Ayurveda, Siddha or Allopathy – What to Choose When - Isha Rejuvenation

Ayurveda, Siddha or Allopathy – What to Choose When

Medical systems such as Ayurveda and Siddha are considered alternative therapies in today’s world. Some are quick to dismiss such therapies while others swear by them. Choosing the right kind of treatment – Allopathy, Ayurveda or Siddha – can be a confusing affair. In this article, Sadhguru looks at the merits of each type and stresses on the importance of a holistic approach, rather than supporting any particular treatment as the best.

Allopathic Medicine

Sadhguru: When we say health, disease, or ailment, there are two fundamental kinds. One kind of ailment comes to us from outside, an invasion of external organisms. It has to be dealt with in one way. We still find that the Allopathic system of medicine is the most effective way of handling infections, there’s no question about it. However, a majority of human ailments are self-generated. They come from within the system. For such chronic ailments, the Allopathic system of medicine has not proven to be too good. Allopathy can only manage the disease. It can never really uproot the disease because essentially, it is about symptomatic treatment.

For most of the ailments that are chronic in nature, symptoms are like the proverbial tip of the iceberg. We are only treating the tip all the time. In fact, today it is an established form of treatment – if you get diabetes, hypertension, or asthma, doctors are talking to you about how to manage the ailment. They are never talking to you about how to get rid of it. But the manifestation of the disease in the form of a symptom is very minor. What is happening is at a much deeper level, which cannot be treated with external medicine.

If you are really in a state of emergency, going to an Ayurvedic doctor is not the best thing to do. You go to him only when you have time to recover. In an emergency, Allopathy has better systems than any other. But when your problems are mild and you know they are evolving, Ayurveda and other systems are very effective means of treatment.

Ayurveda

So what is so different about the medicines of an indigenous kind, which largely get labeled as Ayurveda?

Ayurveda comes from a different dimension and understanding of life. A fundamental part of the Ayurvedic system is about an understanding that our bodies are an accumulation of what we gathered from the planet. The nature of the planet and of the Pancha Bhutas or the five elements that make the planet are very much manifest in this physical body. If you want to handle this body in the most effective and productive way, it is very important that everything you do about this body has a relationship with the planet.

Ayurveda is more disease-oriented, whereas Siddha is more health-oriented.

Ayurveda says that every root, every leaf, every tree bark found on this planet has medicinal value. We have learnt how to use only a few. The rest of them, we are yet to learn how to use. What this statement is trying to convey is, health is not something that falls upon you from the sky. Health is something that has to grow from within you, because the body is something that grows from within you. The input comes from the earth but it grows from within you. So, if you have a repair job to do, the best place to go is to the manufacturer, not to the local mechanic. This is the essence of Ayurveda.

In Ayurveda, we understand that if we go deep enough into the body, this body is not an integrated thing, it is a continuous process which involves the earth upon which you walk. If this relationship does not come through, these subtle systems of medicine which work from within, will fail to work. Without taking care of the whole system, just trying to do one aspect of it may not be very fruitful.

A holistic system does not mean just treating the body as a whole. A holistic system means treating life as a whole, which includes the planet, what we eat, what we breathe, what we drink – all of that. Without attending to all those things, the true benefit of Ayurveda will not be seen. If Ayurveda becomes a living reality in our lives and our societies, people can live like gods.

Siddha

Siddha or Siddhavaidya is unique to Southern India, fundamentally Tamil Nadu. This dimension of medicine was opened up by Agastya Muni. They say Adiyogi himself practiced it and Agastya brought it to the south. He created a very potent combination, some fantastic usage of material. It is unbelievable how Siddha works. In the Siddha system of medicine, the sages, realized beings and the Siddha doctors were not different. Always, the sages practiced a certain amount of medicine because human health is an essential part of going ahead.

Siddha vaidya cannot happen without sadhana.
Siddha is very different from Ayurveda and I would say it is much closer to the body’s energy system than Ayurveda is. Ayurveda is more disease-oriented, whereas Siddha is more health-oriented and simply about rejuvenation. So the variety of what is available in Siddha may not be as wide a range as in Ayurveda, because Ayurveda enters every disease. Siddha doesn’t enter the treatment of every disease. It is mainly about strengthening the inner sources of the body and activating the body in a certain way.

Siddha is very different in the sense, though there are herbs, it is essentially elemental in nature. It comes more from the yogic science because the fundamental of yogic science is in Bhuta Shuddhi or in the cleansing of one’s elements. This is an evolution from the yogic science. Since it is elemental, you are dealing with the fundamental material which makes the body. You are not trying to infuse some other medicine into it. So it is not really a medicine as such.

Because of this, it needs less study but more internal mastery for the person who practices it, which is again a problem today. Siddha vaidya cannot happen without sadhana. Today they have set up colleges for siddha vaidya, but it will not work like that. “Siddha” means an established one or one who is firmly established within himself. At Isha, we have access to certain Siddha systems that are not normally available with other doctors who practice Siddha.

