Foods rich in Ojas

[Apakhana Akshobhya]

Asking this here because I don't know where else to put it...

While i'm not looking for a Google search result, I'm wanting to ask who here has been eating Ojas rich foods and which ones over long periods of time.

[Honza]

My mum is very careful with her diet. She eats fresh fruit and veg every day and is careful with meat and sugar.
She is 87 but looks like a 60 year old. Very healthy.

[Miss Hepburn]

To save members time looking this up, since this is an English speaking Forum*: ojas

'Ojas is a Sanskrit term that can be translated as “vigor” or “essence of vitality.”
In a nutshell, ojas is the vital energy that rules our immunity,
strength, and happiness—three things we want to have in abundance.
If our ojas is weak, our health, our spirits, and our energy sag.'


*If you feel you 'must' use a non-English word or some ancient word no one knows or some acronym not
many would ever know, at least
follow it with a definition. Thank you.

[Apakhana Akshobhya]

Thanks, from what I've seen the importance is on FRESH produce and like you said, avoiding types of sugars.

Oh ok thanks Miss Hepburn.
The importance of the Ojas is in general as described and also specific to being vital towards Kundalini shakti.
Not so much in"pranic" expression in my own rote yet I wondered if putting this in the Hinduism forum would yield a better discussion vs dropping it elsewhere.

[kralaro]

Originally Posted by Apakhana Akshobhya

I wondered if putting this in the Hinduism forum would yield a better discussion vs dropping it elsewhere.

Even in Hinduism section people may not be able to differentiate Ojas vs Tejas vs Prarna increasing foods.There's an Ayurveda section if you want to try that out.

[kralaro]

Originally Posted by kralaro

Ojas vs Tejas vs Prana

Defining them as Miss Hepburn had instructed in this thread.

These are subtle, not physical terms. To the best of my limited knowledge, these are the types of energies produced when Satva (equanimity) interacts with Kapha (earth and water), Pitta (fire and water), Vata (space and air) respectively. Of course not the physical earth / water etc. but the subtle elements.

Coming to food, first let's acknowledge that subtle classifications of food exist; physical classifications are e.g. calcium, iron, calories while subtle classification would be e.g. the way we reach for warm foods or cooling foods to counter the weather even if those foods are at room temperature. Heat countering foods are a common knowledge here in India, e.g. eating rose petals mixed with sugar in summers.

Vata, Pitta, Kapha are subtle classifications of food according to the elements they promote, and so are Satva (equanimity), Rajas (transformation/activity), Tamas (inertia).

So those foods which promote equanimity (Satvic foods) and also promote Kapha (earth & water elements) would promote Ojas to the maximum. But i think Rajasic (Rajas promoting) and Tamasic (Tamas promoting) foods of Kapha type should also promote Ojas in lesser degrees.

Let's take an example of someone building muscles then he may want to focus on Rajasic Kapha foods. Kapha foods being earth & water, so heavy & watery foods. Or even Tamasic Kapha foods, e.g. buffalo milk as i know wrestlers in villages of India prefer Buffalo milk for their profession. Indian cow milk is Satvic while Buffalo milk is Tamsic.

When we see shine of health on someone's face, that's Tejas. Ojas as i understand is vitality. Prana is the life force in the body. Hindu god Hanuman being the deity of Prana. He's the son of god of wind and also we do Pranayam (breath control) exercises to promote Prana in the body :)

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by Apakhana Akshobhya

Thanks, from what I've seen the importance is on FRESH produce and like you said, avoiding types of sugars.

The importance of the Ojas is in general as described and also specific to being vital towards Kundalini shakti.

Just to comment - I know eating Yin foods can get a person, um...
how to say it...spacey and sometimes 'higher'.
I knew 2 gals that only ate raw things, no meat, flour, coffee, tobacco.. purists ---one cured herself of cancer
at 22 years old, along with fasting..
Man! Their eyes were like 'kaleidoscope eyes'.

[kralaro]

That's amazing Miss Hepburn. Yeah i feel that raw fresh foods like fruits, salads have more prana (life force) in them.

