Saddavritta-ethical regimen
As mentioned earlier that ayurveda is a life science and not just a therapy system. It aim is to provide better life, good society and better living standards. Ayurveda lay stress on maintaing the healthy life style and maintain the ideal condition so as to avoid the imbalanced created in our body and the external environment thus enable in creating homeostasis in the body. For maintaing the bodies ideal condition one has to follow proper schedule and disciplined lifestyle which not only helps in building better individual but also a good society.
In literal meaning saddvritta means good regimen (sadd means good; vritta means regimen). It is the code of conduct which helps in maintaing perfect balance between mind body and society. It is a all round science for over all balance between whole system in which a human lives and socialize.
Purpose creation of saddvritta was to establish a perfect balance in body and mind for eternal growth of an individual. A healthy mind is as important as a healthy body. As mentioned earlier that there are three mansik bhav (three mind expression) satwik, rajsik and tamasik. Out of these satwik is considered to be superior and that leads to purity and gaining of eternal powers. Rajas and tamas are harmful qualities of mind which generates wrong judgments and misconceptions by the intellect and is responsible for producing diseases. Hence we need certain codes which are gained by practicing saddvritta thus increasing our satwik quality of mind.
· Lakshnam (description)
. Vyavaharika saddvritta (ethical conduct)
· Samajika saddvritta (social conduct)
· Mansik saddvritta (mental conduct)
· Dharmika saddvritta (moral conduct)
· Vaiyaktika saddvritta (physical conduct)
Lakhsnam (Description)
Ayurveda has mentioned certain rules which are very helpful in maintaing a healthy state of body and mind. These codes of conduct can be divided in five categories
1. Ethical or vyavaharika saddvritta
2. Social or samajika saddvritta
3. Mental or mansika saddvritta
4. Moral or dharmika saddvritta
5. Physical or sharirika saddvritta
These are the principle of right conduct that are applicable to all times and places. Practicing these principles gives balance and peace to mind. Violating or ignoring them makes the person agitated in thoughts and feelings.
Vyavaharika saddvritta (ethical conduct)
Always be truthful and speak the truth
· Don not loose your attitude under any circumstances
· Do not get addicted to superficial or external pleasure like sensory one
· Never try to harm any body
· Always speak politely and in respectful words that are pleasant in hearing
· Meditate daily to tranquilize mind for doing sensible deeds
· Try to control your obsession and passion
· Always be patient and calm headed
· Practice self control on every moment of life
· Spread the knowledge you possess to every person
· Always try to help mankind by sharing good advice and money amongst others
· Try to manage time for offering your devotions to God, elderly people, wise men and respectable people
· Don’t be tactful and be strait forward at heart and mind
· Show your kindness to mankind
· Should behave according to situations
· Act always in a courteous and polite manner
· Control your sense organs
· Always think before doing any deed about its goodness and badness
Samajika Saddvritta (Social Conduct)
When it comes to social conduct, one should be very careful about his conduct. To hurt feelings of other will create great disregard to your social life and respect in mind of other people. A feel of hatred will illuminate in the minds of people due to your unpleasant wrong behavior.
Converse (communicate)-
Always be soft and polite when you speak and you should always be clear and to the point while you speak to make it easily understandable to others. Don not comment and criticize others because of jealousy. Always be truthful and never speak a lie. Be very respectful to you gurus (teachers) and elderly people and never indulge in any kind of debate or quarrel with them. If seeking any clearance of doubt or query one should deal it with utter respect and politeness. Never indulge in arguments even if you think that other person is wrong. Never abuse or say wrong things to any one. Never tell anybody about your insult. Don’t move your hand and feet or any other body movement like eyes and eyebrows while you are talking to some one. Don’t be insultive, rude and harsh to people inferior to you
Conduct (behavior): -
Don’t be jealous in others happiness and success. Never be envy to prosperity of others. In contrast, find out the reason for his success and try to adapt it in your life for yourself development. Never excuse your self and your dependents if they commit any mistake and always punish them for there betterment. Always be supporter of poor people and give them enough opportunity in life to progress. Think before performing any deed and its long term effect on your life.
