:: June 2006 Volume 5/Number 4

Journey to Ayurveda Special Section

Media stories this spring have heralded the rise of a new India, the India with nuclear arms, oil deals with China and mango deals with the U.S., gigantic new dams and road-building projects that’s keeping international businesses such as Citibank, H&R Block, Dell and Microsoft plus a host of smaller foreign businesses who outsource services, humming profitably along. Yet there is also a far older India on the rise, and that is the India of yoga and Ayurveda. India is home to the world’s fastest growing middle class, characterized by millions of people who can suddenly afford homes, cars, computers, televisions - and yoga classes.

Ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of healthcare, has lately become a fashionable cover story for beauty magazines and not a few yoga magazines as well. All worlds are connected in Ayurveda and the appeal to outer beauty is also a call to inner wholeness in a material world. Ayurveda, in fact, is all bound up with beauty, relaxation and a reinvigoration of the senses.

Contrary to the fashionable beauty cover story image of Ayurveda, this ancient science is within everyone’s reach. It requires, however a trained Ayurvedic practitioner as well as herbs and oils, simple diligent attention and that most neglected of all natural therapies - rest. Ayurvedic treatment in India is not connected to wealth or status. Its roots are deep in the natural world. And its growth in the U.S. is as dramatic as its resurgence is in its homeland where Ayurveda hospitals, centers and resorts offering Ayurveda are increasingly finding their market with westerners.

 

 

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