Ayurveda Initiative For Global Health

The red rhododendron (Rhododendron arboreum) is known for its medicinal properties, including: Anti-Inflammatory Effects: It contains compounds with potential anti-inflammatory properties, making it valuable in traditional medicine for treating inflammatory conditions. Antioxidant Activity: The plant possesses antioxidants that may help combat oxidative stress and related health issues. Traditional Medicine: Various communities use parts of the red rhododendron in traditional medicine for treating ailments such as rheumatism, fever, and respiratory disorders. However, caution is advised due to potential toxicity. Regarding economic importance: Horticulture Industry: Red rhododendron is cultivated for ornamental purposes, contributing to the horticulture industry. Tourism and Landscaping: Its vibrant flowers make it a popular choice in landscaping, enhancing the aesthetic appeal of gardens and attracting tourism. Local Economy:...

Weekly Knowledge 296 Rishikesh 15 Mar 2001  India THE PARADOX OF SACRIFICE All the scriptures of the world glorify sacrifice. What is sacrifice? It is giving up something that you value. You can only sacrifice that which you would like to keep for yourself; in other words, that which gives you pleasure and joy. You cannot sacrifice something that you dislike or disown. Sacrifice is always related to a higher cause for a greater good. At the same time, when your love for the greater good is so strong, nothing else assumes any value. Sacrifice here becomes irrelevant, because love alone is your strongest driving force. So when there is so much love there cannot be sacrifice. At the same time when there is no love, there is no sacrifice. For example, if a mother has made plans to see a movie and she realizes that her child is sick, she does not say that she has sacrificed the movie to nurse her child, because she simply did not want to go. Nothing else seems to charm the m...

Weekly Knowledge 297 Rishikesh 22 Mar 2001  India DIVINE IN THE FORM AND FORMLESS Divinity is unmanifest, but man has an innate desire to perceive the divine in the manifest creation around him. He creates idols, breathes faith into it and requests divinity to be present in that idol for a while, so that he can worship, express his love and play with it. At the end of his worship he requests divinity to go back into his heart from where divinity manifested. This is in all puja practices. They are not actually worshipping the idols but worshipping the unmanifest divinity which has all the divine qualities. So, the idol worshippers of the East are not the same as the ones in the Middle East as described in the Bible, because they are not just worshipping different gods and different idols, they are worshipping the ONE divinity in many different forms. Paganism, Satan and animal worship, without the knowledge of the one divinity is very different from seeing the divine in ...

Weekly Knowledge 298 Rishikesh 30 Mar 2001  India STRENGTH AND SUBORDINATION Many people do not want to work under someone else, be it in their profession, in any company or even voluntary service. The general notion is that when you work under someone, you lose your freedom, you have to be answerable. So, many people opt for business, wanting to be their own boss. But, in business, you are accountable to so many people. If you cannot be accountable to even one person, how can you be accountable to many? This is the paradox. In fact, being in business binds you more than the boss! Refusing to work under someone is a sign of weakness, not strength. A strong person would not feel uncomfortable working under anyone, because he knows his strength. It is the weak and poor in spirit who do not like to work under someone else, because they are unaware of their strength. They can be neither successful in business nor in any profession. And the same is true even in the field of ...

Being calm and peaceful when everything is calm, everything is peaceful, has no meaning. But when everything is falling apart, then being quiet and peaceful – that peace has value. A bottle of water has more worth in a desert than when you are surrounded by water. When you are sitting by a spring, then a bottle of water is of no value to you. One handful from the spring is good enough to quench your thirst. When there is chaos, there is confusion; when there are problems all around you, then calmness is needed the most; wisdom is most valuable then. When people blame you, when they don’t understand you, that’s when you need the inner strength to smile. When things don’t go the way you want them to, that’s when you need the endurance, the strength and. courage to remain unperturbed. Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

Weekly Knowledge 299 Bali 05 Apr 2001  Indonesia COMMITMENT AND CONVENIENCE A commitment can only be felt when it oversteps convenience. That which is convenient, you do not call commitment. If you just go on your convenience, your commitment falls apart causing more inconvenience! If you keep dropping your commitment because it is inconvenient, can you be comfortable? Often, what is convenient does not bring comfort, but gives an illusion of comfort. Also if you are too stuck in commitment, and it is too inconvenient too often, you will be unable to fulfill your commitment and it will only generate frustration. Wisdom is to strike a balance between convenience and commitment because both bring comfort to the body, mind and spirit. A seeker of knowledge should forget about convenience, so should soldiers, rulers, students, seekers of wealth and all essential service providers. Those who want to be creative and adventurous transcend convenience. Those who are ambitious a...

