Robert E. Svoboda - Ayurveda: Life, Health and Longevity

ROBERT E. SVOBODA

AYURVEDA

LIFE, HEALTH AND LONGEVITY

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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Copyright Robert E. Svoboda 1992

First published in Arkana Penguin Books Ltd 1992

First published in India by Penguin Books Ltd 1993

ISBN: 978-01-4019-322-0

All righs reserved

This e-book is a reference work based on the Ayurvedic system of medicine. The information it contains is in no way to be considered a substitute for consultation with a duly licenced health professional.

This digital edition published in 2011.

e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-142-0

This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above-mentioned publisher of this e-book.

Vimalananda; Judy P. Allyn and Sevyn Galambos; Kathy Araki and Don Beaucage, Ayumi and Kiyomi; Pamela and Larry Barinoff and Nathan Yogesh; Robert Beer and family; the city of Benaras; the city of Bombay; Steven Brothers and Jeff Roger; the island of Hawaii and Pele;

Dr. V.D. Lad and the Ayurvedic Institute; Vaidya B.P. Nanal; Roshni Panday and family; the city of Pune; Launette Rieb and Naomi Serrano; Virginia and Doug Shilson; Fred and Kathy Smith and family; Laura and Edwin Svoboda and others of my family; Robin Waterfield. Special thanks to Nature.

Materialist philosophies existed even in the ancient world, but only since Descartes and Newton has materialism gained acceptance as an accurate model of reality. Our modern world-view assumes that we live in an objective universe that can be explored by objective observation, that only the physically observable is real, that a whole can be known by a study of its parts, that one cause produces one effect, and that mind and body are totally independent of one another. The early scientists who made these assumptions probably did so in good faith, based on their own observations and inferences, but because they also concluded that their postulates were incontro-vertibly true, never subject to re-evaluation, we have been living with the consequences of these assumptions ever since.

Early researchers concentrated, cause by cause and effect by effect, on discoveringthe physical mechanisms of health and disease. Armed with the pathogen theory of disease, our science has triumphantly eliminated or controlled most of the epidemic and endemic infectious diseases that have ravaged human society for centuries or so it seems. The evidence actually suggests that infectious diseases yielded to control less because of medical intervention and more because of economic development, which provided more and better food and improved sanitation to human populations, encouraging improved personal hygiene and a fall in the birth rate. Though modern science, convinced that the body is nothing more than a well-engineered machine, still believes that history, culture and personality have no effect on medicine, we really have modern civilization rather than modern science to thank for our improved health, such as it is.

Those of us who enjoy the benefits of living in modern civilization also suffer all its disadvantages: pollution of our air, water and food by chemicals and radiation, pollution of our minds by noise and information overload, pollution of our humanness by automation, specialization and the pressure of deadlines, and pollution of our emotions by loneliness, alienation and the breakdown of the family. These and other traumas produce in us the host of degenerative diseases that make it difficult for us to enjoy the high-tech pleasures that, we are told, make life worth living, pleasures we have accepted in exchange for the sort of pleasures enjoyed by more primitive people.

In the remote parts of the world where civilization has not yet fully infiltrated, human beings live long and healthily. Centenarians credit a variety of factors for their longevity: good food, hard work, even cigars and brandy. In one area of China, which has dozens of citizens aged 100-plus, the people swear by a medicinal wine whose ingredients include local lizards. Perhaps there is some secret substance in the apricots of Hunza or in well-brewed lizard wine that is the biological equivalent of the fountain of youth, but it is more likely that the nectar of pure water, pure air and pure food, the satisfaction of directly reaping the fruits of their labours, and the support and enjoyment of their families and friends lengthen the lives of those who are privileged to live in these regions.