What is Ayurveda? Can a westerner use Ayurveda to heal himself?

Talking about what good honey does to our body, I’ve often mentioned Ayurveda. But what is Ayurveda? Can we as westerners, use Ayurveda to treat our diseases? Can we find here all the necessarily ingredients? Do we have doctors to prescribe us the right remedies?

I’m sure everybody has considered all these questions, while searching for finding alternative solutions to our classical, full of sides-effects drugs.

I have to admit that our alophatic, Western medicine is A LOT easier. Things are pretty simple. I have a headache, I take an aspirin. Or something stronger.
But in the East, they treat the headache differently. And for good.

So, why choose something different and complicated?

treat your headaches with Ayurvedic remedies.If my headache can be treated easily with a pill, why complicate my life and take something which can be more expensive, maybe harder to find, old, and designed for a different kind of people (yes, I believe the Easterners are somehow built differently. Their culture, traditions and history made them develop and react differently.)

Because while that pill can heal my headache in 15 minutes, but cannot prevent it from reappearing the next day, the Ayurvedic medicine can treat the initial cause of it and prevent a new one.
Because this medicine will treat the WHOLE YOU, body and spirit, not only your aching head.

Besides, today there are so many diseases that cannot be cured by our allopathic medicine. Not as simple as a headache (though 80% of the population knows that a headache can be a real nightmare – nothing simple about it!).

Here is what happened to Todd:

“I came back with a bad case of amoebic and bacillary dysentery. After consulting with a variety of practitioners, including doctors, NDs and Chinese herbalists, I only found relief when I worked with an Ayurvedic physician named Dr. T. Sukumaran.”

Who’s Todd??

Todd Caldecott picture the titles of Todd Caldecott

He was a simple Canadian actor. Not a doctor, not a scientist, not a researcher. And what’s more important, NOT AN INDIAN. But he spend his entire adult life and career as a clinician and researcher passionately devoted to the study of Āyurveda. He studied with some of the finest Ayurvedic physicians in India and Nepal.

Today, he is Todd Caldecott, Dip. Cl.H., RH(AHG) Ayurvedic Practitioner, Medical Herbalist.

And he proved me I was wrong.
I don’t know about you, but I have this impression, that Indians are the only persons able to understand and trust Ayurveda, just as Chinese are the only people able to practice Traditional Chinese Medicine. Some will say this is a very limited view, and that these 2 traditional healing methods, are only other sciences, that can be learned by everybody. Just as physics or chemistry.
I don’t know, maybe they are right, and I only have a misconception. Maybe because I thought this is more a placebo science; that you have to believe, to trust your ancestors that this X remedy will bring balance into your body and peace to your mind. Somehow these things, for us westerners, seem so difficult to reach, that we simply cannot believe they can be obtained with a couple of herbs.

It is a science.
One amazing science, that looks at the beauty of the world and at the beauty of a person and starts from here. I know this sentence doesn’t sound too western, but that’s the whole thing. It’s not only about medicine. Because a person is not only kidneys, and heart and lungs… It’s soul, it’s spirit, it’s breathing, it’s emotions and feelings. In translation Ayurveda does not mean “the healing therapy”, it means “the science of life”!

During centuries, our ancestors have put together a lot of experience and old traditional herbs, and Ayurveda is now considered to hold, the ancient secrets of healing the body and spirit.

Todd Cadecott, a pure westerner, managed to learn these secrets. He is now helping people using Ayurveda and decided to initiate every person interested in healing and treating people. He wrote some books, and now organizes an online course for those that want to find out what is Ayurveda and why it is so praised!

enter now the course Inside Ayurveda

Why am I promoting a course in the Ayurvedic medicine?

maharishi honey better than some manuka honeyBecause Ayurveda uses honey. It recognizes its amazing powers on the human body, and use it in lots of remedies. I have wrote here about Maharishi Honey.

It’s one special honey that was recognized by important laboratories in the world, as being even more powerful than manuka honey. Looking at the yellow picture here, we can be pretty disappointed. It looks so complicated with those Sanskrit words and the correlation with our astrological signs and days of the year, that we are tempted to give up understanding it, and stay with only eating it.

