A tale of two books ..

Sorry, couldn’t come up with a better title . This is just a not-so-brief note on two books i read in the last few weeks:

(1) ‘Ayurveda and the mind’ by David Frawley : There is a very interesting philosophical difference between how Ayurveda views health matters, and how western medicine views health matters. I feel that Ayurvedic science is “holistic” and “qualitative”, whereas, western medicine is “reductionist” and “quantitative”. Let me explain what i mean. In western medicine we find great reductive analysis .. down to the elements. It is highly “data” oriented. The emphasis is on precision and measurement. Blood pressure, heart rate, precise anatomy of body parts, chemical compositions, molecular structures, ion balances etc etc. The body is studied fully as a complex bio-electro-chemical machine. In Ayurveda however, things are much more qualitative and abstract (and it is understandable why .. because material science was not advanced in those days, people had to rely on observation, intuition and synthesis). The Ayurveda vocabulary will sound abstract to a modern science trained person. There is talk of “panchabhutas” (five basic elements .. ether, air, fire, water, earth) and “dosha” that a person has a natural inclination towards — vata, pitta, kapha or some combination of these. The “dosha” (“biological humor” as Frawley calls it) to which you belong, is determined by looking at various characteristics from body weight to skin texture to sleeping habits to pulse movement to quality of nails to your psychological profile. Once your characteristic is determined, keeping in good health becomes a matter of adopting a life style which “balances out” that particular “dosha”. Adopting foods, exercise types, climatic conditions, cleansing therapies, and even massage oils which suit your body type. For example, my natural characteristic is of “vata” type, and so i need to adopt a life style which takes care of that. I was surprised to find that many of my likes and dislikes simply reflected those of vata types. For example, i love tropical, humid weather, and hate cold, dry weather. Voila ! Tropical humid weather is exactly prescribed in Ayurveda to “calm” the vata ! Now i know why i’ve instinctively chosen to live in a beach town with humid weather. Another interesting point — vata people have too much “air”/”ether” element dominating in them (among panchabhutas). To calm the vata, we need “water”/”earth” element to ground us. Is this another reason why just sitting at a beach calms me ? Even my psychological profile (overactive mind, quickly changing interests etc) reflected those of vata type. The ideal exercise mentioned for vata types, is calming exercises such as Yoga and Tai chi. On the other side of the spectrum, a person in whom “water”/”earth” element is dominating (kapha type), the ideal balancing weather is given to be airy mountain region, and ideal exercise mentioned is activating aerobic exercises such as jogging. It is really fascinating to look at one’s health from panchabhuta point of view and see how balancing the elements improves ones wellbeing.

Anyway, coming back to the point, even though Ayurveda looks a little abstract when looked at from purely reductionist point of view, i feel it has a good contribution to make as a complementary to western medicine. Ayurveda takes a long term and more broader view of health including life style and mental health, and focuses more on prevention. Western medicine, i feel, is great for quick fix targeted solutions. So, when you have a broken bone or blocked artery, better run to a western doctor . But if time is on your side and would like to explore alternative health systems, i would recommend Ayurveda.

(2) ‘The Evolution of higher consciousness’ by Gopi Krishna : This book’s content falls under the general category of ‘yoga philosophy’, but the discussion is fairly advanced and esoteric. It is well known that Yoga philosophy is about the evolution of human consciousness .. but the main thrust of Gopi Krishna’s work is that this evolutionary process is accompanied by physiological / biological changes, predominantly in cerebro-spinal system. He suggests that the evolutionary energy is present in a dormant state in all human beings, and whose awakening marks an important phase in the evolutionary process. Gopi Krishna also suggests that sacred Hindu symbols (Lord Vishnu sleeping on serpent Ananta sesha, or the Dance of Lord Nataraja etc) are representative of this evolutionary process, and discusses the meaning behind the symbols in great detail. All in all, a very potent book, but should not be taken up as an introductory work.

Blue gold

Did you know that March 22nd is world water day ? Recently, i got a chance to visit my alma mater (Gitam, where i got my bachelors engineering degree), to attend a conference on water related issues. The agenda is mostly technical in nature — water treatment and sanitation technologies, industrial waste treatment, water quality case studies, rain water harvesting, etc etc. Although i wasn’t very interested in specific technical solutions, it was an opportunity to study our general philosophy in solving a problem which fits into the broader theme of sustainability. Thankfully, the speakers were from a wide ranging background — students to academics to NGO’s to civil servants to industry. All in all, a satisfying day of learning for me (and worth the 300 rupees i shelled down ).

