Ayurveda Foundations/Ether Meditation

Ayurveda Foundations/Ether Meditation

Directly translated Ayurveda means ‘The Science of Life’. 

It is one of the oldest forms of healing the world has known, with its origins dating back 5000 years to the Vedic sages who lived that part of the Asian subcontinent now known as India and is one of the most profound health practices in the world.

Much of Ayurveda practices have been integrated into what we experience today in many alternative therapies. The main difference being that Ayurveda offers us a system of health that encompasses all of our ways of living.

Ayurveda encourages us through nutrition, movement, breath, sound, touch, and smell if fact through all our sense organs, but it also gives us clues and evidence about how our health is compromised and how we can learn to be aware of symptoms in our bodies.

Ayurveda looks at the whole being and enables us to get to know ourselves on a much deeper level.

Preventative

Ayurveda is a system of preventative healthcare and healing and a philosophy for living. It cures not by simply treating the symptoms but by removing the causes of disease and, critically by balancing the physical and spiritual elements of our lives.

Ayurveda provides vital clues for us to consider in our health and well-being, much of this has been lost in mainstream medicine as we are given the next pill to swallow rather than encouraged to reach out to our own bodies healing system for answers and help.

Balance

The objective is to achieve balance as an individual, as one whose emotional life, whose intake of food, whose output of energy and whose attention to the daily act of living is also extended to take in the wider concept of a harmonious universe.

When was the last time you heard a conventional doctor advise you to be still, to walk in fresh air and be aware of your surroundings, to spend time in nature, to buy a plant and nurture its growth. To create a special place, that we may call an altar, but it's not necessary to use this word, simply a quiet place to just sit and reflect. 

Popularity

Recent years have seen an increase in popularity for many holistic health disciplines and Ayurveda is no exception, with a steady increase in the number of practitioners, schools, and opportunities for therapies but something is being ignored in many of the variations of treatments and teachings now becoming available. A core premise is in danger of being lost. As fundamental today as it was 5000 years ago is the central concept of balance and harmony between all living things.

Lots of alternative therapies come in and out of fashion as the money train begions to slow down, alternative therapies are one of the biggest money making businesses in the western world today, offering special cures and wonderful results.

Ayurveda is an experiential and proven way of life, not a fad nor a 'treatment' , but a way of loiving each day for your health.

Living Organism

Within Ayurveda, the Earth is seen to be an interrelated whole, a vast living organism. We share the same atomic and molecular structures and the same building blocks as all life forms and what happens to one part affects the whole. Our world is a wonderful living entity; the atmosphere that we live in, the oxygen, the weather systems, the natural resources, the earth, and the sea, the animal and plant life are all connected.

Changes to the seasons, to the natural and built environment, create cross currents of influence that affect all around us. Loss of this sense of connection to our environment has led to the malaise that is damaging the planet and most human relationships.

Natural Forces

Ayurveda teaches us how to rediscover critical knowledge and awareness of the natural forces and rhythms that complement and strengthen our human experience, through delicious nutrition using natural herbs and spices,  through enhanced levels of self awareness involving practical daily activities and through attention to our total environment to bring about radical changes in outlook and in health.

Our connection and how we connect to nature is an important part of Ayurveda health and well being, the simplest of actions which involve the care of our planet can bring rewards to our selves.

The five elements of Ayurveda are seen as the foundation of Ayurveda understanding. 

• Ether
• Air
• Fire
• Water
• Earth

This simple set of Ayurveda Foundations has a short meditation on each of the elements this one is on Ether

Either Element:  The Sky

Find an open area where you can have a clear and unobstructed view of the sky.  Lie down on your back and gaze into the sky for at least 10 minutes and twenty minutes in warmer weather, being careful not to look near the sun. You can also do this in the winter or on dull days, you don't need to lie down, you can sit with your head supported by a cushion as you gaze upwards.

Meditate upon your mind as being like the sky, open and vast with clouds/thoughts/perceptions that simply float by not stopping. However the sky appears on this day, simply allow the energy of the open vastness, become a connection to your mind.

Try not to struggle and if the mind wanders, breathe and reconnect with the sky, there is no right or wrong way to be.

When you return to your ordinary perception, you will find your mental field cleansed and renewed.

You can practice the same method at night, preferably a moonless night in an area where there is no interference from city lights.  You can start right after sunset and gradually watch the stars come out.  This takes about two hours. 

Or you can wait until the sky is dark and gaze at the stars continually for about twenty minutes.  This will cool and calm the mind and open up higher perceptual and intuitive faculties. 

This meditation is best done on the ether or throat chakra and aids in its unfoldment.