Social mannerism-
Always remain clean and apply perfumes and aromatic substances on your body. Never prick your nose hair in front of any one. Always cover our mouth with a piece of cloth or a handkerchief before coughing, yawning, belching and sneezing. Pricking teeth, biting nails, scratching head, creating sounds during munching and eating are bad habits. Never speak while eating. Don’t spit here and there.
· Never misbehave with females and be always helpful to them. Never look at naked women or in an awkward situation. Always show your respect to them.
· Always take care of your family members and give your love and support to them. Try to fulfill there needs and always be truthful and maintain there faith.
· Never whistle or make instrumental sounds from mouth.
· Never exaggerate recreational thing like dance, music etc
· Avoid addiction to any bad substances like alcohol, drugs, cigarettes etc
· Always be ready for learning different types of knowledge
Mansik saddvritta (Mental Conduct)
Always be self awared about yourself and your intellectual behavior. Always access yourself about your responsibilities and your existence, analyze your eternal side, your mind and soul. Always work for maintaing and gaining the balance in spiritual and materialism. Consider God as the supreme power who is controlling all the activities happening on this planet. Keep faith and devotion to God.
Pay visit to temple or religious centers, shrines and pilgrimages. Regularly read spiritual books and spend time in listening to spiritual talks (pravachan). Perform mediation to analyze own self. Chant mantras and shlokas for generating positive energies in you and your surroundings.
By following these you can maintain a proper balance in your minds working and creating awareness of self existence in you.
Dharmika saddvritta (moral conduct)
As misunderstood by majority of people, dharma has nothing to do with religion. Dharma means performing good deeds which are beneficial for an individual and masses. Dharma is very essential for every one and should be performed by every body according to their strengths and capabilities. One should make it a habit to contribute some part of his time, earnings and energy to society as his duty for upliftment of the society.
Basic desire of any individual breathing on the face of this earth is to attain eternal happiness and only dharma is the key for achieving it. Therefore for achieving this almighty happiness one should perform his social duties and make his surrounding a happy place to live. Do not indulge in bad company which is not acceptable to our society, and the ruler (government) of our land. Always be helpful to others and be happy in there happiness and prosperity. Try maintaining proper balance between happiness and sadness. Always be ready to serve others by preserving your energies, intelligence and gentleness. Always have an attitude of forgiving people for there mistakes and try to guide them for there errors. Never be cruel to any body. Use your powers for betterment of all living creatures. Never miss an opportunity of helping poor and diseased people. By walking on this path one can accomplish stability and personal spiritual enhancement.
Vaiyaktika saddvritta (physical conduct)
Vaiyaktika saddvritta includes personal physical conduct which is too carried out by one self. Following are few conducts
· Hygiene – cut your hairs and nails regularly one must cut his nails every fifth day and hairs ever fortnight. One should clean his nose ears and eyes properly. Take bath and clean your genitals after sexual acts. Avoid looking toward sun by naked eyes. For the health of skin and mental freshness, wearing of different aromatic substances like sandal is beneficial. Also wearing rudraksh and other gems gives the mystic power to fight against diseases.
· Respect and gratitude - one must respect his elders, teachers, father, mother, saints, God, cow, elderly vaidya, king and guest. Never insult them and always respect them.
· Care of sense organs – sense organs have the tendency to remain unsatisfied, although one tries to give maximum pleasure to them. If you try to get sensory pleasure, senses always demand more and more. This give rise to excessive use of sense organs which disturbs the health. (As an example, watching television continuously for long hours and working on computers). Suppressing sense organs forcefully irritates mind. This can cause low or under use of sense organs. In short do not become a slave of sense organs and also do not suppress them forcefully. Always use sense organs moderately and try to control them.
