Ayurveda Initiative For Global Health

Asian pigeon wings (Clitoria ternatea), commonly known by many other names like, bluebellvine, blue pea, butterfly pea, and Darwin pea, is another climber plant belonging to the family Fabaceae. 🌿It is a perennial herbaceous plant, with compound leaves having elliptic leaflets.  🌿It grows as a vine or creeper, doing well in moist, neutral soil. 🫐 The most striking feature about this plant is the color of its flowers, a vivid deep blue, with light yellow markings. Some varieties yield pale blue or white flowers. 🌿The fruits are 5–7 cm long, flat pods with six to ten seeds in each pod. They are edible when tender. 🫛🌿It is grown as an ornamental plant requiring little care when cultivated. Being a legume, its roots form a symbiotic association with soil bacteria known as rhizobia, which transform atmospheric N2 into a plant-usable form (a process called nitrogen fixing), therefore, this plant is also used to...

Chapter 3 - Samadhi  Day 17  By doing something you cannot experience, you cannot achieve this awareness. You cannot bring up the intelligence and the alertness in you by effort. It can be done only without effort, with relaxation, means the practice of resting - conscious relaxation and rest. Unconscious rest is sleep which we are force to do by the nature. You are not resting voluntarily, you are forced to. When you are tired, it feels as if nature is pulling you down and forcing you to rest. You are not resting voluntarily. It is only in meditation that you really rest because you are consciously resting. You allow rest.  Otherwise, your rest swallows you. Sleep is putting yourself to rest and meditation is resting on your own. This is abhyasa. For some people, this comes through old samskaras, impressions. Some people have to do a lot of practice in order to be calm and equanimous, in order to bring up more awareness in them.  For some people it happe...

Silky Afgekia ( Afgekia sericea) an evergreen, perennial climber, native to Thailand, grows beautifully on trellises and railings.  It is a sun loving tender plant, that has hairy silvery leaves, to help reflect back the sunlight to prevent sunburn.  It's inflorescence is a delight to watch. The pea-like flowers have yellow nectar lines and are pollinated by special leaf- cutter bees that nest on the leaves. Family: Fabaceae Reference  https://www.facebook.com/myplantdiaries?mibextid=ZbWKwL Plants of Singapore

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...