Holistic Health, Ayurveda and Edgar Cayce

Medicine Buddha statue

Holistic health

Holistic health care views physical and mental and spiritual aspects of life as closely interconnected. And there are other influences to take care of too - including those of the environment. The environment had better be adequate too. If not, one may suffer from it, or get deranged in the long run. Toxic water, air to choke on, pollutions and so on illustrate the point: It is much harder to maintain one's health in a bad environment. As for the human milieu, good company and compatible partners mean a lot to the health fare too.

Self-help and family help is often possible, at least in minor and not life-threathening issues. And a person's health is not always a clear-cut, individual affair. For all that, skilled efforts to improve or consolidate one's own health and that of one's nearest ones may be doable, but outreach does not have to end there. Holistic, alternative treatment systems are available, like Maharishi's Ayurveda. It aims at good balancing and development.

A holistic approach that takes into consideration all aspects of mind and body together can be successful in handling health. - Maharishi

Ayurveda aims at balancing the organism well, adjusting the mind-body relationship for health and with practical techniques to enliven sound responses in mind and body. It includes mind, body, behavior and environment, and takes into account that prevention is better than attempts at cures in vain.

Maharishi's Ayurveda contains:

• Transcendental Meditation to help mind and body.

• Yoga postures to secure a balance between parts of the body and mind, depending on the postures and their programs. Maharishi's yoga postures are a fine selection of simple and much helpful postures for beginners and also more advanced practitioners.

• A certain pulse diagnosis - as in acupuncture - to get an impression of underlying imbalances and balances of the body-and-mind.

• Herbal formulas rooted in ancient texts, to promote and restore mental and physical balance.

• Quite individualised dietary knowhow to adjust the mind body system, aiming for good health, and if not good health, then better health. And if not better health, at least not getting worse . . . and so on. The point is: Getting well is not always feasible, and health may be gained by degrees. It depends on the victim of ill-health, abuse, toxic environment, bad company, and so on.

• Daily and seasonal routine to align the individual with the cycles of nature. The Waldorf Education movement holds on to similar ideas of nature-alignment. One should add enough cultural alignment to these.

• A form of organic agriculture. The Steiner/Waldorf movement has biodynamic agriculture and gardening, by comparison.

• Maharishi Vastu Architecture, MVA, also called Maharishi Sthapatya Veda - a balanced set of architectural and planning principles based on ancient texts on Vastu architecture, for getting "Fortune-Creating" buildings and homes, by rules of orienting and/or forming the buildings and parts of buildings, and also taking into account the slope and shape of the lot, exposure to the rising sun, location of nearby bodies of water and other buildings or activities in the nearby environment. So one's physical environment may be improved by good gardening and good building principles. Vastu architecture has some likeness to Feng Shui, or the other way round. — Further, MVA emphasises the use of natural or "green" building materials. Several communities around the world have been developed using MVA principles. (WP, "Vastu shastra"; "Maharishi Vastu Architecture").

• Effects of the distant environment (sun, moon, planets) on physiological cycles and health.

  The source and more good advice: ◦Maharishi University of Management: About Maharishi Ayurveda]

The concept of holistic health is often associated with alternative medicine, but is also increasingly used in mainstream medical practice. The American Holistic Health Association was established in 1989.

Holistic health care involves approaches to how treatment should be applied. It reckons with physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. The goal is a wellness that encompasses the entire person. At times Holistic health approaches contrast the medical model that focuses on treating symptoms and syndromes without attempting to address many deeper or allied issues in a case. The Holistic approach focuses better on likely causes of health problems, and try some balanced lifestyle to go against them, after taking "the whole person" into consideration to one's ability and so on.

Holistic nurses play a significant role in moving Holistic Health into the mainstream for responsible health care.

Edgar Cayce: Background information

As a child the Kentucky-born Edgar Cayce accidentally found, during a gruelling spelling session with his father, that he could absorb or learn a subject by sleeping on the book.

