As a medical system, Ayurvedic science provides a map of health so divine, that in its following, the human organism will illuminate as a prism, reflecting the infinite, million-fold world. In health, it is the beauty of the universe that we reflect. Āyurveda uses the traditions of diet and lifestyle practices and rhythm to understand how the human mind/body organism works and how to support it to function in such a way that 'the you within the you'–the consciousness behind it all–emerges.

You have been brainwashed to believe you have to seek God or seek Truth, as if either is something distinct from or outside of you. Similarly, you have been brainwashed to believe that health or beauty is something outside-of or separate from you. Actually, you are God, you are Truth, you are Health, and you are infinitely Intelligent and Beautiful; you simply need to remember. To do so, you must provide your body/mind (senses) with the proper inputs of diet, hydration, movement, rest, and thought patterning to awaken and restore the innate functionality of your body/mind. As a result, you will naturally express these inherent qualities.

Just as when in full bloom a flower emits fragrance, when the energy of your body/mind is nourished and coordinated, it emits a subtle, substantive radiance, intelligence and beauty. If you take care of your mind/body with gentleness and respect, your true Self emerges, and your presence becomes palpable. It is your presence that speaks the splendor and magnificence of absolute, timeless beauty clearer than anything else.

In this free online class, you will learn:

• brief background on Ayurvedic medicine

• the foundations of Ayurvedic approach to understanding and sensing beauty

• the three pillars of beauty: rūpaṁ , guṇaṁ and vayastyag (inner, outer and everlasting timeless)

• the importance of well respected digestion and relience -- known as agni and ojas in Ayurveda -- for cultivating true beauty

*No previous knowledge of or experience with Ayurveda is necessary.

Registrants will have access to the Zoom recording audio for 2 weeks.

This class is a great precursor to the Intelligent Beauty Group Programmes beginning mid-February. more information here: https://www.noelgraupner.com/classes/intelligentbeautygroupprogrammespring2022

Class 8 : Q&A and Review + Special Topics (by student request)

This class will be a review of any topics covered during this course based on questions submitted by students - past and present ! Please submit questions to me directly, or bring them to class !

Classes run 7-9PM EST on Zoom ; Zoom links will be emailed on the day of class.
All class recordings and class notes will be emailed to participants the day after class.

Class registration here : https://www.noelgraupner.com/classes/fall2021ayurvedacourse

Single / Drop-in Class | $35
*course and classes by donation available to those in financial hardship: please contact me directly at info@noelgraupner.com to discuss.

Class 7 : Medicine For The Mind: Sattva

Your mind is capable of producing joy, fear, anxiety, turmoil, tranquility, agony, ecstasy, it can produce anything. It goes on producing things you do not want simply because you have not learned how it works and functions, how to handle it, and how to clean it. How you are perceiving the world/present circumstance is how you are projecting yourself back into it, and how you are projecting brings back what you are receiving. The Vedas teach that your state of the mind determines the state of your consciousness; mental attributes are called gunas. The quality of your mental projection comes through you as your presence. The qualities of the thoughts in your mind forge your inner character and your external personality, and your opportunity for creating conditions for health or disease. 
In this class we will:

• Introduce the gunas: sattva, rajas, tamas (touched upon in class 1)

• Identify sensory inputs (foods, colors, smells, sounds, and practices) which influence sattva, rajas, and tamas

• Learn how to approach food energetically by understanding food qualities

• Touch on vegan and vegetarian vs. animal protein diets

• Learn strategies to clean up your mental atmosphere

• Review connection of context, reality, experience, and projection

• Review connection between thought and emotion: the way you think is the way you feel

Classes run 7-9PM EST on Zoom ; Zoom links will be emailed on the day of class.
All class recordings and class notes will be emailed to participants the day after class.

Class registration here : https://www.noelgraupner.com/classes/fall2021ayurvedacourse

Single / Drop-in Class | $35
*course and classes by donation available to those in financial hardship: please contact me directly at info@noelgraupner.com to discuss.

