John Ahmed Herlihy
(Author of Near
and Distant Horizons)
(Published with permission of the author)
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In The Miracle of Ayurveda, John Ahmed Herlihy connects body, mind
and spirit on the common ground of health and well-being. From beginning
to end, with all of our senses, he brings us into this experience where
the ancient meets the modern, where we are reminded of the unchanging
sacredness of life. With warmth and humor, Herlihy is the voice of a
Westerner in a foreign land, an "alien" among other patients
at the anachronistic Ayurvedic center with its timeless ambiance. The
underlying theme of this traditional, ancient, sacred healing method as
being still relevant today is especially poignant. A very good travel
piece.
Excerpt
We may not live in an age of miracles, but that
does not preclude their still occurring. Perhaps what we have lost is
not the prevalence of miracles in our lives with the power to increase
our faith and heighten our perception of reality; what we have lost is
our ability to recognize and appreciate the significance of a miracle
whenever we encounter the truly miraculous in today’s world.
This kind of miracle does not signal the abrupt overturning of the
natural order and the arrival of the supernatural within the natural to
reveal an ultimate truth that no one could otherwise deny. God knows we
witness miracles everyday in the coming of the dawn, the descent of
night and the stream of life that flows in between; and yet we never
stop our frantic pace to answer their sacred summons with a moment of
introspective silence to the mystery of the natural order and the holy
enchantment that surrounds us.
The miracle of Ayurveda in our title represents a miraculous
functioning of the natural order rather than some kind of overturning of
nature and refers to a ‘science-of-life’ philosophy of health and
well-being in India that dates back over 5,000 years...
