Ayurveda Tour with Dr Swaroop Verma - Suffolk August 2011

Indian Cookery Workshop with Dr. Swaroop Verma

Ayurvedic Nutrition & Cookery Workshop with Dr. Swaroop Verma 22nd August 2011

The workshop is designed for those who want to deepen their connection with their bodies and soul through the secrets of healthy ayurvedic nutrition. The workshop gives you the tools to make yourself and your loved ones a healthy balanced meal, by adapting a personal healthy life style and nutrition. Five hours of practical cooking, learning how to prepare six different healthy vegetarian dishes then enjoy sharing a delicious supper together.

This workshop is essential for Ayurvedic & Yoga practitioners, vegetarians, and all of you who are interested in and care passionately about good food.

Content:

• How to determine and balance our unique body/mind constitution.
• How to build a healthy daily and seasonal routine that will maintain health, prevent disease, and slow down the ageing process.
• “Kitchen cupboard remedies”, Understanding the medicinal values of the spices used in Ayurvedic cooking.
• Tailoring food according to your body type.

A healthy Ayurvedic meal consists of:

1. Khichri – rice, lentils and vegetables. a meal that provides essential proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals.
2. Lentil soup. - Nutritious and easy to digest, has a detoxifying affect.
3. Chapatti - Healthy Indian bread without yeast.
4. Chutney - a sauce/spread that strengthens the digestive system.
5. Raita - Yogurt with fresh vegetables, and special seasoning.

After eating this meal you will feel light, happy and satisfied!

Date & Time: 22nd August- 16.00- 21.00

Telport House

Puddingmore

Beccles

NR 34 9PL

Cost: £85.00
For more information please contact: Tanya Bradbury

m: 07779 583 123 t: 01986 798644

email: tanya@priyaspa.com

Ayurvedic Diet A Healthier Approach To Life

In India all Ayurvedic doctors know how to cook, and know intimately the different effects that foods can have on individual constitutions, pre and post digestion.This also includes a variety of cooking methods which help to transform and enhance the digestive quality of the food. A whole science revolves around this one subject, because incorrect eating and poor digestion creates ama or toxins in the body and this ama is the root cause of most diseases. Everthing begins with good digestion, absorption of nutrients and proper elimination of waste products. Only then can the body produce healthy tissues and a balanced nervous system. Good health or Svasthya predominately revolves around a diet rich in fresh unprocessed foods, mostly based around grains, pulses and vegetables and fruits.

However Ayurvedic diet is not bland or boring, it is something which gets the digestive juices flowing and is so delicious that it leaves the individual happy and content and well nourished. So even before you see the food you can smell it, and it's this first sense that helps to stimulate the appetite, we even say something smells "Mouth watering". It should also look appetising and contain different textures, some liquid, like a soup and other vegetable and rice dishes. Flat bread like Chappati also adds to the texture and nutritional content.

The balance of flavor and variety of tastes in Indian cooking leave us feeling satisfied. This is because they contain a balance of the six tastes. When all the six tastes are present in a meal, then we can say it's truly balanced and this balance of flavors helps us to enjoy our food and at the same time it helps us digest the food more easily.

• Sweet - Milk, fruits , grains, sweet fruits, sweet potato
• Sour - fruits, Yoghurt, sour cream, mature cheese, pickles
• Salty - salt, sea fish, seaweed, asafoetida
• Bitter - Radichio, bitter gourd, green leafy veg
• Astringent - pulses, lentils, beans
• Pungent - ginger, pepper, mustard, tender radish

The importance of the six tastes in each meal is something we tend to overlook in the western diet. Our diet in the west is mostly made up of "Sweet, Sour and Salty" If you look at fast food like a big mac or fish & Chips these are the main flavors. The trouble is too many of these flavors leaves our diet wanting, and often these tastes are high in sugars, salts and fats.

They can also aggrevate some of the doshic types like Pitta and Kapha. And something that we tend to eat more of here is chocolate, I've noticed in India that people really don't eat that much of it if at all. They do like sweet without a doubt! but often that tatse will be within the meal and balanced by the others. Once you get to knows your own constitution better, you can eat more of the foods that are good for you, and eat less or avoid the ones which upset you.

In the Workshop that Dr. Verma is presenting, you will not only learn how to cook six delicious vegetarian dishes, but you will also gain much insight into the ritual and methodology of Ayurvedic cookery and nutrition. It is something that everyone here in the west should know about. After all "You are what you eat"

By Tanya Bradbury.

Ayurveda, Yoga and Tantra- The Ultimate diagnosis and treatment of Human suffering By Dr. Swaroop Verma

Ayurveda, Yoga and Tantra , these three allied mountains of knowledge reveal themselves at the same time, from the same stream of eternal wisdom, Sanatan Dharma, through the same group of seers in the same Himalayan region of India.

They all follow the four fold fundamentals of Sanatan Dharma: which subscribes that there is an eternal problem of disease, decay and death. Proper diagnosis of this fundamental problem is needed to find out the real cause. When the cause has been diagnosed then, there is way to cure it. Budha describe them as four noble truths.

