Recently, one of my students’ mother went through surgery to remove cancer from her body.  She was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer.  The surgery was successful!  Family is so relieved as she has been given another chance for life.

Saving lives happens all the time in the medical world.  For many, it is no less than a miracle and it is when we are so grateful to have modern medicine, technology and science and the experts in the field to give us another chance at life.

Now consider this:

It was not too long ago when cancer was a rare disease and so were many of the modern day illnesses.   This is when people used food as medicine, harmonized their life styles to the need of the body and to nature i.e. they got up at sunrise and started to wind down at sunset, had tremendous support of family, neighbors and spiritual guidance from their elders.  The medicine and healing was embedded in the lifestyle, not in a prescription from the doctor.   This was Ayurvedic medicine; the principles were not just used in India, they were used in many other countries.

So what happened!  How did it come to be that we have drifted so far away from health and healing.  We have evolved!  Yes!  In technology, in medicine, in everything except our concept of health.  As much as we can do, we can’t change nature, we can’t change how our body works, we can’t trick the body with drugs without serious ramifications.

Increasing life expectancy becomes more useful and valuable when at the same time we can increase the quality of life.  When health and medicine is reduced to a test or a pill, we miss out on experiencing, evolving, expanding, and understanding our own making.   This is where Ayurveda fills the gap, provides us with answers and tools to heal and evolve.   This is where Ayurveda gives us our power back – to be in charge of own health and healing.