Peristylus constrictus

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

I AM

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 also a meditative state. This is a meditative state in which you are in ecstasy, and then there is a meditative state in which you are with some experiences, some thoughts, some ideas or some feelings hovering around. 

There is a third such state in which you have an irrefutable and logically understanding of creation. So, there are three such states. Now, the fourth state is amtangum samadh. This is really the deep experience of meditation, wherein you do not know anything. There is just awareness that 'you are.' You just know 'you are' but you do not know who, what or where you are. 

Nothing else is known but the experience of 'I am' - 'I am present.' This is fourth state is Samadhi, or meditative state. All these four are called, saat, which means that there is consciousness in all this. There is an outflow of awareness throughout.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Samadhi means equanimity

Chapter 3 - Samadhi 

Day 15 

What is the purpose of this sadhna? Vitarka - when your mind has a special logic to pursue in the world and to perceive the truth. Tarka means logic. Kutarka means wrong logic - when then intention is not right and the logic is applied only to find fault, when you know deep inside you that something is not right, but you still logically prove that it is right.

Vitarka is special logic. You may be talking about dispassion and logically you are understanding it, and this logical understanding, hearing or talking has a certain effect on your consciousness. It elevates your consciousness. You are in a different space. This is samadhi.

Samadhi means equanimity. "Dhi" is the intellect - the faculty that sustains you, faculty of consciousness. Now, we are in a state of Samadhi, because we are talking about the Self with a definite logic, an undeceivable logic. Logic can always change. You can put it on one side or you can put on the other. There is no loyalty. 

But Vitarka is a logic which cannot be condemned, which cannot be reversed. For example, if somebody is dead then it is obvious that he is dead. You know that the life that was there in the body is not there anymore. And that is the end. At that moment, your consciousness is in a different state. When you are not emotionally connected to anybody, what's happening to your consciousness? 

You feel that it is the end, for instance, when a movie is over, there is a feeling that all is over. When people walk out of the movie theatre, they are in a particular state of consciousness. They come out of a musical concert with a feeling that it is over. It is the same for a festival or for a course. When a course is over, the participants say that it has ended and they leave. 

The show is over. At that moment, there is a definite logic followed in the mind - irrefutable logic, irreversible logic that triggers your consciousness. It is so obvious.

Life is like this. It is so obvious. Everything is changing. They are bound to change, to dissolve and disappear. This vitarka elevates one's consciousness. One does not have to sit with the eyes closed or eyes open. 

The feeling of "I", the consciousness is all that is. Everything is empty. Everything is in a state of fluidity. The whole world is just a quantum mechanical field. This is Vitarka. The entire science is based on tarka, irrefutable tarka of it, the quantum physics or whatever you call it. That is vitarka, that is samadhi.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Cashew or Mango family.

This week we studied members of the Anacardiaceae family, popularly known as the Cashew or Mango family.

Let's do a quick recap of the major characteristics of this family.

🌷Most members of Anacardiaceae are native to tropical and subtropical areas of the world. Several species are economically important fruit and nut crops. 

🌷Members are mostly trees or shrubs

🌷Members of the family have resin ducts and tannin sacs in the bark and characteristically exude gums and resins that become black when exposed to air. These might be source of useful oils, resins, and lacquers.

🌷The leaves vary diversely and are usually deciduous, alternately arranged, lack stipules, may be simple or compound leaves that are mostly imparipinnate 

🌷Many species are dioecious, meaning male and female flowers are produced on different individual plants.

🌷Flowers are often tiny, and produced in terminal panicles. Individual flowers usually have bracts.

🌷Most members produce edible fruit/ nuts. The fruits are commonly fleshy drupes and rarely open at maturity. 

Common examples are Cashew (Anacardium occidentale), Mango (Mangifera indica), Ambarella (Spondias dulcis), and Sparrow's mango (Buchanania arborescens),

References: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anacardiaceae

https://www.britannica.com/plant/Anacardiaceae

Reference 

https://www.facebook.com/myplantdiaries?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Plants of Singapore

The strength of dispassion.

Chapter 3 - Samadhi 

Day 14 

There is a story about Diogenes of Greece. When Alexander the Great saw him, he was being carried out to be sold as a slave. The people who were taking him to be sold also looked like slaves. Diogenes announced that he was a slave and asked loudly who wanted to buy him. 

Because he was roaring like a lion, it was difficult for the people to make out who was the slave and who was selling the slave. Before Alexander the Great came to India, people in his country had told him that if he found some sanyasi here he should bring them back with him that, they were very precious and were there only in India. 

