“The integrative medicine approach has characterized the practice of Ayurveda, India's ancient science of life and health, for over 5,000 years,” said Dr. Ram Harsh Singh. “Ayurveda has always encompassed health and healing in multiple dimensions.” He was speaking at the launch of his new book, “Body-Mind-Spirit: Integrative Medicine in Ayurveda, Yoga and Nature Cure” in Berkeley, CA by Vedika Global, an East Bay non-profit school dedicated to igniting a community healing and wellness movement with classical Ayurveda.

Dr. R. H. Singh is Professor Emeritus and former Dean of Ayurveda at Banaras Hindu University, and was the founding Vice Chancellor of Jodhpur Ayurveda University. He is a key consultant on Ayurveda to the Indian Central  Government's Dept. of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha & Homeopathy). He also teaches Ayurveda in international colleges and is a champion of the revitalization of Ayurveda's inherent holistic character. Dr. R. H. Singh was visiting the Bay Area as a guest Faculty of Ayurveda at the Mount Madonna Institute in Santa Cruz, and at Vedika Global's Gurukula in Emeryville.

Speaking to a gathering of Ayurveda students and health lovers in Berkeley, CA, Dr. Singh said that Ayurveda is all the more relevant in current times because it is safe, holistic, cost-effective, pro-nature, that it highlights the prevention of disease and promotion of health, and that it opens  new paradigms for exploring the health challenges of today.

Elaborating on these points, Dr. Singh said Ayurveda has no negative side effects when practiced knowledgeably. This is because Ayurveda works with nature not against it. Health, he says, is the inherent nature of life, and the body has an innate capacity towards healing itself.  The role of the doctor in Ayurveda is to act as nature's assistant. Therefore Ayurveda uses nutraceuticals that nourish and work with the body, rather than pharmaceuticals that create reactions in the body. Speaking on the same day that members of Congress debated skyrocketing health care costs in the US, Dr. Singh pointed out that Ayurveda has always been a cost-effective system that draws on the immense benefits of appropriate dietary and lifestyle modifications more than relying on its renowned herbal medicines. Ayurveda's science of disease management is sophisticated and highly effective, yet the emphasis is always on its equally sophisticated yet accessible science of prevention.

Dr. Singh applauded the National Institutes for Health for funding research using Ayurveda's “whole system” approach, having recognized that the earlier approach of seeking to extract chemicals from Ayurvedic herbs to create new drugs was largely unsuccessful. A project is being funded by the NIH in Kerala, for example, to research arthritis treatment using not only herbs, but also panchakarma treatments, diet, yoga, meditation, and lifestyle changes.

Dr. Singh was pleased that the World Health Organization's definition of health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being may soon also include spiritual wellbeing, which would converge with the way the sages of Ayurveda described health more than 2 millennium ago. Ayurveda, he said, has always described health as harmonious balance in four dimensions: body, mind, senses and spirit. This is the theme of his new book that was launched in the US by Vedika Global's President Mrs. Hema Patankar amidst thunderous applause.

Shunya Pratichi Mathur, the Founder and Head Teacher of Vedika Global's back to tradition school of Ayurveda where this four-dimensional approach to health is taught and practiced, applauded Dr. Singh for championing the full-spectrum approach to Ayurveda in an era when the emphasis has been to make Ayurveda look like a parallel to Western medicine by highlighting a narrow view of its scope.