Absolute Beauty Radiant Skin and Inner Harmony Through the Ancient Secrets of Ayurveda.pdf

1、DEDICATIONTO MY DEAR HUSBAND,VENKATESH,who has been there for me for the last thirty-two yearsand has given me a stable,pleasant home,andunconditional loveCONTENTSDEDICATIONACKNOWLEDGMENTSINTRODUCTIONPART I.BEAUTY AND AYURVEDA1.WHAT IS BEAUTY?2.BALANCE:THE PATH TO HEALTH AND BEAUTY3.IMBALANCE:SKIN D

2、ISEASE,AGING,AND THE MIND-BODYCONNECTIONPART II.AYURVEDIC SKIN CARE4.FOOD FOR THE SKIN5.CLEANSE,NOURISH,AND MOISTURIZE:THE EXTERNAL SKINCARE ROUTINEPART III.BODY PURIFICATION:BALANCING THROUGH THESENSESDEHA SHUDHI6.AN INTRODUCTION TO INTERNAL SKIN CARE7.NUTRITIONAL THERAPY8.MASSAGE THERAPY9.AROMA TH

3、ERAPY10.COLOR THERAPY11.SOUND THERAPYPART IV.BEYOND THE SENSES TO THE SOUL:BREATH,MIND,AND SOUL PURIFICATIONPRANA,MANAS,AND ATMA SHUDHI12.BREATHING THERAPY13.AYURVEDIC MEDITATION14.SOUL PURIFICATION AND THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTIONAPPENDIXADHATUS AND THE SKINAPPENDIXBMAKING AND STORING HERBAL PREPARATIO

4、NSAPPENDIXCABSOLUTE BEAUTY RESOURCE GUIDEAPPENDIXDMEDICINAL HERBS AND FOODSAPPENDIXEESSENTIAL OILSAPPENDIXFSADHANASAPPENDIXGDAILY ROUTINE TO BALANCE DOSHASAPPENDIXHPHYSICAL EFFECTS OF THE SIX TASTESAPPENDIXIDIETARY SUGGESTIONSAPPENDIXJSENSE THERAPIES AT A GLANCEAPPENDIXKTHE DOSHAS AT A GLANCEGLOSSAR

5、Y OF SANSKRIT TERMSBIBLIOGRAPHYINDEXABOUT THE AUTHORSCOPYRIGHTABOUT THE PUBLISHERACKNOWLEDGMENTSMy gratitude goes first to Shanta Dandekar,my spiritualmentor,who thirty years ago helped me to know myself andmy purpose clearly;to my first teacher,the late VaidyaRele,and to my present teacher,Dr.Vasan

6、t Lad,whoanswers my calls at any time of day or night withgraciousness and wisdom;and to my beloved parents andfamilymy husband,Venkatesh,and my son,Sandeep,whohave helped me with many details of my work,and my deardaughter,Leena,who did all my typing for this book.I also wish to thank:My agent,Lynn

7、 Franklin,and my friends Deepak Chopra,Bipin Shah,and Anita Raj,who brought Lynn into my life.My friend,Sunita Vase,who helped to find andtranslate rare Sanskrit books for me.The numerous beauty editors who wrote about my work atTej Skin Care Clinic even before most American readers hadheard of Ayur

8、vedaespecially Felicia Milewicz atMademoiselle,who was the very first to break this ground,and who has been an advocate and a friend ever since.My fellow teachers Karen and Blair Lewis,DavidFrawley,and Bri Maya Tiwari,who have helped to expandknowledge of Ayurvedic science in the United States.My ex

9、cellent staff at Tej and my business partner inthe manufacture of my Bindi product line,Ramesh Sarva,for keeping everything going while I worked on this book.Without their devoted efforts and support,I would nothave been able to complete it.All my clients,who have inspired and encouraged me,and have

10、 become my friends through the years.Peternelle van Arsdale and the many people atHarperCollins,who worked so diligently andenthusiastically to produce Absolute Beauty.Barbara Balch,for her elegant book design.And most of all,my co-author,Marian Cohn,for beingmy voice,lending her eloquence and insig

11、ht,and sharingmy deep appreciation for the wisdom of Ayurveda.PRATIMA RAICHURI would like to add my thanks to the following people:Lynn Franklin,without whom I would not have had theopportunity to meet Pratima Raichur or the privilege ofcollaborating with her.Marty and Bea Gross and Nancy Gross Belo

12、k for theirconstant love and support,and for generously giving mespace,both literal and figurative,to write this book.Karen Lucic,friend and scholar,for her invaluable andastute editorial input from first page to last,and forher encouragement from start to finish.Richard LaMarita,friend,writer,and c

13、hef,for sharinghis Ayurvedic knowledge with me whenever I asked,forpitching in during the final crunch to help with Chapter11,and for making me some delicious Ayurvedic meals.Doug Winblad,friend and philosopher,for his researchassistance and his uncannily lucid explanations of themost abstruse philo

14、sophical ideas.Mark Hardesty and my sister,Regine Urbach,whoprovided essential computer support and who rushed to myaid,technical and personal,in numerous emergencies.Doug Beube,Lenore French,and Joanne Rhinehart forcheering me on.Susan Peerless,sister-in-spirit and“first reader,”who patiently coach

