We know what it means to have knowledge of chemistry, football, web design, and music. But what does it mean to have knowledge of life? This is the question Ayurveda sets out to answer.
Let’s explore this together. What is life? Is it biology? No! Biology is the study of living organisms. Biology is the study of systems infused with and sustained by life.
Is life vivid thoughts and feelings? No! A seasoned meditator knows the presence of a living vibrance beyond the mind that vivifies thoughts and emotions. Life is required for biology, thinking and feeling, yet life cannot be encapsulated by these.
Let’s go a step further. Where does life begin? In the ER, we see emergent deliveries of newborn babies. Is this where life begins? No! The baby was certainly living prior to delivery.
What about conception? Even then, the cells of the baby’s parents were pulsing with life prior to meeting in the womb of the mother. And if we rewind time to the baby’s grandparents, great-grandparents, and beyond, we soon end up at the beginning of the human species, and perhaps even the beginnings of our solar system and the universe!
As you can see, determining what life is and where it begins is no easy task despite our scientific advances.
Ayurveda solves this problem by offering an understanding of life that goes beyond physicality, time, and space. It suggests that because life is so subtle, it can only be known by approaching it through understanding ourselves.
This is why Ayurveda offers health as the path to knowing life. Specifically, Ayurveda declares that health is the result of balance among the life expressions of vatta, pitta, and kapha.
These three expressions are themselves combinations of subtler, non-physical life expressions, which can be incompletely translated as earth, water, fire, air, and ether. When these expressions are in balance, we experience health. When they are imbalanced, we experience dis-ease.
Ayurveda invites us to begin directing our attention to sense these life expressions both within ourselves and in the world around us. By becoming aware of these expressions and their state of balance or imbalance, knowledge of healing and health begins to dawn and the power living within each of us awakens and grows.
At this point, the individual not only has a new vision of life but is also standing on the threshold of discovering what life is. This is where Ayurveda meets cosmology.
Just as physics tells us the universe is a form of vibrating energy, Ayurveda is situated within a philosophy that tells us the physical and mental universe is the dance of subtle consciousness and creative energy.
Furthermore, this dance can be traced to the very heart of reality itself, from which everything, including that which we call life, springs forth. This is not to be taken as a mere abstraction, however. It is to be considered and explored by those on the journey of healing and wholeness.
So, as you choose an Ayurvedic approach to wellbeing, pause for a moment to experience the wonder, knowledge, power, and potential for transformation embedded in your choice.
This knowledge of life is in your hands!
