by Om Swami
When your cellular pH level goes outside the normal range (7.3–7.5), your enzymes work a hundred per cent harder to restore the balance. Enzymes are the basis of all metabolic functions in the body. An acid–alkali imbalance leads to enzymatic malfunction. It prepares the perfect breeding ground for chronic physical and mental disorders. While I am at it, let me state that antacids may relieve the symptoms of heartburn in the short term, but they are extremely damaging in the longer term. They confuse and weaken your digestive system and promote acidity in the body.
It’s much better to regulate your diet to avoid heartburn than to consume antacids. They are not really antacids; they are pro-acids, because in the longer term they create an acidic environment in your stomach and wreak havoc on your intestine. Their relief is entirely symptomatic and therefore temporary. When you repeatedly use medicines to suppress the secretion of stomach acids, it can create a highly toxic, even cancerous, environment in the stomach. One of the easiest things to do to avoid heartburn – which is merely a symptom of acidosis – is to go to bed on an empty stomach.
Alkalosis
As you may have guessed, alkalosis is the opposite of acidosis. It can also pose health risks. It is a rare condition, and I am only mentioning it here to give you a complete picture. It is almost impossible to have alkalosis by eating a balanced, common-sense diet. In other words, you need not worry about alkalosis if you are consuming food with a high pH level. Your body is producing enough acids, so a moderate amount of alkali-rich food cannot do you any harm.
People suffering from alkalosis are generally the ones who take certain drugs to maintain their body’s alkaline state. High dosages or prolonged use of such drugs can cause alkalosis. As I mentioned earlier, antacids promote alkalinity in the body, but it is a terrible method of doing so. They completely disrupt the body’s natural homeostasis, by achieving temporary and artificial increase in pH levels. The damage caused by them is permanent and organic.
Certain gastrointestinal disorders can also cause alkalosis, but this is fairly unusual. The yogis of olden times always preferred to stay in the mountains, in the high altitudes, because the low levels of oxygen and the low temperatures there slow down the metabolic processes and secretions, creating a healthy and alkaline environment for the body. The yogis could remain physically fit in these regions by eating frugally.
There are various ways to test your body’s pH levels, but to be frank, testing your pH level is a little obsessive, in my view. You should simply eat a balanced diet. The definition of balance is that your diet should consist of eighty per cent alkaline foods and twenty per cent acidic foods. In the ideal world, one hundred per cent of your diet should be alkaline, because your body is already producing enough acids. For most people, though, it is not possible to go on a completely alkaline diet, for a variety of reasons. So, you should at least go for the eighty-twenty rule.
By following this dietary philosophy – and other principles and practices outlined in this book – your chances of remaining healthy increase exponentially. Is it possible to completely avoid disease in our bodies, though? Or, more importantly, what actually causes disease? If I eat the proper foods according to my constitution, if I maintain an alkaline diet, does it guarantee that I’ll remain free of diseases? The answer is no. There’s more to diseases than the food we ingest. There’s no doubt that your chances of falling sick are almost negligible if you follow the eating sense, yet there’s still a chance. For that, we must have a holistic understanding of what causes diseases beyond food and how we can avoid them. When I say ‘I’m sick’, who is actually sick in me?
10
Life Cycle of a Disease
‘Disease then is a force and not matter.’
– Sushruta.
What is a disease, really? In the Oxford Dictionary of English, ‘disease’ is defined as: ‘a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury’.
Complete as that definition sounds, it is not how Ayurvedic or yogic scriptures look at it. A disease is not merely a structural or a functional disorder; it could easily be an emotional one also. Beyond the symptom-driven definitions in contemporary medical science, a disease is what disrupts your equilibrium, that is, your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual balance.
Self-deprecation is a disease, as is pride; anger is a disease, as is envy. Anything that throws you off-balance, physically or mentally, is a disease. It is when both body and mind are in balance – with each other and within themselves – that we can truly say one is healthy, that one is disease-free.
The great physician-sage, Sushruta, is asked in Sushruta Samhita, a major Ayurvedic text: ‘What is a disease? What is it in a human that actually falls sick? What do we actually treat with medicines? Is it the body or the mind?’
Sushruta speaks: ‘Anything that afflicts the inner man is disease; and that disease has its primary seat in the inner spring of vitality from which it flows out to the surface, the external body.’
The inner man is called the self or purusha in yogic texts. Pura means city. This body is a city of nine gates (the nine orifices) and the one that has the stronghold of this body is called purusha. When this purusha leaves the body, the person is pronounced dead. The atoms are there, the molecules are there, but there is no breathing, no movement, no emotions or feelings and no consciousness. Biologically, the body is intact, but it has lost the ability to maintain its individual nature within nature. It must now decompose and give back the five elements to nature. Even mentally or emotionally, when we lose our sense of individuality, we become listless, and life seems pointless. It is to retain this individuality that the powerful want more power, and the rich want more riches. The sense of individuality that comes from writing a fine poem, or winning a chess game, or finishing a painting, or beating a record, is the primary driving force behind the evolution and growth of our race.