According to one of his sons, the late Hugh Lynn Cayce, Edgar Cayce came into this life to introduce psychic ability to the age, to function under self-induced deep sleep (trance) conditions. Edgar's Grandfather Cayce had been a dowser.

Many people attributed his psychic ability to being hit with a baseball in the spine when he was fifteen years old. After the accident, he could not control himself, but talked loudly and threw things. When his father came home, he put his son to bed, and he drifted off into a coma. In that stte he told his parents that a poultice mixed with special herbs and chopped raw onions must be placed at the base of his brain if he was ever to be normal again.

As an adult he consulted a hypnotist and as a result of that consultation Edgar Cayce went on to tell people about illnesses and cures aimed at them while he himself was in a self-induced state of unconsciousness. His ability could be put to use to help other people; just a little nap would accomplish the task.

Now Edgar's psychic ability really surface until he reached adulthood. And as the scope of Edgar's psychic ability expanded, topics like meditation, dreams, reincarnation, and prophecy were included in his deep sleep reading.

Cayce's legacy of more than 14,000 readings continues to be researched. The Cayce readings are notes transcribed while Edgar Cayce was in a self-induced trance. They were conducted over a span of forty years. He was assisted by his wife, Gertrude, and his secretary, Gladys Davis Turner.

Great health concepts

In his deep sleep Cayce found that the causes of disease and the sources of health extend beyond the physical to the mental and spiritual aspects of the self.

Cayce said that each human being embodies a spirit or soul, a part of the Source. He also taught that the soul is as integral a part of our physical stay as the material organs of the body, and that mind comes into being for the purpose of manifesting the soul of the individual entity [the monad]. That entity is part of the divine Universal Field. The trinity of mind, body, and spirit are aspects of the individual entity.

Mental attitudes, emotions, injustice, severe experiences, and karma ["giving-back", related to cause and effect] affect the individual entity. Effects of earthly experiences, of thoughts, emotions, and actions, carry over from one lifetime to another. Along with karma go many congenital defects, but not all of them.

It matters deeply to get attuned inwards, to one's Source and other Universal Forces. It should result in soul growth too. Cayce taught of creative building through the powers of the mind.

Cayce on bodily ailments

Almost every one of Cayce's nine thousand physical readings includes dietary advice. Also, he discouraged becoming an "extremist" or "a slave to a set diet".

He spoke for good use and care of the body. It allows for cells to reproduce themselves and lets the body system construct new cells and tissues. To keep a proper biochemical acid-alkaline balance was a blessing too, he taught. But an improper diet brings about shortages in the body of minerals, vitamins, and other needed nutrients, and could impede the functions of the excretory system.

What the body needs are nutrients in forms that are mainly complete, are easily digested and assimilated, aid efficient elimination, maintain systemic balance, and provide materials for cellular rebuilding. Cayce especially praised fresh fruits and vegetables, while he included candy and cake among those "things that hinder the body". There are differences among candies and cakes, however; some are not very unhealthy, if at all. It depends on what is in them and how they are made.

Still, poor elimination of accumulated toxins or waste materials is the most cited cause of disease in the Cayce readings. The body is cleansed via the intestinal tract, the kidneys and bladder, the pores of the skin, and the lungs. When an imbalance occurs in any of these systems

Cayce also held that over taxation of the body is a primary or contributing cause in several mental and physical disorders. Generally, physical over taxation implies overwork, while overexertion, or mental over taxation, results in sluggish or impeded circulation.

To counteract the "killer", stress, enough sleep and opportunities to relax help. Our emotions, attitude, beliefs, and responses to life's situations - all play a part. Also in a common cold, among the factors that makes one more susceptible to it, are often poor diet in combination with strain and overexertion, said Cayce.

When the stress is of mental origin, emotions such as worry, anxiety set in. This is quite common knowledge today, but Cayce readings into such topics were about half a century ahead of it.

