Trish Pottersmith <[log in to unmask]>:
>I really appreciate your sending things like this to the list.
>I benefit from your anti-extremist point of view.  If you
>write up any of your notes from the Seminar, I'd be interested
>in reading them.  I have recently read the Ayurvedic book by
>R. Swoboda (sp) and have been wondering if I can incorporate it into
>my lifestyle.  When I get into following too many rules, I start
>going nuts.  You seem to be into Ayurveda - can you talk about
>how you have benefitted from it?

Tom:
Thanks for your kind words! I have 80 pages of handwritten notes from the
Seminar, including the writeups for 35 or so consultations (patients, in
other words). I hope to someday type them into computer files, even if only
for my own use. However, that is a big job and will have to wait - plenty
of more urgent things to do first. (One person at the Seminar had a laptop,
and was inputting the notes directly - will have to consider that for the
future.)  The books by Svoboda are excellent - his Ayurveda books include
"Prakruti: Your Ayurvedic Constitution", "Ayurveda: Life, Health, and
Longevity", and "The Hidden Secret of Ayurveda".

When you first get into Ayurveda, it does seem complicated - there is much
to learn. After using it for some time, one gets comfortable with it. It has
some real advantages:

* diet and measures are specific to each individual, per body type and
current condition. This is quite different from the "one diet fits all" of
certain raw food zealots, or the "one drug cures all" approach of Western
medicine.

* foods are classified by the doshas, which tells you which foods are good/OK
for you, and which are bad. Countermeasures are available which, in some
cases, may permit you to consume limited amounts of "bad" foods without ill
effects. (Such countermeasures must be used with caution, of course.)

* because of the classification of foods, and the knowledge of their effects,
Ayurveda can tell you what symptoms might result if you eat too much, or
inappropriate foods. In other words, it gives you warning signs to look for,
per the food classification and your body type. This can be very helpful,
as we are all human and occasionally overeat, or eat inappropriate foods.

* Ayurveda is also a complete medical system. It uses herbs, foods, oils for
medicinal purposes. According to Ayurveda, any natural substance on the
planet can be used for medicinal purposes  (IF you know its properties, and
in the case of poisons, you process them to detoxify them). This is quite
different from the Natural Hygiene approach which claims that there is
no such thing as "medicines" (the NH claim, in my opinion, is incredibly
ignorant - it ignores reality). So, if you have health problems, Ayurveda
can specify measures - herbs, foods, oils, yoga exercises, etc., to help
you get back into balance and well. The measures will be specific to the
individual and condition.

* Ayurveda provides daily routines that one can adapt and use. Having a good
daily routine is a very powerful tool for health and healing. It takes
work and discipline to establish one, but the potential benefits make it
worth trying.

...re: Bernie Siegal
>  I asked him a number of questions, one of which was, from
>his perspective, do you think it healthier to be neurotically eating
>raw vegetables or to be more relaxed and eat whatever you want.  His
>answer was that you need to ask how you are treating yourself.  If
>you feel deprived and miserable eating a certain kind of diet, you
>would probably not do that well on it.  If you see your chosen
>way of eating as a choice  - and that it feels as if you
>are treating yourself well, it will work well for you.

Tom:
I agree with Bernie. As individuals following difficult diets, our choice of
foods is a balancing act. We want to avoid being indulgent (the "cult" of
indulgence: pleasing the tongue), and also avoid the "cult" of discipline:
being so harsh and strict with ourselves, that we lose all joy & love from
our lives. If a person develops an eating disorder, or becomes a neurotic,
lunatic, or hostile zealot as a result of following a raw foods diet - then
that person is being eaten by the diet (in figurative terms).

We must never lose sight of why we are interested in raw foods - health,
healing, spiritual path, environment. We should follow raw foods only insofar
as it truly support these goals. Those aspects of raw foods dogma that
contradict these goals, should be quickly discarded. Raw food zealots, on the
other hand, regard the dogma they promote as being more important than your
health, healing, spirituality, or even your humanity!

Again, thanks for your kind words, and the interesting info on Bernie Siegel.

P.S. I think the folks on the other list, veg-raw, might benefit from this
posting. Can I cross-post it there as well? Please let me know by e-mail.

Regards,
Tom Billings
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