Ayurveda:
Guiding Principles
by Angela Hope-Murray
& Tony Pickup
 According to ayurvedic
teaching, starting any form of treatment without first dealing with the
toxins in the system that have caused the disease will only make
matters worse. In the short term, treatment may superficially relieve
the symptoms, but the imbalance in the doshas will manifest as disease
again either in the same location or elsewhere. Toxins may either be
eliminated or neutralized. This applies to both the physical and
emotional level of disease.
(Editor's Note: Doshas
refer to three energies or forces corresponding to the three basic body types
in Ayurvedic medicine: Vata, Pitta, Kapha.)
The Emotional Level
Anxiety, anger, fear, insecurity,
jealousy and greed are human emotions recognized by us all, but as
children we are taught that it is not appropriate to express these "negative" feelings. Ayurveda teaches us that this is incorrect
thinking and that it is important to release these emotions otherwise
imbalance in the doshas will occur, leading to a build up of
disease-creating toxins.
First of all, we need to know what our repressed emotions are.
Sometimes they have been so effectively buried that we are quite
unaware of them. The only way to find out is through observation. This
is a little more than plain observation of what is going on in our
lives -- it involves observing the observer, even though that sounds
almost impossible. It helps to ask the question: "Who is it that
observes you are happy (or sad or angry, etc.)?"; "Who is it that is
aware you are seeing this page?" The answer is the true self, or the
soul, unchangeable and unaffected by the exigencies of life; in Western
medicine it is sometimes referred to as insight -- literally looking
inward.
There are many techniques to assist in this process of observation. It
helps to pause for a couple of seconds before doing anything;
discussion with a group of like-minded individuals refines the ability
to make contact with this insight; meditation is extremely useful.
Observation is the key to understanding your emotions. For example, if
anger arises, you should be completely aware of it -- do not try to do
anything about it, just observe it. In this way you will learn how it
arose,
and what it resulted in. Release of anger is the important feature and,
once again, this involves not doing anything; simple observation will
enable its release.
The Physical
Level: Diet
The guiding principle of Ayurveda is
that each person has the power to heal herself. Much can be done to
remove or neutralize toxins in the body by balancing the
doshas, using an appropriate diet as part of a program of measure in
all aspects of life. Such dietary adjustments also serve to maintain
the balance of the doshas and thus perfect health. Spiritual
development is vitally important, but it is difficult to maintain if
the body and mind are ailing, so our eating habits must be examined.
What is eaten should be chosen to balance the individual constitution.
Choosing the proper diet is a simple matter when given an understanding
of the constitution and how it relates to the qualities of various
foods. The taste of the food (sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter or
astringent) and the season of the year must also be considered.
You should not eat unless you are feeling hungry, nor drink unless you
are feeling thirsty. Do not confuse these two feelings; it is a great
temptation to drink in order to assuage hunger, but all that will
happen is the digestive fire will be diluted.
In the process of eating, you are feeding not just the body but the
mind and spirit as well. It is important, therefore, to feed all five
of the senses by preparing and consuming food that is attractive to
look at, good to taste, inspiring to smell, and pleasant in
constitution. It may seem difficult to satisfy the sense of hearing,
but the sound of food being cooked, or of a stick of raw celery being
chewed, can do so in a very pleasing way.
Always prepare, serve, and eat food with love. We have all had the
experience that food cooked by someone who loves us is somehow more
pleasing than that cooked without love. To hold on to unloving feelings
while we are eating tends to cause indigestion. Poor digestion will
give rise to production of
ama (toxic material caused by poor digestion) and thus to the
promotion of disease. Drink water with your meal in sips. After you
have finished eating, a mixture of yogurt and water will aid digestion.
This drink should be about half yogurt and half water, but see what
suits you best. If you have
vata as a strong characteristic, then add a little lemon juice. If your
major dosha is
pitta, then add a little sugar. For kapha individuals, a little honey
and a sprinkle of fresh black pepper is probably a good idea. This is
specifically a drink for the end of, rather than during, a meal. The
best drink during the meal itself is water; don't drink milk with a
meal, especially if the food contains meat.
If possible, allow your food to pass through the digestive system
before doing any strenuous exercise. When you exercise, the body
reduces the blood supply to the gut and makes it available to the
appropriate muscles; this disrupts the whole process of digestion and
must be avoided if
ama is not to be produced. The same is true of sleeping; the
circulation of blood in the body changes profoundly, and the gut is no
longer supplied with what it needs to allow correct digestion and
assimilation of what you have just eaten. Avoid both these "activities"
for a good two hours after a meal. This does not mean that you cannot
go for a stroll after eating -- it is almost certainly beneficial to
take a gentle walk following a meal.
