Ayurvedic Solutions: Inspirations

Baba Hari Dass, Yoga Master and Revered Teacher. I met my spiritual guru, Baba Hari Dass, in 1976 in Santa Cruz, Ca., He also was my first teacher of Ayurveda. Born to a priestly family in the Almora district of Uttar Pradesh in the Himalayan foothills, Babaji exhibited from his early childhood a deep desire to know God. He was initiated in 1942 into the Vairagi Vaishnava monastic order by his guru, Sant Raghubar Dass Maharaj, a renunciate and Sanskrit scholar. As a young monk living in the same region where many of the Nath saints are buried, he learned not only the Bhakti and Karma yoga traditions of the Ramayana and the Bhagavad-gita, but also the authentic traditions of Hatha Yoga, whose practices are rooted in an Ayurvedic understanding of the physical body and Tantric understanding of the subtle body. He meditated for eight years while living alone in a cave, and has practiced continual silence since 1952. Babaji came to North America in 1971, and his teachings have inspired several Yoga centers on this continent as well as Sri Ram Ashram, a home for orphaned children, and a school and clinic near Haridwar in North India. He is best known for his commentaries on the Samkhya Karika, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and the Bhagavadgita. (www.sriramfoundation.org)

Inspirations: Dedicated to all of my teachers of Yoga and Ayurveda (as well as my teachers of Biology and Anthropology), not just those who are mentioned here, and to all of the great ones of the past who have taught and preserved our traditions: In the presence of a sage who is established in universal love, a spiritually dead person comes alive,and a spiritually blind person starts seeing. Guru is one who is higher in knowledge and capable of transmitting that knowledge by words, action, or just being. But the real guru is the pure consciousness that dwells in the heart of everyone. The archer, whose concentration gets fixed on the target, hits the target. One who only looks at the bow and arrow fails. Similarly, one who gets fixed on the teachings of the guru achieves the aim, but not the one who simply follows the physical guru. Baba Hari Dass, The path to Enlightenment is not a Highway. ~Baba Hari Dass

Baba Hari Dass	Baba Hari Dass, Yoga Master and Revered Teacher. I met my spiritual guru, Baba Hari Dass, in 1976 in Santa Cruz, Ca., He also was my first teacher of Ayurveda. Born to a priestly family in the Almora district of Uttar Pradesh in the Himalayan foothills, Babaji exhibited from his early childhood a deep desire to know God. He was initiated in 1942 into the Vairagi Vaishnava monastic order by his guru, Sant Raghubar Dass Maharaj, a renunciate and Sanskrit scholar. As a young monk living in the same region where many of the Nath saints are buried, he learned not only the Bhakti and Karma yoga traditions of the Ramayana and the Bhagavad-gita, but also the authentic traditions of Hatha Yoga, whose practices are rooted in an Ayurvedic understanding of the physical body and Tantric understanding of the subtle body. He meditated for eight years while living alone in a cave, and has practiced continual silence since 1952. Babaji came to North America in 1971, and his teachings have inspired several Yoga centers on this continent as well as Sri Ram Ashram, a home for orphaned children, and a school and clinic near Haridwar in North India. He is best known for his commentaries on the Samkhya Karika, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, and the Bhagavadgita. (www.sriramfoundation.org)
Quotes: To serve others with no selfish motive is sacrifice. To give what others need with no strings attached is charity. To live a disciplined life is austerity. Sacrifice, charity, and austerity together in action is called Karma Yoga. (The Path to Enlightment is not a Highway) The future is unknown. Whenever we walk towards the unknown, we carry a lamp. In worldly-minded people that lamp is the ego, and in spiritually-minded people, the lamp is divine presence. Keep the lamp lit, walk on step by step. You can’t go astray, but will merge in the Light. ( Letters for Life) -Baba Hari Dass

Dr R. P. Trivedi	Dr. Raghuvir Prasad Trivedi, Professor and Ayurvedic Acharya is my Ayurvedic guru. I met him in 1983 when Baba Hari Dass learned that Trivediji was retiring from his faculty position at Benares Hindu University and invited him to Mount Madonna Center in the US to teach Ayuveda. Dr. Trivedi was born in 1918 in Purdil Nagar, U.P., India, in a family which had produced seven generations of Ayurvedic physicians. From the time of his graduation from Ayurvedic Medical School until his death in 1994, his life was devoted to Ayurveda. He served as an educator of Ayurvedic Medicine at several universities, held a faculty research position at BHU, was responsible for several important discoveries and a number of formulations, authored four books and numerous articles, served as Secretary General of the World Federation of Ayurveda, and won several important awards for his work, including the title of “Pranacharya.” He was a champion of social justice. Trivediji was a brilliant clinician, whose patients, after his “retirement” would still drive hours to his house to see him After I had studied with him for some time, he startled me one day by informing me that now I must teach Ayurveda, carry out pancha karma, and practice Ayurvedic medicine. Because of him, I am in practice today.

