Understanding the Relationship Between Yoga and Ayurveda

Reflections by Melina Meza

by Ram

A lot of questions/comments are being raised in this blog regarding Ayurveda and yoga, so Nina asked me to address these issues. While I think that the science of Ayurveda and yoga is better addressed and understood in a verbal format—akin to a didactic exchange of information—through this article I will try to lay out the main principles that govern both these sciences.

Thanks to Swami Vivekananda, yoga came to the West in 1893 and was welcomed by a very receptive audience. While people embraced yoga, its counterpart Ayurveda, was left behind in India. This despite the fact that both yoga and Ayurveda are two very similar paths sharing a close relationship, so closely related that they are often described as two sides of the same coin. Both these sciences, which have their origin in the Vedic texts, address health and health practices. If Ayurveda is the healing aspect, yoga is the spiritual/practical side of the Vedic teachings. Together they emphasize a complete approach to the wellbeing of the body, the mind, and the spirit. In fact, their close relationship has even led to some scholars arguing that Patanjali, considered by many to be the father of yoga, and Charaka, often considered as the father of Ayurveda, may have in fact been one and the same person known in Vedic India by different names during his travels to spread the teachings of these ancient sciences.

Both sciences have common underlying principles: the well being of an individual at the level of body and mind and the aim of helping an individual re-connect to their true nature through direct and personal experience (pratyeksha in Sanskrit). While yoga prepares the body and mind of the individual for eventual liberation and enlightenment, Ayurveda describes the various ways to keep the body and mind healthy. Both sciences emphasize our close relationship with the environment and how to alter our environment in such a way that it is harmonious with our deepest nature.

In today’s world, yoga is often thought of as “asanas only,” something like a stretching tool to keep the body limber and agile. People are drawn to yoga as a way to keep fit even though the idea behind the physical practice of yoga is to help the mind to become clear or pure and develop deeper mind-body awareness. A clear mind is not affected by stress and a clear mind produces a healthy body thus creating a greater connection with one's own pure, essential nature. Similarly, Ayurveda brings with it the knowledge of how to keep the physical body healthy and how this relates to one's spiritual journey. It addresses our entire lifestyle, including exercise and yoga. However, Ayurveda is highly individualistic and sees each individual as unique and an individual's path toward perfect health as a unique path. Hence, what is right for each individual is unique to that individual alone. This could be described as person’s unique genetic background or constitution or dosha in Sanskrit. An individual’s constitution describes who the person is at the most fundamental level.

The above concept is remarkable because as a result of this understanding, Ayurveda prescribes a unique, “tailor-made” program to each individual based upon his/her constitution and the nature of the imbalance, and avoids the “one size-fits all” concept that is followed in many systems of healing. As Dr Marc Halpern, director of the California College of Ayurveda, points out:

While Ayurveda does not agree with the "Fits all" concept, it subscribes to the philosophy that “nothing is right for everyone and everything is right for someone.”

Thus, Ayurveda is based upon understanding individualized needs and what is right only for the individual - not the masses - and fulfilling those needs to bring complete harmony.

As with diet, herbs, colors, aromas, etc, Ayurveda sheds light on which specific yoga asanas are best for each individual based on his/her constitution. With the knowledge of Ayurveda, a practitioner of hatha yoga can refine his/her practice so that it is in harmony with their internal balance of energy. Some yoga postures are best for one person while others can cause greater imbalance. By knowing one's constitutional balance, an individual can use constitution-specific asanas to reverse their imbalances and improve their health and wellbeing. Indeed, if we can understand our constitution, we can control our choices and choose only those that will lead us toward optimal health.

How does one get to know their inherent constitution? There are several alternative health journals or web sites that analyze your constitution based on your answers to a specific set of questions. Chances are that your alternative health practitioner (who does not hold a proper certification in Ayurveda studies) may have made a passing remark about your constitution. Do not rely solely on this analysis, instead take it all with a grain of salt. Before jumping to any conclusion about your constitution and changing your diet, asanas or lifestyle, it is always best to consult with an Ayurvedic health professional who will help to determine your constitution, help you to understand the nature of any imbalance, and establish a plan to bring you to balance thus providing guidance toward success in establishing a disease-free lifestyle.

Despite my opposition to separating these two sciences, let me emphasize that when it comes to the Yoga for Healthy Aging blog, we have a general policy against writing about anything except yoga and the science of aging. Not all the staff of Yoga for Healthy Aging are trained in the area of Ayurevdic sciences and we would like to keep this subject off limits. So we’re going to have to decline to address questions on specific diet, herbs, or general Ayurvedic medical advice as it is a highly individualized system. Besides we cannot provide Ayurvedic advice without examining you in person in a private setting and this, after all, is a yoga blog! So, we hope you understand.

Namaste.

