Ayurvedic Stress Management with Dr. Vasant Lad

Vasant Lad, BAMS, MASc, the world's preeminent Ayurvedic physician, is the founder (1984) and director of the Ayurvedic Institute in New Mexico. He graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery from the University of Pune, India, where he served as Professor of Clinical Medicine for 15 years. Dr. Lad received a Master of Ayurvedic Science (MASc) in 1980 from Tilak Ayurved Mahavidyalaya, also in Pune. He is the author of Ayurveda:The Science of Self-Healing as well as many other books and articles. OPEN EXCHANGE thanks East West Bookshop for permission to reprint this interview. Meet Dr. Lad at East West Bookstore in Mountain View in late April. See our Conferences category.

Dr. Lad, for those who are not familiar with Ayurveda, how does it differ from Western medicine?

VASANT LAD: Ayurveda is an ancient Vedic system of healing. Veda is knowledge, and knowledge is science. Ayurveda became the science of life. It looks at every person as a unique expression of cosmic consciousness.

Every person has a prakruti or constitution, as it is generally called. Prakruti is an individual's unique psyco-physiology or overall balanced state. Then there is vikruti. This is the altered state of the body's humors — vata, pitta, kapha, known as doshas — due to change in the environment, season, diet, lifestyle and emotional patterns.

Vata is the principle of movement and sensory stimuli. Motor responses are governed by vata. Pitta is the body temperature, and all biochemical changes: digestion, absorption, assimilation, and transformation of food into energy. And kapha is the cementing, constructing material of the body, the protein. This is the basic paradigm. Ayurveda doesn't treat an organ or a system. Ayurveda treats the whole person.
The difference between modern medicine and Ayurveda is that modern medicine is a high technology science based upon the double-blind method of research. It says that disease is due to infection, viruses, parasites, or there may be some etiological factor that pinpoints the disease. Practitioners assess and treat the individual based on statistical data, on a scale of normality according to lab tests and the pathological investigation. In Ayurveda we say no doubt one must give attention to the organs, to the system, to the etiological factors, but don't forget the whole person. The food and medicine we administer gives emphasis to the prakruti and vikruti.

How does Ayurveda deal with an ailment such as cancer?

VL: Although we say that Ayurveda cannot cure cancer, we look at it as a tri-dosha disorder. Because of vata, a patient with cancer will have a serious loss in weight. Due to pitta, there are metastasizing changes, and due to kapha there is tumor transformation.

There are different types of cancers. Based on which organ, which tissue, and the involvement of the doshas, Ayurveda gives dosha-specific remedies rather than treating just the specific disease or lesion. Ayurveda is not a quick fix. It takes time.

It's fascinating to me that someone can read a pulse and know what's fully going on. I know this is only part of the diagnosis, but why do you read the pulse and not something else?

VL: Ayurveda says "darshana, sparshana, prashna." Darshana means observation, which is optical perception. Sparshana means tactile perception, touch, percussion and palpation. Plus prashna: questioning past history, present history and personal history. In Ayurveda there is the pulse examination; then urine, feces, tongue, eye, speech examinations; and then examination of the entire person.

First and foremost is the pulse. That's why it is an ancient Vedic art as well as science. Through pulse we understand what the prakruti (constitution) is, what the vikruti (present altered state of the dosha) is, what the organ pulse is, and what the pulse of the tissue is, subtype of the dosha. By feeling the pulse we understand the flow of consciousness, the psychological constitution and the person's immune system.

My book, The Secret of Pulse, reveals all seven layers of the pulses with beautiful diagrams. Every diagram illustrates how to feel the quality of the pulse, the spike of the pulse, the nature of the pulse, the volume of the pulse, the rhythm of the pulse, and the temperature of the pulse. All these things must be taken into consideration before we come to the right conclusion....