Chai Pilgrimage

Ayurveda is the ancient science of India that teaches we are all a part of Nature.  As Nature, we are in a living relationship with everything around us.  Each moment, we are being affected by everything in our environment.  By recognizing environmental influences and adjusting our lifestyle accordingly, we can create a healthy balance within our being.

Nature remains in balance through opposites.  Light roots take hold in the heavy Earth.  An active day must be followed by deep sleep.  Ayurveda teaches that there are 20 universal qualities composed of pairs of opposites: heavy-light, dull-sharp, cold-hot, oily-dry, smooth-rough, liquid-dense, soft-hard, stable-active, subtle-gross and clear-cloudy.

As Nature, we are subject to the same universal laws that like qualities increase like and opposite qualities balance. In the midday heat of a summer day, for example, the hot quality of the blazing sun increases our own temperature – like increases like.  If we are frantically running around town doing errands, eating a drive-by burrito in the car will not calm our anxiety like a quiet, sit-down meal at home – opposites balance.

FALL SEASON AND VATA

Fall season, especially in the New Mexico mountains where we live, is the perfect expression of what is called Vata in Ayurveda.  Vata is the energy of movement composed of the air and space elements.  It expresses the qualities dry, light, cold, rough, subtle, active and clear.  These qualities are apparent in the Fall as the temperature start to drop, the earth and air become drier, plants freeze and dry up, the winds blow and animals either migrate or move underground.   Nature begins Her inhalation of life from summer into winter.

These environmental changes can affect our physical and mental bodies.  As the wind blows, we may experience anxiety and disturbed sleep.  Our skin may become as dry and rough as the cracked earth.  We can get cold hands and feet as the cold enters our circulation.  Fall is a time when many Vata aggravations occur such as cracking joints, sciatica, spasms, anxiety, arthritic pain, constipation and insomnia. The current state of our health is usually an accurate indication of how balanced we are with Nature.

WHAT TO DO?

By following Natural law, we can maintain balance within ourselves by applying opposite qualities to those present at this time.  Keeping a regular routine is the best way to stabilize Vata’s constant mobility.  Fall is the time to slow down with warm tea, meditation, gentle yoga, hot baths and plenty of sleep.  It is important to stay warm and protect oneself from the wind.  Like Mother said, dress warm, cover your ears and neck and do not go out in the cold with a wet head.  According to Ayurveda, warm sesame oil is the perfect remedy for Vata.  Self-oil-massage before a hot bath or shower can balance out the dry and cold qualities and shield us from the elements.

Drinking a large amount of warm water upon waking in the morning will re-hydrate the body and get the bowels moving.  Ginger tea is a great beverage choice to stay warm and to keep the blood circulating all the way down to the toes.  Hot milk before bed can help calm the nerves and overcome insomnia.  Incorporating a good dose of healthy oils into the diet helps lubricate dryness from the inside.  Warm, mushy, well-cooked foods will balance the cold, dry, rough qualities of the season.  Lightness in the body and mind can be balanced with eating heavier foods like organic dairy products, grounding root vegetables, nut butters, heavy grains and fresh-harvested winter squash.  To encourage proper digestion and warmth, cook with spices like ginger, garlic, pepper, fennel, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon and salt.

And chai?  Well, the change of season, upcoming holidays and cold winds are likely to take their toll on the nervous system, so cutting down on excessive caffeine intake can help promote calm.  But sitting down and slowly sipping an extra-warming cup of milky, gingery masala chai with some cardamom and cinnamon (and a little less tea) can be the best medicine to keep our internal fires burning warm and bright through the cold seasons.  By practicing awareness of the external influences in our life, we can attune our diet and lifestyle to reflect a balance with the One.

Ayurveda, “ the knowledge of life,” is the ancient healing system from India that illuminates how an understanding of one’s interconnectedness with the natural universe is the key to a life of balance within the body, senses, mind and soul.  It reveals that we exist in a creation of essential energies that are in a constant dance to maintain the balance of the Universe, internal and external.  Everything in the world is seen as interconnected and, therefore, effects and is affected by everything else.

Lesson 1: The Karma of a Cup of Chai

Everything that exists in the universe, you, me, our thoughts, the season, the elements, spices, a cup of chai, absolutely everything, has inherent qualities, called gunas in Sanskrit. These qualities are understood along a spectrum, between pairs of opposites.  Something can be hot or cold, light or heavy, moving or stable, etc.  We can take any substance, look at its qualities, and know the effect it will have on anything else.  For example, fire is hot.  The hot quality of fire has the effect of warming anything it comes into contact with.  The fire, its heat and its ability to warm are inseparable, so we know that when we sit next to a fire, we will warm up.

As far as masala chai goes, with an understanding of the qualities of the substances that we are ingesting, we can know the effect, taste, feeling and healing properties that are present in our cup of chai.  Every”thing” held within the liquid vehicle of our masala chai, the water, spices, tea leaves, milk, sweetener as well as the love, prayers, intentions, and thoughts that are imbued into the chai during preparation, has a specific action, or karma, on anyone who imbibes it.

Lesson 2: Like Increases Like and Opposites Balance

Any substance, even masala chai, can have a healing effect on our being if it brings about balance, or a detrimental effect, if it brings us into imbalance. The scientific law applied is that like increases like and opposites balance.  For example, you are very cold while taking an unheated overnight 2^nd class sleeper train across Northern India in January.  You are suddenly awoken by a train station chai wallah, yelling “chaiiiii, chaiiiii!” and a steaming cup of masala chai is placed into your frozen hands.  You happily drink it up and become comfortably warm.  Opposites balance.  Cold + Hot = Balance.  If you had an iced, unspiced chai (we never saw iced chai in India, but just for the sake of an example) you would have become even colder.  Like increases like.  Cold + Cold = Colder.

This law is universal and applies even outside of India.  When cooking up a batch of chai in the winter, which where we live, is dominated by the quality of coldness, we choose ingredients with a hot quality that will balance the cold quality of the season.  We utilize warming spices like ginger, cardamom, cinnamon and maybe even some very hot spices like black pepper or clove.  If we had a visitor who was hot-headed or had a fiery bodily symptom like a red rash or heartburn, we would make them a masala chai without so much heat.  If you are a person whose constitution is dominated by heat, especially if it is the middle of the hot summer, it would be wise to prepare a cooling masala, using spices like mint, coriander and fennel.

In this way, we can consider how much tea to use, if at all, depending on whether we are serving a person who is tired or anxious.  The amount and type of milk can be determined by whether the drinker has congestion, is overweight or has digestive issues.  Asking questions like: “What will the weather be like today?  Who is coming over?  How buzzed do I want to be?” will help determine the formulation you choose as you brew up your chai.

Lesson 3: A Strong Agni (digestive fire) is Essential for Health

Another factor to consider is digestive strength. In Ayurveda, our digestive capacity is likened to a fire in our stomach.  It is called our Agni, or fire of transformation.  Promoting a strong digestive fire is essential for good health, because when food is digested properly we are able to assimilate all of the nutrition and Prana, or life-force, present in the food.  The qualities of our digestive fire are hot and light.  If we apply the above lessons, we know that eating light, warming foods will help keep our fire burning while eating cold, heavy foods will put out our fire and hinder digestion.  Milk is a food with cold and heavy qualities.  Ayurvedically speaking, drinking a large, cold glass of milk out of the fridge will extinguish our fire, making it difficult to digest and potentially causing indigestion and mucus formation.  What to do?  Make masala chai, of course!  Milk can be made into a balanced, digestible food by heating it up, watering it down to make it lighter and infusing it with warming chai spices.  Yummmm.