Holistic Medicine: Eko Aham Bahutama by Dr. Scott Gerson
Long before she was married, my sister once received this sage advice from my mother.
“Its important for a woman to find a man who
Is romantic and loves you unconditionally
Is emotionally and financially stable
Is kind and in touch with Spirit
Makes you laugh
Values family and is great with kids”
“And”, she added, ”it’s important that none of these five men know each other.”
Fortunately for her, my sister found a wonderful man with all of these qualities complete in one person. Holistic medicine, and Āyurvedic Medicine in particular, has as its ultimate goal the complete and comprehensive healing of the individual and society through re-establishing balance at every level of existence. In contrast, the practice of conventional medicine reduces the human being to individual parts and often treats those parts in isolation from the whole person.
Conventional medicine is also inextricably tied in with the whole “medico-pharmaceutical-industrial complex” whose first priority is to make a profit. As horrible as this sounds, it’s absolutely true. I’m sorry to say that it’s true about even your own physician if he or she works in any sort of group or is affiliated with any HMO, which nowadays all are. Although your doctor may outwardly seem as if his/her first priority is “heal the patient” and “do no harm” (from the Hippocratic Oath which all physicians swear to uphold), most never really consider this solemn oath of proper priorities after graduation day. That first medical school loan bill arrives six months after the graduation party. Even with a physician’s best intentions, they find it increasingly difficult to have the patient as the first priority while operating within the medical system with its rules of how to practice medicine, order tests, prescribe medicines, aggressive pharmaceutical sales representatives pushing drugs, fear of malpractice suits, time restrictions and pressures, plus the endless paperwork to satisfy insurance companies and decision-making bureaucrats.
A physician truly practicing holistic medicine has no such pressures. We belong to no HMO nor are we under the scrutiny of insurance company bureaucrats. Āyurvedic physicians are taught and observe personal spiritual practices as part of their training and have a deeply ingrained ethical code as an inherent part of their lives. We are 100% committed to cure and prevent disease, extend lives, improve quality of all aspects of life, enhance physical and emotional well-being, and promote human evolution to its fullest potential. And we do this at a fraction of the cost of conventional medicine.
So why aren’t more people utilizing Āyurveda or holistic medicine in general? Well there are several reasons.
First, its really difficult to find a well-qualified, experienced, dedicated, and truly holistic physician. Many physicians promote themselves as “holistic” when in truth they are practicing some version of the same old reductionist medicine. Many just replace the antibiotics and steroids with a boat load of supplements and IV drips. Others prescribe herbal medicines in the same symptom-based paradigm and are entirely ignorant of the energetic properties of plants. Guided meditation apps do not even remotely provide the benefits of traditional meditation. Its difficult to find authentic holistic healthcare and nearly impossible in the United States to find a fully-qualified Āyurvedic physician..
Second, while sometimes immediately effective, often the therapeutic benefits of systems-based holistic medicine interventions may appear only after longer treatment periods. Human beings are complex psycho-spiritual-biological systems that require coordinated, time-dependent interactions between diverse functional components for optimum function. Changing these patterns and interactions requires time. People are often not sufficiently far-sighted and patient.
Finally, holistic medicine has a much broader scope than most people understand. I’m not even referring to the all-important spiritual aspects of human health. Let’s just consider a much more mundane issue which insidiously assaults our well-being and longevity on a constant basis—our individual and environmental toxicity.
Much of what we find ourselves surrounded by and exposed to on a daily basis has been linked to chronic disease, premature aging, cancer, and even mental illness. Everything from pesticides, preservatives and additives, GMOs, cosmetic products, certain commonly consumed “foods,” smoking, UV radiation penetrating the ozone layer, nuclear wastes, and much more. The effect of this toxic load on our health and well-being is never really emphasized, yet it’s vital. Perhaps we just assume that doing other healthy things will make the problem go away. Many people think about these personal and environmental toxicity issues for fifteen minutes and then, given the enormity of the problem, focus on something more scalable. Maybe I’ll go to Yoga today or join an organic CSA. And those are no doubt important first steps. Nevertheless, these lifelong and ubiquitous toxicities effect each and every one of us at the level of our DNA and very likely also our offspring and future generations via epigenetic mechanisms. The Gerson Institute of Āyurvedic Medicine is doing what it can to change that through its holistic Āyurvedic daily lifestyle principles and programs of Panchakarma detoxification therapies. I’m humbled to say that based on the feedback from patients in the more than 30 years we’ve been guiding people, we’ve been very successful. We bow to the Supreme Self where credit is due. Āyurveda expands the concept of detoxification to include multiple levels of a multidimensional matrix, including energetic, molecular, cellular, organ, emotional, intellectual, family, community, societal, and environmental. I know of no other medical system that offers this comprehensive vision of what health really includes. And I know my mother would agree.