Class 6 : How Does Disease Develop? Ama + Pathogenesis

Ama is the sticky waste-product of digestion that builds up in the digestive tract when your digestion is either too weak to process your diet, overloaded with the wrong foods, or your lifestyle routines are not harmonious. Food is essentially in a state of incomplete transformation - it is un-metabolized waste that cannot be utilized by the body which disturbs digestion and therefore dosha functionality. If the qualities that have accumulatd and aggravated within the digestive tube are not alleviated, they will overflow into circulation, then be distributed to and settle in deeper tissue layers resulting in dysfunction (disease).
In this class we will: 

• Introduce Vikruti, your current state of imbalance

• Reinforce how the process of disease in the physical body begins in the digestive system

• Introduce the six stages of disease development

• Identify physical and mental symptoms at each stage of development

• Offer practical advice for alleviation of common symptoms within early stages

Classes run 7-9PM EST on Zoom ; Zoom links will be emailed on the day of class.
All class recordings and class notes will be emailed to participants the day after class.

Class registration here : https://www.noelgraupner.com/classes/fall2021ayurvedacourse

Single / Drop-in Class | $35
*course and classes by donation available to those in financial hardship: please contact me directly at info@noelgraupner.com to discuss.

Class 5 : From What and How is the Body Composed? Tissue Layers, Agni + Digestion

Digestion is about transforming what is not you into what is you. When we digest anything, whether it be physical or psychological, we're actually taking what is in our external environment and turning it into ourselves. According to Ayurveda , nourishment happens in stages as nutrients enter tissues and travel to individual cells which maintain optimal function of the body. Our digestive capacities must, then, be well managed and maintained, so that the movement and union of nourishment through and into our tissue layers and mind is successful. Understanding the digestive system is vital to improve and maintain health. 
In this class we will:

• Introduce the concept of agni, the body’s digestive capacity

• Examine how information from sensory inputs (i.e. nutrients) develops into the seven dhatus (tissue layers): plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bone, nervous tissue, sexual reproductive tissue

• Observe how the quality and quantity of our tissue layers as well as their upadhatus (secondary tissues) and malas (wastes) help us diagnose the health of both the body/mind

• Identify the psychological implications of excess and deficiency in tissue layers

• Learn how improper digestion affects immune function (your self-identification mechanism!)

Classes run 7-9PM EST on Zoom ; Zoom links will be emailed on the day of class.
All class recordings and class notes will be emailed to participants the day after class.

Class registration here : https://www.noelgraupner.com/classes/fall2021ayurvedacourse

Single / Drop-in Class | $35
*course and classes by donation available to those in financial hardship: please contact me directly at info@noelgraupner.com to discuss.

Class 4 : How to Use Food Medicinally: The 6 Tastes + Food Sadhana

How you eat is an art. Ayurveda teaches that the types of foods one ingests have a direct effect on the body and the mind, influencing the consciousness of the consumer; additionally, more important than what you eat is how and when you eat. Taste and emotion are the most powerful influencers in how you perceive the world around you, then project yourself back into it. How do you want your organism to be animated, how do you want to project yourself? Ayurveda teaches that taste is to the body what emotion is to the mind. 
In this class, we will:

• Learn the four actions every substance has on the body and mind when taken orally : rasa, virya, vipaka, prabhava

• Introduce Ayurvedic taste theory, examining the six tastes — sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent as combinations of elements and therefore carriers of elemental qualities

• Identify which foods groups contain each taste

• How each taste influences the doshas physically

• How each taste influences the doshas psychologically / emotionally

• How and when to use each taste (seasonal eating)

• Identify why context is more important than content of a meal by learning the upayogasamstha, or guidelines to healthy eating

Classes run 7-9PM EST on Zoom ; Zoom links will be emailed on the day of class.
All class recordings and class notes will be emailed to participants the day after class.

Class registration here : https://www.noelgraupner.com/classes/fall2021ayurvedacourse

Single / Drop-in Class | $35
*course and classes by donation available to those in financial hardship: please contact me directly at info@noelgraupner.com to discuss.

