Updated: May 12, 2020
Skand Dobriyal
May 4, 2020
How Ayurveda is becoming the contemporary beauty and wellness choice!
In the modern world, every individual is looking for a constant gratification with an insatiable urge to be “appreciated”. This culture has fueled in a fire in each one of us to excel in every field including the desire to have an appealing physical appearance at any cost. For almost a century, various health & beauty experts have used medical science, chemicals and some latest technologies to achieve these objectives in the shortest possible time.
Though these technological breakthroughs appears to have miraculous effects but in-fact these effects come at a heavy material & physical cost and are rarely sustainable. These practices have clearly overshadowed our ancestral ideologies and methods, while defying nature and all the bounties that comes with it. Now there is a growing realization of the impact & complications faced by “altering nature”, and therefore a vast majority of people are looking for more healthy, natural & traditional methods and lifestyles to keep them fit & fine!
This is where Ayurveda comes in. Ayurveda consists of two words, Ayu (meaning life) and Veda (meaning knowledge) and hence Ayurveda is described as the ‘knowledge of life’, and consists of teachings not only associated with the right way of living life but also its origins. Ayurveda is often considered as teachings of traditional medicinal values but in reality it goes beyond that. In the modern day absence of any disease is considered as good health, but Ayurveda defines good health as a harmonious balance between the body, mind and spirit; termed as Swasthya.
Ayurveda has been around for more than 5,000 years and originates from Atharvaveda, one of the 4 Vedas, the religious texts of ancient India and has studied the functioning of the human body and how it holds a connection with the universe.
Here’s an interesting theory: Ayurveda argues that for life to start there should be optimal conditions which must be fulfilled. This justifies why life started only a few billion years ago, while the raw materials have been around since eternity!
Think about this, Ayurveda talks about: Satva, Rajas and Tamas (collectively known as Triguna) the three elements that are invisible and go through various processes, known as Mahabhuta, to reach a physically visible stage.
Doesn’t this rings a bell? Yes, it’s the Vedic description of the scientific version of the earth and its origins! The three elements - Triguna being electrons, protons and neutrons and the Mahabhuta being the Big Bang Theory! It is interesting to note that all this was described in Ayurveda much before the proposition of energy and matter by Albert Einstein.
Okay, so now that we have earned at least some amount of your belief in Ayurveda and its history, let us talk about the current situation. Modern medicine is a result of years of research and experiments to cure the modern health problems. What Ayurveda is trying to depict is more of a lifestyle which can prevent diseases than to go for a cure.
Statistics show that over one million Americans undergo some kind of plastic surgery each year, which is a hefty amount of people trying to alter their natural appearance. Coming down to a more common field, we all use skincare and cosmetic products in our everyday life. About 5-10 years ago the cosmetic industry was full of products that were high in chemical concentration, over time these industries started incorporating more “natural” elements in their products and started advertising the benefits of using them, and now we see more and more brands trying to do the same. Why do people rely on something unnatural to treat their very natural bodies? The answer is: advertising. Yes, advertising has lead people to believe into what these brands are selling, and they idolize the people who endorse these products.
A little while ago, the internet woke up to an article stating that “all successful people wake up early”. This theory was then supported by Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, who stated that his biggest reason for success has been particularly “waking up at or around 4AM”.
According to Ayurveda, (which everyone seemed to be so oblivious to for centuries) the ideal time of waking up is 45 minutes before sunrise, which is also known as Brahma Muhutra. Ayurveda states that there is a reason why newborns wake up and start crying at the crack of dawn, because all our bodies are attuned to that natural clock, dictated by nature. Things change as we grow up, we are bombarded with academic pressure, social media and long cell-phone conversations, and we end up going against this natural clock.
In a nutshell, Ayurveda is as essential and effective even today as it was when it was first introduced. The world and its people are in a miserable condition right now with this COVID pandemic. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that this is nature’s outbreak for defying it. We need to respect the nature and work in harmony with it rather than defying it or relying too much on unnatural methods.