Weekly Knowledge 300 Singapore 12 Apr 2001  Singapore DEALING WITH BLAME AND ACCUSATION When someone blames you, you feel a heavy load on your head, and when you talk about it you spread the unpleasant feeling all around you. At this moment wake up and see you are Being and nothing can touch you. This is all just a drama, which you yourself have created. You have gone through this over and over again. All the blames you face in your life are your own creation. Knowing this, you feel free and light. Owning responsibility for all your experiences in life makes you powerful and will put an end to grumbling, planning counter attacks, explanations, and all those host of negative tendencies. Owning full responsibility you become free.  When someone blames you, directly or indirectly, what do you do? Do you register it in your mind and get emotionally upset? Do you dismiss them altogether without taking a lesson from it? Do you talk about it with people and waste your tim...

Weekly Knowledge 301 Hawaii 17 Apr 2001  Hawaii SELF CONFIDENCE AND AMBITION Ambition indicates lack of self-confidence! When you know you can achieve something easily, you are not ambitious about it. You are simply confident about it. Your ambition indicates challenge and uncertainty, which is contrary to self-confidence. So one you has total self-confidence cannot be ambitious!! At the same time a person who lacks total self-confidence cannot be ambitious either!! For ambition to be, one must have a little bit of confidence and total ignorance of the Self. It is next to impossible to have total confidence without Self-knowledge. With the knowledge of the Self, there is nothing left to achieve, for the entire nature of existence is mere play and display of one's own consciousness. People take pride in being ambitious. The wise man will only smile at them. Ambition can never be for something you know you can achieve effortlessly. You can only be ambitious about somethin...

Weekly Knowledge 302 Sao Paulo,Brasil 25 Apr 2001  Brazil THE DANGERS OF BELONGINGNESS AND ADVANTAGES OF OBLIGATIONS Belongingness can bring about a host of negative emotions. Like demand, jealousy, unawareness and lack of gratitude. Just look into your own life, you feel more grateful to strangers than the people you feel "belong" to you. Belongingness reduces gratefulness, awareness, and gives rise to demands which destroys love. This is the biggest problem in relationships. People are nice to strangers and give more attention to them. With a sense of belongingness comes carefreeness and lack of attention. Look belongingness can make you insensitive, dull, and take away the charm in life! Anyway, who belongs to whom in this world? Here you are a stranger and everyone is a stranger to you! Blessed are those who feel themselves as a stranger! You feel more obligation to a stranger than the person you feel belongs to you. Obligation is very good to keep a check on ...

Weekly Knowledge 303 Panama City 03 May 2001  Panama PRESTIGE AND HONOR, YOUR GOLDEN CAGE Honor reduces the freedom. Your fame, honor and virtue can limit your freedom. Nobody expects a good person to make a mistake. So the better person you are, the higher the expectations people have of you. It is then that you lose your freedom. Your virtues and good actions are like a golden cage. You are trapped by your own good actions, for everyone expects more from a good person. Nobody expects anything from a bad person. Most of the people are stuck in this cage of prestige and honor. They can not smile. They are constantly worried about keeping up their prestige and their honor. It becomes more important than their own life. Just being good or doing good to keep the prestige and honor is worthless. Prestige and honor can bring more misery in life than poverty. Many desire fame, but little do they know that they are looking for a cage. It is an art to be dignified, and yet not ...

Weekly Knowledge 310 Stockholm 20 Jun 2001  Sweden TENDENCIES AND INFLUENCES Life moves by dual (two) factors: inner tendencies and outer influences. Inner tendencies form your attitudes and behavior, while external influences makes strong impressions in your mind. Often your tendencies generate external situations. And situations around you can form tendencies within you. This is what is called Karma. Both these factors - the tendencies from within and influences from outside, can either be beneficial or harmful. It is the awareness that filters the outer negative influences and it is the awareness that corrects and annihilates the unhealthy inner tendencies. This awareness is called Gyana. The purpose of education is to develop this awareness, so that you can be selective about your tendencies and influences. It is practically impossible to resist the external influences and the inner tendencies without raising one’s consciousness. This can be gradual or sudden. And t...

What is home? A home is a place where you are at rest. Where you can be yourself and feel comfortable.  For me, the entire world is my home. Wherever I go, I feel the same belongingness with the people. The whole world is my family, my home.  I want every home to be like an ashram. Ashram means where there is no shram _(effort)_; where all the efforts, all the strains of the mind, heart and body drop. All the fears, insecurities, stress, everything drops and you experience deep rest. Every home should be like an ashram. People dream of beautiful homes. They spend so much time, money and energy decorating and re-designing their houses or they keep changing homes. Yet they are not at rest. You can be at rest only when you are comfortable first within yourself. The first step is to relax and the last step is to relax as well! The most relaxing or comfortable place is right within you. Repose in that peaceful, cool, calm, serene depth of your being—this is immensely va...