Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies

Introduction The Need for Healing Ayurveda is the art of daily living in harmony with the laws of nature. It is an ancient, natural wisdom of health and healing, a science of life. The aims and objectives of this science are to maintain the health of a healthy person and to heal the disease of an unhealthy person. Both prevention (maintenance of good health) and healing are carried out by entirely natural means. According to Ayurveda, health is a perfect state of balance among the bodys three fundamental energies or doshas (vata, pitta, kapha) and an equally vital balance among body, mind, and the soul or consciousness. Ayurveda is a profound science of living that encompasses the whole of life and relates the life of the individual to the life of the universe. It is a holistic system of healing in the truest sense. Body, mind, and consciousness are in constant interaction and relationship with other people and the environment. In working to create health, Ayurveda takes into consideration these different levels of life and their interconnectedness. As a science of self-healing, Ayurveda encompasses diet and nutrition, lifestyle, exercise, rest, and relaxation, meditation, breathing exercises, and medicinal herbs, along with cleansing and rejuvenation programs for healing body, mind, and spirit . Numerous adjunct therapies such as sound, color, and aroma therapy may also be employed . The purpose of this book is to acquaint you with these natural methods, so you can make the lifestyle choices and learn the self-learning modalities that are right for you in order to create, maintain, or restore health and balance. Ayurveda is a Sanskrit word that means the science of life and longevity. According to this science, every individual is both as creation of cosmic energies and a unique phenomenon, a unique personality. Ayurveda teaches that we all have a constitution, which is our individual psychobiological makeup. From the moment of conception, this individual constitution is created by the universal energies of ether, air, fire, water, and earth. These five elements combine into the three fundamental energies, or doshas. Ether and air constitute vata, which is the energy of movement; fire and water constitute pitta, the principle of digestion or metabolism, the transformation of matter into energy; and water and earth make up kapha, the energy structure and lubrication. When the make sperm and the female egg join at the time of fertilization, the vatta-pitta-kapha factors from the parents bodies that are most active and predominant at the moment, due to the season, the time, the emotional state, and the quality of their relationship, form a new individual with a particular constellation of qualities. In modern terms we speak of this blueprint of the individual as our inherited genetic code; from ancient times Ayurveda has called it our prakruti or individual constitution, a constant factor which does not change throughout life. It is our own unique pattern of energy, our combination of physical, mental, and emotional characteristics and predispositions. Though the underlying structure of our prakruti remains a fixed reality, our home base or essential individuality, it is constantly bombarded by numerous forces. Changes in age and in our external environment, alternating heat and cold as the seasons pass, our endlessly shifting thoughts, feelings, and emotions, the quality and quantity of the food we eat, continuously affect us. Unhealthy diet, excess stress, insufficient rest or exercise, and repressed emotions, all disturb our doshic balance. Depending on the type of changes and the individuals underlying constitution, various ailments may develop: Some individuals experience an increase or aggravation of kapha, leading to conditions such as colds, congestion, sneezing, and allergic manifestations as wellLad, Vasant is the author of 'Complete Book of Ayurvedic Home Remedies', published 1999 under ISBN 9780609802861 and ISBN 0609802860.