Q: Gurudev, Is 'Ojas' the same as happiness?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Happiness is different from Ojas.
Ojas is a certain type of energy, vibrancy in you. Like in the morning you are very vibrant, then you go to work and get tired, and in the evening you don’t have that same energy, right? In the same way, when you are enjoying through the five senses, you see television for three hours, or you sit in a movie for three hours and come out, your Ojas is spent. If you listen too much, or eat too much, your Ojas is gone. Too much sex and Ojas totally gets depleted.
Ojas is spent when you are engaging in any of the five senses.
Ojas can be rebuilt in the system through proper food, rest and attitude, but not very late in life. You cannot say that you are trying to rebuild your Ojas at the age of 60 or so. It has to be done before a certain age. It is like you cannot become very flexible after a certain age.
Ojas is certain vibrancy in you, energy. Our body has seven substances and Ojas is one of them. In the pulse reading you can see that. After a certain age, the testosterone hormone is gone; similarly Ojas is related to, let us say, hormones. You cannot build those hormones at a later age.
During teenage, Ojas is maximum, and then if one keeps up with a good routine, good food, then Ojas continues through the middle age. And in the middle age, you can increase it or completely get away with it. That is possible. But after sixty or seventy, you cannot say, ‘Okay, now I want to bring back the Ojas into my system’. It may be possible but it is difficult. It depends.
Then they advise you to do the Kaya Kalpa, which is a particular treatment in Ayurveda, where for forty days you have to be inside a small room with no sunlight. There is a particular diet that you have to follow and you are not allowed to come out in the sunlight. Then people feel totally rejuvenated after forty days. It is like being in the womb again. Just like a child is in the womb for nine months, they put you through some rigorous treatment for forty days. Only the doctor will come in and give you the treatment, massages, etc.
