Ayurveda
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Stone’s method encompasses the Ayurvedic blend of yogic principles, specifically Hatha Yoga exercises, and diet. The main aspects of Ayurveda, an ancient Indian health system mostly based on diet and positive attitude, refer to three gunas. They are sattva, rajas and tamas. “Sattva is the illumined balanced clear reality, actually the primordial essence of clear mind, as juxtaposed to rajas, the mind filled with activity or tamas, heavy clouded mind.” (Prashanti de Jager, L.A. Yoga January-February, 2004 p.44.) We can also use the Taoist model of Yin and Yang, Yin, the feminine aspect, corresponds with tamas and Yang, the male aspect, corresponds with rajas, to describe the gunas.
The three Gunas are also the basic principles of touch for the practitioner. Sattva is at the neutral pole. It represents “stillness.” Sattvic energy is in the center, a very still place where the ultrasonic core and essence connects to Source. This is a calming and balancing touch, firm or soft. Often, the therapist waits for a subtle shift in the hands. Sattvic holds a sacred space, such as the sacred space of the head in the cradling of the neck pose. This is a very trusting pose to be in for both client and therapist and possibly trance inducing. Awareness sits in the center of the brain among subtle bones and it is critical to open spaciousness here. Eighty percent of this somatic work is in the connection or reconnection between the body and head because this is where things get jammed up and contracts the whole nervous system. Rajas is a warm, positive yang “action.” Rajasic touch relates to food, touch, and the environment. This is an expansion, flow and movement that may coax a certain energy with stimulating and rhythmic touch, through felt sense, such as in the belly rock pose. Sounding may be integrated here. Third, is Tamas, the negative, cold yin for “completion.” Tamasic touch moves and disperses versus only being held as in sattvic poses. This may be more painful to break up crystallization patterns, such as in the feet, by drawing an imaginary line down the center of the foot bottom Contractive energy that is deep and penetrating feels denser at this negative pole where the pull of gravity is felt especially in the feet due to a lack of flow.