For a full and joyful life, Ayurveda teaches that body, mind, and consciousness must be in balance. We need a body that is fit, emotions that are under control, and a mind free of anxiety and fears.
Our diet, our thoughts, our relationships with others, our emotions, the environment and the atmosphere we live in, and our lifestyle, all of these can influence this balance. Hence, we need to be careful about how we lead our life.
But what determines this “balance” in the first place?
Our bodies are formed from the five basic elements, which are Air, Earth, Ether, Fire, and Water in a “balanced” combination that is unique to each and every one of us. The combination of these elements generates various energies that are then responsible for the optimal functioning of several physiological processes in our body. Our physical, physiological, and psychological makeup is also determined by these elements and energies, ultimately defining our “nature” or our “constitution“.
Thus, when we classify a person as, for example, being “too sensitive”, “violent”, “foodie”, etc, or when we find someone better at handling stress than others, the trait is actually a result of their Constitution.
The Constitution is formed at the time of our conception and is unique to all of us, just as our fingerprints or DNA are. If we do things that are against our nature or our Constitution, it disturbs the balance between the five elements and their energies in our body, and thus affects our body, mind, and consciousness. We then feel diseased.
Our Constitution will, from time to time, deviate from the balanced state for several reasons we briefly discussed above. When this happens, we resort to Ayurveda to diagnose the reason for this deviation and restore the balance by managing our emotions, diet, lifestyle, and environment among other things.
This is a very simple explanation of our Constitution and its balanced state. However, things get more complex when we get into technicalities. This brings up the concepts of Five Basic Elements, Dosha, Energies, and Five Senses which we shall discuss in the blog Discover the hidden truths about yourself!.