Ayurveda Initiative For Global Health

Peristylus constrictus Habit - Ground orchid  Habitat - moist deciduous forest Flowering and fruiting - June- July  (Aromatic ground orchid)  Medicinal uses - They use leaf juice to stop bleeding from fresh cuts on the body; the mashed underground tubers are used to cure the pain from the wasp or bee stings.  Place - Rourkela Forest Division, Odisha, India Sugimani Marndi

Chapter 3 - Samadhi  Day 16 In vichara, there are all the experiences - smell, sight, visions, taste or sounds. When you meditate, all experiences and thoughts - observing the thoughts that come and go. There are two states of mind that surface in you often. One is a thought which disturbs you and the other is a thought that does not disturb you, but that which just hovers around in your consciousness and you are aware of it.  You are in samadhi you are in an equanimous state of mind. At the same time, there are thoughts hovering. It is a part of meditation. Thoughts exist and experiences exist. This is a second type of Samadhi, or awareness. The third is ananda which means a blissful state. Have you noticed that after you do Kriya, you are in a different space?  When you sing bhajans, you are in a different space of Samadhi. This mind is still elevated. The consciousness is still elevated and equanimous but it is in ecstasy. The samadhi is ecstasy. This is al...

Chapter 3 - Samadhi  Day 15  What is the purpose of this sadhna? Vitarka - when your mind has a special logic to pursue in the world and to perceive the truth. Tarka means logic. Kutarka means wrong logic - when then intention is not right and the logic is applied only to find fault, when you know deep inside you that something is not right, but you still logically prove that it is right. Vitarka is special logic. You may be talking about dispassion and logically you are understanding it, and this logical understanding, hearing or talking has a certain effect on your consciousness. It elevates your consciousness. You are in a different space. This is samadhi. Samadhi means equanimity. "Dhi" is the intellect - the faculty that sustains you, faculty of consciousness. Now, we are in a state of Samadhi, because we are talking about the Self with a definite logic, an undeceivable logic. Logic can always change. You can put it on one side or you can put on the other. Th...

This week we studied members of the Anacardiaceae family, popularly known as the Cashew or Mango family. Let's do a quick recap of the major characteristics of this family. 🌷Most members of Anacardiaceae are native to tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Several species are economically important fruit and nut crops.  🌷Members are mostly trees or shrubs 🌷Members of the family have resin ducts and tannin sacs in the bark and characteristically exude gums and resins that become black when exposed to air. These might be source of useful oils, resins, and lacquers. 🌷The leaves vary diversely and are usually deciduous, alternately arranged, lack stipules, may be simple or compound leaves that are mostly imparipinnate  🌷Many species are dioecious, meaning male and female flowers are produced on different individual plants. 🌷Flowers are often tiny, and produced in terminal panicles. Individual flowers usually have bracts. 🌷Most membe...

Chapter 3 - Samadhi  Day 14  There is a story about Diogenes of Greece. When Alexander the Great saw him, he was being carried out to be sold as a slave. The people who were taking him to be sold also looked like slaves. Diogenes announced that he was a slave and asked loudly who wanted to buy him.  Because he was roaring like a lion, it was difficult for the people to make out who was the slave and who was selling the slave. Before Alexander the Great came to India, people in his country had told him that if he found some sanyasi here he should bring them back with him that, they were very precious and were there only in India.  So, when he was in India he ordered that some sanyasis should come to him. But, nobody would come. He then sent a message threatening them. He said that if they did not come, he would chop off their heads. Even then, nobody came. So he said that he was going to take away their books - the four Vedas and some other scriptures, too...

Peristylus lawii Common name - Law’s peristylus Habit - Terrestrial orchid  Habitat - Moist areas  Place - Rourkela Forest Division, Odisha Medicinal uses - Tuber paste is applied externally for insect bites. Food value - The tuber is boiled and consumed. Sugimani Marndi

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Chapter 3 - Samadhi Day 13  Question - Gurudev, is it possible to get stuck in achieving a mood of dispassion, turning one's attention to the separation between self and thoughts, emotions and sensory data, and is it possible to see more clearly who you are? But if a habit is developed of separating oneself from everything in an artificial way, you will lose spontaneity, attunement with nature and will not fully engage in life by giving it your 100%. How do you walk this tightrope, and how do you know if you are too far on one side or the other?  Gurudev Sri Sri - Dispassion does not divide you. In fact, it connects you. It connects you to the present moment so totally that you can be 100% in anything that you are doing. When you are not dispassionate, then what happens? You are linked to the past or future.  You are not one 100% connected to the present and are more divided. So when your mind is hoping for something in future or regretting the past, it is not...

The Cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) is a small, evergreen tree, from the family Anacardiaceae). The Cashew Road and Cashew MRT along the Down-Town Line, in Singapore, are named after it. 🌰The tree grows up to 12m tall and has a wide dome shaped crown and its foliage forms a thin peripheral canopy with protruding inflorescences.  🌰Leaves are simple, leathery, obovate, with smooth margins and prominent venation. They are alternately and spirally arranged in whorls.  🌰Flowers are produced in terminal panicles or corymbs, about 10 – 20 cm long, each flower is small, pale green at first, then turning reddish, with five slender, acute petals and are pollinated by honey bees, flies and possibly ants.  🌰It produces two fruits, the cashew apple and cashew nut. However, the cashew nut is the true fruit whereas the cashew apple is actually the swollen fruit stalk. Stem will ooze out a clear gum when injured. 🌰The cashew apple...

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practise  Day 12  Buddhists have got their own method of determining who is enlightened and who is not. Somebody who sings, dances, and enjoys living in the world is not enlightened. Somebody who mingles with their family members is not enlightened. The enlightened have to renounce their family. I have seen many of these so-called sanyasis.  They are so afraid of meeting their own family. They fear that they could develop attachment for them again. I remember in one of the ashrams, an intimate, a so-called sanyasi and renunciate, would not meet his mother, an old lady who was nearly 70 years old, whe. she would go there to meet him. He would meet everybody else.  What had this poor old lady done that he would not even meet her? She would cry. Many of the renunciates - the so-called nuns, brothers and fathers are very cruel to their own family people because that is their idea of renunciation. Why can't the close relatives be love...

 🐴🥭Horse Mango (Mangifera foetida) also known as Bachang, is a critically endangered species of mango tree, native to Thailand, Vietnam, Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Borneo.  🌳The tree may grow up to 40 m tall and can be identified from the glossy and leathery leaves, which have obvious depressed secondary venation. Some studies describe the leaves as stiff and thick cardboard-like. The leaves are simple and arranged in whorls. 🌳 The tree bears copper-red inflorescences (panicles) with tiny pink flowers, that mature into globose, fibrous and stinking drupes. The ripe fruit is strongly scented. The unripe fresh fruit contains an irritant juice which may inflame the lips and mouth if consumed. At maturity the irritant juice is restricted to the skin of the fruit. The fruits are used in curries, pickles, rojak, and to make chutneys or sweetmeats. 🌳Although the sap of the tree irritates the skin, it is used as a lotion to treat ...

Sparrow's Mango (Buchanania arborescens) is a medium sized tree that can grow up to 35 m tall, and may sometimes have buttresses upto 1 m high.   Bark is smooth, greyish brown, red on the inside, and oozes harmless greyish gum when cut.  Crown is compact with upright leaves that are spirally arranged.  The stalked leaves have leathery leaf blades that are green, oval to drop-shaped, with a blunt tip, and network-like venation.. Young leaves are reddish in color.  Its flowering shoots are 5.5–22 cm long, and bear small creamish-white flowers with 5-6 petals.  Fruits are tiny, globular, about 1 cm in diameter, reddish to purple-black when ripe.  These are eaten by sparrows, imperial pigeons and other birds.  Aboriginal people of Australia eat the fruit raw. Unripe fruits may be boiled and cooked. When ripe, they become sweet and pulpy, like gooseberries, although their rind is ...

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practise  Day 11  Once you know the nature of your being - total bliss and total pleasure - even the fear about the gunas and the fear about the world will disappear. It is like diabetic patients being afraid of sweets. The sight of sweets frightens them because they are forbidden. But the one who has sweetness in him doesn't mind if there are sweets near them. This is parama vairagya.  Supreme dispassion, ie., not being scared or running away from the world but being in it, completely centered. People have very peculiar ideas about enlightenment. Every culture and religion has got its own ideas about it.  In the Christian religion a rich man cannot be enlightened. It is impossible. You have to be poor to be enlightened. Form the Christian point of view, Rama could not be enlightened. He ws a king. How could a King be enlightened? Even if a camel could go through the eye of a needle, a rich man could not be enlightened.  On...

