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Your inborn metabolic pattern is called “prakruti”. Prakruti also means nature, she who is the first creation. Your prakruti is your first “creation”, your first reaction when you are forced to adapt to some change in your environment. Your constitution is that set of metabolic tendencies which determine how your body and mind will instinctively react when they are confronted by a stimulus. Many of the traits you prize or dislike in your personality arise from and are dependent on these metabolic tendencies.
Knowing your constitution allows you to know your body and mind better. You learn why there is no need to feel guilty for your dietary preference or for your mental traits like anger or fear. Once you understand that these traits are determined by your constitution, lifestyle changes can help your organism minimize their influence.
Your personal constitution is determined by the state of the bodies of your mother and father at the time conception. That certain sperm which could best endure the conditions prevalent in those two bodies won the race to reach the ovum, and its genes mingled with the genes in the ovum to form the new child. Your constitution is influenced by your parents genetics, by your mother’s diet and habits during her pregnancy and by any abnormal events at the time of your birth. Once your personal constitution and its accompanying tendencies have been set they cannot be permanently altered. Like your genes, you have your constitution for the rest of your life ,like it or not.
You can, however, learn to adjust for your constitution so that you are less affected by its distortions. You can learn how to prevent health imbalance and how to best treat them when they arise. You can know the prognosis of any disease you might contract,and you can determine which rejuvenation program will be best for you. Through study and children , relatives, friends , neighbours and co-workers do the things they do and determine how best to interact with them for maximum interpersonal harmony. You can plan meals for your family according to what is best for each of their prakruti.
Ayurveda is a very common-sense sort of medical system. It uses very simple , easy-to-understand principles to determine individuals prakruti. These principles are based in the theory of the three doshas and therefore your prakruti is expressed in terms of vata, pitta and kapha. Vata type people actually are more airy and ethereal than are other people. Their bodies tend to produce more intestinal gas and their minds tend to be more “spacey”. Even the crackling noise their joints make is said by some authorities to be due to the displacement of bubbles of nitrogen in those joints. Pitta-type people literally have more fire in them than do other types. They have better appetites and better digestion can withstand cold better and are more hot-headed. Kapha people tend to have heavier , earthier bodies than do other types and tend to store watery substances like fluids and fat more readily than do others. Ayurveda looks at individuals through the lenses of vata, pitta and kapha.
Your constitution also influences your emotions. For example if you have a constitutional tendency to vata increase you will be anxious and fearful by nature. You will naturally crave sweet, sour and salty which reduce vata and thus assuage fear. However if you over eat sweet , sour, salty trying to feel better and better you will increase kapha which can obstruct the free movement of vata and produce disease. To be healthy vata people should eat mainly sweet, sour and salty foods in amounts small enough to be easily digested.
People who are mainly kapha constitutionally sometimes use sweet, sour and salty to further entrench themselves in their set ways, when they should be using the bitter, pungent and astringent tastes to shake up and awaken themselves. It is not possible to stay alive bitter, pungent and astringent alone but these tastes should form a significant portion of the diet.
People who have pitta type constitution are naturally aggressive and impatient . Sweet , bitter and astringent are the best tastes to combat this innate tendency and promote balance. Unfortunately pitta type people frequently choose sour, salty and pungent food, which makes them even more aggressive , impatient and ruthless and revs them up for greater and greater achievement which is a hallmark of he pitta personality. Such food tends to overheat their bodies and minds, however and leads to imbalance.
Your constitution affects your emotion and the tastes you carve, via your genes. Scientists have already located a gene which produces depression when activated and they are sure to find other genes which produce the other emotions which flesh is heir to. Each emotion may be controlled by one single gene, but since all mental states have a physical basis there must be a gene or genes which produce a protein which interacts with a hormone which produces the emotion and vice versa your emotions can trigger certain of your genes to work and others to remain dormant thus affecting your hormones and your metabolic balance.
If your parents and grandparents were easily angered, there is a strong likelihood that they will pass down to you a gene or a set of genes that will make you prone to anger easily. If they were fearful, they will probably pass a fear gene or genes down to you and you will be dogged by fear all your life. Each of us lives in an emotional ocean spawned from these genes.
These genes are activated and deactivated by the tastes we ingest, but they themselves never change they always lie in wait for an opportunity to display themselves. As long as your genes exist , your tendency to certain emotions will stay with you. Untill you can change your genes you will have to rely on knowing your own personal constitution if you hope to bring yourself into balance. Understanding your prakruti gives you insight into why you do the things you do and can give you clues on how to improve yourself.
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