15、ed mebody,mind,and soulthroughthe long months of work and helped me keep the text ontrack with keen pointers on every draft.She eagerly triedout Pratimas advice as quickly as I could write it down,and kept me inspired by her own enthusiasm for itsresults.Her unconditional support throughout was the

16、mostextraordinary act of friendship.Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,who gave me not only theprofound knowledge and experience of consciousness,butalso the precious skill to teach it to others.And my wonderful parents,Sidney and Marlene Cohn,whogave me a love of words as well as the opportunity andencouragemen

17、t to develop my abilities.In giving me lifeand love,they have given me all the important things.MARIAN COHNINTRODUCTIONIn India,where I was born in 1939,physicians have knownthe secrets to flawless skin and ageless beauty for sixthousand years.Those secrets,which you will learn inthis book,are conta

18、ined in one of the worlds oldestsystems of health care and healing,named Ayurveda,whichmeans knowledge of life or longevity.My informal introduction to this ancient science cameduring my childhood at home,where everyone in my extendedfamily lived in accord with Ayurvedic traditions.Ourmeals were pre

19、pared in Ayurvedic style to maintainphysical health,and our daily routine included meditationand other practices to balance the mind and spirit.It wasa loving,happy family life,and like a typical child,Iwas unaware that our way of living was different from anyother.However,I did recognize at a young

20、 age that thereseemed to be something special about my mother and hermother:They were striking women whose inner poise andouter radiance never went unnoticed,no matter where wewere.My formal education in Ayurveda began,I confess,somewhat less happily.It was in my early adolescence,under the tutelage

21、 of a famous physician who happened tobe my familys neighbor.At eighty,he had come to needsome assistance with his work,and I became the reluctantrecruit whom he called in to help.Every evening afterschool,I spent a couple of hours in his home,eitherreading to him or helping him to make various pill

22、s andremedies.Not surprisingly,at age thirteen,I was notvery pleased to spend my time with this elderly man or tolearn his strange formulas,but he was a relentlesstaskmaster and insisted that I record everything he saidin notebooks.“Today you dont understand the importanceof what we are doing,”he to

23、ld me,“but one day you willhave a use for all this in your life.”Years later,when I embarked on the career that hasculminated in this book,I remembered the doctors wordsand realized how prescient he was.Those long-forgottennotebooks were filled with Ayurvedic prescriptions for thecare of the skin.By

24、 then,I had a science degree fromBombay University and was married,with an infantdaughter.I began to work as a chemist in England while myhusband completed his medical training,and later Ireturned to India to work at a cancer research hospital.One day,two of my hospital colleagues came into thelabor

25、atory very distraught.Both had acne problems and hadgone the day before to get facials.Their treatments hadleft black patches all over their skin,which looked worsethan the acne,and now they were in tears.To everyonessurprise,including my own,I said to them,“You shouldhave told me before you went fo

26、r the facials.I could haveprepared something to help you.”That night,for the first time in over a decade,Ireread the Ayurvedic recipes I had so dutifullytranscribed as a young girl.Since Ayurveda does notinclude a specific investigation of skin disease,I hadnever thought to apply its principles and

27、techniques tothe problem before this incident.By then,however,I knewa lot about cosmetic chemistry,and with my combinedknowledge of ancient and modern science,I created aspecial mix of herbs and oils,which I delivered to myfriends the next morning.Within days,their complexionscleared up completely.W

28、ord spread,and soon I wasinundated with requests for help from people with problemskin.Each time I prepared a new remedy,everyone couldsee the positive results on the person who used it.Meanwhile,the efficacy of the Ayurvedic preparationsaroused my curiosity as a scientist.I wondered how theseage-ol

29、d formulas worked from a biochemical standpoint.Themore I thought about it,the more questions I had:How dothese preparations activate healing?What causes skinproblems in the first place?And why do some of us havethem while others dont?I decided to pursue my researchwhere I could make the greatest co

30、ntributionby bridgingmy understanding of modern chemical science with myknowledge of the use of herbs and oils according toIndias oldest science.With my baby at home to care foras well,I left my job at the hospital and began to studyAyurveda in earnest.That was twenty-five years ago.Today,I am found

31、ingdirector of the Tej Skin Care Clinic in New York City andthe creator of three lines of Ayurvedic beauty products,including the Bindi,Tej,and Ojas labels,which are soldin health stores and used in spas nationwide.Over theyears,I have continued to develop my skills as anaesthetician,scientist,and r

32、esearcher,testing myfindings both in and out of the laboratory.Sinceemigrating to the United States in 1977,I have expandedmy training to include a certificate in acupuncture and adoctorate in naturopathy.Using my unique system ofAyurvedic products and techniques,I have by now treatedten thousand me

33、n and women with skin problems ranging fromacne,eczema,and psoriasis to the common symptoms ofstress and aging.In many cases,I have cleared upailments that defied years of treatment by topdermatologists.Why do my treatments succeed where other beautyregimens and even modern medicine fail?They work becauseAyurveda provides the key to health and healing thatWestern approaches lack:knowledge of the i