If you gift a pen to each person around, what would be their response? Some may feel happy, some overjoyed and yet some may refuse considering they don’t know you enough. Some may be impressed, some may reciprocate but for most, it is the heart to give which will touch, more than the gift by itself.
The above hypothetical consideration highlights that human nature as well as actions have multiple aspects. There is an objective side as well as a subjective side to it. The pen which is meant for all defined purposes, to only write becomes an inadvertent carrier of emotion and a ‘sensitized’ factor in human relationship. Likewise, a medicine or herb administered in a human has effects beyond just the physical body depending on who administers and who (as a subjective person) receives it. The herb, like the pen, itself gains a personality of its own because it acts in the interstices between human networks. Thus for a good outcome, it is essential to know not just the object (herb) and objective factors (like temperature, weight, symptoms etc.) but also the subject (the patient) and subjective factors (like human values, willpower, emotions etc.).
Knowledge of the herbs and the human anatomy come under the objective part of Ayurveda and maps to Vidya as a technical science. The part that makes knowledge complete is the knowledge of the subjective side and here, using microscopes or telescopes will not help. One needs spiritual insights and intuition and this knowledge comes from spiritual practices culminating in self-realization. This knowledge that ‘manifests’ is the Vidya, the divine goddess. Administering herbs and medicines without the subject knowledge is unlikely to be effective enough. While most may not be self-realized, they can refer the documentation provided by those who were self-realized and infer in the best possible ways until they themselves may attain the same ‘light of divine wisdom’.
Objective knowledge is like a sound wave, which is dependent on a medium for propagation with a limited range in effect. Subjective knowledge is like a light wave, which doesn’t need any medium and can travel millions of kilometers without need for a medium and unlike the objective knowledge, its potency to ‘give life’ is much more sustainable.
Therefore Vidya, as a divine living being is the wisdom one needs in addition to Vidya, as technical and observation based compendium of scientific knowledge. Ayur veda is nothing but Ayur Vidya which integrates both the objective levels and subjective levels (which are inseparable in living beings) for diagnosis as well as treatment.
Self-realization bestows the divine wisdom of the goddess, on how the subjective universe operates but it won’t give technical knowledge. One has to still go through established literature, study and gain practical experience. Adi Sankara, who was an epitome of knowledge, had to himself study all scriptures for the technical part ingrained in them in order to debate, and write his commentaries.
By L.N. Venkataraman
Prakriti 