Food has the property, as far as digestion is concerned, of being
either heavy or light, related largely to the amount of digestion
required. Light foods include cooked rice and potatoes, whereas heavy
foods include things like raw food and cooked meat. In the West, we
tend to think that salads are "light" food, but they actually require a
lot more digestion than a cooked vegetable. Raw and cooked food have
different amounts of
agni (digestive fire) present in them and should never be eaten in the same meal, except in very small quantities.
Light food makes it easier to integrate body, mind, and spirit because
there is less redistribution of blood to the gut for digestion. Heavy
food always leaves you feeling tired and lethargic, and often actually
induces sleep.
Diet and the Mind
Everything you eat will affect your mind as well as your body. In
Ayurveda, the mind has three possible states that are related to the state of the constitution as a whole:
-- sattva, or peaceful equilibrium, in which the power of discrimination is most accessible
-- rajas, or activity, in which excessive thoughts prevent discrimination from being accessed
-- tamas, or inertia, in which there is a heaviness and attachment to
the physical realm such that there is neither activity nor
discrimination.
This division of states of mind is the cause of another of those
vicious circles that tend to characterize our lives. The power of
discrimination allows us to know the correct balance and what is the
most appropriate action in a certain situation. If this is clouded, or
access to it is not possible, then we are unable to decide, for
example, what to eat and how much; this can give rise to a more
tamasic state (having the quality of tamas or inertia), which further obscures discrimination!
Food that is bad, fermented, or preserved for too long increases the
amount of tamas in the body and then in the mind. A good example of a
fermented food is alcohol. This does not mean we should not drink
alcohol, but we are all aware of the effects of too much! Legumes and
high-protein food like meat, fish, and poultry increase
rajas, as do any of the pungent spices. To increase sattva we should
increase our intake of grains, fruits and most vegetables.
Dos and Don'ts
Always eat fresh foods when possible
and avoid preserved, canned, or frozen food items, though the latter
are permissible if fresh is not available. Eat light foods until your
appetite is satisfied, but do not be tempted to clear the plate just
because there is food on it. With heavy foods, try to restrict yourself
to satisfying only half your appetite with this type of ingredient. If
you are ill, eat only light foods, and then in small quantities, until
half your appetite -- at the most -- is fulfilled.
One of the most important rules in Ayurveda is never to combine in one
meal foods that "fight", either in terms of the signals they give to
the gut or in terms of their qualities:
-- do not eat cooked foods and raw foods at the same meal since they require different types of digestion
-- avoid combining heavy and light foods
-- avoid drinking milk while eating radishes, tomatoes, potatoes,
bananas, meat, fish, eggs, citrus fruits, melon, bread, or cherries
-- do not mix milk and yogurt
-- eat fresh fruit separately from other meals (cooked fruit may be eaten at the same time as a cooked meal)
-- avoid mixing different types of protein, such as meat and cheese.
In recent years, Western medical research has identified other
unhelpful food combinations in line with the traditional ayurvedic ones
above. Keep heavy high-protein or high-fat food items in separate meals
from lighter foods such as starches and vegetables. These types of food
require quite different digestive processes in the gut for proper
nutrition. If you eat them together, there will be competition for the
appropriate digestive mechanism and neither will be digested properly.
Proteins and fats require slow digestion and absorption by the small
bowel, whereas starches need to pass quickly to the large bowel where
they are acted upon by bacteria to produce special forms of nutrients.
Your small bowel needs this form of food. If they are eaten together,
then fat and protein slow down the passage of the starches and they do
not reach the large bowel in time to be digested by this special
bacterial mechanism. It is your bowel that suffers and is unable to
function properly as the controller of nutrients entering the body.
Do your best to maintain the separations between different types of
foods as indicated above -- there is nothing "wrong" with any of them,
they just do not combine well.
This
article was excerpted from:
 Discover Ayurveda
by Angela Hope-Murray and Tony Pickup.
This article was excerpted
with permission from Ulysses Press. Ulysses Press/Seastone Books are available at bookstores
throughout the US, Canada, and the UK, or can be ordered directly from
Ulysses Press by calling 800-377-2542, faxing 510-601-8307, or writing
to Ulysses Press, PO Box 3440, Berkeley, CA 94703.
Info/Order this book.
About The
Authors
Angela Hope-Murray
studied at the Ayurveda Wellness Center in the United States and
practices Ayurveda in the U.K. Angela has been a practitioner of complementary medicine for over 30 years.
She has earned a Doctor of Osteopathy degree
from the UK College of Osteopathy. A much sought after lecturer, known for her in-depth presentations on
chosen topics, Dr. Hope-Murray is an avid world traveler. She is a
dedicated proponent of meditation and the Vedic tradition. To contact her, visit www.lifestorytherapeuticcentre.com.
Tony Pickup is a physician and consultant
to pharmaceutical and health food industries.
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