Ayurveda: Art of Being

This is a wonderful documentary that not only reveals the differences between the western and eastern medicines, but the mentality, spirit and wisdom rooted in ancients sciences versus the modern, instant gratifying, mechanistic paradigm. Being myself a nurse for more than decade with European and North American experiences, this movie helped me to realize, how barbaric the western medical science can be. Both sides are represented in the movie and the explanations and reasonings are accurate and relevant. I'm actually surprised to see some of the practices revealed in such an open and detailed way. Of course, Ayurveda is not a secret science, but I had the feeling that I'm being initiated into something sacred and very precious. This movie is highly recommended for everyone interested in alternative medicines, devotees of the Indian culture and spirituality and for those who are looking for greater Truth in life.

the film much like the alleged cures and treatments in the film is overall on the good side so long as you don't think too hard about any of it. i caught this film the other day while barely coming out of sleep and it's soothing tone was quite nice. but like the medicine in the film, all it does is soothe. When watched through the eyes of the western paradigm of skepticism the medicine in the film is obviously full of holes. The one medicine man in the film seems to have one miracle "cure all" root that he gives out to anybody regardless of what their condition is, and there is never any regard to how well it works, if at all. The tragedy is that if there were any medicinal qualities in any of these techniques and roots and herbs, there's little if any follow up to determine whether they work or not. The movie also makes the quiet assertion that western empirical medicine is a failure, which is quite backwards given the statistics on longevity in India vs The US. Of course all this doesn't say much about the movie which is quite harmless if viewed by a skeptical mind but can be considered dangerous by those easily fooled by the atavistic promises of charlatans. The film does work at getting a good look at how people live and die in the third world and as i said can be a somewhat peaceable film to watch in light of that. One point that i believe was lost in the film but could have been explored is how and why doctors in the west have such fallen status? One revered as healers, the modern doctor is usually regarded with fear more than anything else. IS fear the price we pay for knowledge and practical results??????

I suppose there are an infinite number of coherent structures that pockets of men have invented to explain the world to themselves. All of these will be of deep sophistication. All will be constrained by the hard wiring in the human mind and what we can handle conceptually. Each will be further constrained by locally invented methods of abstraction. When one is viewed from the place of the other, it seems curious inept.

All of these, every one, ties itself to matters of birth, sickness and death, and often with physical features of the body. The amazing thing is that most of them work as functional medicine most of the time. It would be obviously patronizing to judge these here from this writers world. But it is worth noting that the effectiveness of these medical treatments is directly related to how much sense they make to the doctor and patient. And this is helped if there is ancient tradition that can be cited.

One such cosmology is the point of this film, a documentary. The actual matter of the documentary consists of small lectures from a guru about the ineffable wisdom that he possesses and which no one else could without his 50 years training. Ancient references are not to be exposed to the public because of their inability to understand, and yet, with each treatment the explanation bends to be simple, clear, obvious. And after a short while, incredibly tedious.

What's interesting about this is the relationship of the cinematic world to what the film is about. The film is about how the order of the universe, when you have the ability to perceive it, can be used to make individuals right. In essence it is about the practice of understanding cosmic order and the place of entities in that order.

Now, the actual words we hear are insipid to me a great wisdom to someone else, but that hardly matters. What matters is how the film appears. Each shot in another such documentary would be made perhaps with a hand-held camera with the therapy or explanation of the moment a focus. All else would be random: backgrounds, framing, color.

But in this case, every shot is perfection. Really, I really mean this. Every shot has the thing in the foreground that we are supposed to be watching. But every shot also has a composition and background that is so ordered, so composed and balanced, so obviously different than what we would see if we were there watching that it makes the point. The world has order. There are great works of art that make that order obvious. We literally see that at work.

And that practitioners can apply that order to individuals. We see that in a sense as well, because the order of the world Nalin presents contains the treatments we see. It is not the same of course, but we subliminally make the connection. This is wonderful film-making, and a deep understanding of the manufactured cosmos.

There's a curious scene in here. This old guy claims that his power is such that he can eat "raw" mercury and treat himself so that nothing untoward happens. He does apparently eat some. He seems unaware that the camera can catch him palming the poison though.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

I was very impressed by this movie. I thought the narration-free documentary style was charming and allowed us to look through the eyes of patients and practitioners directly. What makes me sad are that some of the reviews don't believe in the power of this medicine and label some of the practitioners "charlatans". Some of the people I know and I have personally been cured of some serious illnesses, including some of those mentioned, by traditional Ayurvedic practitioners. While not all Ayurvedic practitioners are that skilled, there are truly good ones like those shown in the movie who can provide incredible results through this thousands of years old art form as compared with 150 year old Western medicine. That the power of Ayurveda is not well-known may surprise some viewers, who may be skeptical that any of these cures are even possible. They might think that Ayurvedic doctors would be billionaires if it was really true, but the attitude towards the practice may be hard to believe in a capitalistic world. Brahmanand Swamigal summarized it best: "...the Gurus taught us that if science is only followed for money, it is wasted. Wealth earned from medical science is always contaminated as it comes from the suffering of others. Thus, it must be practiced with compassion and humility."

It was pleasure to watch this film. I applaud the makers of this film for bringing out this wealth of knowledge; making people aware of this ancient science. Such simple film-making and yet so impacting.

It is worthwhile to note that many secrets of Ayurveda and Siddha Yoga are a part of traditional family wealth, hence there are not as many practitioners with the profound knowledge as the Swami in the film.

Calling these practitioners as quack or charlatans is like being steeped in ignorance from this ancient art of living. Make a thorough study of how well aware the ancient people were about the body and its mechanisms at the deepest levels...unless that is done, well... everybody has the right to be ignorant and bound in their concepts and post comments as they wish. !! One should understand these true Ayurvedic doctors (in the film) are those who come from a spiritual foundation and hence their knowledge and practice is based on service to humanity and not building mansions out of the returns (which itself is based on donations in most cases). Real masters of Ayurveda are rare and the ignorance of many about it is abundant (especially those feeling their flavor of science is the only right one) but that does not make this beautiful science any less. In fact it is most open to modern medicine (which is precisely noted in the film). CT scan, PET, MRI are wonderful tools in modern medicine as well as its great surgical techniques. Ayurveda is open to blend these with its innate repository of the most profound knowledge of the human levels of existence (which includes the body). Would anyone say modern medicine is as open to embrace any dimension of Ayurveda !?

Remember, Ayurveda is not just medicine ..it is the art of healthy existence... it needs good marketing...for what ?? for the benefit of humanity !