February 2022

In my last newsletter I wrote about wisdom as the ability to perceive natural law and act in accordance with it. For life cannot be fully understood if we only perceive it as the product of dead matter randomly clashing into it pieces of it self. It is also living energy that moves in intelligent patterns to create a cosmic web of inter-being. Thus, I argued, living a life of wisdom involves discovering these patterns, so we can swim with the stream of life.

The hidden hook of this rationale is the tendency to see nature and its laws as everything beyond our physical skin. And as such, we end up trying to sculpt ourselves so we can “fit in”, forgoing the intricate laws that also play out under our skin.

For as outside, so within. As in the universe, so inside the hallowed chambers of our body-mind-spirit complex. We are undeniably nature, and as such our uniqueness is also a product of the patterning of life force. Thus, wisdom is not only following natural law as it expresses in the world. It also implies unveiling the uniqueness of the one seeking to harmonise with the whole. Before we play our part in the symphony of life, we need to know which tones and rhythms we were designed to make.

For me, this was a game changer. When meeting my teacher Uma in 2018 I had been on a path of healing for years, but even though I was following priced practices and teachings for self-transformation, the chaos only seemed to grow bigger. Uma introduced me to a point of view integral to the Indian sciences, formulated by her as: “know yourself, heal yourself, free yourself”. Immediately I understood that I had been aiming at freeing myself, through modalities of healing, but never actually focused on coming to understand the one who sought freedom.

It became clear: I cannot bring myself back into balance without knowing how I have been designed to balance.

Uma introduced me to Ayurveda, the oldest uninterrupted school of medicine in the world. The word “Ayurveda” can be translated in a number of ways, in this context perhaps best as “the wisdom of life force”. Key to Ayurveda, and lacking from every other school of medicine, is a detailed system to determine individual constitution - the way you have been designed by nature to function. Ayurveda recognises that as water crystallises in unique ways for every snowflake, so the gross and subtle elements pattern in unique was for each individual. Building on the same cosmology as Yoga, Tantra, Vedic Astrology (and others), it states that the 5 great elements (categorised as the principle of solidity (earth), the principle of liquidity (water), the principle radiance (fire), the principle of movement (air) and the principle of connection (ether)) exist in different portions at the level of the body and mind in each individual. Health, according to Ayurveda, is staying true to this original nature, because only then can we find our unique “fit” with life. Dis-ease by definition, is the deviation from it.

If wisdom is the ability to retain or regain balance with the laws of nature, and everyone is unique, then everyone will need something different, at different times to be healthy. What is needed for sustainable health cannot only be determined only by the symptoms we display, but by understanding how we came out of balance in the first place. For instance a fire predominant individual will need a different treatment than an individual with air predominance if treating for fever. A earth (stability) predominant person will require a different strategy to change life style habits than one who is air (instability) predominant. Through this lens we can see that there is no predetermined healing modality, no life style and no diet that will fit all. In fact it will seldom fit anyone perfectly until we understand how to adapt for individual differences. One womans medicine will be another mans poison.

Ayurveda allowed me to see how I was constituted. I could see why my healing process had been chaotic. Forgetting to look inside, I had largely aggravated patterns of life force that were already out of synch with nature. I understood where my genuine nature was shining through, and where I had taken on conditioning from others that diluted the innocence of my unique expression. And with the tools to discern the difference, I could begin tailoring a life to support a fruitful healing process. From a goal oriented stumbling in the dark, the invitation to “know myself” was like a lamp, illuminating intricacies of life force on intimate levels. Over time, I could bring my system into balanced functioning, as well as recover quicker when aggravation would, and still occurs.

But, more importantly the curiosity for knowing my self started replacing well trodden tracks of self criticism and judgement. Instead of judging myself to some outer standard, I would start looking at how natural law would express it self as the brilliance in a train of thoughts, or as the majesty as an emotional wave would crest. And this is not to say there is not pain to feel and ignorance to soften. But with a new view of what underpins those phenomenon, a unique configuration of life force in motion, the whole healing paradigm changes.

So, who are you? How were you designed to balance? What is the nature of your piece of the puzzle? Through coming to know one self, there is fruitful ground for sustainable healing. Through healing there is freeing of dormant potential, which essentially is coming to know one self on deeper levels.

And so it goes.
Knowing, healing, freeing. Knowing, healing, freeing.

A self-enforcing, exponentially accelerating process of liberation.

And not as the arrival in some promised land at the end of time,
but as the coming home to one self.

The wise one knows: I will be free when I know who I am.