For every action... and thought...

Quote:
Whatever notion is firmly held about the body concerning the body, that it becomes
-Yoga Vasistha, Vedic Sage

For every experience in the mind, there is a corresponding change in the physiology and biochemistry in the body. The essential foundation of mind-body medicine is that health is not merely the absence of disease. Rather, it is the "dynamic integration of our environment, body, mind, and spirit.

Reduce stress through meditation, improve vitality through balanced nutrition, and develope flexibility, energy and endurance through yoga and exercise.

Herbal medicine, massage , sound, movement, and aromatherapy are other tools that can advance mental and physical well being and that stimulate our body's intrinsic healing system.

Yoga, which means union, is an approach which conjoins all of the disconnected elements of the human being. It is anything that serves to unify the individual into a whole. Tantra is a systematic approach to dissolve personal limitations. The Tantric approach is to continually redefine personal reality. Tantra, according to those who practice Ayurveda, is the path of freedom. Through tantra, one aspires to recognize the unity of the Human and the Divine.

Ayurvedic healing traces its roots to the Vedic period in ancient India (1500 B.C.E.). Ayurveda is made up of two Sanskrit words: Ayu which means life and veda which means the knowledge of. To know about life is Ayurveda. (4) In the modern world, Ayurveda is increasingly popular because it speaks to those elementary concepts of contact with nature, holism, and we are what we eat. Its principles are not only used to treat those who are ill, but also to prepare a balanced meal and to construct a harmonious environment.

Ayurveda holds that functions of the body are governed by three biological humors called doshas - pitta, vata, and kapha. Each of these forces is symbolized by an element in nature. Ether and air combine to form the Vata dosha . Vata governs the principle of movement and therefore is the dosha that controls nerve impulses, circulation, respiration, and elimination.

Fire forms the Pitta dosha . Pitta is the process of transformation or metabolism.

Water symbolizes the Kapha dosha . Kapha is responsible for growth and protection.

Illness is caused by an imbalance in the doshas. Imbalance implies that the flow of energy through the body is disrupted. The disruptions are caused by the stresses of life and the buildup of body toxins from a bad diet or unhealthy habits. These disruptions can be cured by following the needs of one's dosha, through herbs and dietary changes, and by detoxifying the body with enemas and massages. When these forces act in harmony, the functions of digestion, absorption, and elimination (physical and mental) ensure proper health.

Meditation is supposedly the most important tool in Ayurveda because it works on the body and the mind simultaneously. The theory is that health is a higher state of consciousness and higher states of consciousness will naturally lead to better health.

Quantum Healing or quantum medicine is essential, according to proponents, for ensuring total health. This approach rejects the idea of reductionism, (that things can be understood in terms of their component parts) since everything is related. Quantum mechanics maintains that everything causes everything else. all parts of the human being-the mind, soul, and body-must be examined as one entity. The three components cannot be separated; when one is out of balance, the entire being loses its equilibrium,and quite possibly a loss of total well-being.

The body is not a frozen sculpture but a river of information and energy that is constantly renewing itself...We are quantum events, impulses of intelligence in the unified field; each part of the body has its own mind. It is not that there is a mind- body connection, mind and body are inseparably one, in every aspect of our psychology, at the levels of the cells.

Overall, quantum healing is healing the body/mind from a quantum level. That means from a level which is not manifest at a sensory level. Quantum healing involves a shift in the fields of energy information in the body, so as to bring about a correction in an idea that has gone wrong. "So quantum healing involves healing one mode of consciousness, mind, to bring about changes in another mode of consciousness, body."

I must emphasized the importance of a proper diet in order to maintain total health. Again, the Ayurvedic approach to nutrition is a consciousness- based approach, so that more important than any approach is "awareness of one's interaction with food as part of conscious universe."
This awareness exists on many levels: the awareness one has when putting the food into one's mouth, the awareness of the cook who has prepared the food, even the awareness of the farmer who has grown the product, all these influence the life energy or prana of the food. When one eats pre-packaged or canned foods, it does not provide the eater with the utmost feeling of energy because it is missing the life force/life energy, which is an expression of consciousness in Ayurveda.

Another important aspect of Ayurvedic nutrition is the emphasis on taste as an indicator. Knowledge about nutrition is obtained through taste and the effects of food in terms of awareness: whether particular foods make you feel heavy or light, congested or energized, hot or cold.