Self-Esteem, Immunity, and the Ayurvedic View of Serious Illness

They are irregular and robust and have an isolated, selfish sense of self which is in conflict with the life of normal, healthy cells. When cancer occurs, it’s as if a war is going on between the cancerous cells and the healthy cells. If the healthy cells are strong enough in self-esteem, they can conquer and kill the cancer cells. But if we do not have enough self-esteem and self-respect, then the cancer cells will win and will conquer the healthy cells.

Thus self-esteem is important for maintaining immunity. If you love yourself as you are, you will develop confidence, and that will heal disease. That is why cellular immunity, or natural resistance, depends upon self-esteem. Chapter 5 Ayurvedic Lifestyle: The Ultimate Preventive Medicine H ow you live your daily life is the key factor in determining your health and your quality of experience.

It is also the factor over which you have the most control. You can’t control the weather or your genetic makeup, but what you do every day either builds up your health, vitality, and resistance to disease, or wears you down. Your moment-to- moment choices—what to eat, how much to eat, how to respond to others, whether to exercise or not, how late to stay up at night, and so on—play a major role in your mental and physical health. But how do you create your lifestyle, the rhythms of your daily living?

Is it just pure habit, based on how your parents lived and how you grew up? Should the time you wake up be dictated by when you need to get to work, and should what you eat be determined by what’s available at the fast-food shops? If you decide to take control of your lifestyle and structure new, healthier habits, what principles will guide you? According to Ayurveda, you couldn’t do better than to strive to live your life in harmony with Mother Nature.

In Tune with Nature Ayurveda flourished in a civilization vastly different from life today, a world in which human life was intimately intertwined with the life of nature. The great rhythms and forces of nature—the alternation of day and night, the rhythmic cycle of seasons—all affect us, as do the inevitable seasons and cycles of human life, birth and growth, aging and death. Through the plants we eat for food, the water we drink, and the air we breathe in common with all beings, we are inextricably one with nature. The sages of settled mind who unfolded the wisdom of Ayurveda saw this, and they saw that the master key to good health is to get ourselves into harmony with nature.