Aruveda: Yoga Teacher Training… 5-15-13

Blog 2 – We had a very full weekend – what is still lingering, resonating, buzzing?

We spent three hours Friday night with an aruvedic practitioner, not my first exposure to this unique medical slant. Love to consider nutrition an integral step on the optimal health pathway and my personal approach has been moderation, balanced diet, as much local and organic as possible. I have done raw, done vegetarian, done vegan…for spurts of time….always come back to the middle ground. I am such a foodie, love my creative time in kitchen and garden, was totally born into it, both of my children are total cooks…it is just a huge part of my life.

So when someone suggests taking a look with a different perspective I watch myself be intrigued and be in total resistance at the same time. This little character who likes to hide behind the curtain and peek out, afraid to commit lest something will have to change in my precious ordered existence. I count on my native animal instinct for nourishment choices and the whole idea of questioning my intuition bugs me, that somehow what I am drawn to is the worst thing for me. The whole concept of “like increases like” begs a re-frame of intuition. Maybe I have to corral my intuition and point it in the direction of balance. Novel concept. Maybe our intuitive eating takes us out of balance, that yoga needs to counter our instincts, that knowing what is good for us and acting (eating) otherwise is the root of disease.

“Prajnaparadha” is the Sanskrit term for “crime against wisdom”, our very human propensity to choose against what we know is right. I didn’t know there was a term for this. It has been a topic of discussion with my patients and students for years. I watch my own tendencies to know what I need to do on the mat and then turn the other way and choose to not do it. There is nothing wrong here, it is the way we are built, and being in observation of it, being gentle with ourselves in that moment, not getting out the whips and chains…I know this is the only compassionate response that will eventually deliver us to what we need.

So many things to consider in diet that are “crimes against wisdom” and what I have taken on this week, what so obviously cools the fires of digestion (why would we want to do that?) and what I have always been drawn to for cooling my own fire….iced beverages. A big aruvedic no-no. That makes sense in a back door intuitive kind of way.