[Gem]

We tend to find that people who take radical approaches to food such as all raw etc. suffer adverse health affects after a while, but we only really hear about miracle-like stories, while the disasters don't see the light of day. However, statistically, disasters significantly outnumber positive outcomes.

When people take radical approaches to food, be that raw vegan or full carnivore, claims about wonderful health benefits and inexplicable cures abound, and where the contradiction between veganism and carnivorism is complete, the claims about health outcomes are about the same. The negative outcomes are far less reported, but there's a ton of them on You Tube.

One of the very advanced kandalini-bliss spiritualists I know only eats animal products, no plants, so even the 'spiritual story' about food doesn't actually hold water. I doubt meat is thought of as a oja food.

One of my nieces started having a lot of illnesses, was in hospital, and her nutritionist excluded all veges from her diet thinking she's reacting to her food, and presto, all good. Before her illnesses started she was full vegan (very oja apparently), which somehow led to her having numerous allergies and general ill-health. Now she's all better, she's adding veges back into her otherwise animal based diet one at a time, but there are a lot of plant foods she can't take anymore.

Don't be bamboozled. A healthy relationship with food is important, and more you get ideas about spiritualism and notions of 'toxins' etc, the more disfunctional that relationship becomes, and if you look at anyone with any kind of disordered eating, they'll tell you quite the story about food.

If you listen to people who are healthy, fit and strong, they'll just say they don't eat too much over processed rubbish, consume mostly whole nutritious food and don't under or over-over eat. I'm pushing 60 and have been through it all, from regular 3 veg and meat, to vege, to vegan, and back to the standard fare, and my health isn't perfect, but I'm practically a human bulldozer. I don't eat a lot of processed food. I eat meat, veges and rice, and fruit in my oat smoothie, I love coffee, and I love crisps, so it's not a health freak diet, but it's a good diet and I'm strong as an ox. Thus I don't have any negativity toward food at all, and I only think about the fuel I need to do all the things, but I imagine it as calories, which is the energy that food contains and the energy that the body spends. Call it 'prana', but the energy in an apple is actually sugar burning and snapping APT molecules causing billions of tiny explosions all through the body every second. Imagining that as 'prana' is very positive.

It's not really about the food you eat, but how you think about and relate to food. If you imagine food has a special light energy to it, that's a good way of imagining how you relate to it, but if you also imagine ugly muck with regards to some other food, that's a negative relationship.

I know this is unexciting and nothing special and it also flies in the face of the mystical narrative, but health and fitness comes from consuming the appropriate calories and good nutrients from a balanced diet of fresh wholesome food. Some individuals don't like vegan ways of eating, some like mostly veges, others like meat, so we can't rightly say this or that way to eat is the grand poohbah, but different individuals can have positive relationships with food in the different ways that they approach their nutrition.

[ajay00]

Originally Posted by Gem

Before her illnesses started she was full vegan (very oja apparently), which somehow led to her having numerous allergies and general ill-health.

Your understanding of Ojas is inadequate. Dairy products like milk, ghee (clarified butter), yoghurt , butter milk are considered to increase Ojas and are recommended. Ayurveda has a vegetarian context, not vegan.

On the other hand alcohol, frozen, stale or processed foods with preservatives are found to lower Ojas.

Ojas is defined as vigour in Ayurveda and there are certain foods that help increase Ojas while certain foods reduce it.

Ayurveda has a 5000 year old timeline, and just like Indian mathematics, Ayurvedic medicines and surgical procedures and tools had been adopted by the Arabs and Europeans later on which does indicate its efficacy.

https://journals.lww.com/prsgo/fullt...story.4. aspx

Ojas has been explained in the below article

https://www.keralaayurveda.biz/blog/ojas-in-ayurveda

Prana, Ojas and Tejas are also perceptual. I have noticed a decrease in prana and increased irritability after taking processed foods and other junk food.

Eating raw fruits I have also seen tangible increase in depth of meditation later on.

So these are good lifestyle choices anyone can make after researching it.