Class 3 : How to Use Time Medicinally: The Ayurvedic Clock

Ayurveda teaches us that to maintain a healthy life free from disease we need to follow a daily routine or flow of ritual conduct. The rishis, seers (those who outlined the system of Ayurvedic medicine) considered a daily routine to be a stronger healing force than any other medicine! You are a rhythmic being. Every individual part of you which exists independently (a cell) and also joins together to form a system (a channel, an organ) in the ecology of your human organism has a rhythm which is inherently connected to and influenced by the rhythm of Mother Nature. How can you bring harmony throughout the symphony of your organism in relationship with all you are interconnected with around you?
In this class, we will:

• Identify the influence of the doshas on the cycles of life, seasons, and days

• Learn how to sense and follow the rhythm Mother Nature sets to the day (circadian)

• Explore morning, afternoon, and evening routines (dinacharya) for optimum health

• Introduce Ayurvedic tools for daily maintenance of the sense organs and body

• You will discover that Ayurveda is actually a verb; it is something to be lived: every action taken with consciousness will connect you with all that is Divine within you

Classes run 7-9PM EST on Zoom ; Zoom links will be emailed on the day of class.
All class recordings and class notes will be emailed to participants the day after class.

Class registration here : https://www.noelgraupner.com/classes/fall2021ayurvedacourse

Single / Drop-in Class | $35
*course and classes by donation available to those in financial hardship: please contact me directly at info@noelgraupner.com to discuss.

Class 2 : Functional Principles of Nature: The Doshas

The tridosha are the functional principles of the universe. They are an inseparable team that works together, each with distinct roles and domains. Kapha is the force of growth and development, giving stability and structure to things, and maintaining longevity on the cellular level. Pitta is the force of transformation, governing digestion and nutrition by introducing heat. Vata, which is closely related to pranic life energy, is the force of knowledge and movement, and governs all life functions. The predominance of one or more dosha in a human being explains their design (form - genetics - personality - tendencies). 

The attention given to treating people as individuals is one of the greatest gifts of the Ayurvedic approach to health. Ayurveda is a bio-qualitative science; in Ayurveda we use the polarities of qualities to bring the human organism - mind/body as one operating unit - into its natural state of homeostasis (Prakriti). This is what the term ‘balance’ implies. Each individual’s homeostasis is different, and is changing all the time in response to the qualities we are engaging with in our environment (location/climate/season, home, work, soundscape, visual input), diet, relationships (social landscape), spiritual practices, movement habits, etc. 
In this class, we will:

• Learn the 5 elements, their functions & properties

• Explore how the building blocks of nature merge to form the bioenergetics called Vata, Pitta, and Kapha used for the body/mind typing that will help make applying Ayurvedic theory personal to you

• Identify the chief qualities of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha physiology

• Identify the chief qualities of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha psychology

• Consider the assets of the qualities of each Dosha as well as how and why these may become liabilities in health, wellness, and projection when in excess or deficiency

• Introduce the Prakriti Quiz: how to determine your own constitution

Classes run 7-9PM EST on Zoom ; Zoom links will be emailed on the day of class.
All class recordings and class notes will be emailed to participants the day after class.

Class registration here : https://www.noelgraupner.com/classes/fall2021ayurvedacourse

Single / Drop-in Class | $35
*course and classes by donation available to those in financial hardship: please contact me directly at info@noelgraupner.com to discuss.

Class 1 : History and Modern Application of Ayurveda: What is Health & Disease?

Ayurveda shines in its ability to distill a host of complex inputs and circumstances (including the maladies of imbalance or disease) into an elegantly simple collection of qualitative patterns. Being able to identify qualities in all things — material and nonmaterial — helps to illuminate a clear path to creating a strategy for your decision-making to build vitality and health. 
In this class, we will:

• Identify the origins of Ayurveda

• Differentiate Ayurvedic and Western medicine approach to health & disease

• Define health (svastha) as balance and disease as imbalance & introduce polarity

• Introduce the causes of disease

• Unravel Ayurveda’s roots in Samkyha philosophy, describing the journey of consciousness into form through the building blocks of Nature and their qualities - the foundation of Ayurveda & Yoga

Classes run 7-9PM EST on Zoom ; Zoom links will be emailed on the day of class.
All class recordings and class notes will be emailed to participants the day after class.

Class registration here : https://www.noelgraupner.com/classes/fall2021ayurvedacourse

Single / Drop-in Class | $35
*course and classes by donation available to those in financial hardship: please contact me directly at info@noelgraupner.com to discuss.

