Monday 26 January 2009

The Science Of Life

(Speech)
I was deeply troubled by the problem of burping. I went to a doctor. He suggested me not to worry. “There is intake of air and it needs to be released. There are only two ways for that- one is through the mouth.” The other words of the doctor fell deaf into my ear. I had no solution for my problem.

Fellow toastmasters and distinguished guests, a form of complementary and alternative medicine called Ayurveda came to my rescue.

I shall today talk about the important influences in ayurveda, the general principle of ayurveda which states that our body constitutes of vata, pitta and kabha and finally the day to day usability of ayurveda – the science of life.

Ayurveda traces its origins to the Atharvaveda .But the methodical organization and the central concepts evolution happened under the Buddhists philosophers, especially Nagarjuna.The middle path (madhyamika) of the Buddhists led to the Ayurvedic emphasizes on moderation in food intake, sleep, sexual intercourse, and the intake of medicine

Three forces known as the three doshas or simply tridosha regulates every physiological and psychological process in a living organism. A harmonious state of the three doshas creates balance and health; an imbalance, which might be an excess or deficiency manifests as a sign or symptom of disease.

Let’s discuss more on these doshas.
1) Vata -- It is responsible for all movements in the mind and body: the movement of air in and out of the lungs, the flow of blood through the circulatory system, nutrients through the alimentary tract, and thoughts through the mind.

2) Pitta--It carries the meaning of "that which digests" and is associated with the idea of being yellow-tinged or bilious. Charaka Samhita, an ancient Ayurvedic text, teaches that pitta functions in digestion, heat production, providing color to the blood, vision, and skin luster.

3) Kabha-- derives from the Sanskrit word "shlish" which means "that which holds things together.” It governs immunity and resistance against disease.

Restoring these doshas into a balance is the technique of ayurvedic treatment Now, I shall point out certain instances where Ayurveda came to my rescue or where I personally witnessed the fruitfulness of it. I already mentioned the gastritis associated burping which I had. Black pepper, long pepper and ginger were mixed to get ‘trikatu’ which cured my gastric disorder. Four years ago when I was new to Bangalore, I was affected by jaundice. And as you know there is no effective medicine for jaundice in allopathy. The root of shoe-flower plant was grounded and mixed with butter milk. I drank this for 1 week and my bilirubin count subsided considerably. To add one more of the many instances, my mother was affected by chronic back pain for a while. She drank coffee mixed with grounded fenugreek for few months continually and she claimed remarkable improvement. Of course ayurvedic massage is also an option for this.

Hearing stuffs of this sort,people often wonder on the scientific basis of ayurveda.I have heard about my grandmother talk about her grandmother’s uncontrollable cough.She recovered from that when she drank a glass of milk for few days with a teaspoon of turmeric powder mixed in it.But the university of Mississippi Medical centre applied for patent on the use of turmeric for healing in December 1993.And of course the patent was granted.The allopathy division , infact after sometime may discover the presence of some ‘chloro fluro carbo methyl octane’ chemical in all medicinal herbs which attribute to their medicinal value.We need not wait for such a dsicovery. We have proven track record spanning centuries on the effectiveness of Ayurveda.The point is not to approach ayurveda when we require a bypass surgery but there are instances where ayurveda have proved itself like the ones I cited previously.In these cases you can fall back to the the soothing arms of ayurveda to find solace.
Over to you toastmaster.
(Reference: Various texts/scripts on Ayurveda)
(Project 7 of CC)
Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ8CvC4jj64



Wednesday 7 January 2009

Our Approach To Life

(Speech)
Mahatma Gandhi , an iconic figure of the 20th century, is not an example for an Indian but an exceptional Indian . Why ? Fellow Toastmasters and distinguished guests good evening.

The approach to life made him exceptional.What is our approach to life.Lets rewind our life and check out. Remember that afternoon after school when we were waiting for our father to return with a bicycle.Hours seemed like days.Otherwise we never bothered when he used to come.And finally we heard the voice of the rick coming.Eyes widened and the face lit up on seeing the cycle.But ,its a ladies cycle.Our life had always been this , like a donkey chasing a carrot.The faster we approach the faster it moves away.When we went to the ground for playing cricket,before being aware of the situation we dropped the catch and were chased away. “ I will show you” we said to them. I will study and prove myself and prove these people wrong. We study very hard and also help a very foolish friend of ours.When the result came, ya our own foolish friend had score 2 marks more than us. No this whole examination system isn’t fair.He didn’t know anything.On moving to college,we find the love of our life.On the day we decide to propose her we see our best friend eloping with her. No this isn’t life.In the young age itself we realize that life is a like bull but then we are so bold and decide to fight hard with it. And the result - the bull ran over us. Some of us married that bull only. And we will say “ bulbul , get me a coffee”. This is what makes us to say life is like a wife with a knife. At final ages we decide to buy a secluded farm house and enjoy the beauty of life but a sense of loss somehow overcomes us.Even just before the death we will be saying “ This isn’t life”.Why this dissatisfaction? Because we live in the future- palnning about the future, worrying about the future , hoping for the future and when the future comes it doesn’t match our expectation. We have to live in the present— right now right here.

Let us move to our second fundamental issue- lack of owning responsibility.Let me illustrate this in the highlight of the recent terror strike in Mumbai.When kerala CM visited Sandeep Unnikrishnan’s house ;Sandeep’s father said “ I don’t want to see any dogs”.Kerala Cm went back to his state and retorted “ No dog would have gone there but not for Sandeep’s house”.Ironically , all these dialogues happened in Malayalam which is incidentally fighting for the classical language status.Opposition leader urged CM to resign on this dog issue.God’s own country became dog’s country.Everybody is in the blame business.The media lashed out at the politicians.The NSG came out against media in not behaving in a restrained manner.The common man wanted an immediate war with Pakistan.Some people went to the kitchen and drew out their knife ready to be part of the war.Its heard that their wives were really excited to see them in the kitchen atleast for this.Nobody wants to own the responsibility. India is sitting like fat duck before the hunter ; now the duck is lame too.Unless the responsibility is owned by each and everyone, for any situations for that matter,things wont improve.The technique for owning responsibility is to avoid reasoning.For instance if we are late for an occasion let’s give up reasoning like heavy traffic, dog came to bite us,wife burnt all our clothes, etc. Whatever happens in life we should be able to say that it happened in our life because we chose for that.

The solutions offered here belongs to one of the many successful way of approaching life—Ontology – the science of being. Its upto to an individual to decide whether this ontology will help them to actualize their fullest potential. But one thing is sure;we need to attain our fullest potential.Mahatma Gandhi got his revelation when he was thrown out of the train . Bangaloreans – what are you waiting for—for the metro rail to come is it ?
Over to you toastmaster.
(Some of the ideas in the speech are inspired)
(Project 6 of CC)

Watch the speech video at : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo3F_gSaU7c