Ayurveda Initiative For Global Health

Sphaeranthus indicus L. Family : Asteraceae Common name - East Indian Globe Thistle, Bhuinkadamba (Odia). (Photo credit - Rajkumari Supriya) Medicinal uses - 🌻The whole herb is used in Ayurvedic preparations to treat epilepsy & diarrhoea. 🌻Leaves dried in the shade and powdered are used in doses of 20 grains twice a day in chronic skin diseases as an antisyphilitic (a drug). 🌻Flowers are tonic, cooling, alterative and used in conjunctivitis and give strength to weak eyes. 🌻The external application of a paste of this herb is beneficial in treating edema, arthritis, filariasis, gout and cervical adenopathy. Sugimani Marndi Biodiversity and Conservation Lab.  Ambika Prasad Research Foundation Cuttack, Odisha  www.aprf.co.in

🌹PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS🌹                          🌀CHAPTER - 10🌀     ~ The Eight Limbs Of Yoga ~                 🌀DAY - 82🌀 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 " ब्रम्हचयॅप्रतिष्ठायां वीयॅलाभः " " Bramhacharya pratishtaayaam veeryalaabhah. " Brahmacharya, usually means celibacy. Celibacy brings you a lot of strength. Brahmacharya has a bigger and deeper meaning than just celibacy. Brahma means infinity, charya means moving in the infinity. You move like a glow of light when you know your vast nature and consider yourself not to be just the body. This is when celibacy naturally happens. When you are sitting in deep meditation, you do not feel you are a body and that you are a lump of heavy weight - eighty pounds, ninety pounds, one hundred pound body. You feel so light. You feel as though you are like a feather. When you walk you do not feel the weight of your body. You ...

🌹PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS🌹                          🌀CHAPTER - 10🌀     ~ The Eight Limbs Of Yoga ~                 🌀DAY - 81🌀 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 Following Satya is to be with "what is." To be truthful in one's life, one's presence, one's mind, one's heart - not in your words but in your intention. Are your intentions straight-forward and clear? Or are you hiding something behind them? Is there some other hook you are keeping? That indicates truth. The second principle, yama, is the clarity in your intention and openness in your approach, the truth. Third yama, is asteya, not stealing. You may admire somebody's voice and wish you had a good one. You have already stolen it. You may admire someone's looks and wish you looked like her. You have already stolen her looks. This creates jealousy and a desire to have something that you admire. This is the reason w...

Phyla nodiflora Family : Verbenaceae Habit : Herb Habitat : Coastal sandy areas, paddy fields and stream sides (Wetland plant) Date and place : 30th August 2022, Sundargarh  Medicinal uses : ✔ It is used for pain in knee joint. Sugimani Marndi Biodiversity and Conservation Lab. Ambika Prasad Research Foundation Cuttack, Odisha www.aprf.co.in

💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐         🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺                      🌿Chapter - 26🌿          ~ Prana, Faith And Doubt ~                   🌱 Day - 150 🌱 💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐 There is a story about Narada. He was once walking on the earth somewhere in a mountainous area. He saw a young boy meditating, praying and dancing, and he saw an old man also sitting and meditating. He went to the old man and told him that he was going to heaven, to God. Did he have any questions for Him? The old man said that he wanted to know when God was going to liberate him. For how many more days, months or years would have to do all the practices? Narada agreed to do so. Then he went to the body. The body did not even notice Narada since he was dancing in ecstasy and joyfully meditating. But when Narada insisted and asked several times if he had any que...

💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐         🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺                      🌿Chapter - 26🌿          ~ Prana, Faith And Doubt ~                   🌱 Day - 149 🌱 💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐 विश्वं स्फुरति यत्रेदं तरंगा इव सागरे । तत्त्वमेव न सन्देहश्चिन्मूर्ते विज्वरो भव ॥ This is such a precious statement. Have you ever seen yourself as a life, not just as somebody? You never put thoughts on you. You are always thinking about your circumstances. Even if you think about yourself, you think in terms of what others think about you. You think about yourself in terms of others. What is your relationship to yourself? Throw everything out for five minutes. Just for five minutes; even five seconds will do! What are you? Who are you? What do you want? I am life. Have you experienced that life burning in this body, in your very body? तत्त्वमेव न सन्देहश्चि...

💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐         🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺                      🌿Chapter - 26🌿          ~ Prana, Faith And Doubt ~                   🌱 Day - 148 🌱 💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐 विश्वं स्फुरति यत्रेदं तरंगा इव सागरे । तत्त्वमेव न सन्देहश्चिन्मूर्ते विज्वरो भव ॥ When a wind blows on the lake or ocean of your consciousness, so many forms, thoughts, ideas, ideologies and feelings arise like the waves which arise on the surface of water when the wind blows. Do an experiment with one of your very good friends. Tell him or her something. Push a button in him, and in a couple of days or nights, he will be off his sleep and off himself. He will lose his peace of mind because of few words you said. Just say that somebody said that he was a hopeless person. Or you could tell him that Guruji has said that he had become a devil and would never get...

💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐         🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺                      🌿Chapter - 26🌿          ~ Prana, Faith And Doubt ~                   🌱 Day - 147 🌱 💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐 In Sanskrit, doubts are called sandeha, Deha means body. Sandeha means doubt. They're very close. It is a state of mind. Doubt is a state of mind. Do you know when there is this state of mind? It is when we are body-conscious or body-bound, and are not aware of the life within us. When a child starts becoming aware of its own body, it start asking more and more questions. And when the body matures into adolescent stage,there are ever so many questions that reel in the mind. Doubt is that state of mind where it's not fully alive. Answers cannot satisfy doubt. Hearing and seeing cannot eliminate doubt. Only prana can eliminate doubt. When a doubt arises in your m...

💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐         🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺                      🌿Chapter - 26🌿          ~ Prana, Faith And Doubt ~                   🌱 Day - 146 🌱 💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐 Where are you? Which planet are you on? What is your world? Are you sure you are not dreaming? Are you sure you are here on this planet? Are you sure earth is beneath you? What is it you are hanging on to? How long will we continue this play, this drama? What is happening? What is the origin of the mind?  Where do all these thoughts arise from? Where does all this grumbling arise from? Where do all your concepts rise? How do they rise? How do they fall off? How do your likes and dislikes of people arise and fall off? If we don't get these doubts, we will not ask ourselves these questions. Not that they don't arise; they do but we brush them aside. We don't...

💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐         🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺                      🌿Chapter - 25🌿          ~ Acting Spontaneously ~                   🌱 Day - 145 🌱 💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐 Some yogis make you work day and night, while others tell you not to do anything; to just sit still and meditate all the time and that they will take care of everything. Christian missionaries have no time to relax. They work a lot all day with only half an hour in the morning and half and hour in the evening for mass and prayers. They work and work the whole day. Many have nervous problems. They have renounced the world, but they are so busy working, they don't even have time to breathe! Some of the Zen and Buddhist meditators don't stir out at all. They don't move around. They sit still all day and just meditate, meditate and just meditate. They start meditatin...

💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐         🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺                      🌿Chapter - 25🌿          ~ Acting Spontaneously ~                   🌱 Day - 144 🌱 💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐 कर्मनैष्कर्म्यनिर्बन्धभावा देहस्थयोगिनः । संयोगायोगविरहादहमासे यथासुखम् ॥ Janaka said that many yogis and saints had advised him to do various things. He had done them all. He has surpassed and come away from them. That there was nothing that he wanted to achieve and nothing that he wanted to lose. He was at peace and at rest. Whenever the time is not right, you are asked to do various things - japa, chanting, meditation, mudra, or pranayam. You are kept busy and engaged in so many things. It has a purpose. It is there for you - toy for you to play with; for a period.  This is all there for you to mature, to fall in deep love with the Divine. Once you have f...

💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐         🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺                      🌿Chapter - 25🌿          ~ Acting Spontaneously ~                   🌱 Day - 143 🌱 💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐 If you start thinking this way - that everybody may commit some or other sin - how can you do service to anybody at all? How do you know the person you are helping will not turn against you or somebody else? If there any way of knowing? So, what is the choice here? Do you have to judge,discriminate, and then act? Or do you act spontaneously? This is very beautiful. All the scriptures preach about being good and doing good. Then, concepts fill your mind, and you struggle with them all your life. All this is getting stuck in what we consider mortality. But when you go little deeper into it, there is big confusion. Someone asks you for food and out of compassion, yo...

💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐         🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺                      🌿Chapter - 25🌿          ~ Acting Spontaneously ~                   🌱 Day - 142 🌱 💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐 कृतं किमपि नैव स्यादिति । Ashtavakra says, 'Turn back and look at your lives.' What all you have done? Have you done anything or has it all just happened? Has it not all just 'happened'? Events keep happening. Janaka said that he had understood it very well. And that it was very beautiful. He said that he simply did whatever action he was supposed to do and what time demanded of him. Janaka says, ' If I am in a garden and I see a child running around playing and it falls. I do not wonder if it is good and righteous to help the child. I will pick the child up and comfort her. I do not sit, judge, decide and discriminate if I should do this or that, if it is merito...

💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐         🌺 ASHTAVAKRA GITA🌺                      🌿Chapter - 25🌿          ~ Acting Spontaneously ~                   🌱 Day - 141 🌱 💐☘🌾☘🍀🍁🍀☘🌾☘💐 There is a story. Once there was a potter who made many pots. He took much time in making them, making each pot artistically and even painting some of them. He put them all in a basket to take to the market. It was quite some distance to the place. Usually the mind does not keep quiet. The potter started daydreaming as he was walking along. He began to make various plans what he would do with the money that he would earn by selling the pots. He imagined that he would become a millionaire. That his friend would respect him a lot. He would give them a lot of money and he would be able to just relax and lean on a chair doing nothing. While dreaming he dropped both h...