The vital life force that gives us individuality – that gives us the ability to sustain ourselves as a separate entity while being a part of nature – is called the inner being or purusha. This is our centre of vitality, the control centre.
Sushruta Samhita further states that diseases spring from the afflictions of the inner man and then out to the body. I quote:*
In man, as in everything else in the universe, the direction of the inherent force is from the centre to the circumference. The shock is felt first at the centre of vitality, whence it is transmitted outwards and thus affects the energy which holds the molecules together, dvyanuka and tryanuka (binary and tertiary atoms) of which the physical body is composed, and further opposes the dissolution of those molecules into their elemental constituents in the living organism.
Even in cases of external injuries such as snakebite etc., the potency of the virus is carried at once to that centre from whence it is almost instantaneously transmitted through the external channels of the body to its surface, otherwise what purpose does the vayu (vital energy or nerve force) serve in the human economy? What do those myriads of chaitanya-vahini nadis (sensory nerves, literally, nerves carrying consciousness) exist for in the human system?
In all diseases the subjective sensations are the first to be experienced. ‘I am ill’, ‘I feel hot’, etc., are the voices of sensations, which form the basis of the disease. Disease then is a force and not matter.
The passage above contains two incredible insights. First, anything that afflicts the inner being is a disease. The inner being is the one that experiences pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow; the one that is the essence of your life. The state of your physical health and the state of your mental health both affect the inner being. Second, disease is a force and not matter. Both diseases and afflictions arise out of resistance. The body of a person who suffers from hay fever, for example, produces mucus. It doe
s so because it believes that pollens are foreign material and must not be allowed inside the body. A body that has no seasonal allergy accepts the foreign material and there is no resistance.
Disease is a resistance of the opposing forces in your body. The result of this resistance could be anything from formation of mucus or pus, to more serious cysts or lumps and ulcers, to terminal illnesses; cancers, strokes, haemorrhages and heart attacks. Although you are born with a certain constitution – and this is a powerful factor in determining your degree of resistance – the truth is that your health is chiefly in your own hands. You can elevate your physical and mental state so that you become resistance-free. When there is no resistance with the forces of nature, when there is no inner conflict of emotions and thoughts, you become healthy naturally.
FIVE CAUSES OF A DISEASE
According to Ayurveda, all diseases in the human body are due to one or more of the five causes listed below.
Unwholesome Thoughts and Actions
There is a term in Ayurveda called prajna-aparadha. Prajna means wisdom or intellect and aparadha means fault or transgression. On par with poor diet in its detriment to good health, this is considered the original cause of disease in a human being. Impure thoughts and unwholesome actions originating from such thoughts are called prajna- aparadha; they vitiate all three doshas. Overindulgence or suppression of natural urges, immoral and unrighteous conduct, lack of modesty and compassion, friendship with the wicked, jealousy, hatred, anger, fear, greed and lack of discipline and enthusiasm are deemed intellectual errors. Excessive, negative and perverted use of your body, speech and mind are prajna-aparadha according to Ayurveda. These almost invariably lead to physical and mental disorders.
Unwholesome Diet
Ayurveda lists seven aspects of an unwholesome diet. They are prakriti (your constitution), svabhava (nature of the food), karana (how it’s prepared), samyoga (combination of various ingredients), rasi (amount of food being consumed), desa (place where it’s being consumed) and kala (time of consumption).
Errors and imbalances in these seven aspects are the leading cause of disease. They also adversely affect a person’s mental state. If you have read, understood and absorbed the earlier elucidation on your body, food and eating in this book, you know exactly what an unwholesome diet is. In a nutshell – foods that are against your own constitution, acidic and tamasic foods, irregular eating, immoderate consumption, processed, canned and fried foods, and overeating and late eating make for an unwholesome diet.
Time
During the changing seasons, your body is at its weakest. Vata gets vitiated in the rainy season, pitta is vitiated in summer and kapha is vitiated in spring, for instance. Based on your own constitution, it is particularly important to pay attention to your diet at the cusp of seasons. It is one of the greatest preventative measures you can take to stay healthy. The time factor in Ayurveda also refers to the time when you eat. Eating before sunset or four hours before you go to sleep is highly recommended. Eating late also vitiates kapha and vata. Ideally, you should go to bed on an empty stomach.
Ageing
The body naturally becomes weaker as one ages. The kidneys, heart, intestine, muscles, bones all weaken. The skin loosens and wrinkles, and the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems become weaker. Memory loss, hair loss and loss of appetite are normal. As is infirmity – physical and mental. With ageing, doshas accumulate and vitiate much more quickly. It becomes harder to pacify them with medicine. It is in these later years that you will harvest the rewards of the care you took of your body in your youth.
