Practical ways of Ayurveda
Features of Ayurveda
Ayurveda is a very practical system of health care and recovery. Its modalities are accessible and easily applicable and not least, inexpensive. Also, Ayurvedic knowledge has objective contents that only direct experience can reveal. Ayurvedic modalities are non-traumatic, non-invasive and do not disturb other forms of treatment. They can potentiate the effect of almost any form of healing and can therefore be administered, without any problems or side-effects, together with other conventional treatments.
Types of Ayurvedic procedures
From this point of view it is good to know that in Ayurveda there are:
1. Ayurvedic procedures which are indicated for people in relatively normal health (not suffering from any serious ailment). These procedures are intended both to protect the human being who applies them (by not allowing any illness to develop) and to help him or her become increasingly harmonious.
2. Ayurvedic procedures for people already suffering from certain conditions. These procedures are designed to eliminate, first and foremost, the condition(s). Application of this type of Ayurvedic procedures requires a thorough knowledge of Ayurveda.
Ayurveda Objectives
As is well known, any medical science has two objectives: the first is to prevent diseases (including health promotion) and the second is to treat them with a view to cure them when they have already occurred. Of these, the former is always better and preferable, just as it is much wiser to keep out of the mud than to have to wash it off yourself.
Unfortunately, however, both in the minds of many and in practice, medicine today is mostly the science of curing disease. If you're not yet really ill, in the view of most people, there's no need to see a doctor. Thus, we can see that nowadays people have lost the notion of a healthy lifestyle. Most people live 'at random', and when, at some point, an illness occurs (because our bodies do not function 'at random', but always according to very precise laws), it is often seen as an unfair stroke of fate, or as bad luck, and not as a natural result of mistakes made.
Beyond that, in the past, a practitioner of Ayurveda was considered a true Ayurvedic practitioner only when those he cared for did not become ill. One who wishes to apply Ayurvedic knowledge will begin by knowing what preventive methods to use to prevent illness, and if illness does tend to set in, it can be 'caught' early, when it has not yet established itself in the physical body.
Svasthavritta
All preventive procedures, which are intended to maintain health and prevent diseases, are included in Ayurveda in the branch called SVASTHAVRITTA.
In Ayurveda there are a number of healing methods, often also used for preventive purposes, which are applied differently depending on the constitutional type.