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THE AYURVEDA OF AUSTRALIAN
ABORIGINES Dr. Swami Karmananda Saraswati
About a year ago, I moved on from my work at the Melbourne Yoga Therapy Center into the rural areas of Australia because I wanted, first of all, to move away from the hustle and bustle of city life, and secondly, I wanted to conduct some research. I wanted to understand more about the original people of the Australian continent about whom very little is really known, and when an opportunity came, I took it.
According to geologists, millions of years ago in pre-history there was a great southern land, which has been called Gondwana, at the southern pole of our planet. At that time, what is now India and what is now Australia were joined together. The eastern coast of India was joined to the north-western coast of Australia and with changing conditions the land masses moved apart. What is now India moved upwards and, in colliding with other land masses, caused the Himalayas to rise up.
On returning to India, I went up to Haridwar, Rishikesh and Badrinath which was a beautiful experience. How you have deified the powers of nature! Seeing the Ganga and the mountains is so stimulating, it is a rebirth. It reminds me of Uluru, which is a huge monolith right in the center, in the heart of Australia. In fact, I am sure that if the land masses were still joined together, every night from Madras there would be lots of buses heading southwest to go and see the beauty of Uluru. This massive rock has become a symbol of the indigenous people of Australia. It has many moods. In fact, I think up to 10,000 people come to view this monument every day, many fly in from all over the world. All around it are sites sacred to the original people of Australia.
As you know, the European history of Australia is very young, only going back two hundred years to when Captain Cook sailed from England to Australia. However, long before
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