Why Knowing Your PDE Is the First Step in Starting Your Ayurveda Practice

Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Janesh Vaidya, author of the new Boost Your Immune Power with Ayurveda.

When most people first come in contact with Ayurveda, they will be taking self-tests online or through Ayurvedic books to start following the guidelines from our ancient health science. But there is a risk in taking these general tests and then following the Ayurveda recommendations according to the incomplete results of the self tests in search of health.

According to traditional Ayurveda, it is recommended to know the prakruti (birth-dominating elements) and vikruti (imbalanced elements) to systematically work on your wellness. This means that, while you should know your birth qualities to work on your inborn talents for your lifetime, you should also be aware of your elements’ timely imbalances in different seasons and ages of your life to maintain your body-mind systems in a healthy state.

When you enter into the world of Ayurveda, prior to confirming your birth dominating elements, it is important to check if there is an imbalance in any of the elements in your system, which could otherwise manipulate the prakruti test results and give a wrong image about your birth qualities. That’s why it is essential to do a vikruti test first, and correct the imbalances (if any) in your system before checking your birth-dominant elements and start working on your birth qualities.

Let me define the factors that directly and indirectly influence our body-mind system during our life time. According to Ayurveda, our body cells are constituted by five elements: Earth, water, fire, ether, and air. And the combination of these five elements form the three forces: Kapha (earth and water), Pitta (fire and water) and Vata (air and ether). From our birth until our death, our body and mind functions are regulated by these forces, and with the influence of different factors the domination of these forces over our internal organs can vary, altering the functions of our body and mind systems.

Basically, there are four factors that naturally affect our body and control our health. The first factor is the birth-dominating force, generated by the elements dominating in a human body at the time of conception of that life in the mother’s womb. This force determines the core characteristics of a person’s inner nature (physical and mental qualities).

Apart from the internal factor of the birth-dominating elements, there are three other factors that influence our health and immunity from time to time: age, season, and time of day, all of which you can learn more about in my latest book, Boost Your Immune Power with Ayurveda.

If you forget to take care of your birth-dominating elements with the right lifestyle and food for your physical body and the right mind food (thoughts) and exercise for your mental body, then while you are passing through different seasons of life, your elements can become imbalanced and lead to primary symptoms such as low immunity and, in the long run, diseases in the mind-body system.

As indicated above, it is important to remember that the imbalances in the body and mind often will conceal your core qualities, and hence give a faulty result from an Ayurveda test constructed to find your birth-dominant elements. Because of this, I have incorporated two self-tests in Boost Your Immune Power with Ayurveda instead of one, to find your Presently Dominating Elements, your PDE. The first is the vikruti test, which will help you to find out if there is an imbalance in your system, and if any, you can find the recommendations to follow and correct them accordingly with the help of my book.

Once you are free from the imbalances in your system, you can take the second test in the book to find your birth-dominating elements by observing your deeply rooted qualities. That means that if you don’t have any signals, symptoms, or diseases in your body and mind, you can identify your birth-dominating elements and their actions through the dominating force in your system, which is your core, or basic, nature. In this state of balance, your birth-dominating elements form the primary force of your life and apply their unique characteristics to your body and mind. By properly practicing Ayurveda, not only can you prevent future diseases but also take advantage of the qualities of your primary force to live a satisfying and successful life.

Our thanks to Janesh for his guest post! For more from Janesh Vaidya, read his article, “Boost Your Immune Power with Ayurveda.”