Cayce Psychosomatics

Cayce's readings define physical health as harmonious, balanced cooperation between the constituents of the body, and emphasize the need for harmony between the three aspects of self (body, mind, and spirit) in order to create and preserve health and to alleviate disease.

Cayce readings describe emotions as communicators between mind, body, and spirit. Glands secrete according to impulses from the emotional and nervous system. Anger, resentments, contention, hate, self-condemnation, animosity, and related nervous tensions in turn deplete bodily energies, block eliminations and generally create a condition which predisposes the system to disease. So attitudes and emotions involve nerves and glands, he tells. Stress research confirms it very well, for example that fright and stress affect the adrenal glands. To add some more to it, much later psychosomatic medicine confirms that stress taxes vitamins of the vitamin B-group, vitamin C, and certain minerals. In sum, medical doctors today estimate that at least half of all common diseases are related to emotional stress. [Hi 505, etc]

In Cayce's readings, negative emotions can lead to extreme fatigue, tense muscles, and problems with the digestive and excretory processes. Anger may bring on headaches or indigestion; depression could result in general weariness; and emotional turbulence may trigger asthmatic conditions.

One cannot be jealous and allow anger of same and not have upset digestion or heart disorder. Stomach or liver trouble may be related to hating one's fellow men - or maybe being largely envious will do for stomach trouble. (Reading 4021-1)

Cayce Treatments

According to Cayce, a therapy designed to balance and bring into attunement the functioning body, the mind and the spiritual reality, spells health.

As a step toward health, one should locate the root cause(s) of each malady, habits and attitudes. It is also fit to go for the beauties of the world, including beautiful art, sceneries, and inward beauties.

Balance at many levels is vital to good health, and in some circumstances patience and service are good too. "What we cannot cure, we must endure (Proverb)."

Cayce's treatments were prescribed specifically for individuals with one or more disorders. The treatments were individually tailored. Statistical evidence of how effective his prescribed treatments are, is largely missing. Just as there are "different strokes for different folks", there may be different cures or medicines for what is seemingly the same disease too. Nuanced diagnosis tells how it is so.

What is possible to do in ascertaining Cayce's general advice and its long-range value somewhat, is to group his counsels for similar diseases and let patterns of advice stand out. That is just what Reba Ann Karp does in Edgar Cayce Encyclopedia of Healing. Thousands of Cayce readings go into her grouping work. Cayce readings go into and address the diseases listed in the work. Just how effective the different prescribed treatments might be in any one case, is impossible for me to tell, since cases differ, just as Cayce's treatments. Here is an example:

Aphonia, loss of voice

Aphonia is the loss of voice due to disease or injury to the throat or vocal cords. Sixteen people received a total of twenty-one readings on this subject. The first of these was Edgar Cayce himself.

Addressing causes - one or several of them. The readings went into what Cayce said were the most frequent causes of aphonia. It shows up that he taught that different causes blend, including psychological ones: Repression of fears and anxieties might manifest in the loss of voice, or other forms of psychic imbalance

Treatments. Going for good nerve coordination was emphasized: Spinal manipulations, were recommended in over sixty percent of the cases. Ridding the body of accumulated toxins and sticking to a healthy diet or natural medicinal compounds were recommended in over forty percent of the cases, and the value of restoring a healthy enough acid-alkaline balance in the body came up too. Foods like fruits, vegetables, and seafood were recommended, while sweets and starches were to be avoided. A fourth of the readings suggested body massage as a means of stimulating the circulation and promoting relaxation.

Confirmations of the efficacy are largely missing. Good reports were received from three individuals. The other thirteen given readings on aphonia did not report on the results or on whether the treatments were ever carried out. Here lies the problem of ascertaining whether the treatments Cayce prescribed, actually worked, and for how long. Statistical evidence of the efficacy may be missing in the vast majority of cases.

