The Fire of Your Life in Ayurveda, Agni
In the Diet and Nutrition Blog post, I shared some recipes to help you boost your immunity for all 3 doshas and what the modifications are respectively. I also shared a few books from my 200 hours Ayurveda Yoga Teacher Training to support you on your journey to well-being.
You can go to Smile.Amazon.com choose Jai Bhakti Yoga Foundation as your charity of choice to help us spread wellness and natural health throughout the world.
I’d like to start with this quote from the Ayurvedic Text, The Charaka Samhitha, which says it best,
“Without proper diet, medicine is of no use. With proper diet, medicine is of no need.”
So what is Agni?
The literal translation means fire. Or to ignite. It is responsible for our digestion, metabolism, and conversion. According to the Ayurvedic texts, It is the heat that processes our body temperature, radiance, biochemical transformations, as well as our life span, complexion, strength, enthusiasm, energy, vitality, health, and immune system. (Kshirsagar, Magno, p20) It is vitally important and when functioning poorly can lead to the imbalances of Vishama, Tikshna, and Manda agni. These 3 are part of the 4 Agnis that are known as our Digestive Intelligence.
Vishama- is related to Vata Dosha. It causes irregular appetite when variable and can lead to gunas such as gas, constipation, and air in the digestion.
Tikshna - is related to Pitta dosha. It is fast digestion, which gives the desire for large meals or to eat frequently. Most pitta disorders are caused by this kind of Agni. It tends to have the gunas of sharp, quick, hot, burning, or hyperacidity.
Manda Agni- is related to Kapha dosha. Food is digested poorly due to weak agni and the dhatus (our tissues of the body) are formed improperly. The gunas are dullness, slow digestion, low appetite, laziness, heaviness, and sluggishness.
The Agni we strive for is known as Sama Agni. It is related to Tridosha balanced, meaning that it is perfectly balanced health. This happens when digestion is regular, dhatus are balanced, and all food functions are normal. In Ayurveda, this is known as perfect health. This is reflected in healthy daily routines, healthy environments, maintaining a positive mindset, living by circadian rhythm, and ensuring you are eating healthy organic, and nutritious meals.
I have been sharing some meals to balance out the doshas on my blogs, email newsletters, website in the Ayurveda Section, and social media channels. There are also healthy yoga classes I have been sharing to establish balance in the body and will be sharing 6 yoga poses to support balance as a morning and evening routine along with the Maharishi Yoga Asanas that I do before meditation 2x a day.
If we are not practicing a healthy daily routine, we tend to cause a bit of backup in our bodies known as Ama. It’s the sludge that causes a lot of this dullness, makes your skin look unhealthy, and is the toxicity we work to eliminate through healthy bowels or elimination.
In my email this week, I will be sending out a Free Ama Assessment, so you can see for yourself what level of unhealthy build-up you have as well as some tips to re-establish or reintegrate healthy daily routines both morning and night to support you and keep you disease-free.
Click the link here to take the Free Dosha Quiz and Assessment so you can also receive the Free Ama Assessment.
Be sure to head over to the website and sign up for our email newsletter. Which will also have the Free Ayurveda Diet Workbook and Dosha Assessment.
I will also be sharing some Detox tea recipes in this week’s email, blog, and social media posts to support gut health and clear out Ama. This will help to boost immunity and fight any unwelcome visitors.
AS Ram Dass says, “The same fire that burns, also Purifies,” so let’s start this purification to optimize our health so we can be the best versions of ourselves.
Daily routines are what we call Dinacharya in Ayurveda. There is quite a process involved, but we start small and add as we go. Over time it becomes a natural part of your morning. We will go over Dinacharya along with the nightly routines known as Ritucharya in the coming blog and podcast. What is important to know, is that Dinacharya and Ritucharya are practiced based on the seasons and your dosha constitution. So we will get into that as well as circadian rhythms next week.
“Your ambition is transformed into purpose and you need to become the observer,” as Dr. Dyer has said.
Utilizing Ayurveda gives you the proper clarity to discover your dharma (purpose) and guide yourself on the journey that you are created for without blockages. In addition, Dr. Dyer says, “your authentic Self is way beyond the ego.”
Sometimes we get so caught up in daily life that we are busy being busy and not productive. When we are so focused on being busy, we neglected ourselves and in turn, neglect taking the time to nurture and have reverence for our life.