So, when he was in India he ordered that some sanyasis should come to him. But, nobody would come. He then sent a message threatening them. He said that if they did not come, he would chop off their heads. Even then, nobody came. So he said that he was going to take away their books - the four Vedas and some other scriptures, too. 

The pandits agreed and said that they would give him all their books the next day. Overnight, the pundits made their children memorize all the manuscripts. And then they gave them to Alexander. They told him that they did not need them any more. Alexander got the manuscripts but he wanted a sanyasi, and a sanyasi would not come. 

Finally, he had to go to one sanyasi and threaten him saying that he would chop off his head if he did not go with him. The sanyasi replied that Alexander could do is if he wanted. The mighty emperor could not even look into sanyasi's eyes. He could not stand the power of dispassion that he saw there. 

Here was a person who, for the first time, did not care for an emperor. When Alexander was in India, some people presented him some golden bread in a plate. And he said that he was hungry and wanted some real bread. They replied that he was an emperor, and how could he eat mere wheat bread. So, they had prepared golden bread for him. 

Alexander said that they were making fun of him and he was starving and wanted real bread. Hearing this, the people got some real bread. They asked him whether such bread was not available in his country. And why had he conquered so many places? Was it to get bread and if he too ate the same bread that was eaten in India? This shook Alexander for a moment. He felt that it was the truth. 

What was the point of conquering country after country. All that he needed was to live peacefully and happily. When he did not have the happiness and peace, and when he didn't have that care and concern for his people, putting his stamps on all the villages and towns had no meaning. So it seems Alexander said that, when he died, his hands should be kept open. 

He wanted the people to know that, though he conquered so many countries, Alexander the Great was going with empty hands. That he could not take a thing from this earth. Dispassion is the strength in you. Even if the Lord of the Wealth comes, you do not need to take anything from Him. That is the strength of dispassion. 

It is not arrogance. It is centeredness. If you are so centered and calm, then you can understand that everyone who has come to this world has come to give something and not to take anything from here. A very different shift takes place.

Peristylus lawii , Law’s peristylus

Peristylus lawii

Common name - Law’s peristylus

Habit - Terrestrial orchid 

Habitat - Moist areas 

Place - Rourkela Forest Division, Odisha

Medicinal uses - Tuber paste is applied externally for insect bites.

Food value - The tuber is boiled and consumed.

Sugimani Marndi

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Samadhi

Chapter 3 - Samadhi

Day 13 

Question - Gurudev, is it possible to get stuck in achieving a mood of dispassion, turning one's attention to the separation between self and thoughts, emotions and sensory data, and is it possible to see more clearly who you are? But if a habit is developed of separating oneself from everything in an artificial way, you will lose spontaneity, attunement with nature and will not fully engage in life by giving it your 100%. How do you walk this tightrope, and how do you know if you are too far on one side or the other? 

Gurudev Sri Sri - Dispassion does not divide you. In fact, it connects you. It connects you to the present moment so totally that you can be 100% in anything that you are doing. When you are not dispassionate, then what happens? You are linked to the past or future. 

You are not one 100% connected to the present and are more divided. So when your mind is hoping for something in future or regretting the past, it is not 100% with the moment - that means it is divided already. When you are fully centered while doing anything in the world, you are 100% with every moment. 

You may be eating, and you are eating 100%. You enjoy every bit of it. You can feel every sip of the soup that you are having. Every bite of the food tastes great. Every sight is fresh and new. So your love is like the first love every moment. When you look at anybody or anything, they are all charming to the core, as if you are seeing for the first time.

Dispassion doesn't take away the joy from you. Dispassion gives the joy which nothing else can give. What pleasure can dispassion not give? It gives all the pleasures because you are so totally in the moment. It puts you hundred percent in the moment. Every moment is a peak experience.

The so-called dispassion in the world seems so dry. 

People who think they are very dispassionate are melancholy. They are sad. They run away from the world and then they call it dispassion. Then, they say that they have renounced the world. This is no renunciation or dispassion. People who escape because of failure, misery, sorrow, or apathy feel that they have dispassion. 

Dispassion is something more precious, more refined, and more valuable in life. If you are dispassionate, you are always centered - full of joy and contentment. Anybody would like to be like that.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Cashew tree , Anacardium occidentale

The Cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) is a small, evergreen tree, from the family Anacardiaceae). The Cashew Road and Cashew MRT along the Down-Town Line, in Singapore, are named after it.

🌰The tree grows up to 12m tall and has a wide dome shaped crown and its foliage forms a thin peripheral canopy with protruding inflorescences. 

