AYURVEDIC JOURNEY
My name is Alice Marks. I am telling you this story because you may also be searching for a healing path.
I am at an age when the aches and pains I was experiencing were getting worse. The question I faced was how best to deal with this situation.
I am lucky because a friend I know, Alexander Souri, travels frequently to India, leading horseback rides to rural villages in Rajasthan. His riders not only experience the thrill of riding through gorgeous territory but also bring school supplies and provide medical care to the villagers.
The chief consulting physician for Relief Riders International is Dr. Vinoy Vighneswar BAMS. Dr. Vinoy graduated in Ayurvedic Medicine from the University of Kerala in 1997, and started the Ayurvaidya Health and Wellness Centre at Kovalam that same year.
Perhaps I am like many of you – I have had a mixed experience with Western medicine: some good experiences with dedicated doctors and nurses but some disappointing, even dreadful encounters with uncaring and un-empathetic practitioners. Having experienced a variety of alternative medicines, all of which only helped my chronic conditions of low energy and narcolepsy to some small degree, I was looking for something that might bring the best of them together in a more balanced and effective way.
With Alexander’s encouragement, I overcame any doubts I may have had, and I traveled to Kerala on the southwestern coast of India in late 2007. I was met at the Trivandrum airport by Dr. Vinoy and traveled the 16 km (10 miles) to Kovalam and Dr. Vinoy’s clinic where I began my own personal ayurvedic journey.
Kovalam Beach - Sunset
Ayurvaidya, Dr. Vinoy’s clinic, is located next to the beach in Kovalam. There are several upscale ayurvedic healing centers/resorts in Kovalam, but Dr. Vinoy provides what I like to call “ayurveda for everyone!” - affordable care with concentrated attention to each and every patient.
The dollar/rupee conversion took some time getting used to – in many ways it was a reflection of the great distance I had traveled, not only geographically, but socially and economically. As I am writing this, the rupee is worth 0.025 U.S. Dollars. Average Indians are making about 1,000 rupees a week, or a little less than $25.00 in American dollars.
Several of the hotels near where I was staying charge between 5 and 6,000 rupees a night, but thanks to Alexander I found more reasonable accommodations with room and board for 2,000 rupees a day.
Kovalam is a beach town and although it was always hot during the days (approximately 88F), there was a constant warm breeze. Nights often cooled down to 70F which allowed me to sleep with the windows opened wide and a fan when necessary. It was not so hot that I needed air conditioning in order to sleep comfortably.
At the clinic, the treatment room was not very big: perhaps 8 x 6 ft. The floors are made of traditional red hexagon-shaped clay tiles. The lower two-thirds of the walls are painted a light, aqua blue, while the top third is painted yellow and the ceiling is white.
My treatments consisted primarily of therapeutic massages and a special “balancing” technique determined by Dr Vinoy during his consultations with me. These traditional techniques involved the use of herbed oils specially prepared for my body type and the balancing that Dr. Vinoy prescribed.
I have some ideas about how and why my ayurvedic treatments made such a difference for me.
Perhaps pausing, or taking “space” might be part of the answer. That is, I first helped myself by getting far away from my daily environment and the source of all my stress. I traveled half way around the world to address the deep-rooted causes of my illness.
Next, Alexander assured me that I was placing myself in the capable hands of a proven ayurvedic doctor. That act of trust - that Dr. Vinoy knew what he was doing - was a healing experience in itself. Dr. Vinoy’s experience working with Westerners, particularly Europeans, has given him a clear understanding of, and compassion towards our modern day maladies that few other Indian ayurvedic doctors possess. He was extraordinarily open to listening and hearing what I had to say and, based on his years of practice and heightened intuition, laid out and supervised my treatment.
Most literature on ayurvedic medicine describes a regime that includes intense purging through diet and enemas. But Dr. Vinoy understands very well that having come 6-8000 miles, and being introduced to an absolutely different culture, different foods, and a new rhythm of life are, in themselves, a drastic change. So although Dr. Vinoy suggests specific diets for each person, he is fully aware that not everyone can stick to it at first. And for those same reasons, he does not prescribe the same intense cleansing that you would get if you were to visit an ayurvedic doctor at home in the United States. Instead, Dr. Vinoy starts with oral cleansing medications that range in intensity from gentle to severe coupled with gentle massage and, perhaps, an herbed steam bath for detoxification.
A lone massage table covered in brown oil cloth sits in the middle of the treatment room; a plastic chair, the kind we use as outdoor furniture, stands to one side and on the other a small low table holds a various assortment of oils and a small propane tank with burner on top for heating the oils sits beside it..
The two women massage therapists who accompany me work in unison; they are not so much petite as they are just short - the tips of their heads come to the bottom of my neck. They wear saris covered with aprons to protect them from the oils they use. As I soon discover, they may be short but they are very, very strong.
I undress and jump up onto the table laying face up. Both women take oil and literally pour it all over my body. At first, they gently rub the oil all over my body making sure every inch of me is covered. And then they truly begin, the two women working on me simultaneously in concert with each other, each massaging half of my body. Their hands apply pressure as they work rapidly, gliding on the oiled skin.
After massaging both my front and back I turn over onto my back again and sit up while they heat up oil on the burner. They use a tool made out of herbs wrapped in cotton and stick in it the hot oil. With this in hand they proceed to stamp my body and rub in the hot oil working different parts as they did with their hands/fingers both on my front and on my back. Added to this however, I turn onto each side while they continue the hot oil herbal pack from a side angle. This treatment therapy is called dzhizi.
After my massage, I am wrapped in a sarong-like piece of material and led to a wooden box with a hole cut in the top. This is the steam bath. The front opens and I take a seat on the stool placed in the center. My head sticks out of the hole on top so that only my body is steamed. After fifteen minutes of this sweat lodge I am done; and I know it’s been a good day.
In the beginning, the treatments weren’t easy for me. The pain I felt at first during the massages was excruciating but by the fifth day, the pain began to lessen. Everyone at Aurvedaiya says the pain of the treatments is normal for the first few days. I must admit I was afraid it would never stop. But I was wrong and I began to realize I had turned a corner. In fact, with each new therapy regime - changed every 7-10 days - I found new energy and could feel myself healing.
I have not experienced any massage in the United States – even deep tissue massage - that comes anywhere near the intensity of those massages. I clearly experienced the release of toxins and negative energy during my daily treatments.
I have experience with a variety of “new” alternative approaches to medicine. But as I began to learn about ayurveda, I discovered once again that much of what we think of as “new” is really quite old. Ayurveda is perhaps the first new alternative medicine, and it was newly developed 6,000 years ago.
And as I discovered time and time again, my insights – my 21st century personal discoveries – were but the long ago echoes of ayurvedic scholars. As I’ve begun my ayurvedic journey, I just recently discovered the following passage:
Ayurveda is beyond beginning and ending. A science of eternal healing, it is compared to a vast ocean, and studying Ayurveda to swimming across. A true teacher can teach one how to swim, but the swimming is up to the student … it is a lifelong journey. - Charaka Samhita, Sutrasthana, Chapter Thirty.
