Consciousness-based medicine
Inner intelligence is consciousness, the unmanifest Atma (or the Self) which underlies all physiological structure and function. If we enliven the connection to this intelligence which pervades all aspects of our physiology, from subtle to the gross, we promote the homeostatic self-repair mechanism within us. This is the foundation of consciousness-based medicine that is Ayurveda.
No doubt many of us have heard of the Doshas, Vata, Pitta and Kapha when it comes to Ayurveda. In fact, that is the hook which grabs your attention when you first come across it. It’s our primal attraction to knowing our Self, so we want to know “Which Dosha am I?”
More importantly however, it is not our Doshas that we ought to focus on, rather what it is that we need to bring back to balance such that homeostasis is possible. Doshas make up all there is in the manifest reality we engage in, including ourselves. If they are out of balance within us, then they in fact debilitate homeostasis leading to disease states.
The Doshas in our bodies are constantly undergoing change as a result of being exposed to various factors internally and externally. Whether it is the intake of food and drink, exposure to environmental factors including weather, our behaviour or state of mind, all these either reduce or increase the qualities specific to each Dosha in our physiology.
For example, dryness which is a quality of Vata Dosha, may increase due to exposure to cold wind, eating rough or dry foods etc. The magic of nature is that for each of these qualities, there is a counter quality which can be engaged to correct the imbalance of dryness. Unctuousness can be introduced by way of oleating yourself with a daily oil massage which we call Abhyanga, or increasing the unctuous quality of the foods we eat!
So how do we know what we need to bring balance to ourselves at any given time, you might ask. This is where we come to the idea of enlivening consciousness such that we may spontaneously make the most evolutionary choices that support balance. "Heyam Dukham Anagatam" - the pain that is yet to come can be avoided. Ayurveda is all about prevention, and the primary treatment is preventing causative factors of disease, it is a profound thing to grasp and convey. To put it simply, it is all about living in accord with natural law, there cannot be anything simpler than that. To find our way back to this, the practice of meditation is the key as we dip into that inner intelligence - the unified field of all the laws of nature, the field that transcends duality, unifying all that there is, was and will be - and let that intelligence guide our choices in diet and lifestyle.
In contrast, allopathy operates from the superficial chemical layer meaning that tweaking one chemical pathway affects many more due to the complexity at that level. It should be noted that there is some change taking place in modern medicine in recognising that only a small number of pathways for disease processes exist, e.g., inflammation. In Ayurveda, by simply balancing the three Doshas at the very foundation of our being, that being the junction of manifest and unmanifest fields, we achieve wellness at all levels of our physiology. In this way, there can only be side-benefits!