Isha Rejuvenation, located at the Isha Yoga Center, and Isha Arogya clinics, located in various cities in South India, are holistic health centers established by Sadhguru. Find out more about these centers from Sadhguru himself…

Isha Rejuvenation

Sadhguru: The uniqueness of Isha Rejuvenation is that it is a treatment based on Siddha and yoga. So, aren’t the yoga programs alone sufficient? When someone has been ill for a long period of time, just a program may not be sufficient. They may need some more medical support. So we are offering traditional Siddha.

But this is not a hospital where we treat all kinds of ailments. This is more about rejuvenation. The rejuvenation system is more about activating the energy system to a certain level where the body corrects itself. The general attitude, intention and ambience of Isha Rejuvenation are not that of a spa. It is a more dedicated atmosphere. People may go to a spa just for pleasure. It’s not that you can’t enjoy this, it has a good ambience, but here it is not just about pleasure. We are always seeing how to make a person fit enough to receive the spiritual possibility.

Isha Arogya

At Isha Arogya, Siddhavaidya, Ayurveda, Naturopathy, Yogic systems, Homeopathy and Allopathy – all six – are practiced together at one place. The clinic is generally conducted by Allopathic doctors because they are better trained for diagnosis in today’s world.

People have been asking me, “Sadhguru, how can all these systems happen in one place?” I am not committed to any system. My commitment is to human health. You may be committed to Siddha, you may be committed to Allopathy, you may be committed to Ayurveda, but when a man is sick, he wants health, he doesn’t care how. Do you care how you should become healthy? When you are not healthy you want health, you don’t care how it happens. This combination of things has been working wonderfully.

http://www.ishafoundation.org/blog/lifestyle/health-fitness/health-a-holistic-perspective/

Live-in Relationship vs Marriage – Choosing Consciously

Sadhguru answers a question on whether a live-in relationship or cohabitation is better than marriage, and looks at how each individual can choose consciously.

Questioner: Is it better to go for a live-in relationship than marriage? It’s often done in the West and they normally just take up a partner and prefer to go for cohabitation vs marriage which takes more commitment.

Sadhguru: Let’s look at the very fundamentals of what marriage is. Why has marriage come up in society? After all, why is it that you want to be with the opposite sex? It is just nature’s trick so that you can reproduce. Nature wants you to reproduce, so it is playing a chemical game with you to get you attracted to the opposite.

A man is opposite to a woman only on the physiological level. In no other way are they opposite. But we have made such a big issue of it. It is a simple difference nature has made for the perpetuation of the race but because this need is there within you, and because you have a few more sensibilities and stronger emotions compared to an animal, we institutionalized our sexuality. That is what marriage is. And because we have to nurture our children and bring them up, unless there is a committed atmosphere, it is not going to happen properly. So we created this institution of marriage so that your sexuality and caring for progeny is also handled, and children grow up in more stable atmospheres.

If you just look at these physical needs as what they are, they won’t be with you for too long. They are strong during a certain part of your life. After that they fade away. But now you have been told that without a passionate relationship, your life is empty. Because of this, no matter what you do, even if everything in your life is happening beautifully, but you don’t get into some relationship like this, you feel like you are missing something. It is not so, but society is training people like this.

You must learn to look beyond the brain-washing that society has done to you, whichever society it is. Only then your intelligence will function. It is time you thought fresh, free from all those things.

Live-in relationships, a substitute for marriage?

A certain part of the population is trying to demolish the institution of marriage because of how marriage has been misused. The so-called rebellious ones think marriage is bondage, so they don’t want marriage. They want free relationships or cohabitation or whatever. Rebelling without any purpose doesn’t mean anything. It is just the ego. The ego always wants to break everything and do something new. But if you carry on with this new thing for 10 years, this will also become old and miserable. Even couples who are in a live-in relationship are fighting with each other. So, these problems are not because of marriage. It is because of people’s own incompleteness and immaturity.

I would say that demolishing the institution of marriage would be foolish right now because you still don’t have a good substitute for it. It is something we created for our convenience, but still you don’t have an alternative better than that. With the alternatives that have been created, there is so much struggle in people. People thought they could be with anybody, but they struggle, they fight, they have their jealousies and all sorts of problems. Isn’t that the reality of the world? Seeing all this, the institution of marriage was created.

Uncommitted relationships can cause an enormous amount of insecurity in people.

With marriage, there was some sense of commitment. That commitment pulled you back if you went off the way. It put you back on track a little bit. Uncommitted relationships can cause an enormous amount of insecurity in people. This is what has happened in the West. Relationships have become so painful because they are constantly uncertain. People may do something because it seems fashionable right now, but most people do not have the stability of mind to handle such uncertainty. Desperately trying to hold on to somebody all the time just destroys a human being in so many ways. When he is constantly uncertain, a human being’s capability to live comes down dramatically.

