Yvonne Ba­boolal

If all goes well, the T&T pop­u­la­tion may have an al­ter­na­tive sys­tem of med­i­cine, with­out pills and its neg­a­tive side ef­fects. Ayurve­da, an an­cient In­di­an sys­tem of tra­di­tion­al med­i­cine us­ing herbs, mas­sages, yo­ga and na­ture, may soon be avail­able to cit­i­zens if the Gov­ern­ment ac­cepts a re­port on the first ayurve­da con­fer­ence held in T&T re­cent­ly. The in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ence, where ayurve­da ex­perts from all over the world did pre­sen­ta­tions, was held at the am­phithe­atre at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex last Tues­day. It was a joint ef­fort of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, the High Com­mis­sion of In­dia and the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Co­op­er­a­tion. In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Malay Mishra ex­pressed his in­ten­tion to present a re­port on the all-day sem­i­nar to the Gov­ern­ment. "I want to show them how to de­vel­op ayurve­da. Let us in­tro­duce it for the ben­e­fit of the coun­try," Mishra said.

Dr David Fraw­ley, di­rec­tor of the Amer­i­can In­sti­tute of Vedic Stud­ies, de­scribed as a world-renowned ayurve­da schol­ar, said T&T was ready for this al­ter­na­tive sys­tem of med­i­cine be­cause, through the In­di­an pop­u­la­tion, it is part of the coun­try's her­itage. "It's in the blood, the dai­ly prac­tices of the peo­ple in the vil­lages. It is in their med­i­cine, cook­ing, health care and home farms. "There is a fair amount of ayurve­da here though it is not recog­nised by name." Fraw­ley said a trop­i­cal is­land, like T&T, of­fers a great deal by the way of re­ju­ve­na­tion and al­most all the ayurve­da herbs can be grown here. "There is a very great po­ten­tial for ayurve­da here. The wind from the ocean gives a nat­ur­al en­er­gy." Not­ing that ayurve­da heals not on­ly the body and mind but the spir­it, as well, he said, "Ayurve­da has a spir­i­tu­al di­men­sion. It teach­es you to be in har­mo­ny with the en­vi­ron­ment, too. "If the en­vi­ron­ment around is pol­lut­ed and de­ranged, it af­fects you neg­a­tive­ly." Seek­ing to ex­plain the mean­ing of ayurve­da, he added, "It's not just sim­ply an In­di­an sys­tem of med­i­cine.

"There is too much in­for­ma­tion in the world and not enough knowl­edge.

"Ayurve­da is di­rect, ex­pe­ri­en­tial knowl­edge. "We need to bring back our own per­cep­tion of our own lives. "Be­cause we have lost these fac­tors of foun­da­tion, the world is out of touch and con­fused." Fraw­ley said ayurve­da does not on­ly treat dis­ease but the whole per­son. "If you're an­gry, you need to cool down. You need to un­der­stand the en­er­gy and op­er­a­tions of the mind."

Fraw­ley said ex­ter­nal stim­u­lants were a main cause of de­pres­sion. "The more you are caught up in ex­ter­nal stim­u­lants, the more you are like­ly to be de­pressed," he said. He said the same way you need nat­ur­al food for the body, you need nat­ur­al food for the mind. "The whole­some sen­so­ry im­pres­sions of na­ture has a calm­ing ef­fect on the mind. "We need to un­der­stand who we are. If we can take the state of mind back to a state of peace and still­ness..." Fraw­ley stressed that this is not re­ject­ing med­i­cine since med­ical drugs have their place. "But we need to in­te­grate them in­to op­ti­mal well be­ing."

Shelly Ann Ho­sein, a teacher at the Ma­har­ishi Hos­pi­tal­i­ty Cen­tre, speak­ing on well­ness (ayurve­da) and tourism, said T&T's hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try has a high stan­dard and she sees no rea­son why we can't de­vel­op a well­ness sec­tor here. She said an in­creas­ing num­ber of tourists were trav­el­ling for more than just sun, sea and sand, seek­ing rather to im­prove their health.

Ho­sein said the Glob­al Ad­vi­so­ry Ser­vices records a stag­ger­ing growth of the spa sec­tor. "We have a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty in T&T to tap in­to well­ness tourism. We have a large In­di­an pop­u­la­tion steeped in vedic cul­ture."

Dr Jen­nifer Japal-Isaacs, who stud­ied in In­dia and lives in Grena­da, said the In­do-Grena­di­an Her­itage Foun­da­tion was seek­ing to re­vive In­di­an cul­ture on the is­land. A fam­i­ly doc­tor, she said she was more in­ter­est­ed in the pro­mo­tion of well­ness rather than treat­ing the sick. Japal-Isaacs told the con­fer­ence that Grena­da is an un­spoilt land and it is ide­al for the es­tab­lish­ment of an ayurve­da cen­tre.