🌰Leaves are simple, leathery, obovate, with smooth margins and prominent venation. They are alternately and spirally arranged in whorls. 

🌰Flowers are produced in terminal panicles or corymbs, about 10 – 20 cm long, each flower is small, pale green at first, then turning reddish, with five slender, acute petals and are pollinated by honey bees, flies and possibly ants. 

🌰It produces two fruits, the cashew apple and cashew nut. However, the cashew nut is the true fruit whereas the cashew apple is actually the swollen fruit stalk. Stem will ooze out a clear gum when injured.

🌰The cashew apple can be eaten fresh, preserved as jam or sweetmeat, mixed fruit salads and can be prepared as a drink. Cashew apple juice can be slightly fermented to become wine and can be distilled to produce strong alcoholic drinks. 

🌰Both the fruit bark juice and the nut oil are said to be folk remedies for calluses, corns, warts, cancerous ulcers, and even elephantiasis. 

🌰Poultry feeds are made from seed-coats. Cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL), an oil, also has industrial applications and can be used as a preservative to treat wooden structures and fishing nets. 

🌰The wood can also be used as fuel or low quality timber. It is also used to produced charcoal. Tree bark is used in tanning.

🌰Extraction from the astringent barks has been used to treat severe diarrhea. Older leaves are used in the treatment of skin afflictions and burns. Oily substances from the pericarp are used to heal cracks in the feet. The bark is used to make herb tea to treat asthma, colds and congestion. Seed oil is used in the treatment of gingivitis, malaria, and syphilitic ulcers. Bark and leaves are used to treat sore gums and toothache. The extraction of the leaves is gargled to cure sore throat. The resin is used for cold treatment.

Scientific name: Anacardium occidentale

Common name: Cashew, Kaju

Family: Anacardiaceae

Native Distribution: Tropical America

Source:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashew

 NParks flora&fauna web

Picture credits: Joseph Ooi

Reference 

https://www.facebook.com/myplantdiaries?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Plants of Singapore

Yoga means skill - skill to live your life, to manage your mind, to deal with your emotions

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practise 

Day 12 

Buddhists have got their own method of determining who is enlightened and who is not. Somebody who sings, dances, and enjoys living in the world is not enlightened. Somebody who mingles with their family members is not enlightened. The enlightened have to renounce their family. I have seen many of these so-called sanyasis. 

They are so afraid of meeting their own family. They fear that they could develop attachment for them again. I remember in one of the ashrams, an intimate, a so-called sanyasi and renunciate, would not meet his mother, an old lady who was nearly 70 years old, whe. she would go there to meet him. He would meet everybody else. 

What had this poor old lady done that he would not even meet her? She would cry. Many of the renunciates - the so-called nuns, brothers and fathers are very cruel to their own family people because that is their idea of renunciation. Why can't the close relatives be loved when everybody else can be? Why can't you see them with the same eye? 

This is a concept. Many sanyasis go through this difficulty about their family members. Amidst all concepts about enlightenment, we forget the essence - dispassion and being centered. Being centered despite everything and living in the world. It is the second essential principle in Yoga. Abhyasa and Vairagya.

Three gunas come in cycles in our life - sattva, rajas, tamas. When sattva comes, there is alertness, knowledge, interest, joy and happiness. When rajo guna comes, there are more desires, feverishness, restlessness, sadness, etc. When tamo guna comes, there is delusion, attaching, lack of knowledge, lethargy, etc. 

There three phase come in life in cycles. But one who is centered will watch, witness and just move through them, very naturally and easily, without being averse to any.

What happens when there is aversion? You promote it. You stay with whatever you are averse to. You continue to crave for whatever it is that you want. You allow the craving to continue. 

Therefore, moving through the guna without craving or aversion is a real skill. And that is Yoga. Yoga karmasu kaushalam - the skill in action is Yoga. The word Yoga means skill - skill to live your life, to manage your mind, to deal with your emotions, to be with people, to be in love and not let that love turn into hatred. 

In this world everyone loves but that love doesn't stay the

same for long. Soon, it turns into hatred, sometimes almost immediately. But Yoga is that skill, that preservative, that maintains love as love all the time.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Horse Mango , Mangifera foetida , Bachang, is a species of mango tree

 🐴🥭Horse Mango (Mangifera foetida) also known as Bachang, is a critically endangered species of mango tree, native to Thailand, Vietnam, Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore, Borneo. 

🌳The tree may grow up to 40 m tall and can be identified from the glossy and leathery leaves, which have obvious depressed secondary venation. Some studies describe the leaves as stiff and thick cardboard-like. The leaves are simple and arranged in whorls.

