Everybody hears about natural medicine. What does that mean? People think of naturopaths, yoga, essential oils, chiropractors, and hippies. There is a duality between the synthetic and the natural. The root of almost all disease is the gut. Feed it right and you will be healthy. A healthy gut feeds the body the nutrients it needs to run and repair itself. Drink lots of water, eat the nutrients you need. You may have a restricted diet for spiritual, ethical, or monetary reasons and that is okay. In the next chapter you will learn about ways to clean the gut with salt water.Everybody hears about natural medicine. What does that mean? People think of naturopaths, yoga, essential oils, chiropractors, and hippies. There is a duality between the synthetic and the natural. The root of almost all disease is the gut. Feed it right and you will be healthy. A healthy gut feeds the body the nutrients it needs to run and repair itself. Drink lots of water, eat the nutrients you need. You may have a restricted diet for spiritual, ethical, or monetary reasons and that is okay. Optimal physical health can be second to mental health. In the next chapter you will learn about ways to clean the gut with salt water.Synthetic medicine can work very fast. It's often more focused on dealing with issues after they have occurred. It's accessible, advertised, and at 7-11. It often doesn't get to the root of the problem but treats the symptoms. People are more connected to city living with this form of treatment. While this chapter is on natural medicine there is much use in synthetic medicine. The key is to find what works for you. For now I want to take a medicinal approach instead of sadhana. A cabinet of essential oils is useless if you don't know which one to apply or their potential. There is typically many cures for an illness. Whether you decide to use natural or synthetic remedy is up to you. Mainstream medicine is extremely accessible. You get a pill for a handful of change and you swallow it. While natural medicine knows a lot more about prevention of illness. Also natural remedies are often more powerful than the synthetic. The gap between the synthetic and the natural in medicine is not always so far. For example, penisillin is widely used to fight infection. It is a culture that activates the immune system.KrishnamacharyaIn university he studied logic and Sanskrit at Benares university. He later switched universities to study vedantic philosophy. He is seen as the father of Vinyasa. His most famous students are Pattabhi Jois and B.K.S. Iyengar, whom he taught at his yogaśālā. He would take his students around India performing exhibitions for elites. Krishnamacharya claimed he learned the system of Vinyasa based on the text “Yoga Kurunta”. Krishamacharya did not teach set series of postures, instead he would tailor the postures instructed to what the student could do and what they needed.B.K.S. IyengarIyengar was a student of Krishnamacharya’s at the yogaśālā. He was one of very few students that was not royalty. His sister married Krishnamacharya, and so, he became his brother-in-law and was taken under his Krishnamacharya’s wing. Iyengar went on to be one of the most influential yogis of the 20th century. He suffered from tuberculosis. He taught my yoga teacher Lyndon who I met in Sri Lanka using just his eyelids to communicate because that was all he had functioned at that point in his life. Iyengar’s yoga teacher training courses are of the most rigorous certifications in yoga, and require a minimum of three years.While yoga has been influenced by gymnastics and physical culture, Asana is not less spiritual or less real than other forms of yoga. Modern yoga is not stripped of its spirituality. Bikram has advocated for yoga competitions that treat yoga not as a doctrine of spiritual growth but for the purpose of glory and physical valor. There is a lot of emphasis on the physical development of yoga and in this the spirituality can get lost. I do think that modern yoga does retain lots of its soteriological nature. There are many people that take yoga seriously and do it not just to obtain some physical standard of beauty, but to make a connection with the divine and to reach higher and liberated states of consciousness. That being said, yoga in the modern world has been transformed by capitalism to something that is consumed as a system of escape from reality. In the yoga studio, yoga is not a tool used to see the true nature of reality but as a treatment one pays for to escape the stresses and responsibilities of consumer life. While the attention on yoga is all on the physical postures there is lots more to being a yogi than stretching. There is mantra, diet, meditation, pranayama, posture, study of sacred texts, and developing inner strength and perseverance. Eating a yogic diet is just as important as stretching if not more. Swami Sivanada prescribes a vegetarian diet with no onions or garlic. Milk is very good but eggs are not. On the other hand there are yogis in India living on cremation grounds eating dead humans and taking the offerings. There is a stark contrast between Sivananda's yoga and Krishnamacharya's. In the Sivananda system you are learning a more rounded system focus on every part of your life. With the Ashtanga yoga one is more focused on power. You still need to eat a good diet with ashtanga but the philosophy is more on the practice than the lifestyle. Also, the practise is a lot more physically demanding.You can easily get injuries from yoga. Over stretching, exhaustion, and mental instability can occur. You should take days off to heal and know when to stop in a stretch. Mixing systems of yoga can be dangerous and it is best to follow one path. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna explains four types of yoga. Karma, bhakti, jnana, and dhyana. Karma yoga is selfless service. Bhakti is devotion to the gods, jnana is seeing through the illusory world, and dhyana is a silent meditation.yoga is a tool that can be used to become great. It offers methods of purification and health that no other system can match.Bhakti yoga is the safest and surest way to reach god. Invoking the divine through chanting the divine names. Or, just devoting themselves to god.