Just a few tidbits:

- One of the speakers was T.Shivaji rao, a veteran academician and environmentalist. In all his wisdom, he chose to focus on the broader sustainability theme, and on the spiritual aspects of the issue rather than on the technical. He spoke of “plants and all life endowed with universal energy”, “natural resources as embodiments of divine” and asserted that one needs an “awakened mind and a sensitive heart” to understand the deeper issues underlying environmental problems. Like five blind men touching different parts of an elephant, we will not get to the heart of the issue as long as we don’t taken an integrated philosophical approach.

(Source Gutenberg)

- Prakasam Tata, of NGO Bharathi Theertha, spoke passionately about importance of water to civilizations, and our duty to protect it. The energy that he displayed at young age of 72 is amazing. He’s a native of neighboring vizianagaram, and settled in Illinois, USA., but continues to work on water related issues in his native place.

- Phyto technologies: Using plants and micro organisms to remove toxic metals and industrial chemicals, or to treat saline water for irrigation purposes. From what i understood, some plants just naturally absorb certain chemicals, or salts. So you just plant them at appropriate locations to get the desired effect. This was interesting “green” technology from plant sciences field. Related quotes from my notes: “plants absorbing arsenic”. “Genetic engineering of rice to withstand brackish water”.

- A study was presented on amount of fluoride in ground water in coastal areas of vizag city (my neighborhood). I got a chance to catch the presenter during tea break and ask him if fluoride in water is natural or from industrial effluence. Its natural, he said (atleast in vizag) . water catches fluoride as it travels through the rocks to settle at the water table. ( For what its worth, I drink boiled municipal tap water).

- Another study to measure Iodine in ground water in vizag city. Iodine content in some areas is more than (WHO ?) recommended and less in some areas. One of the discussion points was, why then iodized salt recommended to everyone ?. People should consume iodized salt depending on their ground water iodine content.

- Rep from Byrraju foundation talked about water purification plants they setup in tens of villages. You can read more about their process here.

- Ram Koderu (from Illinois, USA.., representing some NGO) talked about sustainable development in general. One of his ideas was that if people in India are afraid to complain about dumping of toxics in waters, for fear of retribution, we should setup webcams to monitor waters and outsource the monitoring effort to USA. So, a person sits in Tuscon, Arizona and monitors water pollution in India. I initially thought he was joking, but then i realized he was serious !!! Sigh … over engineering.

- An idea presented towards decreasing pesticide pollution in water, is to need lesser usage of pesticides by “enhancing immune systems of plants” so that plants resist pathogens through “systemic acquired resistance”. From the paper abstract: “It has been observed that the legume seeds and rice seedlings treated with salicylic acid not only showed higher root and shoot growth but also resistance to several bacterial and fungal pathogens. The strategy has great potential in inducing disease resistance in plants and can be integrated into IPM (Integrated Pest Management ?) programmes minimizing the use of pesticides thereby reducing water pollution”.

- “Think global. Act local”. We all heard this. Exnora international is further zeroing in on the starting point. “Do domestically”. Exnora founder M.B.Nirmal gave a looong presentation about their activities starting with home solutions. What you do with solid waste .. both organic and inorganic. What you do with water waste. rain water. growing garden on terrace ! lots of good practical stuff for home and community.

- The guy from local Vizag steel plant gave a presentation on how the plant is meeting its water requirements, treating waste water etc. I did not know making steel required so much water. Vizag steel plant itself gets water from Yeleru river, a tributary of Godavari, from some 150 km away.

- Nice quote i picked up from one of the presentations: “The trees are Gods great alphabet. With them He writes in shining green. Across the world His thoughts serene” — Leonora Speyer

- Biodegradation of plastics and polythene’s from Mangrove soil. Apparently, mangrove soils are rich in bacteria and fungi which are capable of degrading plastics. Scalable solution ?

- I got a chance to talk to a few people. Over lunch, had a chat with an engineering student from Vellore, who is interested in energy issues. We discussed about wind energy pros and cons. He wants to work as a generic “energy consultant” , and insulate himself from specific technologies, as they are still evolving. He plans to be on the services side just deploying whatever technology is successful in the market. In the city bus on the way back home, i caught up with an engineer who works in a private power generation company. We talked about cap-and-trade mechanism and the need to set the bar at the right level for this solution to work.