"Perfect Balance opens up the world of Ayurveda and its invaluable wisdom to everyone - from novices to those who have been practicing for some time." Dr. Deepak Chopra

For decades millions of Americans have been struggling with one-size-fits-all fad diets only to find ourselves fatter and less healthy than ever. We are slowly accepting the fact that the only program that can promise lasting benefits is a comprehensive yet individualized approach to nutrition and weight loss. This is the very approach espoused by Ayurvedic medicine, the 5000-year-old holistic system that incorporates diet, exercise, breathing, meditation and visualization among other therapies into its integrated practice. Perfect Balance shows how the principles of Ayurvedic medicine can be used by anyone, no matter what their present health needs may be.

Beginning with a simple yet comprehensive self-test to determine an individual’s specific metabolic and psychological profile, the book emphasizes the importance of balance among all levels of the healing process – mind, body, and spirit. The three dominant groups that emerge are based on metabolic type (skin, hair, digestion, and sleep patterns, etc.), and psychological characteristics (emotional tendencies, learning patterns, goals and relationship needs). These three types combine to form seven metabolic groups. It then presents clear guidelines for choosing foods and making lifestyle choices to support a natural, healthy state and avoid those practices that disrupt natural metabolic balance.

While avoiding esoteric terms and complex formulas, Perfect Balance provides a profile-specific, flexible 21-Day Plan to incorporate dietary and lifestyle changes sensibly. It explains the importance of timing and food combining and outlines nutritional prescriptions for specific conditions that are caused by stress and other lifestyle issues. Most important, the Ayurvedic approach takes into account the many factors ignored by other programs that determine an optimal state of harmony and health for each individual.

Atreya is the founder and director of the European Institute of Vedic Studies. An internationally recognized teacher of Ayurvedic medicine, he is a practicing herbalist and the author of four books on Ayurveda including, Ayurvedic Healing for Women and Ayurvedic Massage. He lives in the south of France.

by International Ayurvedic Authority, Dr. Robert E. Svoboda

"There is really nothing like a good chuckle, particularly when traveling in India, which I was when I first read Perfect Balance. Laughter makes such annoyances as traffic jams, train delays, and the depredations of monkeys easier to bear, while stimulating the circulation, encouraging good breathing, improving immune function, and generally promoting all the while active, positive states of health in the mirthful.

Humor is particularly valuable when trying to advise or teach, for it lightens subjects like Ayurveda that may otherwise sit heavily on their recipients. As recently as twenty years ago Ayurveda was practically unknown in the West, and even now the majority has yet to hear its name. Many folk have however begun to slowly adapt to thinking and speaking Ayurvedically, and some of these are attempting to present their findings in print.

But one can learn a lingo without being able to teach it, and mere study of the language of health and healing that is Ayurveda does nothing to prepare the student to be able to edify others. Wrongly concocted, Ayurveda becomes a dense, nearly-indigestible study; to present it accurately is to walk the tightrope between what should be and what is, between tradition and innovation. Ayurvedic theory can be abstruse, with its complex proclamations, and its arcane references to Indian cultural tropes. Its practice can be equally mystifying, for all its rules are subordinated to the dictates of common sense. What cures the patient is always the right medicine, whether it reinforces the theory or violates it, and one of the most difficult things to convey to a student of Ayurveda is how to know when to embrace theory, and when to ignore it.

This is particularly the case when one is attempting to translate Ayurveda from its natal Indian idiom into a tongue that Westerners will find lucid and topical. The West differs so dramatically from the East that I often wonder how the two can share the same planet. The water and air, flora and fauna, customs and rituals of the one often have so little in common with those of the other that it becomes no mean task to extract from the details of an Ayurveda that developed in India a system that will function well in Canada, Italy, Argentina or Australia.

Even when the process of translation proceeds well, there is no guarantee that the final product will be readable. Which is why it is always a pleasure for me to find a work on Ayurveda that eschews pomposity, and seasons its prescriptions with the levity of wit. I enjoyed Perfect Balance for its topicality, for its focus on providing readers with tools for transformation, and above all for its tone. Even on topics where his convictions are decided and deeply held, such as the wisdom of eliminating meat from one’s daily diet (a view that I endorse heartily), Atreya’s tone remains measured and clear. Even serious matters, like the "expectation of violence as normal" that has contaminated our society, he introduces without bludgeoning the reader with them. He advocates without preaching, suggests without insisting, and garnishes his arguments with refreshing drollness.

Atreya turns his subject into a light, delectable confection, into an info soufflé that goes down easy, digests agreeably, and leaves its consumers well-fed but hungry for more. Read his words, and try them out in your own life. Experiment with his suggestions, and find which ones agree with your body and mind. Make small changes, and let them accumulate into life-enhancing reorganizations. Let the book’s playfulness awaken in you the spirit of rejuvenation, that it may return to you some of the vigor and lightheartedness that you had as a child.

Sample the treats that Perfect Balance has to offer, and taste the difference that Ayurveda can make in your life and your living."

Foreword Copyright © Robert Edwin Svoboda 2001