Ancient Wisdom for Longevity, Rejuvenation, Healing, and Self-Realization Yoga and Ayurveda are intertwined, and practiced together, are a scientific and systematic discipline for a successful organization of all the energies and faculties of the integral human being. Ayurveda, the world's oldest most comprehensive health care system, is the Science of Life or Wisdom of Daily Living that originated in the east, has been practiced for more than 5,000 years. It is considered the "sister science" to Yoga, and is actually the mother of all healing arts with Yoga being one of its 6 siblings, or philosophies working towards a common goal: to return to wholeness, our natural state. Ayurveda is a simple practice based on ancient and sound principles that have lasted the test of time, and is one of the most recognized and widely practiced disciplines of alternative medicine now in the West. The practice of Ayurveda includes all aspects of life and lifestyle approaches, such as appropriate...

While at the Ayurvedic Institute studying with Dr. Vasant Lad, I had the opportunity to also take a couple of workshops with Sonia Elisa Masocco. She is an expert Ayurvedic Body worker, Phytotherapist and Essential Oil affectionado. I've also had the wonderful opportunity to study with world re known, David Crowe, an amazing herbalist who developed Floracopeia, the best company producing the highest quality products. Both are experts in the field of plant medicine and Ayurveda.   Dr. Lad, a leading authority on Ayurveda, also shared the ancient wisdom and power of Ayurveda's use of essential oils for healing, and all thereof these experts stressed the point that quality not quantity along with the appropriate selection and application are very important. Those...

Nutrition is a big issue in all countries, and particularly in ours. We are consumed with conflicting evidence and opinions that are continually changing. Many of us are not only informed, but obsessed by it, and yet still suffer, with many illnesses, mostly from over nutrition and a misuse and inappropriate relationships to food since how, when and why we eat is still not aligned with our natural rhythms and the rhythms of the world, due to our improper digestion of the information, a mistake of intelligence.

  Inspired by Mickey’s talk today - Whether we are acting on drugs or on ego mind, the behavior is the same. In every waking moment we are either trying to get what we want or avoid what we don’t want, at the expense of not only manipulating people, places and things for us to get our way or get what our minds think is the way, even if it means jeopardizing the health or well being of oneself or another, and also at the expense of cultivating real, honest communication and relationships with oneself or others. Drugs and the ego mind are both the same mask, that hold the illusion of ourselves as separate, from each other, and our own soul. Rather, purify your senses and cultivate a life of service to others, and to something higher than yourself, and you will raise both vibrations. Your likes and dislikes are really unimportant to anyone but you, and if you make them unimportant that removes the veil between you and living authentically, freeing up energy and creating more kindness...

The third cause of disease is considered the most important of all-Time. By Time, it is meant, living according to the rhythms of nature and understanding the symptoms of change, which Patanjali also speaks about in his Yoga Sutras III-13 to III-16. As the sun moves and changes in quality and form, it governs specific functions and abilities. For example, the rising sun and it's quality and function of creation, the mid day sun and it's quality and function of sustaining and nourishing life, and the setting sun, and it's quality and function of transformation. The same sun shines through each one of us, like unique pieces of stained glass, mirroring the same changes throughout the day, season and lifetime. Yoga practice is primarily for balancing the qualities of the mind, and Ayurvedic practice is primarily for balancing the qualities of the body. They overlap and interconnect, as both are the synergy of understanding how the body and mind, with all of their qualities and functions, are...

Ayurveda's second cause of disease arises out of its first- mistake of the mind, or even more specifically the misuse of the intelligence, and is the misuse of objects of the senses. We can also view this as wrong relationship to such objects like people, places, things, activities, and even our own mind, including its thoughts, emotions, perceptions and conditioning. To be alive is to be in relationship and we are in relationship to all things based upon the health and condition of our 5 physical senses; heard, seen, tasted, smelled, and felt, plus the sixth sense, the mind. The practices of Yoga and Ayurveda work synergistically, and traditionally, Ayurveda cleanses and balances the bodily humors or the material body, and Yoga cleanses and balances the mind and the subtle body. The mind can take the senses, thereby the physical body, in any direction. When total awareness is achieved, and you know who the driver is, then you can go in the direction that you, the real you, really wants...