Longevity and Immortality

Although the word “Ayurveda” is often translated as “the knowledge of life,” a more accurate translation is “the knowledge of longevity.” The cherished goal of all ages has been the conquest of death. The desire to stay alive as long as possible is as fundamental to human nature as is its cause: the profound fear of death which lurks in the heart of every living being as the root reason for all other fears. Thousands of years ago the Rishis of India addressed the problem of eternal life, writing their answers to this conundrum in the four Vedas, the collections of hymns which are the oldest existing literary compositions of the human race. The word “veda” is derived from a Sanskrit root meaning “knowledge,” and the Vedas are verily the seeds of universal knowledge which have bloomed into Indian culture.

A famous Vedic prayer states: “Lead me from darkness into light; lead me from untruth into truth; lead me from mortality into immortality.” We lay emphasis on the last clause of this prayer in our study of medicine, for Ayurveda's purpose is the systematic transformation of a mortal human into an immortal being. Because students must be freed from disease before they can adequately extract knowledge from the Vedas and employ that knowledge in their own lives in their quest for immortality, Ayurveda was established as an auxiliary to these Vedas. In fact, Ayurveda as it now exists is a collection of the by-products of ancient researches into the elixir of immortality. This ultimate aim of Ayurveda deserves emphasis, for doubts about it exist even in India.

Because everything which is created must be destroyed, since it exists in time, the aim of immortality is to go beyond time. Some Westerners try to cheat death by freezing themselves, but this is mere self-delusion, for true immortality results only when the whole individual body, mind and spirit, is wholly transformed. There is no use of eternal life if, like that of Tantalus or Sisyphus, or of the characters in Sartre's No Exit, it is a life of misery and unfillable desires.
(Source: Svoboda, Hidden, 1994: p. 15-16)

 

India is a land of magnificent diversity, a place where archaic structures, concepts and traditions rub shoulders with up-to-the-minute formations, where variety and extremity stride hand in hand. No country any less richly textured could have given birth, thousands of years ago, to Ayurveda, and no other country could have prompted the sometimes bewildering multiplicity of principles and practices that have sprouted from Ayurveda’s roots.

New growth will inevitably burgeon from Ayurveda, and from its sister sciences such as Yoga, Jyotisha, and Vastu, each of which is an expression of the "living wisdom" that is a vidya. These vidyas are living beings, goddess manifestations of the totality of one aspect of the natural world. Ayurveda, for example, is the articulation in human terms of the Ayur Vidya, the "lore of life," the power of Nature that cures disease and promotes health. Doctors cannot themselves cure diseases; they can only act to assist Nature’s healing efforts. All first-rate physicians serve as vehicles for the Ayur Vidya, but too often they perform this service unaware of the nature of the Ayur Vidya herself. Good Ayurvedic training fosters a profound personal relationship between the student and the Ayur Vidya, to enable the conscious descent of that vidya into the postulant.  (Source: Lad Textbook, 2001: p. xv Forward by Svoboda, Robert)

The vidyas themselves are perennial, but their manifestations in our impermanent world are ever-changing. The ultimate, timeless version of a vidya is perpetually available to whoever can locate and tap into it; whoever can contact the muse that is the Ayur Vidya will find her guiding and inspiring their progress. Those who are unable to achieve the vidya herself can employ the more limited adaptations that human physicians have codified and elaborated for us. Taken together, the many elaborations of the Ayur Vidya represent the accumulated wisdom of how to effectively apply one aspect of nature’s healing potential in a human context.

Living wisdom gains richness and fluency with each successful transfer from one proficient human vehicle to the next, developing its own life as it is exercised. For many centuries, the Ayur Vidya has offered the boon of Ayurveda to generations of Indian physicians, and to those from other lands (Tibet, China, Persia, Greece, Arabia) who have made the pilgrimage to India’s temples of healing. Now, the good news of Ayurveda is finally making its way West.

Until recently the materialistic, mechanistic philosophical climate here in the West could not support the Ayur Vidya, but over the last half-century alternative ways of seeing the world have spread widely enough to permit Ayurveda to start naturalizing itself on Western soil. The first Ayur sprouts were weak and tentative, and many failed to thrive, but a few did take root and have flourished. One of the premier garden plots of Ayurvedic education in the USA is located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the Ayurvedic Institute. The Institute has strived since its inception to sow the seeds of the good news of Ayurveda into every available field, by means of lectures, books, and tapes. Early publications focused on Ayurveda’s most basic tenets, and teaching materials have gradually gained in sophistication as students have become more familiar with Ayurvedic language.
(Source: Lad Textbook, 2001: p. xvi Forward by Svoboda, Robert)

 

Remaining stable in one’s own state of being, the spirit (Purusha) perceives
the nature (prakruti) as the witnessing observer. Sank. Ka. 65

The entire Vedic tradition is composed of highly spiritual wisdom and pure knowledge revealed through the hearts of enlightened rishis. It is not a creation made by the mind of man but rather unfolded in the hearts of meditative minds. The ancient Vedic wisdom came from the caves and mountains of India where the rishis had ashrams and disciples. Students came to study in the guru's home. The rishis imparted knowledge as they experienced it in a deep state of meditation. These early teachings were an oral tradition and, because there were no books, the students stored the knowledge in their brains and it became a part of them.

The knowledge of Ayurveda has been passed down to us in sutras or small phrases and the wisdom they contain is there to be unlocked by the inquiring mind. Much of the information in this book is based upon the truths contained in these ancient sutras, written in the form of poetry during Vedic times more than 5,000 years ago. The Sanskrit word sutra literally means to suture with a thread. The words of a sutra convey hidden subconscious meaning to consciousness. However, the discovery of these hidden meanings needs the guidance of a teacher. Though, to the conscious mind, the small phrase of the sutra may look only like a thread passing through the opening of a needle, the sutra is much more and has great hidden wisdom waiting for interpretation.
(Source: Lad Pulse, 1996: p. 1)

 

Ayurveda is quite old, with its roots going far back into Indian antiquity. It has been practiced continuously in India for thousands of years. In more recent times, the British introduced Western medicine to India, which they considered a superior form of medical treatment. Ayurveda was suppressed and its practice discouraged by government policies. Many Indians followed this movement to Western medicine and succumbed to the lure of quick fixes, shots, pills and drugs, thereby, like their western counterparts, avoiding personal responsibility for their own health. Today some Indians are returning to historical, native Ayurveda having realized that Western medicine tends simply to suppress symptoms and does not help to prevent problems from recurring. Although Western medicine is extremely helpful for acute conditions and trauma, it tends to overlook the importance of individual response to the stresses and conditions of life. There is no concept of specialization in Ayurveda, as there is in Western medicine. Ayurveda treats the whole person, not just the organ or system involved.
(Source: Lad Textbook, 2001: p. 2, Introduction, Chapter One)