Last weekend I sat down to watch a film called "Ayurveda: art of being". It's about an ancient Indian art of living and healing (Westerners only know about it's healing part). I was blown away.

For an hour and a half, you are introduced to a cast practitioners and patients of Ayurveda, the methods and natural ingredients in use and the incredible knowledge about our physiology and mind, and how it all lives in balance with our natural surroundings. And how modern medicine is playing catch-up with all this that was known thousands of years ago.

The Ayurveda practitioners in the documentary learned their skills through oral traditions. One was a 14th generation Ayurvedic practitioner... some of the parchments he was showing the cameraman could easily belong in a museum somewhere! It was also humbling to see one village doctor who does not even charge anything for treating his patients... and there was a queue of at least 200 people outside his 'clinic'! It was sad to hear that to this guy, his biggest threat is deforestation, which destroys the source of the medicine he uses to treat his patients.

It's just amazing to see the holistic view of Ayurveda, going right to the core of the problem and fixing the root of what is causing the illness. The healing part is just one aspect... the practice is all about living harmoniously with our surrounding. If there is too much or too little of something in our body, then we become sick, and there is always something from nature we can use to redress that balance.

It just hit home for me how the pills we are asked to swallow and the so called practice of modern medicine is designed to treat symptoms and not causes, and or course, to make drug companies rich. Do you know that Ayurveda can only be legally practiced in two countries, India and Sri Lanka, and it is illegal everywhere else?

I wonder why...