Medicine, Ayurveda And The Western Medical Mind

Eastern And Western Medicine in Action

First of all western medicine and thinking tend to generalise and categorise conditions and illnesses individuality. For example, in the Western concept of normality, an illness or disease found in the majority of people then dictates the norm. Ayurveda holds that normalcy requires individual evaluation, as every human constitution certainly demonstrates its own particular and natural temperament and functioning.

The Difference between Eastern And Western Thinking

In the East, the core of understanding is acceptance, observation and experience. In the West, it is questioning, analysis and rational concluding. The Western mind, generally, trusts objectivity, while the Eastern mind focuses more on subjectivity.

Eastern Philosophy To Medicine

Eastern science guides one to go beyond the division between subjectivity and objectivity. This difference in approach may explain why some Westerners experience trouble in understanding Ayurveda’s methods. Many statements made during an introduction to Ayurveda’s medicine often get the questions, “How?” and “Why?”

In truth, both Western and Eastern medicine pose these questions, though inevitable, are not invariably answerable.

Even in modern Western medicine, some concepts have proven to “work”‘ without the reasons behind the actions fully understood. For example, the use of antibiotics to inhibit bacteria which form toxic matter in the body. To date, there is no adequate information to state how and why the bacteria forms the toxins.

Holistic Eastern Science and Conventional Western Academia 

Furthermore, Ayurveda is an Eastern holistic science, one in which the sum of many elements comprises its Truth. Hence question details before acquiring a strong overview of the whole science will prove unsatisfactory and unproductive.

As such it would do well to accept statements that may at first appear to lack an adequate explanation until one has begun to master the body of Ayurveda as a whole.

The purpose of Ayurveda is the obtainment human happiness, health and creative growth. By studying the teachings of Ayurveda, its practical knowledge of self-healing can become accessible to anyone.
By the proper balance of all energies in the body, the processes of physical deterioration and disease can be reduced without medicine. This concept is basic to Ayurvedic science: the capability of an individual for self-healing.