The Role of Free Will in Ayurveda

we are human because we have free will. And that's really important in Ayurveda because if our diets and lifestyle habits are contributing to our disease, then our choices in these areas are part of the problem or part of the solution. And so educating ourselves, because we make a lot of choices out of ignorance, we don't know, but the worst problem is when we do know and we're willfully ignorant. In a perfect world, we would make perfect choices that support our health and happiness. So why do we make choices that run counter to that? Often the problem is the short-term gain. So we're making the choice for a good, but it's a short-term good. That chocolate cake will taste really good and make me feel good. Actually, it'll probably make me feel sad or depressed, but I'm kind of looking to feel that right now. So I'm going to eat the chocolate cake. And then four hours later, you feel terrible and you suffer for three days. So it's cultivating that awareness. So often one of the first things we do is ask people to keep a food journal. A food journal is so powerful because you write down, I ate the chocolate cake. How did you feel? I felt great. Tomorrow, same question. What did you eat? How did you feel? You're like, wait a sec. I had diarrhea this morning. That's unusual. And then you kind of look back and go, well, what did I do yesterday that might've caused this? And then you go, oh, I ate that chocolate cake. So you make those connections and we miss that because often the consequence is later. And so we miss the fact of the cause of where it came from.