Since arriving in the Ningaloo township of Exmouth, I have met an Ayurvedic Soul Mate in the form of Candise from whose shop I practise the traditional Kerala form of Abhyanga or warm oil massage. Candy serves the most delicious organic coffee this side of the black stump and is a nurse in her other manifestation. Previously she spent a year studying Ayurveda in Perth, which is something still relatively new in these parts. The longer I live the Ayurvedic way the more surprised I seem to be that people see the science as some mysterious Eastern tradition and impossible to adopt to the Western Lifestyle. I used to think so myself as I bounced between India and the West, between burgers and bhaji and suffered the consequences of my erratic behaviour. The basic principles of Ayurveda are just plain and simple unadorned good sense, common sense you could say if sense was common any more. I think good sense is increasingly becoming uncommon in our world, and think of Ayurveda as plain and simple sense that our grandmothers taught us anyway. But for me there always has to be a story attached to everything and the story of how Ayurveda came down to mankind is one of my favourites and worth sharing.
Vishnu sleeps in the great cosmic ocean, his task is to dream the dream of the Universe. As he sleeps and dreams from his naval issues a lotus flower. The lotus sways and opens to reveal the God Brahma seated in the centre of the lotus. Brahma opens his eyes on the dream of the Universe and by this action gives birth to the world made manifest. Brahma is the eye of God observing the play of the Universal Dream. The pivot upon which the dreaming God and the Seeing God rest is the Great God Shiva who has no beginning and no ending. From His position of eternal Be-Ing, Shiva destroys the world made manifest by the glance of Brahma and the dream of Vishnu. This is known as the Trimurti, the three humours of life. This endless play of being and becoming cycles around rising and falling in across the four Yuga or life cycles associated with the dream of the world made manifest.
In India all knowledge is considered to have issued from this play of the Gods acting separately but as One, creating, preserving and destroying. Ayurveda (Ayur meaning life and Veda meaning sacred text) is considered to be the earliest form of sacred knowledge given to mankind as a ray of divine enlightenment from the cosmic consciousness of Brahma.
In order to pass this knowledge down to man who was going through thousands of years of plague and pestilence and other forms of discomfort, Brahma composed a song of over one hundred thousand verses which were divided into a thousand chapters and then into the eight limbs or parts of the science. He then sang the healing song of the Universe to the creator of mankind who sang it to the some more gods who then sang it to the King of the Heavens, Lord Indra.
Meanwhile down on earth, the humans were falling sick and dying like flies. Creation needed to get its act together or else the whole spectrum of human life and so therefore the dream of the Beloved Dreamer Vishnu into a nightmare. Not that the gods cared, because to the Gods everything just Is. There is no right or wrong, since the gods dwell in a field beyond duality.
But the seers who meditated in communion with the dreams of the Gods knew of the existence of the healing song of the Universe and so arranged for one of the greatest sages to be reborn so that he could go to heaven and appeal to the God of Heaven for the knowledge contained within the many verses of the Song. This sage was known as Dhanvantari and with him went Bharadwaja and Khasyapa. It was through the efforts of these sages that the science of Ayurveda crossed the heavens and descended into the field of man. Proof of this timeless knowledge is evident to scholars and people who dig in ruins all over the Indus plains but for me the story is all I need to be going along with.
From that original act, Ayurveda has split and grown and expanded out into the knowledge of herbs and the songs that they vibrate to, the healing power of stories and surgery and a dazzlingly complete science on how to live according to the vibrational healing song of the Universe.
The poetry of the story soothes my soul and the plain simple good sense of how to live a human life that has been condensed from that vast ocean of cosmology is stunning in its simplicity. Enough to know that what our grandmas told us was pretty much the word from the heavens. Rise early, eat simply, exercise and live a moderate life. Pray and give thanks and dream when you sleep.