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• AYURVEDA: Achieving Balance, Radiance, Youthfulness

  Ayurveda is a sanskrit word that literally translates "knowledge of life." Ayurveda is a vast and systematic science through which every element of human life can be understood, from the body to the mind and the spirit.

Ayurveda came to the Western world from India, where its influence dates back some 3,000 to 8,000 years, depending how you measure. The Charaka Samhita is the most authoritative text on Ayurvedic medicine to date, and it was written around 1000B.C. Through the dedicated work of a few scholars, we are very fortunate to have this multi-volume treatise available in English. All PRABHAVA treatments are rooted in the Charaka Samhita.

The practice of Ayurveda is the practice of bringing balance into a person's life. At the most basic level, one aims to bring a balance to the three doshas, or "humors." The three doshas are:

• Vata: (like air)

  dry, light, rapid, cold, thin, active or anxious

• Pitta: (like fire)

  hot, penetrating, absorbing, confident or angry

• Kapha: (like earth/water)

  heavy, cold, large, slow, steady, loving or clinging

Understanding doshas is a good step toward understanding health holistically. Doshas do not have any "real" presence- basically they represent qualities. As such, doshas can be used to understand the state of any living thing, inert thing, action, thought-or anything at all! It follows that a person with an excess of pitta, for example, will likely manifest that pitta on every level of his or her being, from physical to mental to emotional to spiritual.

Most persons are out of balance with regard to one or two of the doshas particularly... One's doshic constitution is affected by literally everything that comes into a person's life. Genes, food, drugs, herbs, sleep, sex, exercise, elimination, environment, seasons, emotional habits, relationships, job, daydreaming, stress, travel, hobbies, spiritual practices, surgeries, traumas; all contribute to a person's doshic balance, according to the quality of the inputs. Air travel, for example, is a vata-intense activity, and can be problematic for individuals who are already vata-imbalanced. Vata-related symptoms can include sleeplessness, constipation or dryness, to name just a few. If an imbalance is permitted to continue unchecked, this is the beginning of the dis-ease process. Practiced effectively, Ayurveda will interrupt the process well before any obvious symptoms of disease arise.

Ayurveda is a living science, whose principles are not dependent upon time or place. As a matter of fact, appropriateness to time and place is a foundational principle of Ayurveda. As inhabitants of the United States in the 21st century, our body systems are under constant exposure to chemicals, toxins, lifeless and inert material from our food, our air and our medicines, among other sources. Add complicated diets, poor sleep patterns and stress, and a very heavy tax is placed on our bodies, and the ability to get rid of toxins and waste (sanskrit: ama). Even a dramatically healthier diet may have limited health benefits if the body's channels are clogged with ama.

Therefore, Ayurveda as it is practiced in the United States typically revolves around panchakarma, the Ayurvedic cleansing program. A skilled practitioner will perform panchakarma treatments using oils, herbs and techniques that are custom-tailored to the individual client, based on a series of diagnostics. Pulse diagnosis in particular gives insight into the individual's state of doshas, sub-doshas, stressed organs, tissues, marmas (energy centers), and other more esoteric levels, all to paint an accurate image of the client's current state of health.

Of course, balance is both the method and the goal. Ayurvedic treatments typically enable the body and mind to enjoy states of relaxation far more profound than any common spa treatment.