Practice makes perfect, so goes an age-old saying. The path of conscious living that is imbued with well-being, as exemplified by Ayurveda, is all about daily practice until we become one with the knowledge that is dictating the practice.
Health does not come easy. Especially if we have squandered it away over the decades in the bazaar of life – where sensual delights and dizzying experiences insidiously entered our being and took possession of our mind and rocked our lifestyles and robbed us of our inner peace; and where foods of all shapes, sizes, colors and varieties and some even of dubious genetics and questionable cultivation have deposited toxins in our body that declare coup inside of our delicately balanced bodily systems.
But the Ayurveda sages calmly reassure us that with daily health-promoting and disease-preventing practices that are mindful and dedicated to our higher Self, slowly and steadily, with commitment established in knowledge, we can regain well-being and enjoy good health. We have to begin the journey back to health by beginning to see the connections between our life and the current status of our health.
We cannot get away forever with blaming the pathogens or claiming bad luck. We have to see that the buck stops with us; because even pathogens and passive genes become lodged or activated in a body and mind corrupted with negative thoughts, adulterated with hard to break down foods and precipitated with lifestyles that are prescriptions for strokes and other dramas of the ER variety!
The Tree of Our Life
The tree of our life draws its health-giving ingredients from our lifestyle, our food habits and from our day-to-day social, relational, professional experiences.
These inputs can be either flung into our body “unconsciously,” as in living a fast life, eating fast food, chaotic and jam-packed schedules and conflicted interpersonal interactions OR these inputs can be offered into the being as flowers would be offered to an altar – with mindfulness, loving care, fine attention, discernment and sense of responsibility.
Our life then dictates the foods we eat, where we obtain them and how we cook them. Here are some questions we can ask ourselves: Are the foods I eat more often natural and organic, freshly cooked, inspired and complex? Or are they more often from a restaurant, canned, frozen, preserved and simple?
It All Begins with Choice
It all begins with choice. Consciously or unconsciously, we engage in making choices about what we eat, what we choose to pay attention to, what we smell and what we hear and what we touch. All of these stimuli enter our body to be digested at various levels.
What is important to understand is that our health is a product of well-being, and that well-being in turns depends upon the quality of our life, and whether we choose to remain conscious in it or not.
Ayurveda asks for personal responsibility and becomes so integrated that you begin to actually crave the appropriate lifestyle, rather than conforming to a system that externally tells you how to be. Eventually you know it and want it from a deeper place.
Well-being is Hard-Earned
Thus, our well-being is a precious ingredient indeed, not to be found on supermarket shelves, or inside beautifully-designed jars and bottles, certainly not waiting for us inside pharmaceutical manufactured “state-of-the-art” drugs and, least of all, present in chemically-synthesized vitamins and supplements.
Our well-being is right inside of us, ready to sprout forth with our calm and nurturing choices tempered with wisdom; like a tender first flower, fragile to the abuse of wrong foods, chemically-manufactured drugs, and havoc-raising lifestyles; Well-being cannot and will not thrive in flooded body’s, stuffed digestions, and stressed minds. Well-being will come forward spontaneously in a life lived consciously, peacefully and in harmony with all that one sees, thinks, does and is.
Ayurveda’s spiritually-grounded science understands the rather unfashionable hum-drum, old-timer word Santulan or “moderation.” Yes, this word does not set fire to our imagination, it certainly will not fund millions of dollars in research and clinical trials, and it will not spawn industries of canned foods and infomercials.
This word, moderation, will do nothing of that sort mainly because moderation is a spiritual choice that lives in the realm of the individual’s personal field.
This choice is ours to adopt or abandon. Moderation and adaptability to the unique constitution is the scientific contribution of Ayurveda to this world. One who follows Ayurvedic science listens to wisdom within and learns to seek moderation in everything one eats, thinks and does.
Our Personal Choices and Our Health
In any moment, when faced with a myriad of conflicting choices, we can decide if we want to go overboard and follow some short-lived logic, fad, connection, hunch or even so-called clinical proof that fails us in time, or follow the good-old middle path of sanity, moderation, and memory.
Why memory? It is for us to remember the truth of human existence and the truth of our eternally-healthy spiritual essence deep within, buried under the external wrappings of material facts, information bits, fragmented parts, and jagged, and disconnected material science.
Deep within each of us is the spiritual womb of the Self, and from there emanates a profound wisdom to Self heal. More than 5000 years ago, Indian sages gave this wisdom an external manifestation - the science of life, Ayurveda - so perfect and so complete.
I invite you to explore my online course, Alchemy through Ayurveda, where I dive deep into wisdom passed down to me from my 2000-year-old Vedic lineage. Watch the intro to the course today and get started on your journey to true wellness: bit.ly/Alchemy-Intro.
Acharya Shunya is a globally-recognized spiritual teacher and Vedic lineage-holder who awakens health and consciousness through the Vedic sciences of Ayurveda, Vedanta and Yoga. She is the driving force behind an online wisdom school and worldwide spiritual community, and the author of best-selling book on the Vedic art of mind + body + soul well-being and health, Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom (Sounds True, 2017) and forthcoming second book with Sounds True to be released in 2020, Sovereign Self. Acharya Shunya is a keynote speaker at national and international conferences, and serves as an advisor to the Indian Government in matters pertaining to global integration and cultivation of Ayurveda and Yoga. Receive her free online teachings and browse her current eCourse offerings here or see more about her on Facebook and follow her on Instagram. Subscribe to her YouTube Channel where she holds live Global Satsangs once per month. Study Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her online course, Alchemy through Ayurveda.