Robert E. Svoboda - Prakriti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution

This is a reference work.

It is not meant for diagnosis or treatment

and it is not a substitute for consultation

with a duly-licensed health care professional.

First published in the United States of America by

Geocom Limited

1988, 1989, 1998 Robert E. Svoboda

All rights reserved

New ISBN 0-9656208-3-2

(Old ISBN 0-945669-00-3)

First Edition March 1988

Second edition November 1998

Sadhana Publications

1840 Iron Street, Suite C

Bellingham WA 98225

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my parents, who were my first teachers, and to Vimalananda, who was my friend, philosopher and guide.

It is also dedicated to Mother Tara, the Universal Mother Nature from whom we all originate, in whom we all exist, and to whom we all eventually return. She is the Mother of compassion, forgiveness, truth, beauty, knowledge, abundance, energy and freedom; She is equally well the Mother of darkness and bondage. From Her are born both sickness and health.

Motherliness is essential to healing because Mother Nature alone can heal. This book is humbly offered to Mother Tara with the request that She heal all of us, and heal our world.

Foreword

Ayurveda encompasses not only science but religion and philosophy as well. We use the word religion to denote beliefs and disciplines conducive to states of being in which the doors of perception open to all aspects of life. In Ayurveda the whole of lifes journey is considered to be sacred. The word philosophy refers to love of truth, and in Ayurveda, Truth is Being, Pure Existence, the source of all life. Ayurveda, is a science of Truth as it is expressed in life.

Ayurveda believes that every individual is a unique phenomenon and that the individual is indivisible from the cosmos. Whatever is there in the macrocosm, the same thing exists in the microcosm. Every individual is a manifestation of cosmic consciousness.

The vibration of pure universal consciousness produces the soundless sound Om. From this sound the five basic elements are produced: Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. Furthermore, these five basic elements are manifested into the three biological organizations known as Vata, Pitta and Kapha. In every organism these three govern all physio-pathological changes.

At the time of fertilization, Vata, Pitta and Kapha determine by their permutations and combinations the constitution of an individual, which is called prakriti. The prakriti means the first creation. Every human being is the first creation of the cosmos, and that is why every human being is a separate entity, a unique phenomenon. To understand this uniqueness of every individual is the study of prakriti; Ayurveda gives us a direct approach to this study.

The healing science of Ayurveda is based totally upon the knowledge of prakriti, the individual constitution. If every individual knows his own constitution, then one can understand, for instance, what is a good diet and style of life for oneself. One mans food is another mans poison. Therefore, to make ones life healthy, happy and balanced, the knowledge of constitution is absolutely necessary.

My friend and colleague Dr. Robert Svoboda studied Ayurveda at the Tilak Ayurveda Medical College in Poona, India. There, he was a student of mine whose understanding and brilliance in Ayurveda resulted in his standing first in his class. This achievement is more noteworthy because Dr. Svoboda is an American who is the only Westerner to have ever completed the program in an Ayurvedic Medical School. His profound knowledge of Ayurveda and his background in English combine to make this important work of his invaluable to the Western reader.

Dr. Vasant Lad, October 1987

Authors Note

In the decade since this book first appeared many readers have sought me out to express their appreciation for its message. Gratifying as this praise has been, I have had to to temper it with a growing awareness that improvements to the book should be made. Hence this new edition, in which I have tried, by rewriting most of the original text, and adding new material throughout, to provide such improvements. New artwork honors Mother Nature perhaps more gloriously than before, and new editing has removed many older grammatical styles. I hope all readers will be pleased with the effort.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the following people who read and critiqued this book, or otherwise offered assistance for its generation:

First Edition

Judy Allyn
Tyagi Kersten
Graham Dodd
Elliot McLaughlin
Vaidya B. P. Nanal
Fred & Kathy Smith
Laura & Edwin Svoboda
Vimalananda

Launette Rieb
Pamela Barinoff
Dr. Michael Stone
Dr. Vasant D. Lad
Michael Laurenson
Dr. Greg Heil (Krsna Das)
Loretta Levitz & David Liberty
Claudia Welch

Second Edition
Original artwork - Rhonda Rose
Editing - John Clancy
Page Layout - Ron Kozlowski

Table of Contents

Introduction

Nature and Her ways are truly inscrutable to mortals. You can set out on your lifes journey intent on heading west, but if She wills you to go east your road will wind around until you are pointing eastward. When I left the U.S.A. on the Ides of March of 1973, I never suspected that I would end up living in India. What I expected was a brief African sojourn before returning to begin the September term at the University of Oklahoma Medical School.

A month later I was lying on my back in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, violently ill with dysentery. Two Frenchmen had taken pity on me and had brought me back to their apartment to spend the weekend until I could locate a doctor. They were themselves on their way to what they described as a witch doctors convention, a gathering of healers, magicians and trance mediums in the deep bush. Their guide was himself a witch doctor. When he arrived and saw me lying inert on the bed utterly exhausted he insisted on treating me, and I was too weak to object.

He was a well-dressed young African of thirty-odd years with a robust physique who could easily have been mistaken for a bank clerk. Had I had the energy to think, I would have thought that he was a most unusual witch doctor. But I was too weak to think, and I thought nothing of it when he poured a glass of purified water from the carafe near my head and began to stare intently into it. I watched passively as he mumbled some sort of incantation over the glass and handed it to me to drink. I drank passively, assuring myself that mere water could do me no harm even if it did me no good. The doctor and the Frenchmen bade me adieu, and I sank into a profound sleep.

When I woke some hours later expecting to feel the dispiriting urgency of the disease I was pleasantly surprised to discover my abdomen calm. It remained calm all that day and the next, and would have continued to remain calm had I known then what I know now about the effect of diet on disease. But the lesson was well taken. A shaman had temporarily cured me, and with very little effort of faith on my part.

During my next few days of convalescence in that flat I also read Autobiography of a Yogi, which swung my internal compass around toward India. But first my steps led me to Kenya. There I participated with a team from the National Museum of Kenya on an ethnological expedition into the lands of the Pokot tribe. I was invited to join the tribe ritually, and did so. Once a Pokot, I interviewed tribal medicine men and women, and exchanged notes with our accompanying European M.D.s who testified to the usefulness of some of the tribes traditional cures. Determined to study Pokot medicine more thoroughly, I promised myself to return to Kenya after a visit to South Asia.