Ayurveda Initiative For Global Health

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...