Honey has deep roots in Ancient India, so it is natural to be an important part of Ayurveda.

inside ayurveda

To be completely honest, it is a rather expensive course, especially in these hard times. But is it worth it? You bet it is. Here is what it offers:

  • inside ayurveda table of contentsA manual of 612 pages with extensive appendice, indexes and glosarry. A Course Notes which is significantly expanded and revised from the acclaimed textbook ‘Āyurveda: The Divine Science of Life’. A detailed course that will serve as a powerful reference text for years to come! Here is the table of contents (click on the picture), if you want to take a closer look of what’s inside this manual.
  • Online video classes. Each class runs an average of 2.5 hours. On demand the students have access to all 20 recorded classes, both in video and audio, which can be downloaded and viewed when your time permits, or listened on mp3 player. Beside all the details of the course, here you can find the first lesson of the course held in 2014, a video recording of the whole almost 3 and a half hours class.
  • Weekly 90 minutes Q&A webinar, where registered students get to ask any question related to Āyurveda, or any other personal health issue. There are also some recorded Q&A webinars on the dogwoodbotanical website that you can listen to for free, so please check them out.
  • Assessment tools. All of the assessment materials can be completed and submitted online, meaning you have very little paper work to deal with.
  • Membership in the online forum
  • The possibility of continuing the studies with Todd Caldecott in India and Nepal, in the winter of 2016-2017. Can you imagine yourself spending several weeks studying in the foothills of the Himalayas with a hereditary physician, at an 800 year old Ayurvedic clinic in Kathmandu? And then going deep into the tropics of South India to spend a month learning an array of massage and pancha karma techniques that are the specialty of Kerala?
  • For those of you who have limited time but still want to upgrade specific skills, after attending the Inside Ayurveda course, you will be eligible to participate in Group Intensives that will be offered as an annual series of week-long workshops to further professional development and clinical skills. These limited participant intensives will be planned several times a year, located in different parts of North America.


Here is a free kindle book, Ayurveda 101 – Ayurveda Basics for The Absolute Beginner, for those of you who want first to read more about this “science of life”.  The book is not written by Todd, but it gives you an idea of what Ayurveda is about. Yet, remember it’s a free book, so don’t expect to discover the secret of life in there!

If you don’t have a kindle, you definitely have a smart phone. Please take your eyes out of FB and read this 86 pages book directly on your phone. Download the free app you need from the Free Reading Apps.

And then, get ready for the real experience. Ask all the questions you have, share opinions, experiences and, why not, frustrations. It is about the whole life, after all.
Be ready to understand, even as a westerner, because all the knowledge is offered by a westerner who worked really hard and invested a lot of passion into it.
Being explained by a westerner mind means a lot. We are build to think in a different way, that’s something we all agree with.

anonymous review

Why an online course?

Because most of us simply don’t have enough time. This course is a self-paced program that allows you to go at your own speed. It gives students at least one year to complete the program, and this can be easily extended for an additional year upon request. And if you ever get stuck, know that Todd is there to help you get through it!

What other courses can we find here?

When does the course start?

On Oct 6, 2015. I know it is pretty late, so hurry up. More details and price? Click here:

inside ayurveda

 

And don’t forget to read about the amazing health benefits of Maharishi Honey. Also check the book that said it transformed the American spirituality: The Maharishi Effect: A Personal Journey Through the Movement That Transformed American Spirituality, which can definitely enlarge our understanding to what Ayurvedic medicine is and can do for us.

Please leave your questions and opinions in the comment section below.

 

Digital headache – picture credit  Digital Storm via Big Stock Photo;
Buddha smiling from widget picture – picture credit Gustave Deghilage published under CC via flickr.com

Laura Bujor

Laura Bujor is the author and founder of HealthyWithHoney.com. She built this website as a personal journey to discover the power of honey and share it with the world. She learned directly from beekeepers and took a course in apitherapy. From a hobby, honey and apitherapy turned into a professional career. You can find her on LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest and X.

View all posts by Laura Bujor →

3 thoughts on “What is Ayurveda? Can a westerner use Ayurveda to heal himself?

  1. Hello Laura,
    Thank you for your impassioned work. Mr.Caldecott has lived and studied In India and Nepal for decades, he demonstrates respect for the ancient language of Sanskrit, and from his blogs, I am able to see that his understanding of the religious and societal context within which Ayurveda thrived and developed, is close to an Indian physician’s. Being from India does not confer intelligence or understanding, being a westerner does not automatically negate the ability to study Sanskrit texts and have an appreciation for why things are the way they are. Above all the guidance and blessings of our teachers is evident in the work we bring to the world.
    Much love
    Salila

    1. And I really like and appreciate your comment. 🙂 Ayurveda is one incredible science, with yet many undisclosed secrets! It’s almost like it wasn’t even discovered by humans in the first place… Anyway, you already know all these. Thank you for your dropping by.
      Laura

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