What is Ayurveda and Why Should I Learn About It?
*free class*

Ayurveda is a functional medicine which examines active principles that coordinate the layered relationships between ecosystems that make up all parts of Nature. As humans beings, we are a part of Nature, integrated within our environment. In every moment, we are being influenced by the qualities of infinite external factors and we are influencing them, too. 

We compose our body/minds with life-making material from the environment through food we eat, sounds we hear, aromas we smell, imagery and light we see and climates we expose our skin to… ! Our experience of life is a product of the unfolding process of exchanging qualities. Ayurveda has identified these qualities, and teaches us how to choose which ones to associate with, in what quantity and at what time. Both a science and an art of living, Ayurveda helps us to maintain a dynamic harmony with Nature’s rhythms.

Each one of us has a unique form (mind/body structure). Form follows function and context influences both; as such, understanding how you operate is essential to making the intelligent decisions that optimize functioning of your physiological and psychological processes. The result is an internal condition where the symptoms of health — happiness, peacefulness, and longevity — arise naturally. 

As a system of self-healing, Ayurveda is unparalleled. Its concepts are profound within their simplicity. Its application, based on common sense, is easy to adopt. Once you understand even just the fundamentals of this system, your perspective - visceral, sensorial and embodied - changes forever and healing becomes possible.

This class will introduce the Ayurvedic system of self-healing and explain how it can be useful for you.

It is a great precursor to the Ayurveda Course beginning Nov 2 : https://www.noelgraupner.com/classes/fall2021ayurvedacourse

This is the first class of a 10-week Ayurveda course.
For course information and to register for single class or full course click here.

Class 10 | The Ayurvedic Clock, Part 2: Dinacharya
Ayurveda teaches us that to maintain a healthy life free from disease we need to follow a daily routine or flow of ritual conduct. The rishis, seers (those who outlined the system of Ayurvedic medicine) considered a daily routine to be a stronger healing force than any other medicine! You are a rhythmic being. Every individual part of you which exists independently (a cell) and also joins together to form a system (a channel, an organ) in the ecology of your human organism has a rhythm which is inherently connected to and influenced by the rhythm of Mother Nature. How can you bring harmony throughout the symphony of your organism in relationship with all you are interconnected with around you?

In this class, we will:

• Learn how to sense and follow the rhythm Mother Nature sets to the day 

• Identify morning, afternoon, and evening routines (dinacharya) for optimum health 

• Introduce Ayurvedic tools for daily maintenance of the sense organs and body

• You will discover that Ayurveda is actually a verb; it is something to be lived: every action taken with consciousness will connect you with all that is Divine within you

This is the first class of a 10-week Ayurveda course.
For course information and to register for single class or full course click here.

Class 9 | Food Sadhana: Yogic Diet & How to Eat
How you eat is an art; each one of us practices it differently. If you understand your constitution and choose your food accordingly, if you eat your food mindfully, if you understand your mind and choose your thoughts accordingly, if you seasonally reset your physical and mental bodies, you will never need to visit a physician. This is the art and science of eating, as defined by Ayurveda. Ayurveda teaches that the types of foods one ingests have a direct effect on the body and the mind, influencing the consciousness of the consumer; additionally, more important than what you eat is how and when you eat!

In this class, we will:

• Learn how to approach food energetically by understanding food qualities (sattva, rajas, and tamas), proper sourcing, storage, and preparation of food

• Touch on vegan and vegetarian vs. animal protein diets

• Discuss how to compose a plate that will support healthy digestion

• Identify why context is more important than content of a meal by learning the Upayogasamstha, or guidelines to healthy eating

This is the first class of a 10-week Ayurveda course.
For course information and to register for single class or full course click here.

Class 8 | The Gunas: Sattva, Rajas, Tamas & Meditation 
Your mind is capable of producing joy, fear, anxiety, turmoil, tranquility, agony, ecstasy, it can produce anything. It goes on producing things you do not want simply because you have not learned how it works and functions, how to handle it, and how to clean it. How you are perceiving the world/present circumstance is how you are projecting yourself back into it, and how you are projecting brings back what you are receiving. The Vedas teach that your state of the mind determines the state of your consciousness; mental attributes are called gunas. The quality of your mental projection comes through you as your presence. The qualities of the thoughts in your mind forge your inner character and your external personality, and your opportunity for creating conditions for health or disease. 

