How Ayurveda Balances Yoga

Many yogis come to Ayurveda to find balance and stability.

Ayurveda's main medicinal technique, called dravyaguna shastra, follows natural law philosophy. And it is this natural, common sense approach of Ayurveda that makes it so homey and different.

Where yoga is ethereal and vast, Ayurveda is earthy & grounded. Where yoga deconstructs, Ayurveda builds.

Those who have opened themselves up to excess, and whose lives are unraveled, thrive with the stability that Ayurveda provides.

Instead of becoming universal and ego-less, Ayurveda feeds the soul.

In many ways, Ayurveda is the opposite of yoga, and this is why yogis are attracted to it. Ayurveda provides guidance and protection to those who are wandering or lost in their life, It is a balm for the weary and sick.

Many in the west come to Ayurveda because it seems exotic. In India, Ayurveda is more like a visit to Grandma and Grandpa's farm, a homecoming.

Whereas yoga transcends the body, and denies all of reality, Ayurveda tends to the body.

Where Yoga aims for stillness, Ayurveda embraces life.

Cardinal Similarities Between Ayurveda & Yoga

Ayurveda is the Indian branch of biocharacteristics medicine. It shares a common cultural context & history with yoga.

The shared cultural roots of yoga and Ayurveda make these systems appear similar - similar styles of dress, cuisine, and artistic vision.

Closer inspection reveals some cardinal differences between the vision of yoga and the vision of Ayurveda.

In the Caraka Samhita, Ayurveda's main text, Agnivesha attempts to merge yoga's spiritual philosophy (called Sankhya) into Ayurveda's main medical technique, called dravyaguna shastra.

But dravyaguna shastra has a different vision of reality from yoga, that is more aligned with the natural law philosophy of Aristotle (also called Aristotelian realism).

Cardinal Differences Between Ayurveda & Yoga

	Yoga	Ayurveda
Goal	Transcend the body	Health of the Body
True Self	Has no nature	Has an eternal nature (prakruti)
Methods	Detachment	Nurture
Fertility	Escape the cycle of birth / death	Fruitful living / Life affirming / Embraces fertility
Senses	Withdraw from the senses, go inward.	Use every sense to better understand nature, and its relationship with your body.
Reality	Reality is an illusion - only awareness and pure energy exist. Individual natures are an illusion. Our sensory experience of diversity is an illusion.	Reality is real - awareness and pure energy are shaped into particular forms and natures that lead to an abundant and diverse world. Alignment to reality is essential for health. See hylomorphism.

Realism

Realism is the idea that objective natures exist that are more than the sum of the parts. Realists believe, for example, that human nature is real, and not reducible to a collection of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms.

When you say, "Here I am," are you referring to a sack of atoms? Or, to that beautiful unique, individual nature you have that is joined to the material of your body?

Where yoga tries to escape & transcend nature, Ayurveda embraces nature.

Ayurveda has a strong focus on common sense and validating the senses.

This realist bent of Ayurveda makes it very unusual among native Indian philosophies such as yoga, which see reality as an illusion.

Nominalist philosophies such as yoga see reality, concepts, and natures as illusions - nominalists see the universe as completely uniform and made of prime matter/energy only.

Instead of seeing the unique individuality of each thing, yoga sees all things as one.

Until Quantum mechanics discovered that the universe is governed by Quantum Forms (fields), most scientists were nominalists. Since this development, most scientists see the fabric of the universe as coming from an immaterial nature (fields are not made of a material).

Realists, like modern scientists, see the universe as more than just material and undifferentiated energy. Realists also believe that nature shapes and forms matter / energy into specific kinds of things. And it is these natures that Ayurveda uses to heal.

Realist Systems (Natures exist)	Nominalist Systems (Natures are Illusory)
Ayurvedic Medicine Greek Medicine / Unani Tibb Chinese Medicine Christianity Judaism Islam	Yoga Buddhism Western Science before Quantum Mechanics

Truly Cross Cultural Roots

Ayurveda's medical technique is called Dravyaguna shastra, which means science of matter & quality. It closely resembles hylomorphism, which means matter-formism. Hylomorphism is literally the foundation of Western civilization. It was adopted as the philosophy of reason in the West.

The similarity of Ayurveda and Greek philosophy, as well as the similarity between the two systems medically, show that these systems were developed in tandem.

One can truly say Ayurveda, like all good medicine systems, transcends individual cultures and is for everyone, everywhere.

See more on the history of Ayurveda.

Personal Note

Before I found Ayurveda, I had gone deep into yoga and yoga's belief system. While yoga did improve my body awareness, at some point in my journey I realized the message of yoga abruptly switched from helping the body, to denying it.

Ayurveda helped me reaffirm the goodness of reality and the body. Ayurveda recast the detachment of yoga in a new light, by affirming healthy attachments.

One could say the opposite of yoga's detachment is cherishing something lovely. Ayurveda does this well, first by cherishing the body, and then by cherishing all of life.

Where yoga leads to escape from the cycle of birth and death, Ayurveda embraces life and affirms its value.

Ayurveda tells us to care for and nurture the body. It aligns us to nature, instead of rejecting it as an illusion.

Read more about my personal spiritual journey.

The Goodness of Stretching

Ayurveda recognizes and analyzes the pharmacological or medicinal effect of yoga stretches (asana). These benefits include alignment, balancing the biocharacteristics, relaxing the nervous and circulatory system, and other systems of the body.

Before practicing yoga, one must know which stretches are unnatural and lead to detachment, which are body affirming.

Here are some ways Ayurveda would modify yoga:

• Avoiding binding your legs or arms (as in lotus pose)
• Instead of focusing on the breath, which is outside the body, focus on the smooth contraction and release of muscle groups while breathing, and releasing the tension muscles may be holding. That will integrate your body into a whole, instead of encouraging you to leave it.
• Do not chant Om - a word designed to detach you from your individual, soulful, circumstances.
• Do not practice death (corpse pose / shavasana).
• Do not seek stillness - instead seek fluid movement integrated into the whole of your life. Life is characterized by activity. Releasing tension creates freedom to move, not freedom to be still.