Human beings have so many complex emotions. If you just leave it to run riot, most people will become insane. There are a few who are free from this but 99% of the population is capable of going insane if their emotions are not somehow organized and channelized. The institution of marriage was created to handle all this. Unfortunately, like so many things, this has been misused. When I say misuse, I am not talking about just women having suffered. Man has also suffered. It is just that women are a little more vocal about their suffering.

Once it happened, in one of those woman’s liberation movement speeches, a real hard-core woman’s libber was giving a whole speech about how the women of the world have suffered in many different ways. There was one meek little man sitting in the front row. After all this bombastic speech, the man raised his hand meekly. The woman asked, “What man, what is it?” You know, he is seen as a “creature” there. He said “I know one way that women have not suffered.” “Which way is that!” “They never suffered silently!”

It is not just that one suffered, the other also suffered but the other was made in such a way, he cannot make an investment of his suffering. He is ashamed to say “my woman is making me suffer.” He feels he will become less of a man if he says that. But it is easier for a woman to say it out. So, both have suffered and misused marriage in different ways.

Once misuse comes in, some people will say “we must end marriage because this is causing suffering.” I would say, don’t destroy any institution unless you have a better substitute. If you have risen in your consciousness in such a way that you have absolutely no sense of possessiveness, you have no need to belong to anyone, if you have that level of consciousness, then you just live. But that is not true with most people.

No common prescription

This is why in Indian tradition, we created a certainty to relationships. Once you are married, it is for life. There is something very beautiful about it, but at the same time, if it becomes a source of exploitation, it can become very ugly. So which system is better? There is no system which is good in the world because every system can be exploited and misused. At the same time, every system can be used to live wonderfully. What we do out of it is the whole thing.

So, whether a live-in relationship or cohabitation or whatever is suitable or not is an individual thing. There is no common prescription. But from what I see, most human beings don’t have the stability of mind to handle constant uncertainty; they will go mad, which is what is happening in the West. Too many people are going insane simply because they are not able to handle the uncertainty of life. Your economic situations, your social situations, even your physical situations are uncertain. But if at least in your emotional situations there is some stability, it gives you a base to live your life more effectively. If you do not need it, it is up to you. It is individual but most people need it.

http://www.ishafoundation.org/blog/lifestyle/relationships/live-in-relationship-cohabitation/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20November2014-English_Weekly_Newsletter

Eating Right

Question

Sadhguru, when I do sadhana, I am finding myself dozing off. I thought this was due to tiredness, but whenever I close my eyes and meditate, I fall asleep. How can I stay awake?

Sadhguru

First, let us understand what sleep is about. If sleep is invading your life anytime of the day, you must first check your basic health and see if there is something wrong with your system. When you are physically unwell, you will tend to sleep much more than normal – the body wants to rest.

The second thing is the food that you eat. Consuming at least a certain amount of vegetarian material, particularly in uncooked condition, is very important for your general wellbeing. When you cook food, a large volume of prana is destroyed. That is one of the reasons why a certain amount of lethargy settles into the body. If you just eat a certain amount of live food, apart from many other benefits, one thing that will immediately happen is your sleep quota will go down dramatically.

Essentially, your alertness depends on how keenly you manage your energies. If you want to meditate, your alertness must be not of the mind alone, but of your very energy. To assist this, generally, for people who are on the yogic path, it is said that you should eat only twenty-four mouthfuls, and you must chew every mouthful at least twenty-four times. Now your food will be pre-digested in your mouth before it goes in, and it will not cause dullness.

If you do this during your evening meal and then sleep in the night, you will easily wake up at three-thirty in the morning, and you can meditate. In the yogic systems, this time is called the Brahma Muhurtam. It is an ideal time to wake up, because at that time, there is an extra support from nature itself for your sadhana. 

If you take a bath and keep your hair wet, you will easily stay awake and alert through your sadhana until eight o’clock. If you eat just twenty-four morsels in your morning meal, you will definitely not feel sleepy until dinnertime. 

After one-and-a- half to two hours, you will be hungry, and that is the best way to be. Just because the stomach is empty, you do not have to put food. Just drink water and you will stay alert and energetic throughout the day. Your system will learn to use the food you have eaten well, rather than simply wasting it. 

Economically and ecologically it is good for the world, and good for your health – you may never fall sick if you eat like this.

This is an excerpt from Isha’s latest book, Body – The Greatest Gadget. The book can be purchased and downloaded at the Isha Download Store

http://www.ishafoundation.org/blog/yoga-meditation/demystifying-yoga/eating-right/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=CPC&utm_content=Eating-Right-Tamil&utm_campaign=Nov-Dec-Promo