Herbal Power

Ancient ayurvedic healers knew that herbs were the repositories of the most concentrated form of nature's intelligence. Researchers today are confirming that herbs contain the richest mixtures of phytochemicals-natural chemicals such as bioflavonoids that offer medicinal and nutritional value. Herbal formulations made with whole herbs, as Maharishi Ayurveda supplements are, work more like foods than like drugs in the body. They offer potent nourishment to the cells and tissues and correct imbalances in the physiology over time, safely, without causing side effects.

How quickly you see results from taking herbal formulations depends on your individual physiology. If a person has a high level of accumulated toxins (ama) blocking the channels of the body, the herbs may take longer to work. The diet and daily routine of the person also has a bearing on how quickly and how well herbs work, as also the health goal being addressed. The product flyers and brochures, and our newsletters, offer dietary and lifestyle recommendations that serve to enhance the benefit of the herbs. Focusing on one or two health goals at a time is best. Try and identify the imbalance that came first, and work on correcting that to start with. Sometimes you may find that clearing the original imbalance addresses some secondary imbalances as well.

Nutritional supplements work best if they are taken regularly, every day. If you tend to forget to take them, devise ways to remind yourself. Make notes in your daytimer or put post-it notes on your computer. Keep them on your dining table. Carry them with you in a tablet dispenser to work.

The Science of Herb Combining

Maharishi Ayurveda herbal formulations are blends rather than single herbs or oils. They epitomize the science of herb combining at its sophisticated best.

The herbs in our formulas are carefully selected and combined to strengthen the formula in different ways:

Primary herbs offer targeted benefits for a specific area of health, such as energy.
Supporting herbs reinforce the healing action of the primary herbs.
Bioavailability herbs help your body assimilate and use the nutrients.
Herbal 'co-factors' remove impurities and the toxic byproducts of incomplete digestion from your body.
Balancing herbs cancel out any potential discomforts or side effects that can come with the benefits of a particular herb.

Together these different types of herbs create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

We use whole herbs in our formulas, not isolated ingredients, because we understand that Nature's healing wisdom is a delicate balance that is preserved in the whole plant, not an isolated chemical.

Quality Matters

The Haritaki fruit, one of the three components of Digest Tone (Triphala), comes in seven different varieties. While all are beneficial, most deliver only one or two of the many benefits that the texts mention for Haritaki. Only one variety, called Vijaya, offers all of the benefits. And Vijaya is the only variety that is used in Maharishi Ayurveda's Digest Tone, even though it is harder to obtain and much more expensive.
Amla fruit is meticulously processed 21 times in the juice of Amla, exactly as laid down in the ancient texts, to make our ReGen Vitality (Amla-Berry) tablets. This takes time, but the tablets become a potent source of the diverse benefits this divine fruit is said to offer when processed in this manner.
It takes over six months of intensive iterative processing to obtain our bhasmas-minerals in a form that can be easily assimilated and used by the body.
When herbs are sorted for quality, often over half the batch is rejected due to our strict standards for maturity, purity and potency. Many ayurvedic companies in India sell rejected herbs to smaller companies that use them in their products. We burn rejected herbs so that this does not happen.

No shortcuts. No compromises.
Maharishi Ayurveda combines authentic formulations obtained from the ancient ayurvedic texts with meticulous processing and state-of-the-art manufacturing to ensure that you get pure, effective, safe herbal formulations.

Herbal intelligence
Herbs contain the most concentrated form of nature's intelligence. Our goal is to preserve this natural intelligence through the harvesting and manufacturing processes so that the finished herbal preparations can work effectively at the deepest levels of the physiology.
We harvest our own herbs. Herbs naturally vary in potency with seasons, cycles of the moon and even by the time of day. Following traditional harvesting and processing techniques ensures natural standardization of potency. Where possible without threatening the natural ecological balance, our herbs are gathered in the wild, because wild-crafted herbs can be as much as 100 times more potent than their cultivated counterparts.

Experts in dravyaguna-plant identification-examine each batch of harvested herbs. It takes great attention and expertise to correctly identify herbs.

Each batch of herbs is then sorted for quality. It's not unusual for over half the crop to be rejected, because ayurvedic standards for maturity, purity and potency are stringent. When the herbs enter the processing plant, they are also examined using HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) to chemically identify them and ensure potency.

We use traditional methods of extraction and processing. Extracts are processed using steam distillation, never with alcohol or benzene. We do not expose herbs to high temperatures that can destroy the healing intelligence they possess.

None of our formulas are made with heavy metals. Our formulations are all-natural-they contain no artificial colors of flavors or excipients of any kind. Natural binders collected from the wild, such as gum arabic, are the only binders used in some formulas. All capsules are vegetarian, and the coatings on tablets are vegetable glycerin. No animal products are used in the formulas or during processing.

Stringent testing
Every batch of finished product undergoes a battery of tests at our state-of-the-art processing facility in India. These tests include examination for overall purity, heavy metals (lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury), residual pesticides and biological contamination.
When the product arrives in the United States, it is once again subjected to a series of tests by a premier independent analytical Nizagara Online laboratory before it is bottled for sale.
Quality certifications
The Maharishi Ayurveda manufacturing facility in India has earned a number of international quality certifications:

ISO 9001 - ISO certification is the international standard for assessing management, testing and manufacturing for production companies. The ISO review targets twenty quality categories including design control, production, storage, inspection and testing procedures. The stringent criteria used to evaluate Maharishi Ayurveda are the same as those used to assess nuclear power plants.
GMP - The Good Manufacturing Practices certification is awarded for manufacturing and delivering consistently effective, safe and reliable products batch after batch. An independent panel of experts conducts extensive investigations to verify that the company has established manufacturing systems and practices that ensure error-free, safe and consistently high quality products before this certification is issued.
HACCP - Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points requires a close focus on achieving step-by-step process quality at all stages of production identified as critical control points. The objective is to produce and deliver health-hazard free (i.e., clinically safe) products.

The Science of Herb Processing
The ancient ayurvedic texts maintain that how a formula is prepared is as crucial to its efficacy as what goes into that formula. Ayurvedic herb processing is therefore a meticulous and highly developed science that ranges from instructions on when to harvest a specific herb to the sequence in which ingredients are to be added to a formulation. Our formulas are prepared meticulously as laid down in the ayurvedic texts. Following traditional harvesting and processing techniques ensures natural standardization of potency.
We use traditional methods of extraction and processing. No chemical solvents are used in the extraction process, nor are the herbs exposed to high temperatures that can damage their natural intelligence. Different ingredients or components are added to a formulation at the specific times and temperatures detailed in the texts to maintain the integrity and authenticity of the final formulation.