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practice  Day 10  The craving for any of the sense objects or celestial heavenly places that the mind gallops towards is an obstruction. Any expectation in meditation is an obstruction.  You may have heard that someone had seen a light or somebody coming from heaven and taking them by hand. So, you sit with your eyes closed and wait for an angel to come or to have a light shine on you and then to burst into million stars.  All these ideas and thoughts become an obstruction. If you have dispassion, you will feel that you are not giving up anything for nay of these pleasures. Your desire for pleasure or happiness will make you unhappy. If you examine yourself whenever you are miserable or unhappy, you will find that your misery is due to your desire to be happy.  Craving for happiness brings misery. If you don't even crave for happiness, you are happy. You crave for happiness and you invite misery. When you don't care for happ...

This week we take up the study of plants from another family that falls in the order of Sapindales. That is the cashew and mango family, Anacardiaceae. Today's post is about Kedondong ( Spondias dulcis) also known as Hog Plum or June plum, is a fast-growing, tropical tree that can reach up to 20 m high. It is valued for its edible fruit that is a drupe containing a fibrous pit.  The tree bears pinnately compound leaves with oppositely arranged elliptic-oblong leaflets, which are finely toothed toward the apex.  The flowers are small and inconspicuous, with white petals and are produced in panicles. Its oval fruits, about 6–9 cm long, are borne in bunches of 12 or more on a long stalk. Over several weeks, the fruit fall to the ground while still green and hard, then turn golden-yellow as they ripen. It is a very nutritional food containing Vitamin B,C, and A. In West Java, its young leaves are u...

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practise  Day 9 The mind gallops towards the world of five senses. If you just be quiet, close your eyes, or open ur eyes, or do anything, where does your mind go? It goes towards the sensne of sight. It is the same for the sense the smell, taste, sound, touch.  And this craving for any of these experiences in the mind can prevent you from being in the present moment. Vairagya is retrieving your senses from the craving or from the thirst for something back to its source for a few moments. Then, you will feel that however beautiful a scene is you are not interested in looking at it.  However great the food, you feel that it is not the time for it, that you are not interested in tasting it then. However melodious the music maybe, you do not want to listen to it at that time. It may be wonderful to touch something but then you are not interested in touching it or feeling it at that time. Vairagya may be present for even a few moments....

Syzygium aqueum is a tree of family Myrtaceae native to Malaysia, Southern India, New Guinea and Queensland. Its common names include watery rose apple, water apple, Jambu air and bell fruit. The tree requires heavy rainfalls. In the Philippines, it is locally known as tambis and is often confused with macopa (Syzygium samarangense). The tree is cultivated for its wood and edible fruit. The fruit is a pear shaped, fleshy yellow or red berry which is bell shaped, has a waxy peel and crisp, juicy pulp. The fruit has a very mild and slightly sweet taste similar to apples, and a crisp watery texture like the inside of a watermelon. Fruit is generally seedless, but sometimes may have 1-4 small seeds. It is a staple of Southeast Asian fruit stands, where it is inexpensive while in season. It does not bruise easily and may be preserved for months in a household refrigerator. The fruit skin is rich in Vitamin A. In the past, Malaysian women who had given bir...

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practise  Day 8  This is another important point - with honour and respect. Sometimes, we grumble when we do something. It is no use of doing something unenthusiastically. That is not abhyasa.  Abhyasa is something done with gratitude, gratefulness, honour and with respect. This is something we lack in our life. We should do everything in life with honour and respect. Even if you do something with honour and respect, it lasts a very short period.  And, if you have to do something over a period of time, you tend to lose that honour and respect. If you have to arrange a stage and, if you're doing it for the first time, you will do it with all honour and respect. You will put in so much attention, so much love, so much heart and awareness.  But if you have to do it everyday for the next five to six months, you will just do it without the spirit with which you did on the first day. As time goes on, you seem to lose that alertnes...