· Clothing (vesh bhusha) –clothes, mainly gives protection from cold or hot environment, breeze , dust, dirt etc. in summers and autumn one should use clean, white and thin clothes. In rainy season one can wear white or yellow clothes. In winters red or yellow clothes and in spring red and dark clothes. In general one should wear, soft and white clothes because, they impart happiness, success, wealth, longitivity and modesty.
· Care and foot wear (danda upanaha dharnam) – its s always advisable to carry a cane with you when you are traveling in village or a lonely place or through jungle for self defense. One should always wear chappals, sandals or shoes to protect feet.
· Turbans and umbrella (atapatra- dharnam) – head is considered as uttamanga i.e. most important organ. This is a site of brain and prana and all the sense organs (indriyas). Hence one should wear a turban, cap or a hat and carry an umbrella, especially in summers and the rainy season to protect the head from environment factors such as heat, wind and rain.
· Avoidance odd airing acts (sahasaya parivarjanam) – to do any act, beyond our limits is called as daring acts. Sometimes it may create life threatening conditions. Your daring might also affect your friends and relatives, for example, if you show your daring in unnecessary way, to drive car speedily. It can cause accident in which not only you but also your accompaniments may also suffer.
Avoid visiting places which may get affected by natural calamities like cyclones, flood, or fire. Do not make a quarrel with a person who is stronger than you. Rash driving and breaking the traffic rules, unnatural competitions always lead to bad consequences.
Vagabhatta has mentioned 10 types of kayak (physical), vachik (verbal) and mansik (psychological) sins. All these should be avoided for the health of body and mind.
(i) Physical sins-
· Violence
· Stealing
· Unethical enjoyment of sex
(ii) Verbal sins-
· Untruthfulness or telling lies
· Complaining
· Speaking bad words or harsh words to others
· Giving good and bad opinions for the same person or subject
(iii) Psychological sins-
· Organizing schemes for murdering or killing people
· Organizing schemes of taking wealth of others.
Benefits of saddvritta
The one who behaves nicely, becomes more divine and God always helps him. He lives good quality life. He gets moksha i.e. Escapes from cycle of birth and death.
Being kind to others, giving donations to the charity, controlling actions of body, mind and speech and treating everybody like oneself is good conduct. If one follows all these rules and regulation he gets long and healthy life as well as wealth
In literal meaning saddvritta means good regimen (sadd means good; vritta means regimen). It is the code of conduct which helps in maintaing perfect balance between mind body and society. It is a all round science for over all balance between whole system in which a human lives and socialize.
Purpose creation of saddvritta was to establish a perfect balance in body and mind for eternal growth of an individual. A healthy mind is as important as a healthy body. As mentioned earlier that there are three mansik bhav (three mind expression) satwik, rajsik and tamasik. Out of these satwik is considered to be superior and that leads to purity and gaining of eternal powers. Rajas and tamas are harmful qualities of mind which generates wrong judgments and misconceptions by the intellect and is responsible for producing diseases. Hence we need certain codes which are gained by practicing saddvritta thus increasing our satwik quality of mind.
· Lakshnam (description)
. Vyavaharika saddvritta (ethical conduct)
· Samajika saddvritta (social conduct)
· Mansik saddvritta (mental conduct)
· Dharmika saddvritta (moral conduct)
· Vaiyaktika saddvritta (physical conduct)
Lakhsnam (Description)
Ayurveda has mentioned certain rules which are very helpful in maintaing a healthy state of body and mind. These codes of conduct can be divided in five categories
1. Ethical or vyavaharika saddvritta
2. Social or samajika saddvritta
3. Mental or mansika saddvritta
4. Moral or dharmika saddvritta
5. Physical or sharirika saddvritta
These are the principle of right conduct that are applicable to all times and places. Practicing these principles gives balance and peace to mind. Violating or ignoring them makes the person agitated in thoughts and feelings.
