In this episode of ‘5 Minutes,’ Dr. Robert Svoboda explores what Ayurveda is, drawing on the Charaka Samhita and its fundamental understanding of what promotes harmony and what creates imbalance.

This is a subject on which I have waxed, not necessarily eloquent, but at least I have waxed on it on a number of occasions, and therefore I am going to try to be a lot more concise than I have been on other occasions. I am going to go back to the source, as is the appropriate thing to do when working with a Shastra. Going back to the Charaka Samhita, which is arguably the most fundamental text of Ayurveda that we have available to us in Sanskrit, the definition of Ayurveda in Charaka begins with these words: Hitahitam Sukham Duhkham. We only have to start with those four words: hita, ahita, sukha, duhkha. Hita means what will benefit, what is useful, what will promote. Ahita means what will not benefit, will not assist, will provide detriment. Sukha means happiness, health, ease. Literally speaking, in Sanskrit it means “good space,” su, “good,” plus kha, “space.” Duhkha literally means “bad space”: disease, disturbance, lack of harmony.

So very simply, Ayurveda is what lets us examine everything in our environments and everything on the inside, and everything we think, everything we do, and everything we say, and lets us examine, in our personal context, what are those things, things meaning substances and actions, that are going to promote good space, harmony, ease, balance, and what are those things that are not going to promote that. What are those things that are actively going to promote disease, disturbance, imbalance, etc., and what are those things that are not going to actively promote disease, disturbance, and imbalance? That’s what we are doing with Ayurveda. We are trying to examine what are those substances and actions that we can actively involve in our lifestyles and our lifespans, and what are those things that we need to avoid.

We are, of course, in the context of Ayurveda, examining everything in the context of guna. Guna means attribute, quality, characteristic. Guna is carried on dravya, or substances, and karma, or actions, and it is only useful to talk about dravya or karma in the context of guna. A particular substance or a particular action means nothing to our individuality until it interacts with us, and when it interacts with us, it interacts with us on the basis of quality. That thing may make us feel warmer or cooler. It may make us feel lighter or heavier. It could make us feel wetter or drier. It could have an effect of creating greater subtlety. It could have the effect of creating greater density. Whatever it is, it is going to work with us on the basis of these qualities. These are things that we can perceive. There are many other ways we could examine them, but the important thing from our perspective is perception.

So Ayurveda, in fact, is all about perception. It’s about how we interact with the world. Ayurveda is the knowledge of life. A protoplasmic being comes into existence, remains in existence, and that existence is eventually terminated. During that period, that’s what we call ayu, the life of that being. Ayurveda is understanding everything that has to do with life, evaluating it from the perspective of these qualities, and learning how to live in the best possible way, aligning with our environments, internal and external, so we can have the greatest amount of good space that can benefit us, everyone around us, and the universe in general. This is Dr. Robert wishing everyone a very large amount of sukha at all times, in all places.