Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health
| Alternative medicine | |
|---|---|
| Claims | Proponents claim that illnesses can be treated by reconnecting physiological functioning with the body's inner intelligence through reducing and eliminating impurities and imbalances. |
| Year proposed | mid-1980s |
| Original proponents | Maharishi Mahesh Yogi |
| Subsequent proponents | Organizations: Maharishi Vedic Education Development Corporation |
Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health (MVAH) (also known as Maharishi Ayurveda or Maharishi Vedic Medicine) is a form of alternative medicine founded in the mid-1980s by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who developed the Transcendental Meditation technique (TM). Distinct from traditional ayurveda, it emphasizes the role of consciousness, and gives importance to positive emotions. Maharishi Ayur-Veda has been variously characterized as emerging from, and consistently reflecting, the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy, representing the entirety of the ayurvedic tradition.
A 1991 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that promoters of MVAH failed to disclose financial incentives when they submitted a letter for publication and that their marketing practices were misleading. A 2008 study published in JAMA reported that two of the 19 Maharishi Ayurveda products tested contained heavy metals. A 1991 British case found two physicians guilty of "serious professional misconduct" for using MVAH in the unsuccessful treatment of HIV .
Maharishi Vedic Approach to Health uses a model for understanding health and disease that is fundamentally different from that of modern medicine. According to MVAH researcher Hari Sharma, MVAH views the body as an abstract pattern of intelligence whereas he feels modern medicine views the body as a machine. He says that the world view of MVAH is closer to the reality described by 20th century physics, which challenged the reductionist materialist world view by finding that quantum mechanical phenomena contradict the idea of solid matter, that causality is less definite, that material existence is connected in unexpected and nonlocal ways, and that a reductionist view is untenable at the quantum level. Sharma says that "Vedic thought discusses a unified field of pure, non-material intelligence and consciousness whose modes of vibration manifest as the material universe." Disease results from losing connection with this underlying field of intelligence.
The approach does not use modern medicine or biology. According to Hari Sharma, MVAH views the body as an abstract pattern of intelligence. Proponents claim that through MVAH, the Maharishi revived the ancient Vedic system of health care. MVAH identifies 40 approaches, each said to be based on one of the 40 branches of Vedic literature.
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