Yoga and Ayurveda both have the same complementary approach towards Swastha (health) and Cikitsa (healing) on a very deep level. According to Yoga, a Moodh- Kchipta(Disturbed state of mind) or any negative internal or external stimuli (Klesha) creates a Psycho-physiological disturbance (Vikchepa). This leads to a state of miserable distress (Dukha-Daurmanasya) of the organism and affects the flow of Prana (Swasa-Praswasa) which manifests as Vyadhi (via-a dha-out of track).This phenomenal fact described beautifully in the thirty-first sutra of first section of Yoga-Sutra of Patanjajali. By practicing different steps of yoga a practitioner creates a Nirudhi (Transcendental state of mind) which leads to Samadhi (Sama-a-dha- to put together as one whole). Samadhi is the state of being, integrated functioning homeostasis, a psycho-somatic balance, where the person returns to his own original form (Swaroop), only then is he really Swastha (healthy).

My grandfather Late Dr. Munnalal Verma a celebrated Yogi and dedicated Physician, successfully used these Yogic-Ayurvedic approaches in his clinical practice for years and it has been an fundamental source of my further understanding on the subject.

To bring real Samadhi and Swastha I found a beautiful and profound integrated Ayurvedic and yogic approach, consisting of four comprehensive steps.

1. Understanding the human psyche on a deep level through right knowledge (vidhya), in order to cultivate the correct psychological attitudes. This Vedic knowledge reveals that we are not only a physical machine of biochemical processes or only a psychological victims of socio-religious conditioning, but we are a conscious being which can be aware and rise from our narrow, egoistic, limited personality to on that level where we can experience unlimited vastness of our true being, which is beyond the suffering and the pain. To give a complete and comprehensive picture of human psyche and to take us out from physicality of Maya, this Vedic knowledge describes how every human being made up of seven different bodies including our physical and mental body and how these different body functions together in order to sustain the organism. When we can peel all covering of different bodily layer of our soul then we can realize that Raga ( wrong attachment with Maya) is one of the main cause of Roga ( disease) and can be dealt with by Abhyas (constant de-conditioning practice) and Vairagya (conscious living).

2. Reconditioning of the neuro-muscular and neuro-glandular system through different practice of Yoga which enhances physical and mental immunity.

Now it has been established in the medical community that Ayurveda, yoga and Tantra all these eastern sciences are the first and the best mind-body medicine ever known to human mind. They described beautifully how every mental or emotional trauma accumulate as a complex node on the different vital organ and Neuro-musculo-skelaton system, which greatly influence on our posture and how we hold our body.. And when posture is distorted then Prana can not move freely in the Nadi (Pranic Chenal). This distortion in posture can be corrected through Asana and other Yogic practices.

3. Swastha-Vrata- Ayurvedic health regimen of a healthy lifestyle, wholesome satvic diet, encouraging the natural process of elimination, the avoidance of the suppression of natural urges. All this Ayurvedic healthy regimen and life style is understanding and following one's natural bio-rhythms tailoring it to the cosmic- rhythms. Because, ultimately our personality is made up of four things; what and how we eat (Ahar), how we spend our time (Vihar), what we think (Vichar) and how we relate to each other (Achar).

4. Special Yogic practices to regulate the Pancha Vayu (five kinds of main vital energy or SubVata Dosa). All Yogic practices of Asana, Pranayama, bandha, mudra, kriya, connect to one or two specific Pancha Vayu and regulate the flow of Prana. According to Ayurveda, any disease or discomfort is the result of the flow of one or other Pancha Vayu going out of track (Vyadhi). Ayurveda is the detective tool for tracing the imbalanced Vayu and Yoga and Tantra are excellent therapeutic means to balance it.

While I was living and studying at a well known scientific and literary research institute of Yoga, Kaivalyadhama, India, I realized this integrated and very practical diagnostic and therapeutic fact of Ayurveda and Yoga about Pancha-Vayu.

Ayurveda elegantly describes these Pancha Vayu as Sub Vata Dosha and there is a detailed description of how to diagnose their Dusti (Disturbed state) but the treatment is mainly on a physical and gross level. On other hand in Yoga there is not that much clear description about Diagnosis of these Pancha-Vayu but whole Hatha Yoga is the play of these five life energies on a very deep and subtle level. In fact, in yoga any desired movement or transformation, either kundilini awakening or opening of Chakra or performing a simple Asana (posture), can not be established without involving the Pancha Vayu.

For example, disturbed Udan Vayu Or Udana Vata can create coughing, vomiting, reflex problem on a physical level and psychological or emotional level it can create lack of self-expression, lack of enthusiasm or arrogance, throat and heart chakra related problems etc. This disturbed Udana can be diagnosed by Ayurvedic diagnostic methods and can be managed by those Yogic practices where the emphasis is given to Udan Vayu, posture likeBhujangasana, bandha like Uddiyana bandha, mudra like Viparit karani and kriya likeKapalbhati etc.

Ayurveda is the detective tool for tracing the imbalanced Prana; Yoga and Tantra, being an excellent therapeutic means for balance it.

Yogic and Tantric practices require a healthy and well-balanced body.

Ayurveda provides this necessary tool for achieving the goal of Tantra and Yoga through right nutrition and wholesome lifestyle.

As we see Ayurveda, Yoga and Tantra with their allied application leads to ultimate diagnosis and healing of Human suffering.. They are not only dealt with disease but they are also an comprehensive means to Sadhaka for self realization and achieve the ultimate balance (Swastha).