Autumn, Healthy Aging and the Ayurvedic Dosha Vata

by Timothy

It's late September and the trees surrounding  my Northern Vermont cabin are turning orange, yellow and rusty brown, and only a few the bright red of the most intense foliage seasons. From an Ayurvedic standpoint, fall is the season of vata, the dosha or humor, associated with the “air element.”Is that something that readers of this blog should care about? Crazy as it sounds, I'm going to argue yes. So today I'll give you just a taste of Ayurvedic thinking, with  more coming in future entries.

Autumn Leaves Scenario by Flemming Christiansen (via Wikimedia)

When I first got interested in yoga therapy, I kept reading about people who incorporated an ayurvedic perspective into their work. When I started to work on my book Yoga as Medicine, however, I decided to not write about Ayurveda at all. With its five elements and three humors (vata, pitta and kapha), it reminded me too much of ancient Greek medicine, and we'd all learned that was some ancient superstition that couldn’t possibly be useful in the modern world. Since I was trying to take a scientific approach to yoga, it seemed sensible to leave Ayurveda out. But the universe, as they say, had other plans.

While spending a year as a scholar-in-residence at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, where I finished the book's manuscript, ayurveda was everywhere I turned. Kripalu was just starting an ayurveda training course, and prominent teachers like Vasant Lad and Robert Svoboda were visiting. My housemate, Swami Shivananda Saraswati, an Ayurvedic practitioner who taught in the program, was a lively man who hailed from the Netherlands and looked like a 19th century Kris Kringle, except he always wore orange. He and I began to have regular discussions about India's ancient indigenous healing art and the oldest continually practiced medical system in the world.

Swami Shivananda made a few simple lifestyle suggestions for me, which I found surprisingly helpful. And the more I tried, the more I found this holistic science spoke to me. And, yes, Ayurveda did make its way into the book Yoga as Medicine, and now forms an integral part of the yoga therapy work I do and teach. In fact, as soon as I handed in the last edit of the book, I flew directly to Kerala, India, for Ayurvedic treatments. It was during that trip that I met the Ayurvedic master, Chandukkutty Vaidyar, who I’ve been studying with ever since. I have come to believe that if you are practicing yoga and not paying attention to Ayurveda, you are missing a piece that could deepen your practice and improve your health and well-being.

Based on an interview and a pulse assessment, a subtle art very different from the way we take the pulse in western medicine, Swami Shivananda concluded my vata was too high. Not a huge surprise in retrospect, since I’d already been working non-stop on the book, and was just in the process of moving out of Boston, where I’d lived for years. Since I moved into Kripalu in October it was vata season then, too, and Ayurveda teaches in the vata time of year, anything associated with this dosha tends to get worse. Typical vata problems include anxiety, restlessness, digestive troubles, insomnia, degenerative diseases, disorders of the nervous system, and a worsening of any painful health condition.

According to Ayurveda, vata islike a fall breeze: cold, rough, dry light, and erratic, and anything that has the opposite properties can lessen it. Dietary measures are generally the starting point in Ayurveda, and my Swami friend recommended eating warm, soothing foods, like well-cooked soups, vegetables and casseroles.

Probably the most helpful suggestion Swamiji gave me was oleation, both internal and external, that is, putting high quality oil on your skin and into your food. Warmed sesame oil (raw, preferably organic) can be rubbed into the feet before sleep (put on old socks afterwards to protect your bedding), or applied daily and allowed to soak in for several minutes before showering. With all the traveling I've been doing over the last several months, regular oil massages, followed by a nice warm bath, have done a lot to keep my vata in check, though it’s been an ongoing struggle.

An erratic schedule of sleeping and eating, and doing too much in general will tend to increase anyone’s vata, even for someone like me who doesn’t have a lot of vata in his ayurvedic constitution. Your nature or prakriti is said to be determined at the moment of conception. But I am over 50, and that is according to Ayurveda the vata time of life. Increased vata is said to be why older people tend to get dry, cracking skin, become more fearful, and have increased trouble sleeping—and why they move to warm climates. In my own case, and in the yoga therapy work I do, I’ve found that just trying to eat meals and sleep at regular times can be surprisingly effective for insomnia and other vata-related conditions as an adjunct to whatever other measures, yogic or otherwise, you use.

But entering my 15th consecutive week of traveling in the US and Europe—and with all the dislocation and air travel, both said to increase vata—I’m feeling it. I’m tired even after a week of relaxing. The last few days I've done a lot of Malasana (Garland pose), and long holds of forward bends and twists, along with my usual inversions and alternate nostril breathing, all of which are helping bring my vata back into balance. Before this downtime, I’d gotten two separate colds in just over two weeks, as many as I’d had in the previous several years combined, as well as a painful shoulder condition. My body—and my vata dosha—has been trying to send me a message! And I'm listening.

Still, there’s one more Yoga as Medicine workshop in Boston in a couple of days. I had been planning to return to my Vermont cabin afterward. But it’s getting cold and windy up here, so yesterday I changed my ticket to fly back to Northern California a week early. For increased vata, there’s no place like home.

In Loving Memory: This article is dedicated to Swami Shivananda Saraswati, yogi, ayurvedic practitioner, and my dear friend, who passed last summer after a good, long life.