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About Book:

Forced by cancer to reexamine and redirect her life Maya Tiwari left a highly successful New York design career and returned to her native India to study Ayurvedic medicine. Her book a profound but practical testament to the healing power of balanced living shows how Ayurveda's ancient principles of health can help you achieve the highest levels of physical emotional and spiritual well-being. The traditional form of medicine in India for more than five thousand years Ayurveda relies primarily on the proper use of foods and herbs to maintain or restore the body's natural state of balance. While Ayurvedic healing has in recent years become increasingly well known in the west Maya Tiwari is the first author to provide us with a comprehensive working guide to ayurveda as a way of life.

She expands the traditional number of body types (and their respective dietary requirements) from seven to ten and discusses the psychospiritual nature of the types-an area that no other Western author addresses. A comprehensive questionnaire enables you to determine your own body type, and extensive charts identify the attributes of specific foods and their place in your diet. Seasonal menus and recipes (all vegetarian) are keyed to each of the body types, allowing you to choose the foods and spices that are ideally suited to your constitution. When we eat seasonal, fresh foods according to Ayurvedic wisdom, we attune with our most essential natures and awaken ahamkara, the memory of who we really are.

Tiwari brings every feature of Ayurveda back to its true source-the health of the spirit. She shows wholesome foods and spiritual practices (known as sadhanas) of the hearth, home, garden, and community connect us with our primal memory of a time when human beings lived in harmony with all of nature. Performed with awareness and gratitude, sadhnas enhance the nourishing and healing properties of food and act as a catalyst to our innate capacity for self-healing.

About Author:

Maya Tiwari (born April 16, 1952, in Liverpool Village, Guyana) is a humanitarian, world peace leader and author. Also called "Mother Maya", she is an international teacher of Ayurveda, a health activist and the founder of the Wise Earth School of Ayurveda and Mother Om Mission.

Maya Tiwari was born in Guyana, the daughter of Brahmin priest Pandit Bhagawan Ramprasad Tiwari, whose family originated from Lucknow, India. Thereafter, she became a fashion designer in New York City at the age of 18. Her fashion and "Maya" boutique was a prominent store at 773 Madison Avenue, New York City where she served clientele like Jackie Onassis, Princess Diana, Nureyev, and Patti La Belle among other celebrities. Her designs were featured in stores such as Bergdorf Goodman, Henri Bendel's, and Saks Fifth Avenue to Harrods in the UK. 

In 1981, Maya established the Wise Earth School of Ayurveda, the first school for Ayurveda studies in North America, based on the knowledge of the Greater Vedas.

On Mother's Day in 1998, Tiwari founded the Mother Om Mission (MOM), a nonprofit organization that provides Ayurveda education and services to at-risk communities in New York's inner cities and Guyana. 

In December 2009, Tiwari was a featured speaker at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Melbourne, Australia.

In 2010 Maya Tiwari renounced her monastic title and spiritual honorific—Her Holiness, Sri Swami Mayatitananda—to, as she puts it, “walk a simpler and more accessible life in service of the populations in need."

In October 2016, Maya Tiwari was the opening guest on the radio show 'Unlock Your Health', wherein she recorded a series of four interviews on her cancer healing journey. 

Among the healing programs developed by Tiwari is The Peace Mandala, a program in where she leads hundreds of people worldwide in the creation of Peace Mandalas created from seeds and grains "to help generate inner harmony by reconnecting to nature's seed memory of wellness and love." The purpose of The Peace Mandalas is "to re-enliven humanity's memory of inner harmony and the awareness necessary to cooperate with and celebrate Mother Earth's profound gifts to humanity. Living Ahimsa brings awareness to the preservation of the seed-memory of nature, human sentiency and the integrity of Mother Earth." She appeared at Deepak Chopra's "Seduction of Spirit" meditation event in Toronto, Canada in August 2014 where she led the attendees through the creation of making a Peace Mandala.

In December 2009, at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Melbourne, Australia, Tiwari began The Living Ahimsa World Peace Tour and has travelled to several countries leading people in taking an oath of ahimsa, which means non-harm or peace. (Mahatma Gandhi is a key world figure who promoted ahimsa as a vehicle for creating change.) The Living Ahimsa Peace Tour's aim is "teaching the cultivation of harmony and nonviolence in thought, speech, and action, with the purpose of healing individuals and safeguarding Mother Earth and the world." Tiwari states, 'The world can't engender peace until we as individuals . . . discover the state of inner harmony within us.' As of September 2014, Maya Tiwari has been on The Living Ahimsa World Peace Tour for six years. 154,665 people have taken the oath. Hinduism Today writes, "The Living Ahimsa Vrata mission makes the spirit of nonviolence a palpable reality for individuals [...] The vow can be taken in person or online. Central to the vow is a thirty-minute meditation twice a day. Aum is chanted 108 times, two times, followed by contemplation on key Hindu Vedic verses."

Tiwari's Inner Medicine Healing principle informs the curricula of Wise Earth Ayurveda education. Tiwari says that "Inner Medicine Healing is based on the concept that each one of us has the ability to heal ourselves." A key part of her teachings is The Cosmic Memory Principle, which refers to achieving healing through the collective timeless memories of all species and life forms in the universe.