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practise  Day 7  The mind can never go where you are. A wave can never go to the depth of the ocean. By the time the waves go to the depth, it ceases to be a wave. So the mind can never come to you. The mind can never be you. That is why never mind! You are never the mind. It's superficial.  The moment that mind starts coming towards you, it is not a mind. That's why it's said, "Never Mind." You are accepted there, never the mind. Your mind can never go there. You know you have had this experience often.  The mind keeps on asking questions, "Why, why, why, why?" You feel that something is bothering you is your mind's stuff. At that moment there is alertness, and an awareness dawns. And then there is a relief in the mind. And the more you feel that your questions are just "mind's stuff", more and more you are aware and then, the questions just vanish. This is Abhyasa, this is practice. In the next su...

Chapter 1 - Discipline Of Yoga Day 6  That which you do to 'be' is called abhyasa or practice. Abiding in the seer is abhyasa. That which you do to be there, now, here or in this moment is abhyasa. An effort is needed for you to relieve yourself from five modulations and just be here - now, now, now, to bring the mind to the present and not dwell on past memories.  This effort is called abhyasa. You can start by being determined that you are not going to dwell on any logic. You are free from pramaana. You are not going to be interested in any proof. If the mind is asking for proof, just know it. Know it, observe it and relax.  You are not interested in any wrong knowledge or right knowledge. Often when the mind is on wrong knowledge, it thinks it is on the right one. So, it is not even interested in knowing anything. Retrieve the mind from knowing, and from knowledge.  There is no anxiety to see, smell, touch, feel or understand anything. Let things be th...

Chapter 1 - Discipline Of Yoga  Day 5 The third vritti is Vikalpa. Vikalpa is a sort of hallucination. There may be some thought. But, it is not true. However, something hovers in the mind. This is called Vikalpa. People become paranoid.  All such unfolded and baseless fears do not mean anything. Such thoughts and ideas are called Vikalpas - fantasies. The mind either gets stuck in proof or in wrong knowledge, misconception or fantasies. Fantasies are vikalpas.  You may be already 40, 50 or 60 years old, and you fantasize what it would be like if you were 16 again. Then, you go on and think that you would go somewhere and get a big haul of gold and that, then, you would become rich.  Then, you would have your own helicopter to fly in. It is not just the children who fantasize. Adults also get into their own fantasies. This fantasy is called Vikalpa,the third modulation of Chitta. Vikalpa, could be of two types.  One could be of a joyful and pleasurab...

We have studied plants from the Melaiceae family, over the past weeks. Now let's have a quick recap of the general characteristics of this family.  🌳-Commonly known as the Mahogany family, the Melaiceae is classified under the order Sapindales. 🌳- It includes plant6s that are generally trees or shrubs, rarely herbs. 🌳- Members usually have pinnate leaves without stipules. These are alternately arranged in whorls and have characteristic asymmetric leaflets. 🌳-Flowers are generally small and unisexual, and produced in panicles, spikes or cymes. Never solitary. Flowers are usually fragrant with 5 petals and a superior ovary. 🌳-Fruits vary over species from woody capsules in Swietenia to fleshy drupes in Azadirachta, Lansium and Sandoricum. Fruits split open on maturity as in Swietenia and Aphanamixis or the pulp is segmented as in Lansium and Sandoricum. 🌳- Most species are evergreen, but some ...

Kigelia africana Syn.: Crescentia pinnata, Kigelia pinnata (Common name: Sausage Tree, Common Sausage Tree, Balam khira in Hindi) - Bignoniaceae, the mature fruits are seen dangling from the long stalks like giant sausages.  They may be up to two feet long and weigh up to 6 7 kg. The fruit, while not palatable for humans, is popular with hippos, baboons, and giraffes. Mainly grown as a curiosity and ornamental, both for its beautiful deep red flowers and its strange fruit. There are also a range of traditional uses for the fruit, varying from topical treatments for skin afflictions, to treatment for intestinal worms. There are some steroid chemicals found in the sausage tree that are currently added to commercially available shampoos and facial creams. Reference  Surendra Parihar Ex.Professor and Head. Deptt. of Seed , Science and Technology. Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa,  New Delhi,  India 110012