In this class we will:

• Introduce the gunas: Sattva, Rajas, Tamas (touched upon in class 1)

• Identify sensory inputs (foods, colors, smells, sounds, and practices) which influence Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas

• Learn strategies to clean up your mental atmosphere

• Review connection of context, reality, experience, and projection

• Review connection between thought and emotion: the way you think is the way you feel

This is the first class of a 10-week Ayurveda course.
For course information and to register for single class or full course click here.

Class 7 | Stages of Disease Development
Doshas are not static. They move within the body the way tides move within nature. They increase, peak and retreat, then rise again, just like a tide. This is the process of accumulation, aggravation, and alleviation of the qualities contained within the doshas (as determined by their elements!). Disease occurs when the tide does not retreat but continues advancing. Just as ocean floods the shore, so do the doshas rise and flood the body. They overflow into circulation. This happens when factors or forces come into play that interfere with the natural rhythms of the body, preventing the phase of alleviation. If the excess of these qualities is not managed while in circulation, they will be distributed to and settle in deeper tissue layers resulting in disease.

In this class we will: 

• Reinforce how the process of disease in the physical body begins in the digestive system

• Introduce the six stages of disease development

• Identify physical and mental symptoms at each stage of development

• Offer practical advice for alleviation of common symptoms within early stages

This is the first class of a 10-week Ayurveda course.
For course information and to register for single class or full course click here.

Class 6 | Ama & Ojas
Ama is the sticky waste-product of digestion that builds up in the digestive tract when your digestion is either too weak to process your diet, overloaded with the wrong foods, or your lifestyle routines are not harmonious. Food is essentially in a state of incomplete transformation - it is un-metabolized waste that cannot be utilized by the body to collect in tissues layers, damaging digestion and causing disease. As you are nourished or challenged by all of the impressions you take in through all senses, mental ama exists in addition to physical ama.

Conversely, ojas is the glow of health from which you derive a strong, vibrant immune system. Ojas enables all organs to operate intelligently and efficiently without disease by maintaining our physical body and impulses and safeguarding our internal bodily functions. Ojas is what gives us the fortitude and appetite to sustain wholesome activity in our lives. 

In this class we will: 

• Define ama and identify where it comes from in the body/mind

• Learn how to clear ama from the body/mind

• Review the concept of ojas (introduced in Class 9)

• Discuss foods and practices that will help your organism produce ojas

• Learn how discipline and conscious consumption are expressions of self-love

This is the first class of a 10-week Ayurveda course.
For course information and to register for single class or full course click here.

Class 5 | Digestion, Agni & The 7 Tissue Layers
Digestion is about transforming what is not you into what is you. When we digest anything, whether it be physical or psychological, we're actually taking what is in our external environment and turning it into ourselves. According to Ayurveda, nourishment happens in stages as nutrients enter tissues and travel to individual cells which maintain optimal function of the body. Our digestive capacities must, then, be well managed and maintained, so that the movement and union of nourishment through and into our tissue layers and mind is successful. Understanding the digestive system is vital to improve and maintain health. 

In this class we will:

• Introduce the concept of agni, the body’s digestive capacity 

• Examine how information from sensory inputs (i.e. nutrients) develops into the seven dhatus (tissue layers): plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bone, nervous tissue, sexual reproductive tissue

• Observe how the quality and quantity of our tissue layers as well as their upadhatus (secondary tissues) and malas (wastes) help us diagnose the health of both the body/mind

• Identify the psychological implications of excess and deficiency in tissue layers 

• Learn how improper digestion affects immune function (your self-identification mechanism!)

This is the first class of a 10-week Ayurveda course.
For course information and to register for single class or full course click here.

Class 4 | The Ayurvedic Clock Part 1: Tides of Life
The Tridosha can not be separated. They are a team that works together, each with distinct roles and domains, interacting with and thus influencing one another. Together, they create organization which regulates Ma Nature’s cycles. The three doshas -- Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, give rise to all the rhythms and patterns in nature. The movement of the galaxies, the orbits of planets, and the spin of electrons, the revolving patterns of V/P/K can be observed everywhere. The annual seasons come and go in cycles, as do lunar months, as do days, heartbeats, cellular growth and degeneration. The lifespan of an organism can be observed in cycles. 