Someone who is airy, charismatic, spacey, and happy go lucky, can quickly become, irritable, sharp, cold, and rough which tends to be the imbalance of a Vata type, and someone that is ambitious, focused, intellectual, and sharp, can quickly lose their temper, erupt, and be quite hurtful and ”hangry” which lends itself to our Pittas. Someone who is sweet, subtle, calm, and content can turn lethargic, uncaring, and lose motivation when aggravated which are our Kaphas.
It is truly important to remain balanced and conscious of our thought, speech, actions, and environmental nourishment because it is just as important to our agni as food is. If we are going through grief, depression, have a friend that “brings out the worst in you,’ going through a divorce, break up, have a job that causes anxiety, or allowing controversial matters to get the best of you, then you are aggravating your agni and creating the imbalances we spoke of earlier.
There are 4 points to consider that I learned from Dr.Dyer and want to share them with you, because they are quite relative to establishing a balanced Sama Agni for all of us, and are part of making choices to improve our lives, well being, health, and unity or yoga of the mind, body spirit.
These are:
Reverence for all of Life - Respect. As my beautiful friend and soul brother, Sam said to me one time,
“respect is the highest form of love.”
Sincerity - Honesty. We learn this through living the 8 limbs of yoga. Specifically Satya- truth.
Gentleness - Kindness. Having compassion for yourself and others when things don’t go as intended.
Supportiveness - Service what we call SEVA in yoga. Selfless acts of love.
Lately, there has been a catch term thrown around in the yoga world known as “Sankalp or Sankalpa” it is literally used as another way to set an intention for oneself and those around you. In Maharishi Yoga Asana, it is practiced at the beginning of the sequence, and for those of you that have been practicing with me over the years and on YouTube, it is done in every class at the beginning and remembered and honored at the end.
I would like to encourage you all to offer a Sankalp to yourselves over the next 40days as a bit of a gentle challenge to establish the 4 principles we learned. Reverence for all of Life, Sincerity, Gentleness, and Supportiveness to yourself.
In turn, take note of how the universe opens to the abundance of good health for you. Jot it down in a journal, or download my 40day Kriya log to take responsibility and hold yourself accountable for your own health. If you miss a day, you have to start all over again. Which is directly correlated to point #2 - Sincerity and honesty. Use the 40 Day Kriya log, as a tool along with the others I have provided, to re-ignite the Agni within.
In order to improve your health, you need to improve your mindset and your diet. As Maharishi says, “diet is anything that is taken in around you.”
Thank you so much, everyone, for reading this blog, and I invite you to support Jai Bhakti Yoga Foundation by giving us a follow on Instagram @jaibhaktiyoga, join our Membership Subscription for $39 a month on our website, which has more information on Ayurveda, On-demand classes from chair yoga, gentle yoga, chakra balancing classes, meditations, bilingual classes in Spanish, access to our once a monthly live zoom class, and a library freebies for you to download and share with your friends and family. Also, be sure to download our Jai Bhakti Yoga Podcast on Spotify and iTunes, as well as subscribe to our free YouTube channel with classes posted daily at 8 am.
I’d like to also remind you to join us for our donation-based Sacred Drumming and Ayurveda Yoga retreat with Ryan Taylor on Feb 5-6 join us in Plano, TX and get a free lululemon namaste yoga mat. More info at JBYFnola.org and our Facebook page and Eventbrite. We will be leading a few more of these leading up to the Autumn Equinox retreat in September. More details on that to come.
If you wish to support financially go to our website at jbyfnola.org and make a donation or Venmo: @JAIBHAKTIYOGA
If you would like to join our Spring 200 hour Ayurveda Yoga Teacher Training, click here to pre-register with the code JBY30 and save 30% before 2/28/2022 on ALL tuition options.
Here are some resources and references to include in your wellness library.
Kshirsagar, Manisha, Ph.D.; BAMS, DY&A; Magno, R.Ana Cristina BA, MS, AWC, CM, Ayurveda, A Quick Reference Guide
Dr. David Frawley and Dr. Vasant Lad; The Yoga of Herbs: An Ayurvedic Guide to Herbal Medicine
Rosalee De LA Forret ; Alchemy of Herbs
Dr. N.W. Walker; Fresh Vegetables and Fruit Juices
We hope that you benefitted from our free-of-charge programs and services, for which a group of expert yoga teachers, ayurvedic clinicians, practitioners, consultants, and holistic wellness leaders volunteered their time and creative effort to support you so you can live your best healthy life. Continued electronic implementation, programming, and education require considerable expense to sustain online at little to no cost for you and the community. Will you Please consider giving to JBYF in acknowledgment of this professional contribution?
Thank you very much and live well.
