According to Ayurveda, we are born with a unique combination of the elements in Nature: Ether, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. Particular ratios of these elements point to how our physical, mental, and emotional bodies behave. These characteristics make up our constitutions. Just as everyone has an individual thumbprint or footprint, everyone has elemental characteristics that behave in particular ways that a trained practitioner can identify. One form of identification is through the pulse. The pulse reflects a person’s birth constitution and expressed current constitution. The difference between the two indicates how out of balance the person may be. Balance is the natural order; imbalance is disorder. Health is order; disease is disorder. Within the body, there is a constant interaction between order and disorder. Once one understands the nature and structure of disorder, one can reestablish order.

Ayurveda identifies three basic types of elemental constitutional makeup, allowing energy to flow in particular ways. They are functional principles that are present in everybody and everything in Nature. Unfortunately, no words in English describe this energy, so we use the Sanskrit words Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Energy is required to create movement so that fluids and nutrients get to the cells enabling the body to function. Energy is also needed to metabolize the nutrients in the cells, and energy is required to lubricate and maintain cellular structure. Vata is the energy of movement; Pitta is the energy of digestion or metabolism; and Kapha of the energy of lubrication and the body’s structure. In Ayurveda, body, mind, and consciousness work together to maintain balance and are viewed as different facets of one’s being.