uh·bout

Om Gurave Namaḥ

Welcome to the blog.

True Ayurveda is a blog of articles of what I am referring to as classical knowledge. Yoga (various paths), Ayurveda and others. The reason why it is “true” is because of the sincerity put towards keeping these classical wisdoms to textual knowledge or purity. The ancients studied sciences and laid down strict injunctions and disciplines so that humanity may benefit. They did not believe in simply cataloguing information as we in modern times do. Even how it is laid down is not in the way we think today. These may be sour grapes for those who are thwarted by thick prejudices but they are sweet for those who have a clear mental vision and who wish to economize the waste of spiritual energy for their own ultimate good. In the culture we live in today, these wisdoms have been taken sold superficially and piece parted to the masses and turned into unsightly messes that hardly can be recognized as their former true and pure forms. In this, we see much destruction to those who are “innocently” starting or attempting to further their spiritual growth and their health. But this is karma. We are in kali yuga, obviously. What if the true wisdom was being taught? These wisdoms are true to nature and come from a time tested (10,000 year +) heritage that has interconnecting wisdoms that provide more insight to each other as they are all from the original melting pot of perennial wisdom. The tradition of knowledge, based on extensive literature, is the oldest tradition of knowledge in the world. Though it has been long preserved in India (and so so much of it is also lost), this traditional wisdom has been more lost in recent centuries—due in part to repeated foreign invasions in history and also now in our (India’s throwing away their heritage and we are superficially trying to take it on) ignorance. The tradition includes detailed information on a wide range of topics — theatre and dance, music, song and pageantry, yoga and sādhana,  metaphysics and ethics, ex­quisite art, astronomy, astrology,  mathematics, architecture, health care, administration, economy and of course the hallowed sciences that are becoming popular in the masses.

Ayurveda is a 10,000+ year old (has no start and no end because it is simply natural law) time-tested wisdom of living with nature. It is a medicinal system as well. Ayuh means life or duration of life or longevity. Veda means know or transcendental knowledge. This system has its roots in the literature of the Vedas. It is based upon the foundations of nature so as long as there has been nature and the experience in it and knowledge of it, there has been Ayurveda. The main texts of Ayurveda are dating back to about 5000 years. The system is just the deepest understanding of nature really. It deals with looking at the individual in a holistic sense integrating the mind, body and soul in the most comprehensive way. Not only this but also looking at how that individual is set within its surroundings and environment and how its features have had an effect on that individual. Within this, the experience of one’s life has drawn together a history that can be seen because of the in-depth perspective of the lenses of Ayurveda to deal with the imbalances within the individual. In the West, we have turned it solely into Vata and Pitta and Kapha (the doshas or constitutions) diet plans. This is not Ayurveda at all. In fact, there is no mention of these diet plans, as we have created in the west, within any of the ancient texts. To follow them will only lead to the creation of disease from the very eyes of Ayurveda itself. This western way of dieting Ayurveda is teaching and assuming that everyone is a single dosha prevalence. It is clear in Charaka Samhita that single dosha is extremely rare to find due to the high morbidity, natural weakness of being single dosha, and their constant illness. But real understanding of Ayurveda is just not in the US. Simple understandings such as this make books like “Whats your dosha baby?” completely and foolish writing to market, make money, and fame.
There is using food and lifestyle to balance imbalances but it is far more in-depth than the simplistic way we have tried to comprehend it. What is left is a watered down new agey outlook that has little foundation in the science that it is and alot of space for undereducated practitioners to do harm to the innocent unknowing patient; either way it has little results compared to the beautiful and almost magical effects it has when properly followed.

Now I must state also that the scene in India isn’t much better than it is in America but at least it is actual knowledge and texts of Ayurveda and not short courses based on texts written by the teacher of the course trying to simplify and write the books for a Western mind. In India, you have most of theAyurvedic BAMS students that are in schools in Maharastra and Karnataka are studying only to practice allopathic medicine after they graduate because they will make more money. Yes, really. Reality bites. Nobody ever wants to speak of what is really going on in the world, huh? The education of Ayurveda in government colleges is changing every year with less actual Ayurveda and more and more allopathy in the curriculum. The education is getting shorter and more superficial and yet it is costing more and more. Most places you go in India that are Ayurvedic are actually not. This is the sad truth of the state of Ayurveda in India. The government is allowing the Ayurvedic doctors to practice allopathy because the Ayurvedic doctors complain about not being able to make a living and that they are needed in hospitals and doctors are needed in the villages because the allopathy doctors are in the cities. In the interim Ayurveda is being thrown away due to a culture that wants what it doesn’t have and doesn’t have any knowledge of what it does have due to this blindness. Everything Western has to be better (which is far from the truth) and the almighty dollar is what is desired over everything and anything else in the Indian mindset at expense to the buyer. Money is everything. This is the real truth of Ayurveda in India. I have lived in its corruption for many years and what I could write would not only shock you, but bring you to tears. When you have actually lived this experience and saw all of this first hand, it is even more disheartening.

