To the ancient Ayurvedic Sages the idea that “all disease starts in the mind” was a fundamental scientific fact. They were radically intuitive thinkers and modern medicine has not kept up with their advanced views.
Modern science divides doctors into those who see our minds as chemically sick, and those who take the position we are emotionally ill. However, there is an entire domain modern doctors do not investigate: the spectrum of spiritual healing.
If the mind was simply neurochemistry and emotions everyone could be cured with an industrial model: parts replacement. Pretty soon they will replace your genes and change the way you think, feel and live.
Fortunately the popular influence of “holistic treatment” provides some much-needed relief from the heartless, grey, matter of modern medicine.
Looking Back to See Forward
Today medical researchers observe nature and discover its objective properties. They tinker with molecules but forget themselves!
However, Ayurveda is the opposite: we observe nature to uncover the mind.
Every researcher in ancient India was concerned with this self-discovery. They understood that every aspect of “objective” external reality was a mirror in which to discern the self.
The great culture of Ayurvedic Medicine was based in a world-view called Vaisheshika: a consistent theory of atoms, matter, perception and their logical relationships in the mind.
These Sages knew that whether you observe an external object or a representation of it in your mind’s eye, there is no difference.
There wasn’t a single Ayurvedic doctor in ancient India who didn’t understand that all disease starts in the mind.
Life Apart
Industrial medicine thrives on parts because parts are profitable. So it can never run out of parts or stop discovering new molecules, genes, and machines in its wild goose chase.
The Ayurvedic Sages knew addiction to parts would increase the illusion of separation between mind and nature.
They knew that separation would create more disease so they focused on the most important parts and called that Samkhya, the study of parts without distraction.
With Samkhya it’s possible to study parts yet still reduce the illusion of separation because every part is attributed an intelligent individual awareness, from the smallest ant to the farthest star. It’s a very ‘Personal’ universe where trees and rivers have hearts and desires and both humans and stars have destiny and dharma.
Inner Relationship
We talk to our plants in private and for a sheepish second we feel a connection as we provide them some water. That’s as good as it gets in our relationship with the spirits of the plant kingdom. But Ayurvedic doctors have been speaking with every herb in the forest for millennia.
While we run off to yoga class or read hip marketing blogs on Ayurveda we utterly fail to grasp that we are talking about a culture… an entire civilization… where people literally believed that Gods were running around inside their bodies.
When the yogis looked into their bodies they saw streams of light flowing among spinning chakra stars in an ocean of heavenly sounds. They saw each organ and energy center directly related to earth, water, fire, air and space.
They had radiant gems within their bodies. They saw crystal palaces inside. They felt the tide of sacred waters. That was their self-image!
Their medicine and divinity can be summed up in the declaration, “this very body is the temple”.
Play God
Nobody is allowed to play God in Western culture except doctors and scientists. People are not permitted to be sovereign, even in their own body! But in Ayurvedic India the spiritual message was: you should be God. You should be God in your own body.
The term for God or individual in Samkhya is purusha, and it is used interchangeably for the supreme spiritual whole and individual human being. In Samkhya, both the whole and the parts are considered to have intelligent consciousness and the relationship of the whole and part, or part and part, is not defined by natural laws but by this shared essence.
So, to by truly practicing Ayurveda we replace the finite with the infinite and as “little Gods” we can take on the greatest tasks of self-healing.
Because we have been lulled into passivity by western medicine and science, we need to empower ourselves be asking, “What kind of intelligence does it take to self-heal? What kind of mind?”
I suggest that we return to the mind of the ancient Sages and get out of the western mind by seeing all external objects as reflections of our own mind and re-painting our “reality” to more closely match the “look and feel” – the very sensation and experiences – of original Ayurveda. But not stopping there, I suggest that we incorporate any and all maps of reality including the best of modern or western science and medicine so that rather than justifying Ayurveda by modern science, we justify modern science by Ayurveda.
To do this type of healing, we need to re-imagine ourselves, our bodies, and our destiny: It’s time to play God!
Practice Makes Perfect
Once we adopt an Ayurvedic mentality we can attribute intelligent awareness to all entities, from the smallest atom to the farthest star because all entities occur in our mind which is composed of that awareness.
With an Ayurvedic mentality, or an “Ayurvedic mind” we can heal all the parts through the power of the whole by inviting all entities into therapeutic dialogue; a dialogue we initiate with a humble greeting followed by appropriate statements and questions.
When we enter into a healing relationship with an entity, be it our liver or the DNA-field of our entire body, our approach is Dharmic, meaning non-exploitative, cooperative, and unconditionally loving. Even in dialogue with “our own” body it’s best to remain in the humble position of being just one of the contributory entities to the body, not representing ourselves as the “owner” of the body which is felt as an egotistical presumption by many of our parts, who know they are doing a lot more complex work than we are even capable of.
So practice by choosing a familiar organ to dialogue with, such as your heart. You can also decide to talk with more abstract and unfamiliar entities such as your entire circulatory system, your entire brain, or all your hormones.
For example, to start self-healing a condition like high blood pressure you could relax, close your eyes and say, “I would like to talk with my heart”
Pause.
“Heart, I really appreciate you. You have done so much for me. I need you to help me lower my blood pressure. Is there anything you need from me to do that? Would you please direct that process with all the other organs?”
Then listen, tune in to your body and relax.
“Circulatory system,” you can say. “I would like to talk with you.”
Pause.
“I want you to relax, release, and heal. Please allow all the beautiful blood cells to flow with less pressure. Please help me to relax and come into balance.”
Listen to the sensations, feelings, words or pictures that come to you. Be patient and hold the intent to discover your own intimate “way” and words to talk with your body or any entities that you choose to work with. You can speak with all the life in the ocean if you want! Just try it. Be an Ayurvedic healer in the highest, broadest, most satisfying way you can conceive.
The Ayurvedic Body
Along with your Ayurvedic mind comes an Ayurvedic body, an inter-dimensional vehicle fully equipped with the Ayurvedic map that includes inner pathways (nadis) and energy-flows (prana), energy centers (chakras and marmas), and beautiful awareness-beings (tattva devatas and other devatas) who collaborate on the most primal and cosmic layers of existence, in a harmony which cannot be described with words.
Because you are blessed by the Ayurvedic Sages, you are already in a conversation, a divine dialogue on the unlimited power of healing.
By virtue of Ayurveda being part of the Vedas (essential spiritual wisdom), any effort you make, even if you don’t succeed, is meritorious in of itself. So you are freed from having to “get it right”, from having to always measure up scientifically, and for having to have other people agree with your experience in order for it to be real or true.
You are the Resource
You should be God. You should be God in your own body.
This very body is the earth and sky.
This very body is where the great powers meet.
The great intelligence of the cosmos sits and works in this body works with you.
My goal as an Ayurvedic practitioner is to keep alive the concept of spiritual healing. I hope you enjoyed this post.
