In this episode of “5 Minutes,” Dr. Robert Svoboda explores the Ayurvedic understanding of emotional causes of disease and the role of craving and aversion in creating imbalance.

Causation can be examined at many different levels. If we were to use the three doshas in this context, we could say that fear and grief tend to increase Vata, anger and jealousy tend to increase Pitta, and greed, narrow-mindedness, and bigotry tend to increase Kapha.

However, from the perspective of emotions themselves, it is more useful to look back to the two basic emotions from which all other emotions arise: Raga and Dvesha.

Dvesha is often translated as hatred, but its deeper meaning is aversion. Raga is regarded as the chief of emotions. It is a very interesting word because it means the color red, inflammation, anger, and color itself. Raga is also a mode in Indian music, because music is a way of bringing emotions into a concentrated form so that they can be experienced and purified.

Raga also means rage, but more specifically it means passion, desire, and craving for something. Even the things we dislike can be understood through craving, because often we have a craving to avoid those things. These desires and aversions are deeply connected with the sense organs.

The purpose of the sense organs is to help us find what nourishes us and to help us avoid what can harm us. In the past, this was literally a matter of survival. Today the situation is more complex, but the principle remains the same. We move toward things that support and nourish us, and we move away from things that take away our nourishment or cause harm.

The Ashtanga Hridayam, one of the three foundational texts of Ayurveda known as the Brihat Trayi, begins with the words Ragadi Rogan. Rogan means diseases, and Ragadi means beginning with Raga. Therefore, from the perspective of the Ashtanga Hridayam, diseases begin with craving.

Ayurveda teaches that the fundamental disease behind all disease is fever, and this fever can be physical or mental. A mental fever occurs when we become so passionate about something that we become overwhelmed by the desire to move toward it. This intense craving becomes the foundation from which other emotions arise, and those emotions influence the body by increasing Vata, Pitta, or Kapha.

Ultimately, the issue comes back to Raga and Dvesha: craving toward something and aversion away from something. These movements create attachment, contraction, and suffering.

This is why Lord Buddha taught that freedom from the suffering of existence does not come from extreme practices that punish the body or mind. Instead, it comes from understanding the nature of craving, developing the willingness to release that craving, and becoming free from the suffering it creates.