Yoga is also one of these ancient wisdoms. It is also a science but a science of enlightenment. Its path is well laid out by Patanjali, Swatmarma and others in ancients, as well as the Upanishads, that then blend into the very roots of which it came. Yoga is not an exercise system at all. It has nothing to do with it actually. Even the word Hatha has been poorly translated and understood. Asana is to sit and means a seat. Postures are not yoga. Asana is a little piece of Hatha Yoga. Asana is one limb of the 8 in Ashta-anga. Asana is a seat or the seated position for meditation. Yoga is based on energy and consciousness, not Western exercise theory and sciences. With the understanding of its utilities, it is powerful beyond imagination but this is not even reachable by doing Western exercise and calling it Yogaaaaa. In the Western lens, we practice a physical aerobics class that is based off a Western mechanical paradigm/Western exercise theory that has no space for, belief in, or template to understand prana. This is just one very simple example. (sorry all the yoga instructors out there) In this, the entire system falls apart and has no basis in or process to the very goal of its science, the liberation of the soul. Much the same as all of its sciences. No wonder there are so many exercise-induced injuries coming to light and so called celebrity yogis, as well as most of the rest, acting out of order with what is known as a “yogic lifestyle”. How would they even know what it is now that yoga is whatever you want it to be. Yoga is for sale today marketed and packaged for a world of no discernment and nativity. Just think for a moment how much money you have spent on “yoga” just in the past year. Irony. And this is not changing, its growing. In different yoga texts, the chakras are different. Only in Western do we find any sort of correlation to the chakras and emotional western psychology, because that is what we do in the West. If you want to learn something, learn it for what it is. Do not try to apply your own concepts from a different culture to it. Master it, from that which it is. Unless of course you are only concerned with money and selling it. Then of course, just do a quick certification in something which is already destroyed and come up with your own bastardization of that and market the hell out of it. There will be plenty who will buy it.

Vedic Astrology – While I practice Siderial Astrology from India, it has been a long journey of many fraudulent teachers, wasted money and time and head space and much much study of texts and history to be able to say that there is no “Vedic” Astrology. Vedic is a key selling point today. Its on everything being sold as ancient Indian. The first astrology text we find is Yavanajataka and Yavana means greek. This is before the main text of Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra. But those selling Vedic Astrology do not want you to know this. Hellenistic astrology brought so much to India’s astrology like the 12 signs and much much more. There is so much out there that is just very very wrong that is being said and taught under this name. Jyotish itself refers to an anga of Veda. It refers to the astronomy and mathematics used to see time and it is used for timing of cermony. What is being called today as jyotish and “Vedic astrology” is not at all ‘Vedic’ and what was being used in ancient time. There is the calendar of India called the Panchanga, this calendar has gone thru change in history as much as everything else. In ‘Vedic astrology’ we are seeing “Panchanga” being sold as something it is not at all. Those fraudelent teachers, although they have name and fame, does not mean they are not complete frauds. You can get tied up in their insane teachings and all boggled up for many years very easily. The weekday or vara was brought in from the greeks as well. All of this is totally verifiable through research if one is willing to do so. There was all sorts of orders to the planets in older texts before the order of the weekdays was solidified by Hellenistic astrology brought to India. Much is said about lineages, which is mainly made up and unverifiable as to the person saying that they are from a lineage. My advice, don’t believe much of anything. Don’t even believe me. Do your own research. We all fall victim to what we do not have knowledge in, don’t we. This is what I write from. I am not writing to sell you something, I am not writing for you to like me, I am writing as to my education, my knowledge, and my experience of those. Please enjoy the blog. And stay sane.

 