🌹PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS🌹                          🌀CHAPTER - 10🌀     ~ The Eight Limbs Of Yoga ~                 🌀DAY - 80🌀 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 " सत्यप्रतिष्ठायां क्रियाफलाश्रयत्वम् "  " Satya pratishthaayaam kriyaphalaashrayatvam. " All your actions will become fruitful, if you are established in truth. The actions of many people don't bring about results because there is no truth-consciousness in them. The fruit of an action will follow immediately when there is no truth-consciousness. क्रियाफलाश्रयत्वम् - There is success in action. And truth is not just the words. It is the quality of the consciousness, of straight-forwardness. Even if you are telling a lie and you are bold enough to say that you are telling a lie then you are speaking truth. When you tell a lie, your consciousness is not solid. It is not straight-forward. There is no strength i...

🌹PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS🌹                          🌀CHAPTER - 10🌀     ~ The Eight Limbs Of Yoga ~                 🌀DAY - 79🌀 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 What is the effect of ahimsa? " अहिंसाप्रतिष्ठायां तत्सन्निधौ वैरत्यागः " " Ahimsa pratishtaayaam tat sannidhau vairatyaagah " If you are established in non-violence, violence will be dropped in your very presence by other creatures. Someone may plan to attack you. But, as soon as they come near you, they will feel your vibration which is totally non-violent. Then, they will stop being violent. The contemporary of Buddha was Mahaveera. He was the promoter of the Jain religion. He emphasized ahimsa. It is said that people up to twenty kilometres around him would drop their violence. And, that, even thorns would not prick anybody. They would become soft and be flat on the ground to avoid pricking anybody. " अहिंसाप...

🌹PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS🌹                          🌀CHAPTER - 10🌀     ~ The Eight Limbs Of Yoga ~                 🌀DAY - 78🌀 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 Yama is the first limb. What are yamas? Ahimsa satya asteya brahmacharya aparigraha. These are five yamas. Ahimsa - non-violence Satya - truth Asteya - stealing Brahmacharya - moving in Barhman, moving in bigness Aprigraha - non-accumulation " जातिदेशकालसम्यनवश्चिन्ह्सवॅभुमहाव्रतम् " " Jaati desha kala samaya nvachchinnaaha saarvabhoumaa mahaavratam "  These are the greatest vows because it is applicable at all times, in all places and for all people. There are certain laws which apply just to certain people, or times. An animal is violent for some reason. The wild animals hunt only when they are hungry. They do not hunt just for pleasure but the human beings do. They go hunting for no reason. A python eats ...

🌹PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS🌹                          🌀CHAPTER - 10🌀     ~ The Eight Limbs Of Yoga ~                 🌀DAY - 77🌀 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 Human consciousness is like a seed. A seed has the possibility of a tree, of branches, of leaves, flowers and fruits, of multiplication, etc. So does the human mind. A seed needs a proper soil, proper conditions, sunlight and water to sprout and blossom on its possibility. It is the same with the human consciousness, the human mind. Either the seed can be dormant for many years, keeping its sprouting and developing possibilities within itself or it can start sprouting and growing right away. The sprouting of this seed of human consciousness is viveka - discrimination and wisdom. Freedom comes with viveka, or discrimination. All other species in this creation are completely governed by nature. They do not need dis...

🌹PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS🌹                          🌀CHAPTER - 9🌀 ~ Eliminating The Cause Of Pain ~                 🌀DAY - 76🌀 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 " तस्य हेतुरविध्या " " Tasya heturavidyaa "  If you think these vrtittis are yours, it is ignorance. And what is the way to come out of the ignorance - a definite understanding and knowledge in the mind that the body is undergoing changes all the time; that the world is undergoing changes all the time; that the entire universe, in the form of fluids, is in a state of fluidity - it is all full of changes and is going on, on its own, according to its nature. The definite knowledge that you are not the body, that you are the Self, that you are the space, that you are imperishable, untouched and untamed by the prakriti and the world around you, that the body is all hollow and empty, and every particle in this body is ev...

🌹PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS🌹                          🌀CHAPTER - 9🌀 ~ Eliminating The Cause Of Pain ~                 🌀DAY - 75🌀 🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷 " कृताथॅ प्रति नष्टमप्यनष्टं तदन्यसाधारणत्वात् " " Kritaartham prati nashtam anashtam tadanya saadhaaranatvaat. " There is a power of nature in these sutras and we should really go deep into them. Your body is made up of the three gunas - sattva, rajas and tamas, and they influence your thoughts, behavioral patterns, etc. Many things may happen in the world and the gunas attract, accordingly, the events, situations and circumstances around you. When the tamasic guna dominates, it creates more dullness, sleep and lethargy in you. When the rajasic guna is dominating, your mind is restless and full of desires. And if the mind is dominated by sattva guna, it is very alert, sharp, joyful and enthusiastic. All these qualities e...