Vyavaharika saddvritta (ethical conduct)
Always be truthful and speak the truth
· Don not loose your attitude under any circumstances
· Do not get addicted to superficial or external pleasure like sensory one
· Never try to harm any body
· Always speak politely and in respectful words that are pleasant in hearing
· Meditate daily to tranquilize mind for doing sensible deeds
· Try to control your obsession and passion
· Always be patient and calm headed
· Practice self control on every moment of life
· Spread the knowledge you possess to every person
· Always try to help mankind by sharing good advice and money amongst others
· Try to manage time for offering your devotions to God, elderly people, wise men and respectable people
· Don’t be tactful and be strait forward at heart and mind
· Show your kindness to mankind
· Should behave according to situations
· Act always in a courteous and polite manner
· Control your sense organs
· Always think before doing any deed about its goodness and badness
Samajika Saddvritta (Social Conduct)
When it comes to social conduct, one should be very careful about his conduct. To hurt feelings of other will create great disregard to your social life and respect in mind of other people. A feel of hatred will illuminate in the minds of people due to your unpleasant wrong behavior.
Converse (communicate)-
Always be soft and polite when you speak and you should always be clear and to the point while you speak to make it easily understandable to others. Don not comment and criticize others because of jealousy. Always be truthful and never speak a lie. Be very respectful to you gurus (teachers) and elderly people and never indulge in any kind of debate or quarrel with them. If seeking any clearance of doubt or query one should deal it with utter respect and politeness. Never indulge in arguments even if you think that other person is wrong. Never abuse or say wrong things to any one. Never tell anybody about your insult. Don’t move your hand and feet or any other body movement like eyes and eyebrows while you are talking to some one. Don’t be insultive, rude and harsh to people inferior to you
Conduct (behavior): -
Don’t be jealous in others happiness and success. Never be envy to prosperity of others. In contrast, find out the reason for his success and try to adapt it in your life for yourself development. Never excuse your self and your dependents if they commit any mistake and always punish them for there betterment. Always be supporter of poor people and give them enough opportunity in life to progress. Think before performing any deed and its long term effect on your life.
Social mannerism-
Always remain clean and apply perfumes and aromatic substances on your body. Never prick your nose hair in front of any one. Always cover our mouth with a piece of cloth or a handkerchief before coughing, yawning, belching and sneezing. Pricking teeth, biting nails, scratching head, creating sounds during munching and eating are bad habits. Never speak while eating. Don’t spit here and there.
· Never misbehave with females and be always helpful to them. Never look at naked women or in an awkward situation. Always show your respect to them.
· Always take care of your family members and give your love and support to them. Try to fulfill there needs and always be truthful and maintain there faith.
· Never whistle or make instrumental sounds from mouth.
· Never exaggerate recreational thing like dance, music etc
· Avoid addiction to any bad substances like alcohol, drugs, cigarettes etc
· Always be ready for learning different types of knowledge
Mansik saddvritta (Mental Conduct)
Always be self awared about yourself and your intellectual behavior. Always access yourself about your responsibilities and your existence, analyze your eternal side, your mind and soul. Always work for maintaing and gaining the balance in spiritual and materialism. Consider God as the supreme power who is controlling all the activities happening on this planet. Keep faith and devotion to God.
Pay visit to temple or religious centers, shrines and pilgrimages. Regularly read spiritual books and spend time in listening to spiritual talks (pravachan). Perform mediation to analyze own self. Chant mantras and shlokas for generating positive energies in you and your surroundings.
By following these you can maintain a proper balance in your minds working and creating awareness of self existence in you.
Dharmika saddvritta (moral conduct)
As misunderstood by majority of people, dharma has nothing to do with religion. Dharma means performing good deeds which are beneficial for an individual and masses. Dharma is very essential for every one and should be performed by every body according to their strengths and capabilities. One should make it a habit to contribute some part of his time, earnings and energy to society as his duty for upliftment of the society.