Me – In the past, I have not had my own data here because I wanted to stay separate from this blog and have it just a resource for people. I have realized though that for the credibility of this blog, I must give a bit to the person behind the creating of it. So this is a new addition to this page.
I have been working professionally in the ‘health’ field since 1991. Originally I started as a trainer in a gym as a way to make money after moving to NYC for my modelling career. I was bitten by the bug when my first client had a ‘torn rotator cuff’ and I was completely underqualified and uneducated to deal with it (as the entire industry is). I went to the library and studied up and within a couple weeks of working with him, his shoulder was no longer a problem. I realized at that point that there was something really amazing about being able to help people heal from their dis-ease. Little did I know the awkward journey that I would go on due to this. During those early years, I studied lots of nutrition and exercise physiology in my own plight of trying to build mass on a thin frame. By 1996 I had built to 250 lbs naturally at 6’1″ and 4% body fat. Later years I would spend trying to heal the deep damage that I had done in my ignorance. I opened my own gym in NYC at 23 years old. I was mentored by two sports chiropractors during those years which led me to think I wanted to get a degree in Chiropractic. This led me to move across the country to California to go to school. After the move, I became a triathlete and competitive cyclist because most in California is outdoors. The changeover and high training hours led to more destruction of my own system with many injuries to a final break down of my system which no one could diagnose but all wanted to treat. This drew me back into yoga as an alternative where I studied with a big name in modern yoga as his protege. After 3 years with him, I was left in a realization that time had been spent in vain, or rather in his vanity, and I was left with the bigger question of what is real yoga which led me on the quest of searching down whatever manuscripts I could find and starting to study them by laying multiple translations out and evaluating and digging one verse at a time in each. It became an obsession. During this time I also was getting the prerequisite sciences to gain acceptance to Chiropractic school and running the Continuing Education courses (2 weekends a month for 3 years) at Palmer West (Chiropractic college). The break down of my body and lack of anyone being able to diagnose what was going on led me to study everything I could get my hands on; many modalities in movement, biomechanics, body/mind stuff. It led me into so many worlds of woo-woo and also led me to concretize a bullshit meter. I ended up studying Kinesis Myofascial Integration which much later turned into the famed ‘Anatomy Trains’ known today. My completing the prerequisite sciences for Chiropractic led me into deciding to just complete a BA instead of just the sciences and the school I went to allowed for a very ‘liberal’ course where I was designing my own education (New College of California) where I focused my studies on alternative healing and mind which also led into religion and spirituality. This allowed me to study Shamanism in Equador in the Amazon and through Equador with many shamans. It led me to Burma while the borders were still closed to study Buddhism in its environment. It led me to Cuba to try to study alternative methods of healing in traditional settings. And much more. There was so so so much more than all of this as well. Quite the whirlwind of a decade. My yoga pursuits led me to study ‘Jyotish’ and Ayurveda. They were too much to take on at the same time so I pocketed Jyotish til later and focused on Ayurveda. I had first been drawn to David Frawley because as a ‘naive to the industry Westerner’ of course what was available on the market was all that was accessible. After studying his correspondence courses in Ayurveda and Ayurveda and Yoga, I was left with full knowledge that I was completely incompetent so I searched around for what options were for further study. I ended up finding out what is the normal statement that the Ayurvedic Institute is the best education in the US so I set my eyes on that. After the first year I recognized that this was the same and left. David Frawley had advised me that a friend’s daughter had just opened a school in the East Bay in the Bay Area so I set out on my education there in her 3 year program. It turned out to be just another Indian scam. That daughter, turned her divorced indian housewife life into a just add water and a bunch of lies of a fake lineage (that has grown into a totally different world even since I attended there) to claim her credibility. See here is the thing, we are totally naive when it comes to these things. The core two teachers there are Ayurveda MD’s, yet now that I look back with the knowledge I have acquired over time, it is beyond obvious that these two guys had bought their MD diplomas. this is very common in India. Looking back at what they prescribed to me personally, having me eat shrikand to gain weight when I had low agni and ama and more examples like this, it is so beyond apparent they are frauds. After completing that and developing a completely incurable disease created by her advising improper treatments in excess in the wrong season to myself and my naivety in following of them, I continued to look for other options for education because I still knew I was completely incompetent with the level of knowledge I had been given. That was a total of 7 years of study of Ayurveda in the US. Just more of learning the hard way. After that, I applied and had been accepted to the BAMS program in Jamnagar, Gujarat but after visiting there for a week and questioning 19 of the foreign students serious questions about their education and stay, like would you advise me to come here and the answer from all of them was ‘no’ and hearing the horror stories from them of the massive corruption of the University and the oppression of the students (yes, that is the real India), I ended up deciding instead to forsake the doctorate and study Charaka Samhita with my teacher while living in a hospital room in an Ayurvedic hospital in an Ayurvedic college for 6 months at a time for 7 years getting to see so so so much. During this time I also started studying ‘Jyotish’ again thru a big named and famed ‘jyotish guru’ for years who in the end turned out to be a huge fraud as well. Then to another one. 🤣 I had explored Indian for a decade, in the culture, behind the scenes I got to see the real India. It is a very different view than the romanticized spiritual ideas that Westerners have of India. Most very hard to even digest. All of the above is just a brief glimpse and there is actually so much much more in between the lines that I have left out.

I do not name my teachers because it is not important. I am not them nor do I ever want to play this game that is so very prevalent of using someone’s name to validate and to gain one’s own name. My knowledge was the gift I received from all of my teachers and I am thankful for that. I honor those that deserve the honor. And I speak truthfully and outright about what I have experienced and know to be true which is a double-edged sword. My journey came at an extremely high price in many many ways. My health being just one of the sacrifices. What I have learned in my journey is that most of what is out there in the name of tradition and lineages are completely fraud. Especially what has made it to the Western world. Just as what I wrote about “jyotish” above. So the names of my teachers, it does not matter. Let the results of the work I do, due to my actions and my knowledge, speak for me rather than the name of someone else.

In the end, my journey has been a very challenging one. Through the pitfalls, trials, and tribulations, I have learned a ton of how and why and more importantly…. why not or how not. As an example, by studying jyotish for 5 years with an insane meglomaniac (literally he has an umada (insanity) yoga in his chart), I ended up having to test and learn what actually is true in Jyotish and what is just made up fake lies of entertainment for the naive and to make money the Indian way. Now some people that read this are going to be offended because it does not align with their own beliefs. That is fine. That is why it is your beliefs. That is what beliefs are, isn’t it? Just ways of validating one’s own being while invalidating others? At the end of my journey, I have such deep reverence for truth and knowledge. They are rare gems that are created through time and pressure only and to come across a real gem is rare when we live in a world today where gems are artificially being created.