Cancer, AIDS, and Other Deep-Seated Illnesses
How can the information in this app help in regards to more deep-seated diseases like cancer and AIDS?
According to The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, $15.6 billion was spent on HIV/AIDS in 2008. The National Cancer Institute’s budget for fiscal year 2009 was $4.97 billion, and private foundations and organizations provide even more funding on top of that. There are many more statistics like these that demonstrate not only a significant financial investment in these diseases, but an emotional investment as well. Every dollar that is spent by these companies, organizations, and government entities isn’t being spent on behalf of illness—it is being spent on behalf of people.
Debilitating illnesses has become a reality for a large and alarmingly growing number of people in the United States and throughout the world. Though the above statistics suggest the staunch commitment being made to cure these diseases, they also suggest the struggles inherent to accomplishing such goals. Modern medicine searches for ways to manage symptoms but not to heal the root cause.
The information in this app has been presented so as to help users manage and even resolve ailments that are typically addressed through Western modalities like pharmaceuticals and surgery, and in many cases, these users will find success; when a body is brought into balance through natural means, it heals itself. Likewise, there are many stories of people who suffered from debilitating illnesses like cancer and AIDS, and managed to control if not outright resolve such conditions.This is entirely within the realm of possibility for you or anyone else in your life who might be afflicted with such issues. However, it is also important to note that effectively shifting one’s lifestyle to address these issues is an ambitious task and is best supervised by experienced medical practitioners both fully trained in Ayurvedic methods and comparably familiar with the benefits and risks of Western medical devices.
This app will therefore serve as a way to provide a general overview of Ayurveda and deep-seated diseases, and provide a few basic tips on how to manage the emotional turbulence due to such issues.
How Does Ayurveda View deep-seated illnesses such as these?
As with any illness, Ayurvedic practitioners look to establish the cause of the condition as the foundation for how to address it. For a disease such as AIDS, one’s susceptibility to the viral infection inherent to the condition is related to a deficiency of what this tradition refers to as “life-sap.” For a disease such as cancer, the tradition considers its incidence to depend on emotional imbalances of the subject that have lead to a tridoshic imbalance of the body.
Regardless of the illness, the manner in which it is addressed in a clinical context varies depending on the patient’s specific needs, their relative strengths and weaknesses(both physically and emotionally) and the progression of the illness itself.
As many factors are taken into account including karma and the possible purpose of a person suffering from a disease, Ayurveda will classify a disease as curable, not curable but manageable, or incurable.
The yogic path is especially practiced as a part of the Ayurvedic lifestyle when the disease is reoccurring or past curing. It is important to minimize suffering and distract oneself by coming to a spiritual practice and understanding what one’s purpose is in life.
How Does Ayurveda Treat such illnesses?
An Ayurvedic regimen for these diseases typically includes some form of cleansing over a lengthy period of time, even for an entire year. This cleansing process will include the use of oils, herbs, and other substances as dictated by various factors such as the patient’s constitution and the time of year the methods are administered. The patient will use food as a form of medicine when they undergo strict dietary therapy,
and they will take various herbs and other remedies to enhance their immune function over time. For the more emotionally significant obstacles inherent to diseases like cancer, various sound, meditation, and other therapies will be recommended to help resolve the maladies of the nervous system.
What sort of practices can be done here and now?
Illnesses such as these are generally related to the deficiency of the immune system, and as such, a response to these conditions is best addressed by the Low Immune Function section of this app. To further enhance a response to a deep-seated illness, the following practices may be pursued:
- Practice calming yoga postures. Practice simple, soothing postures such as hero’s pose, legs-up-the-wall, and corpse pose to help settle down the nervous system and create more stillness in any given moment of the day.
- Practice breathing exercises. The anxiety and stress of a debilitating disease—as with anxiety and stress as a whole—intensifies without proper control of the mind. Practice the full breath, alternate nostril breathing, and other soothing breathing exercises to create more calm in the mind.
- Sound therapy is of particular value for calming the mind and soothing the nervous system in response to the challenges of managing this type of illness. Chant “Om,” “Om Namah Shivaya,” or another mantra either internally or out loud for several minutes at least two or three times a day.
- Sit daily for meditation, as the mind will become still, you will be able to understand why this disease has come into the body. Given how important it is to treat the cause of any disease as a way to heal the issue, meditating brings a person the peace required to be able to bypass the mind’s incomprehension and instead learn from within. Here lies the answer to all of our hearts’ queries, and it is here that we understand how to shed our minds’ fears.
Remember that only the body has been affected by a disease—not the inner life. When we learn that there is life beyond the material body, we also bring peace to the mind.