Experiencing the Ancient Indian Healthcare Science of Ayurveda Through the Immersive Experiential Prism of a Scholar from the Global North West Visiting an Ayurveda Centre in Coastal Karnataka

Abstract

Ayurveda is an ancient age-old practice that for many centuries has developed to become the principle
teaching of how to live a healthy lifestyle: “Ayurveda, the ancient traditional medicine of India, defines health
as a state of complete physical, mental and spiritual well-being. The focus of Ayurveda is on a predictive,
preventive and personalized medicine. This is obtained through low-cost personalized counseling about
lifestyle measures (diet, activities, etc.), trying to involve the patient directly in the process of healing,
increasing his self-awareness and good relationships with other people and nature”. Ayurveda approaches
health from a holistic perspective. Its goal is not to reduce pain, as most modern medicine does, but to prevent
it: “The person-centered point of view of Ayurveda mainly concerns the maintenance of an abiding health,
preventing rather than treating diseases. If our health is compromised, the treatment resides in restoring the
balance between the affected functions, the tissues, the environment and the whole organism. The nature of
the individual is a parameter on which the whole system’s scale is tuned.”