The tide of accumulation, aggravation, and alleviation is moved by many external factors. We are exposed to external factors like age and climate which are ruled by the doshas. No matter what your predominant constitutional dosha may be, your current state will be influenced by the qualities of your environment, the time of your year, day, and stage of your life.

In this class we will:

• Introduce the idea of accumulation, aggravation, and alleviation of qualities

• Identify the role doshas play in Nature’s cycling, and how they are influencing you in the stage of life and the season

• Unpack the importance of seasonal eating (Ritucharya) : The Ayurvedic sciences teach that Mother Nature is serving exactly what our bodies need in accordance with the physical challenges of the environment, mandating seasonal eating practices to promote health of the body, mind, and spirit / examine how both environment and time inform the type and quantity of food to eat, further reinforcing Six Tastes Theory

This is the first class of a 10-week Ayurveda course.
For course information and to register for single class or full course click here.

Class 3, Jan 26 | The Six Tastes / Diet for your Design

Each taste is an expression of Prana, a universal life/love/evolutionary force, through the form of elemental building blocks of Nature. When one consumes the proper amount of each taste for their particular constitution and/or to heal their imbalance, the body (including mind and consciousness) will respond with the production of healthy tissue and normal physiology. If there is too much or too little of any taste, the body is going to respond with imbalance or disease.
In Ayurveda, there is always a toggling between the context of the physical body and the emotional mind, the two components of the human being; to truly understand the 6 Tastes theory is to understand that the body and mind are, in fact, one operating system, and furthermore, that Taste and emotion are the most powerful influencers in how you perceive the world around you, then project yourself back into it. How do you want your organism to be animated, how do you want to project yourself? 

In this class, we will:

• Learn the four actions every substance has on the body and mind when taken orally : rasa, virya, vipaka, prabhava

• Introduce Ayurvedic taste theory, examining the six tastes — sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent as combinations of elements and therefore carriers of elemental qualities 

• Identify which foods groups contain each taste

• How each taste influences the doshas physically 

• How each taste influences the doshas psychologically / emotionally

• How and when to use each taste to regulate digestive capacity through anabolic, metabolic, and catabolic means

This is the first class of a 10-week Ayurveda course.
For course information and to register for single class or full course click here.

Class 2 | Doshic Theory: Vata, Pitta, Kapha & Prakriti: Your Design
The attention given to treating people as individuals is one of the greatest gifts of the Ayurvedic approach to health. Ayurveda is a bio-qualitative science; in Ayurveda we use the polarities of qualities to bring the human organism - mind/body as one operating unit - into its natural state of homeostasis (Prakriti). This is what the term ‘balance’ implies. Each individual’s homeostasis is different, and is changing all the time in response to the qualities we are engaging with in our environment (location/climate/season, home, work, soundscape, visual input), diet, relationships (social landscape), spiritual practices, movement habits, etc. 

In this class, we will:

• Review the 5 elements theory

• explore how the building blocks of nature merge to form the bioenergetics called Vata, Pitta, and Kapha used for the body/mind typing that will help make applying Ayurvedic theory personal to you 

• Identify the chief qualities of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha physiology

• Identify the chief qualities of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha psychology 

• Consider the assets of the qualities of each Dosha as well as how these may become liabilities in health, wellness, and projection when in excess or deficiency

• Introduce the Prakriti Quiz: how to determine your own constitution

• Introduce Vikruti, your current state of imbalance 

This is the first class of a 10-week Ayurveda course.
For course information and to register for single class or full course click here.

Class 1 | History and Modern Application of Ayurveda : What is Health & Disease?
Ayurveda shines in its ability to distill a host of complex inputs and circumstances (including the maladies of imbalance or disease) into an elegantly simple collection of qualitative patterns. Being able to identify qualities in all things — material and nonmaterial — helps to illuminate a clear path to creating a strategy for your decision-making to build vitality and health.

In this class, we will:

• Identify the origins of Ayurveda 

• Differentiate Ayurvedic and Western medicine approach to health + disease

• Define health (svastha) as balance and disease as imbalance + introduce polarity 

• Introduce the causes of disease

• Unravel Ayurveda’s roots in Samkyha philosophy, describing the journey of consciousness into form through the building blocks of Nature and their qualities - the foundation of the Ayurvedic healing paradigm