🌳 The tree bears copper-red inflorescences (panicles) with tiny pink flowers, that mature into globose, fibrous and stinking drupes. The ripe fruit is strongly scented. The unripe fresh fruit contains an irritant juice which may inflame the lips and mouth if consumed. At maturity the irritant juice is restricted to the skin of the fruit.

The fruits are used in curries, pickles, rojak, and to make chutneys or sweetmeats.

🌳Although the sap of the tree irritates the skin, it is used as a lotion to treat ulcers. The sap is also used in tattooing. The leaves are said to alleviate or prevent fever. Its seeds are used against eczema, scabies, and trichophytosis.

There are currently two individuals of Mangifera foetida listed as Heritage Trees in Singapore. One can be found at MacRitchie Reservoir Park and another at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

🌳ETYMOLOGY

The scientific name Mangifera means mango bearing and 

Species foetida means strong smelling, referring to the fruit

Source:

https://www.nparks.gov.sg/florafaunaweb/flora/3/0/3012

https://uforest.org/Species/M/Mangifera_foetida.php

https://tropical.theferns.info/viewtropical.php?id=Mangifera%20foetida

Reference 

https://www.facebook.com/myplantdiaries?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Plants of Singapore

Buchanania arborescens, Sparrow's Mango, Little Gooseberry, 'Otak Udang' literally means "prawn's brains".

Sparrow's Mango (Buchanania arborescens) is a medium sized tree that can grow up to 35 m tall, and may sometimes have buttresses upto 1 m high.  

Bark is smooth, greyish brown, red on the inside, and oozes harmless greyish gum when cut. 

Crown is compact with upright leaves that are spirally arranged. 

The stalked leaves have leathery leaf blades that are green, oval to drop-shaped, with a blunt tip, and network-like venation.. Young leaves are reddish in color. 

Its flowering shoots are 5.5–22 cm long, and bear small creamish-white flowers with 5-6 petals. 

Fruits are tiny, globular, about 1 cm in diameter, reddish to purple-black when ripe. 

These are eaten by sparrows, imperial pigeons and other birds. 

Aboriginal people of Australia eat the fruit raw. Unripe fruits may be boiled and cooked. When ripe, they become sweet and pulpy, like gooseberries, although their rind is not very thick. This resemblance is the reason why the tree is also called 'the little gooseberry'tree" .

The plant is also used as a traditional medicine in Australia and Malaysia. Headaches can be treated using a poultice of pounded leaves.

There is currently one individual of Buchanania arborescens listed as a Heritage Tree in Singapore. It can be found at the Changi trail.

Scientific name: Buchanania arborescens 

Common names: Sparrow's Mango, Little Gooseberry, The Malay name of this tree 'Otak Udang' literally means "prawn's brains". 

Family: Anacardiaceae

Native Distribution: China, Taiwan, Myanmar, Andaman Islands, Indochina, Thailand, throughout Malaysia, Singapore to New Britain (Papua New Guinea), Solomons Islands, and Australia

References:

https://www.nparks.gov.sg/florafaunaweb/flora/2/7/2760

https://www.nparks.gov.sg/garde.../heritage-trees/ht-2003-45

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchanania_arborescens

https://www.facebook.com/myplantdiaries?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Plants of Singapore

The nature of your being is Total Bliss and Total Pleasure

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practise 

Day 11 

Once you know the nature of your being - total bliss and total pleasure - even the fear about the gunas and the fear about the world will disappear. It is like diabetic patients being afraid of sweets. The sight of sweets frightens them because they are forbidden. But the one who has sweetness in him doesn't mind if there are sweets near them. This is parama vairagya. 

Supreme dispassion, ie., not being scared or running away from the world but being in it, completely centered. People have very peculiar ideas about enlightenment. Every culture and religion has got its own ideas about it. 

In the Christian religion a rich man cannot be enlightened. It is impossible. You have to be poor to be enlightened. Form the Christian point of view, Rama could not be enlightened. He ws a king. How could a King be enlightened? Even if a camel could go through the eye of a needle, a rich man could not be enlightened. 

Once, I was traveling from Bangalore to Delhi. I met a gentleman at the airport. He was a Christian priest. He looked at me and smiled. I smiled back and he came over to talk to me. Addressing me as his dear brother, he said that he felt like talking to me. 

Being encouraged by me to do so, he said that I seemed to be a very nice person. Then, he asked me if I believed in Jesus. I replied that I did. He was a little stunned. He asked me again if I really believed in Jesus. When I reaffirmed that I did, he asked me if I wasn't a Hindu. I replied that perhaps I was. Then, he pointed out that I believed in Krishna. I said that I believed in Krishna, too. 