An illustration: Cayce's aphonia

Cayce's first reading on aphonia took place when he was thirty-three. At that time a hypnotised Cayce described a condition of nervous stress that had resulted in his inability to speak.

Stress along with overtaxation was again responsible for the loss of his voice when he was forty-seven. The reading this time suggested that he maintain good circulation and eliminations and use positive suggestions to effect a cure.

Four years later, his reading recommended osteopathic manipulations every other day.

Cayce was fifty-five when he did last reading for himself on aphonia. This time he attributed the loss of voice to poor eliminations and toxemia. Suggested were strict adherence to a well-balanced alkaline diet etc.

Cayce followed his own recommendations, but suffered frequent relapses. In later life, his aphonia seemed to be his body's way of insisting that he needed to rest from the readings he gave, says Reba Ann Karp. That could very well be. [Karp 33-35]

What we can learn from Edgar Cayce, if we can

Two things stand out from the Cayce way of life: It is wise to sleep on problems and relax enough.

There are some others who sleep on problems and wake up with a solution, or see clearer. I think it is a common way of dealing with serious problems, in fact. The method is advocated in many quarters, and there are good and sound reasons for it, taking into account that seeing things well depends on information, perhaps by fusing topics we are dealing with consciously, with information stored on deeper levels of mind.

Carl Jung posited that the subconscious is ten or twelve times wiser than the perhaps narrow conscious, and the unconscious is a hundred times wiser than it. Such figures may be taken as poetic suggestions, but not as hard facts. Still, we could do well to get attuned inwards to deeper levels of mind and wake up with solutions to problems - and meditate delicately, and learn dream interpretation to "tap" other mind levels than the conscious, everyday mind. Jung teaches the art of dream interpretation, he too, much as Cayce.

More on dreaming: [Link]

Cayce Readings

Cayce exercising often includes rotating the trunk and limbs, and also stretching.

Evening exercises for the blood flow away from head, and of mornings with the upper portion of body. Swinging, circular motion then of lower portion of body in evenings . . . the circular motion of hands and upper portion of body of mornings [etc]. - Edgar Cayce Reading 288-11

Exercise of the body brings strength and resistance. Exercise of mental activity brings resistances, growth and expansion. - Edgar Cayce Reading 1206-13

Osteopathy is real work if done properly. - Edgar Cayce Reading 102-3

Q. Does gold in the mouth help to cause bitterness?

(Cayce:) It does! No teeth should ever be filled with heavy metals, (such) as gold. - Edgar Cayce Reading 325-55

Q. How can the body relax?

(Cayce:) This is a mental as well as a physical process.

Concentration upon relaxation is the greater or better manner for any body to relax. That is, SEE the body relaxing, CONSCIOUSLY! - Edgar Cayce Reading 404-6

Q. Should one use a deodorant under the arms to stop perspiration?

(Cayce:) The best to use - the safest - is soap and water! 404-8

Q. What are all the things I am allergic to?

(Cayce:) It would be a list from here to Egypt... especially dust. - Edgar Cayce Reading 3556-1

Q. What can I do for varicose veins, low blood pressure, fallen arches?

(Cayce:) ... No better exercises may be taken than the stretching exercise . . . [and] the cat-stretching exercises. - Edgar Cayce Reading 681-2

Rise on the toes slowly and raise the arms easily at the same time directly above the head, pointing straight up. At the same time bend (the) head back [somewhat]. . . [and then] let down gently from this [Etc.]. - Edgar Cayce Reading 470-37

Stretch the body as a cat would stretch. This is the best exercise to keep body in proportion. - Edgar Cayce Reading 5271-1

There is the healing of the physical, there is the healing of the mental, there is the correct direction from the spirit. Coordinate these. - Edgar Cayce Reading 2528-2

Vibrations from the Radio-Active Appliance properly given will make for rest that is both helpful and body, blood and nerve-building. - Edgar Cayce Reading 1278-7