Mother Karunamayi	Sri Karunamayi was born in south India to parents who were disciples of two of the most revered Indian spiritual teachers of their time: Sri Rama Krishna and Sri Ramana Maharshi (who predicted that his disciple, the mother of Karunamayi would give birth to a daughter who was an embodiment of the Divine Mother). As a young woman, Karunamayi spent twelve years in solitary meditation in the forests near her home. I met her ten years ago when she first visited Boulder, Co. She visits Colorado each year as part of her world tour. She teaches a universal message of peace and divine love, encourages daily meditation and chanting of Vedic prayers, and gives individual blessings for healing of body, mind, and spirit. She founded a charitable hospital in south India and has recently initiated a housing project for a community of farmers who were rendered homeless and impoverished when their fertile farmland was destroyed by the construction of a dam. (www.karunamayi.org)
"Children, I have hope for our world. If we change our lifestyle and learn to live in harmony with nature, if we live in dharma and meditate like the holy sages of Rig Vedic times, there will be no more commotion in our world. Divine light, peace, and eternal joy are all within us, not in the external world." (The Nectar of Jnana)

Swami Veda Bharati	Swami Veda Bharati, Yogi, writer, and revered teacher, was raised in a family of Sanskrit-speaking scholars in India, and began teaching others while still a child. He received his Ph.D, at the University of London, is a former professor of Sanskrit and Indian religions at the University of Minnesota, speaks seventeen languages, and has written an excellent commentary on Books I and II of the Yoga sutras. A disciple of Swami Rama, he now directs the Meditation Center in Minneapolis, Sadhana Mandir in Rishikesh, and the Himalayan Medical Complex near Dehradun. More than any one else I know, he has inspired me by his deep commitment to the ideal of one human family. (www.swamivedabharati.com)
He wrote the following blessing for my work: Dear Saraswati Buhrman, May you heal all who come your way, effortlessly, like the moon who fills all herbs with sap. May the plants, roots, stems, barks, twigs, leaves, blossoms, that you touch, become live enough to regenerate those who dwindle. May the blessings of the Sages who founded the science of life- span ever and attend upon those whom you heal. May even pebbles so common, become healing herbs in your hands. ~Blessings, Swami Veda Bhara

	Early Christian Writings: As a child born into a family with Methodist ministers on both sides of the family, the teachings of Jesus, that we should love God with our whole being, treat our neighbors as we ourselves would like to be treated, feed the hungry, and heal the sick, made a deep and lasting impression on me. I particularly find inspiration from reading the gospels of Mark, Luke, and Thomas, as well as the writings of the Apostle Paul. In addition to the better known gospels of the New Testament, I offer the following quotes from the Coptic gospel of Thomas, which will be of interest to students of Yoga philosophy: Jesus said: "If they say to you, 'Where have you come from?" say to them, "We have come from the light, from the place where the light came into being by itself, established itself, and appeared in their image." If they say to you, "is it you?" say "We are its children, and we are the chosen of the living Father." If they ask you, "What is the evidence of your Father in you?," say to them, "It is motion and rest." Jesus said: “If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the (Father’s) imperial rule is in the sky,’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather the ( Father’s) Imperial rule is inside you and outside you. When you know yourselves you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are that poverty.” The Complete Gospels, Robert Miller, ed.
The Rg Veda Is the oldest of the four Vedas, the most sacred texts of ancient India. The following quotes are excerpted from the hymn to herbs found in the tenth mandala of the Rg Veda (with contemporary translation by Debroy and Debroy, pp. 97-101). The tenth mandala is considered to have been written quite a bit later than the other sections of the Rg Veda. This is an important passage which shows developed knowledge of many medicinal plants, the existence of physicians, the idea of disease going into different tissues of the body, the use of plants to treat diseases of animals as well as humans, and the Ayurvedic practice of combining more than one herb together to make a medicine. Many are the forms that herbs take. They are full of juices. The gods themselves give birth to herbs in the three different periods of time. …. Oh, herbs! You are like our mothers. You are to be found in a thousand places. You have a thousand saplings. Many are the acts you are capable of performing. May you cure us of all ailments. Oh, herbs, may you thrive and have flowers. May you look upon patients with favor. The diseases are like enemies, may you invade them like horses attacking foes. You free us from illnesses. You deliver us from disease…. Like kings coming together to do battle, various herbs come together and mingle. The physician is a learned person. He is well-versed in the treatment of diseases and ailments… Oh, herbs! The disease has entered the limbs and bones of the patient. May the herbs enter his body and purge all disease…. The juice of one herb is mixed with that of a second. The juice of the second is mixed with that of a third. May all the herbs of the world be united in listening to my prayers. May I be protected. There are herbs that have fruit, and there are those that do not. There are herbs that have flowers, and there are those that do not. All these herbs were created by Brihaspati. May all herbs free us from illness….. The herbs are to be found on earth and Soma is their chief. Brihaspati created the herbs so that they may cure patients. Oh Herbs! The one who digs you out of the ground, may he not be destroyed. I dig you out from the ground for the sake of the patient. May the patient not be destroyed. May all bipeds and quadrupeds be free of disease. May our sons and our animals be free from disease. The herbs that are far away will listen to these prayers. The plants that are near will also listen to these prayers. All the herbs will combine to make the diseased body healthy again. … Debroy, Bibek, and Dupavali Debroy, 1994, the Holy Vedas, BR Publishing Corp. The Katha Upanishad Both the individual self and the Universal Self have entered into the cave of the heart, the abode of the Most High, but the knowers of Brahman and the householders who perform the fire sacrifices see a difference between [those two] as between sunshine and shadow. The Self, whose symbol is Om, is the omniscient Lord. He is not born. He does not die. He is neither cause nor effect. The Ancient One is unborn, eternal, imperishable; though the body be destroyed, he is not killed. If the slayer thinks that he slays, if the slain thinks that he is slain, neither of them knows the truth. The Self slays not, nor is he slain. Smaller than the smallest, greater than the greatest, this Self forever dwells within the hearts of all. When a man is free from desire, his mind and senses purified, he beholds the glory of the Self and is without sorrow. The Self is not known through study of the scriptures, nor through subtlety of the intellect, nor through much learning. But by him who longs for him is he known. By learning a man cannot know him if { he does not desist from evil, if he does not control the senses, if he does not quiet his mind, if he does not practice meditation.} Excerpts from The Upanishads, Breath of the Eternal, Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester, trans. Top of Page