Basic desire of any individual breathing on the face of this earth is to attain eternal happiness and only dharma is the key for achieving it. Therefore for achieving this almighty happiness one should perform his social duties and make his surrounding a happy place to live. Do not indulge in bad company which is not acceptable to our society, and the ruler (government) of our land. Always be helpful to others and be happy in there happiness and prosperity. Try maintaining proper balance between happiness and sadness. Always be ready to serve others by preserving your energies, intelligence and gentleness. Always have an attitude of forgiving people for there mistakes and try to guide them for there errors. Never be cruel to any body. Use your powers for betterment of all living creatures. Never miss an opportunity of helping poor and diseased people. By walking on this path one can accomplish stability and personal spiritual enhancement.
Vaiyaktika saddvritta (physical conduct)
Vaiyaktika saddvritta includes personal physical conduct which is too carried out by one self. Following are few conducts
· Hygiene – cut your hairs and nails regularly one must cut his nails every fifth day and hairs ever fortnight. One should clean his nose ears and eyes properly. Take bath and clean your genitals after sexual acts. Avoid looking toward sun by naked eyes. For the health of skin and mental freshness, wearing of different aromatic substances like sandal is beneficial. Also wearing rudraksh and other gems gives the mystic power to fight against diseases.
· Respect and gratitude - one must respect his elders, teachers, father, mother, saints, God, cow, elderly vaidya, king and guest. Never insult them and always respect them.
· Care of sense organs – sense organs have the tendency to remain unsatisfied, although one tries to give maximum pleasure to them. If you try to get sensory pleasure, senses always demand more and more. This give rise to excessive use of sense organs which disturbs the health. (As an example, watching television continuously for long hours and working on computers). Suppressing sense organs forcefully irritates mind. This can cause low or under use of sense organs. In short do not become a slave of sense organs and also do not suppress them forcefully. Always use sense organs moderately and try to control them.
· Clothing (vesh bhusha) –clothes, mainly gives protection from cold or hot environment, breeze , dust, dirt etc. in summers and autumn one should use clean, white and thin clothes. In rainy season one can wear white or yellow clothes. In winters red or yellow clothes and in spring red and dark clothes. In general one should wear, soft and white clothes because, they impart happiness, success, wealth, longitivity and modesty.
· Care and foot wear (danda upanaha dharnam) – its s always advisable to carry a cane with you when you are traveling in village or a lonely place or through jungle for self defense. One should always wear chappals, sandals or shoes to protect feet.
· Turbans and umbrella (atapatra- dharnam) – head is considered as uttamanga i.e. most important organ. This is a site of brain and prana and all the sense organs (indriyas). Hence one should wear a turban, cap or a hat and carry an umbrella, especially in summers and the rainy season to protect the head from environment factors such as heat, wind and rain.
· Avoidance odd airing acts (sahasaya parivarjanam) – to do any act, beyond our limits is called as daring acts. Sometimes it may create life threatening conditions. Your daring might also affect your friends and relatives, for example, if you show your daring in unnecessary way, to drive car speedily. It can cause accident in which not only you but also your accompaniments may also suffer.
Avoid visiting places which may get affected by natural calamities like cyclones, flood, or fire. Do not make a quarrel with a person who is stronger than you. Rash driving and breaking the traffic rules, unnatural competitions always lead to bad consequences.
Vagabhatta has mentioned 10 types of kayak (physical), vachik (verbal) and mansik (psychological) sins. All these should be avoided for the health of body and mind.
(i) Physical sins-
· Violence
· Stealing
· Unethical enjoyment of sex
(ii) Verbal sins-
· Untruthfulness or telling lies
· Complaining
· Speaking bad words or harsh words to others
· Giving good and bad opinions for the same person or subject
(iii) Psychological sins-
· Organizing schemes for murdering or killing people
· Organizing schemes of taking wealth of others.
Benefits of saddvritta
The one who behaves nicely, becomes more divine and God always helps him. He lives good quality life. He gets moksha i.e. Escapes from cycle of birth and death.
Being kind to others, giving donations to the charity, controlling actions of body, mind and speech and treating everybody like oneself is good conduct. If one follows all these rules and regulation he gets long and healthy life as well as wealth
