit tremendously by considering a paradigm that empowers us to become conscious of the quality and balance of both inputs and outputs. I’d love to see this replace the obsolete norm our world is suffering from, where inputs are largely ignored, outputs are denied and justified, disease is expected—written off as “normal aging”—and we continue to look outside ourselves for a solution.

Let’s come back to the deeper wisdom throbbing in our blood and all the sacred waters of our body: the song of the Great River and her dance of dynamic balance.

Micro Investing in Yourself

Understand what health is and whether you want to cultivate it. (If you don’t, this blog is not for you. Save some time and stop reading now).

Let’s use the Ayurvedic definition, articulated 3,500+ years ago:

samadoshahasamagnischa

sama dhatu mala kriyaha

prasanna atmendriya manah

swasthaitiabhidiyate - Ashtanga Hrdayam

A person is called healthy when the dynamics governing function (doshas), the digestive capacity and process, and body tissues are all balanced; wastes are eliminated regularly; senses and mind are clear, and the person has a feeling of luminosity and pleasantness deep within.

Now you have a clear rubric for assessing your own current state of health or dis-ease.

Cultivating health is not rocket science. Here’s something you can do right now to start.

Exercise:

1.    Look at the definition above and determine where your state of health leaves something to be desired. Are you having indigestion every afternoon? What about that persistent shoulder ache? Or maybe you feel dull in the morning even after a full night’s sleep. Jot down the areas you see need attention.

2.    Now write down 1 - 5 things you do regularly that you know do not support your health. They can be directly related to your health challenges or not. (These can include thinking or saying specific things)!

3.    Look at your list. Which one of these are you willing to trade for an action that does support your health?

4.    What is the easiest, simplest thing you could do that you know supports your health?

5.    Make your trade.

Congratulations! You have just started micro-investing in yourself. Make a commitment to return to this process in one week and check on your ROI.

Leave a comment below and let me know: how’s your health? What trade are you making? What ROI are you reaping?

Healing is a Journey of Reconnection

Healing - “the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again.”

For me, this word conjures up a certain magic; a felt sense of release, expansion, and ease. Despite all the technology Western science and allopathic medicine can muster, we cannot yet pinpoint the mechanism of healing. Doctors may remove diseased tissue, reattach tendons and ligaments, inject medicines into the blood, and offer the body stem cells with which it can reconstruct, but it is the body that heals. It seems the more we seek to pick apart the intricacies of disease, the less we know about healing.

The ancient sciences of Ayurveda and Yoga offer a more complete understanding of health and healing for several reasons:

• according to Yoga and Ayurveda, the source of all life is Oneness (what could be called the unified field in modern physics). Oneness = wholeness. This means health is innate. Healing, then, is a return to the natural state.

• Yoga and Ayurveda recognize that life is inherently intelligent. Behind all the expressions we see, there is a self-organizing intelligence at work. To experience this firsthand, go out in nature and examine any object you find in detail. If you pay attention, you’ll see the stunning artistry, architecture, and living design of cosmic intelligence at play.

• Yoga and Ayurveda acknowledge that there is much more to the human being than a body and a mind. Instead, these knowledge systems portray a “body-mind complex” which manifests on a spectrum from subtle to gross. Studying these aspects of ourselves reveals interconnections that begin to show us how disease develops and also illumines the built-in pathways in which life energy moves to constantly generate healing.

One of the most important teachings in Ayurveda and Yoga deals with the origin of disease. The understanding is that disease and suffering arise from a fundamental separation or departure from the natural state, a “disconnect.” It is only through this disconnection from source that disease can take root and develop.

This disconnection results in a disruption of the natural flow of life, which is energy. This then creates either accumulation and stagnation in the bodymind, or depletion. From here proceed all types of disease. We can address the accumulation or depletion, but if we don’t heal the disconnection, then disease will reappear in another form.

Healing, then, is the journey of reconnecting all aspects of ourselves back to our core Being, our nature. Sometimes all the body needs to return to balance is a signal, like a set of physical exercises, or a simple repair, like a surgery. Other times, the disease process continues to unfold in spite of all attempts to change its course.

The exact, individual cause of healing remains a mystery. Yet we observe that there is something within us which knows how to heal and does so constantly. Every cell of the body is renewed within 7-10 years; some cells, like the stomach lining, are replaced every few days!

This is why our work in yoga therapy and Ayurveda focuses on reconnecting to our nature and removing the barriers to our natural balance. Through self-study, we identify what we are taking in (or not taking in), as well as what we are doing (or not doing) that is obstructing health. What we discover through this process is that the disease-causing separation is deeply rooted the form of unconsciously held belief systems and self-concepts, which are translated into automated preferences, habits, and ways of living.

The meditative practices of Yoga allow us to excavate all the way to the roots of our suffering and begin to address the disease at its fundamental foundation. At the same time, the nourishing practices of Ayurveda gradually seep in through our daily life and senses, replenishing our connection to natural rhythms and slowly saturating our being with all that we need to return to health.

Thus, healing is a journey of reconnection - to the natural world, to our innermost self, and to that which animates and enlivens all forms. In reality, we are not separate. Our healing journey is the return to the wholeness that we truly are. In this way, each person’s healing is a most precious contribution to life itself.