Ayurveda is often introduced as a traditional system of health, natural treatment or nutrition, but its real meaning reaches much further. Ayurveda is the
Knowledge of Life.
Teaches the human being how to live in such a way that body, mind, emotions and daily life remain as close as possible to their natural balance.
This is one of the reasons Ayurveda has always been so important within my work. I was never interested only in what could be done after illness had already appeared. I wanted to understand what happens before illness, in the months and years in which the body is already giving signs but the human being has not yet learned how to listen.
Ayurveda begins there.
It begins with the way you wake up in the morning. It begins with the first glass of water you drink, with the food you choose, with the way you digest, with the amount of sleep you receive, with the rhythm of your days and with the way you treat the body through which you must live.
The body is continually speaking. Digestion speaks. Appetite speaks. Sleep speaks. Energy speaks. Elimination speaks. The way you feel after a meal speaks. The way you wake in the morning speaks. Restlessness, heaviness, exhaustion, irritation or a lack of vitality can all tell you something about how life is being lived.
Most people have never been taught to listen in this way. They have learned to continue. They work through tiredness, postpone rest, eat because it is convenient, drink too little water and often pay serious attention to the body only when the body can no longer remain quiet.
Ayurveda invites the human being into a different relationship with life.
It teaches you to listen earlier.
Learn to Care for the Life You Have Been Given
The first principle is simple: your life has value.
This may sound obvious, but many people live as though their own body, rest and wellbeing are always the least important things in the day. They care for work, family, responsibilities and other people, while continually placing themselves last.
Eventually there is very little left to give.
Caring for yourself does not mean becoming selfish. It means recognising that you are responsible for the life through which you must work, love, care, meditate and fulfil your purpose.
Drink sufficient water. Eat food that gives the body something it can actually use. Sleep enough. Move the body. Go outside. Breathe fresh air. Keep the place in which you live and sleep clean. Change the bedding regularly. Dress according to the weather instead of continually forcing the body to tolerate unnecessary cold or heat.
These things can appear almost too simple to be important.
But a strong life is often built through simple things repeated with care.The human being sometimes searches for complicated answers while the body is still asking for water, rest, movement, natural food and a more peaceful rhythm.
Food Is More Than Taste
Ayurveda gives food an important place because the body must continually rebuild itself from what we give it.
You are what you eat.
This does not mean that life should become a rigid diet or that every meal should create anxiety. Food should support life, not become another source of fear.
It means becoming conscious.
Choose food that is as natural and pure as reasonably possible. Learn to eat for the whole body and not only for taste, habit or convenience. Vegetables, grains, fruits, legumes, seeds, herbs and other natural foods can form a strong basis, while Ayurveda also teaches us to respect individuality.
A food can be healthy in general and still not be right for every person, every season or every condition.
People differ.
Digestion differs.
Age differs.
Climate differs.
Activity differs.
That is why Ayurveda does not simply tell everyone to copy the same diet.
It teaches the human being to observe.
How do you feel after eating? Do you feel clear and nourished, or heavy and tired? Are you digesting properly? Is elimination regular? Does a particular food repeatedly disturb you?
The body gives information every day.
Ayurveda teaches you how to begin reading it.
The same applies to water. Begin the morning with one glass of comfortably warm water, pleasantly warm like tea or coffee, but not burning hot. During the day, ordinary drinking water can be taken at room temperature. Very cold water is not the normal choice because we do not want continually to shock the digestive system.
Drink gradually through the day. As a general guideline, around two litres of plain water may support many adults, unless a physician has given different instructions for medical reasons. Coffee and tea can be enjoyed, but they do not replace the basic water the body needs.
Again, this is not complicated.
Health is often supported by simple things practised consistently.
Rhythm Is One of the Great Supports of Life
The human being is part of nature, and nature lives through rhythm.
Day follows night. Activity alternates with rest. Seasons change. The body also has rhythms of waking, digestion, movement, recovery and sleep.
When life becomes completely irregular, the human system has to adapt continually.
This is why Ayurveda values rhythm.
Try to wake and sleep at reasonably regular times. Give the body a rhythm around meals. Do not continually eat simply because food is available. Allow digestion time to do its work. Move during the day. Rest when rest is genuinely needed.
Sleep is not wasted time.
Rest is not laziness.
Movement is not punishment.
Food is not entertainment alone.
These are all parts of life, and they function best when they are treated with respect.
Ayurveda Is Also the Way You Think, Speak and Live
Ayurveda cannot stop at food and the physical body because the human being does not live through food alone.
You also live through your thoughts, your emotions, what you see and hear, the atmosphere you create around yourself and the way you relate to other people.
A person can eat the most natural food in the world and still create disturbance within himself through constant anger, resentment, jealousy, gossip, harsh speech or judgment.
The way you think matters.
The way you speak matters.
The way you behave toward another human being matters.
Try not to feed unnecessary hostility in the mind. Do not continually search for what is wrong in other people. Do not speak badly about someone simply because that person is not present. Learn to listen before judging. Speak truth when truth is needed, but do not make cruelty into a form of honesty.
Treat people with dignity.
Give affection where affection is needed.
Be helpful where help is truly useful.
Be willing to understand.
And remain conscious of what you yourself bring into the world.
This is also part of health, because every thought, every emotion and every interaction creates an atmosphere in which your own body and mind must continue to live.
Ayurveda teaches that life is one whole.
You cannot poison the inner world every day and expect the outer life to remain completely unaffected.
Learn to Enjoy Being Alive
Ayurveda is not meant to turn life into a list of restrictions.
Its deeper purpose is to help the human being recover enough balance that life can again be experienced with greater strength, clarity and joy.
Walk in nature.
Feel the sun.
Look at the sky.
Enjoy clean food.
Laugh.
Create beauty around you.
Wear clean clothes.
Make your sleeping place pleasant.
Allow yourself moments in which nothing has to be achieved.
Spend time with people whose presence brings sincerity, warmth and life.
And learn to appreciate your own existence.
Many people spend so much time trying to become something else that they forget to be grateful for the life they already have.
The purpose is not simply to add more years to life.
The purpose is to preserve as much life within those years as possible.
This is why prevention is so important within Ayurveda. Do not wait until the body has to shout before you begin listening.
Small corrections made early can change the direction in which life is moving.
Balance Is Not Perfection
No human being lives perfectly every day.
That is not the purpose.
Ayurveda is not asking you to become afraid of making a mistake. It is teaching you to recognise when you are moving away from balance and how to begin returning.
Sometimes returning means improving your food.
Sometimes it means drinking more water.
Sometimes it means going to bed earlier.
Sometimes it means moving more.
Sometimes it means reducing unnecessary stimulation.
Sometimes it means changing the way you speak to another human being.
And sometimes it means looking honestly at the way you have been treating yourself.
Balance is not perfection. Balance is the ability to recognise imbalance and return.
This is Ayurveda as it belongs within IAMGODIAM.
Not merely a system of herbs, diets or technical terms, but an education in life itself.
To know your body.
To respect nature.
To become conscious of what you eat, drink, think, say and do.
To care for yourself without becoming selfish.
To care for other people without losing yourself.
To preserve strength where possible.
To create greater quality within the years you are given.
And above all, to rediscover something that should never have been forgotten:
Be grateful for your own life. Respect life. Love life.
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