Column of Ma Prem Sitara, Ayurveda therapist & Osho Meditation facilitator
Origins
“Ayurveda” is a term from the Sanskrit language that means “Knowledge of Life”.
I understood with the study of Sanskrit and my background that it is not a “knowledge” acquired in school, in books, theoretical or that we receive from others. Ayurveda is the great door to “Knowledge” in the sense of “Understanding”. What this covers is none other than a direct experience through a feeling and which, without the need for words, provides a deep and unalterable certainty. Ayurveda propels us into a world where we are alone with ourselves in front of the vast World, with everything it offers on our way to blend in, play with, feel, explore. I am reminded of the energetic words transmitted by Osho, an Indian mystic of the twentieth century : “Life is a mystery and there is nothing to explain, everything is simply open and it is in front of you. Go meet him! Get to know it! Be courageous!».
Ayurveda is an area where there is no space for dogmatically transmitted beliefs but for knowledge received independently through direct experimentation. Yes, it requires openness and understanding, commitment and involvement, patience and dedication… and responsibility. Do not rely on anyone other than yourself, that you are followed by a therapist in Ayurveda, that you follow training… there is no one to follow, there is to develop your openness to yourself, your feeling, your intuition, and everything is there. Self-love and self-confidence arrive very quickly as ingredients that we cannot do without : each human being is unique and in this he is alone… and alone to be able to feel, to know himself, to expand fully in what makes him unique. Any alignment with a model outside of oneself becomes uncomfortable. Ayurveda is a tool of Truth, authenticity, and offers to rediscover in itself a great simplicity.
“Life” is not an abstract and external concept, an object of philosophy. It is a very concrete raw material : it is you, it is me, it is this rabbit, this cloud, this raindrop, this leaf, this rosebud, it is Love, work, family, situations, victories and failures, gains and losses, etc… everything that makes our human condition and our experience here. This Life is what vibrates in itself, around itself, and in each situation; it is the object of exploration and at the same time the tool to explore, everything is there to play with. And the game is to uncover the unique Being that each one is through his actions, inactions, positions, reactions… so many spontaneous responses to Existence and its movements.
Ayurveda has existed for as long as the Cosmos, but this name and identification come from Wise men who lived about 3,000 years before Christ. This is how it is customary to say that Ayurveda is “the mother of all medicines”. And, it is a historical fact : Chinese, Persian, Egyptian, South American, etc. medicines all appeared after Ayurveda. All of them are only variations, for obvious reasons of climates, cultures, traditions that are distinct depending on the part of the world, but which all start from the same source : the Unity of Man with Nature and the Cosmos.
Ayurveda is therefore not new and it is not an additional technique. The “Ayurvedic knowledge” that has developed over the centuries and which is today strictly taught, under the leadership of India, to ensure its authenticity could suggest this because the concepts and protocols commonly presented in books and taught in schools worthy of the name are complex. From a very pragmatic and original point of view, however, Ayurveda is not a science that gives precise rules and recipes. It is, quite simply, the result of the observation of Man, Nature and the Cosmos. The sober simplicity attached to such sacred discipline obviously frightens our Western minds very well trained to think and manufacture complexity, notions, techniques and methods. Yet this is how it is authentically and originally : Ayurveda is simplistic, we observe, we repeat the observation, we leave time and when sufficient space has arrived, Knowledge springs up as an evidence that cannot be contradicted. This is called Meditation.
I followed a training of several years in a serious internationally renowned Swiss school existing since 1987 and which is imbued with the seriousness of its creator and director, himself trained in India. Theoretical and practical transmission is necessary if you want to become a therapist in Ayurveda and an Ayurvedic doctor (Vaidya) : how to do without it especially in the West where our culture does not know it? This is a wonderful opportunity and it has been for me personally. But, like everything, this aspect is only a part and stopping there has an unfinished taste. I have been able to see that even the greatest, at least those whom the mysterious “we” recognizes as such, are plagued by becoming ultra rigid and making Ayurveda an untouchable dogma. I dare to say it, to confine oneself to a single aspect and to hold it as immutable truth, not tolerating any opening to another point of view. This made me reason, spontaneously, a false note: is it not the exact opposite of the essence of Ayurveda to want to proclaim it as a single truth when itself is Life and Life is a movement, a perpetual change of everything ? Return to feeling, to confidence in one’s feelings, even if only one perceives it. For me, Ayurveda is not a religion in the common sense of the term, it is not a dogma, it is the greatest flexibility that can be conceived. It is the openness to what we do not know, which moves all the time, which shakes us and challenges us each time and in what, however, we choose to say “yes” in confidence to revel in all its nuances! Rediscover the flavour of our Origins.
Ma Prem Sitara