If you eat and live healthily when you are young, you have much less to worry about with ageing. I have known people who smoked and played soccer, and said that their bodies were strong enough to endure the ill effects of smoking; that smoking did them no harm. This was until the day they could not even walk quickly, let alone run on the soccer field, while their non-smoking peers played three times a week. Your body can take a lot of ill-treatment when you are young. From unhealthy diets to impure thoughts, it can handle almost anything. But it all adds up and brews at the core of the consciousness, waiting to burst like a volcano when your body or mind grows weaker with age.
While ageing cannot be avoided, you can certainly delay it with wholesome living: a right mindset and a right diet. A noble mind helps you to age gracefully. This is the best you can do with ageing – make it graceful.
Fate
Ayurveda lists fate as one of the factors that can as easily be the cause of a disease as any of the other four factors. The term used is daivam. It means your fate that is linked to your karmic cycle. Just like the fruit on trees, karma matures in its own time. Matured karma is called prarabdha. Like ripe fruit, it must fall from the tree.
It is through fate that Ayurveda explains why an infant, who has no karma in this lifetime – who is born to perfectly fit parents with great genetics – may still be born disabled or ill. The other four factors have not played a part yet in this child’s life, so Ayurveda, intricately linked to Vedic thought, places such mysteries in the bucket of fate.
I am reminded of a real-life incident. Not too long ago, there was a healthy young man living in a small town in India. He was driving his motorcycle and wearing a helmet that only covered his head like a hat. He yawned while riding, and at that very moment a wasp flew straight into his open mouth. Enraged and agitated, it stung his tongue, just below the uvula. The man stopped the motorcycle, but within moments, his tongue swelled and blocked the passage of air; he choked and died on the spot before anyone could do anything about it. Such an incident can only be ascribed to fate.
Ayurveda recognizes that no matter how perfect a physician, patient or the treatment may be, it is nature alone that heals. Therefore, Ayurvedic texts specifically list fate as one of the five factors for causing disease. This may hurt our egos: we don’t want to believe that there are certain aspects of our lives, of our physical bodies, that we have no control over. But upon deeper reflection, we can only conclude that listing fate as the fifth cause of disease is inherently reasonable.
*Translated by Kaviraj Dvarakanath Sen, edited and published by Kaviraj Kunja Lal Bhishagratna, printed by J.N. Bose, College Square, Calcutta, 1907.
11
The Four Killers
Diseases do not appear in the body overnight and consequently can’t be cured in a jiffy. There is always a cause, a point of origin. Charaka wrote that the consumption of unwholesome foods is the primary cause of disease in the human body. This also includes negative emotions, which are unwholesome food for the mind. Our body is the primary seat of consciousness. Imagine standing in a beautifully decorated room that has a box in a corner full of putrefying meat. The smell of the rotting flesh will overpower your senses, and it’ll become increasingly hard to even breathe in the room, much less sit in it and appreciate its beauty.
Similarly, the body becomes unfit when the consciousness is stinking. Unfitness of the body could occur in the form of its malfunctioning, diseases, a lack of strength or other physical disorders. When you are unable to let go of negative emotions, the consciousness starts to reek after a while. Ayurveda maintains that disease is the disequilibrium of dhatus.
Just like a termite can devour the healthiest wood, there are four aspects of our physical and mental disequilibrium that destroy our health. These are the four killers. They don’t kill us overnight. They take their time, but they certainly rob us of our physical and mental health. With a bit of discipline, some understanding, mindfulness and dietary regulation, they can be removed from our system. Let me elucidate the four killers.
AMA
Here is the basic Ayurvedic principle: the food you cannot digest will eventually start to digest you. The digestive fire that hasn’t received the right food to break down will start to break you down. Like a parasite, ama slowly eats away your health and eventually
is the seed of all chronic problems. A knowledge of Ayurveda would be incomplete without understanding the concept of ama.
As mentioned earlier, acidic foods are called amla in Ayurveda. It is derived from the word ama. Ama means many things, but above all, it means toxic residue. No matter what you eat, it gets broken down into the core nutrients. There are only five things your body can absorb, namely, fat, protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Anything that does not undergo complete transformation is residue. Any residue in the body is ultimately toxic; its very nature is acidic. Ama is produced either on account of indigestion or the excessive intake of acidic foods. It is a viscid and sludgy material with a pale yellow hue. The white deposit on your tongue is ama. One look at your tongue, and you can immediately know the state of your ama and your body’s acid–alkali balance. The more toxic your body, the thicker the formation of ama on your tongue.
Heavy, rough, cold and overcooked foods create ama. All tamasic foods are highly ama creating, and all rajasic foods are moderately ama creating. Most sattvic foods create practically no ama. In other words, acidic foods create ama and alkaline foods remove it from your system. Ayurveda states that negative emotions create ama as much as food does. It means that you may be eating a wholesome meal, but if you are mentally indisposed, your body will continue to house toxic residues. Of the many emotions, Ayurveda specifically notes passion, anger, greed, envy, grief, vanity and fear as ama-creating mental states.