Ayurveda Initiative For Global Health

A fresh breath of… Ayurveda by Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji Life has four characteristics: it exists, evolves, expresses and extinguishes . And for these, it depends on five elements: the earth, water, air, ether and fire. These correspond to the five senses: sight, smell, taste, sound and touch. Ayurveda is the study of life — Veda means to know and Ayur is life. According to Ayurveda, life or existence is not in rigid compartments — it is a harmonious flow. Even the five elements are not tight compartments of defined objects — they flow into one another. Each one of the elements contains the other four. So, the approach of Ayurveda towards life is holistic. The subtlest element in us is space, of which the mind is made up, and the grossest element is the earth, of which our bones, skin and body structure are made up. To understand the physiology, its characteristics and its reflection on the mind, the human system is divided into three Doshas or imbalances: Vata, Pitta and Kap...

Q: Gurudev, How to overcome the air in my stomach and deal with constipation as it makes my emotions go bad, really bad, especially during working hour? Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji  Food, food, food, change your food habits. Is there an Ayurvedic doctor here or Chinese doctor? They can suggest some herb, in Ayurveda, there is something called Triphala. So every night you take two-three tablets of Triphala which cleanses the body and constipation will go, hah! That is a very general medicine, harmless. Do we have Ayurveda here? Let’s work towards getting these herbs, they are very useful.

Once, 84,000 Rishis sat in a place called Naimisharanya , in Uttar Pradesh , Central India .  Naimisharanya is known for a lot of herbs, it is where Ayurveda was born. All the rishis sat there to meditate and download the Materia Medica  (the Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing). - Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji

When everybody goes into meditation, somebody should be there to record what is said; thus, the question was, who will record, who will keep themselves awake and write everything down? Rishi Bharadwaja volunteered to write and not meditate. (It is like how the driver is awake, when all the other people travelling are sleeping.) Thus, all the Rishis closed their eyes and went into deep Meditation .  They started downloading, speaking, ‘ This herb is good for this, that herb is good for this, and so on’, and that is how Ayurveda , the first Materia Medica was born. - Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji