There is a compelling concept in ayurveda called prabhava /pra-BHAV/. I have come to understand it as meaning, “a special, unexplainable quality”. Most often it is used to refer to herbs, and identifies a specific power or quality that is unique to itself and not connected to its taste, heating, or cooling effect. One example is that honey, which is sweet, has a heating effect on the body. Normally sweet tastes are cooling to the body, but strangely, honey has a prabhav which makes it heating.
For some reason when I think of prabhav, I always go back to a karate class I used to take when I lived in Oakland, CA. Sensei Guzman would teach Shaolin Kempo techniques through the week, and on Saturdays we would spar with each other. I always had to psych myself up because I was pretty awkward and got hit a lot. Not to mention that it was a grueling workout. The top level belts formed a line on one half of the room and the lower belts would line up facing them, 1:1. After each matchup, the lower belts would bow and shift down one to face their next opponents. I got schooled every single time I stepped on the mat, but at least I kept showing up, right? I felt like such a masochist and often dreaded those Saturdays. Still, at the end of each class I would feel SO good and leave soaring on endorphins and pride.
Through the years I moved up in rank and stood on the other side with the upper belts. By then I could notice how the lower belts brought different emotions, strategies, and personality into the sparring bout. A lot of newbies came in using brute force and you had to take them down a few notches before you could have an acutal bout- a conversation- with them. Others had a meekness about hitting and getting hit where you had to build up their confidence by leaving yourself open for a shot. Most remarkably, each person had a very different style of fighting.
One night after an especially tough sparring class Sensei sat us all down on the mat and talked to us about the psychology of sparring. He said that each person brings a unique and remarkable cluster of qualities into a sparring bout. This is what allows the good guy to beat the bad guy at the end of blockbuster movies. You know how even though the villain has more ammo, or newer technology, or is not injured, the hero has more heart, creativity, or personal stake, and always prevails? Sensei called this quality their “you-ness”, or the thing that makes you, YOU. ”When you tap into your you-ness,” he would say, “you become unbeatable.” For some reason upon hearing that term I had this spinning moment of clarity: the world fell away and I could feel my essence, my ME-ness, in a bright diamond at the core of my being.
From that night on I came to believe that everyone has their own ”you-ness”, and as an ayurvedic practitioner I strive to uncover what it is. Every person has some unexplainable magical quality that makes them unique in all the world. Their prabhav. Opposites attract, we surprise even ourselves, and sometimes we just don’t know why we have the potencies we do. Some people you meet have an unexplainable effect on you right away, and folks may have reactions to you that you could never expect.
So what makes you unique in all the world? What is your you-ness? I mean, if you can discover the thing that is the distilled essence of YOU, then you have discovered something extraordinary.
In the sparring ring of life, I still feel like a white belt just showing up and letting the universe have it’s way with me. But it has been a journey of joy to discover where I feel my strengths lay, my unexplainable prabhav, and the resulting insight is a worthy trophy.
Beautiful. Thank you, Brooksley.