He asked me how Krishna could be God. Be was a butter thief. He was married. How could somebody who stole butter and who ws married be God? Continuing, the priest said that Krishna could not give me salvation and Jesus was the only way. He said that he was also a Hindu at one time but he has converted to Christianity later. 

He said that from the time that he had become a Christian everything had begun happening. Jesus was taking care of him. Then, the priest advised me to convert to Christianity, too. And he was so sincere in telling this and in trying to convert me. Jains do not consider Krishna to be enlightened because he had started the war. 

Arjuna had decided to renounce the world and take sanyas. But Krishna had brainwashed him and had made him fight in the war. Since Krishna was responsible for the big war, how could he be enlightened? Then, again he had been stealing butter and had so many wives. It was impossible that he was enlightened. Jains don't think that an enlightened person, a sadhu, should ever wear clothes. 

They think that such persons should always be naked. One who is not so, is not enlightened. How will it be known whether they are free from lust or not? What will be the proof? Jain sadhus are nude and they are considered enlightened. This is their idea of enlightenment. They don't consider anybody who eats and enjoys two meals a day to be enlightened. If a saint eats chocolate, he is not considered a saint at all.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Expectation in meditation is an obstruction

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practice 

Day 10 

The craving for any of the sense objects or celestial heavenly places that the mind gallops towards is an obstruction. Any expectation in meditation is an obstruction. 

You may have heard that someone had seen a light or somebody coming from heaven and taking them by hand. So, you sit with your eyes closed and wait for an angel to come or to have a light shine on you and then to burst into million stars. 

All these ideas and thoughts become an obstruction. If you have dispassion, you will feel that you are not giving up anything for nay of these pleasures. Your desire for pleasure or happiness will make you unhappy. If you examine yourself whenever you are miserable or unhappy, you will find that your misery is due to your desire to be happy. 

Craving for happiness brings misery. If you don't even crave for happiness, you are happy. You crave for happiness and you invite misery. When you don't care for happiness, you are liberated and when you do not even care for liberation, you are liberated and when you do not even care for liberation, you attain love. 

This is param vairagya. But that is the second step. The first step is when you do not care for happiness. Then you are free. You are liberated. Happiness is a mere idea in your mind. You think if you have something, you will be happy. If you have whatever you want, are you happy? 

Then, you will think it was not the way that you had thought it would be. Vairagya is putting a stop to the craving for happiness. This does not mean you have to be miserable. It does not say you should not enjoy. But if you can retrieve your mind from the craving for joy, you can meditate. 

Then, you can still all the five modulations, and Yoga happens. You need to shatter all your dreams and fantasies. Offer them to the fire. Burn them down. What great happiness do you want? How long can you have it? You are going to leave this life at some time or the other. 

This is certain. It is all going to end. Before this earth eats you up, become free. Free yourself from feverishness that is gripping your mind. What great happiness are you having? Every object of pleasure that you have experienced will become like Styrofoam, the packing material - absolutely tasteless. 

You should study every craving that you have and remember that you are going to die. You may have a craving for sweets, sugar, food, etc. Have the craving and check consciously what is in it. You will find that there is nothing. You may crave for beautiful scenes. Keep looking at them. How long can you look? Your eyes will get tired of even the most beautiful place. 

Then, you will close them. You will forget the scenes. What other craving can come up in you - sex? How much sex can you have? Have it and finish it. You will see there is nothing in it. A few moments of it and that body, which was so attractive, looks like Styrofoam. All these objects that titillate the scenes have their limitations. But your mind is not ready to accept these limitations. 

It wants unlimited joy and pleasure which the five senses cannot give you. You simply get burnt down going over and over the same thing. Vairagya is skillfully coming on to the Self by honouring all the objects of senses and not blaming them. This is dispassion - Vairagya. 

Often, people who think that they have dispassion keep blaming the world and the objects of sensnes. They are afraid of objects of senses and try to run away from them. They think that they are big temptations. The fear of temptations is worse.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Kedondong , Spondias dulcisa , Hog Plum or June plum,

This week we take up the study of plants from another family that falls in the order of Sapindales. That is the cashew and mango family, Anacardiaceae.

Today's post is about Kedondong ( Spondias dulcis) also known as Hog Plum or June plum, is a fast-growing, tropical tree that can reach up to 20 m high. It is valued for its edible fruit that is a drupe containing a fibrous pit. 

The tree bears pinnately compound leaves with oppositely arranged elliptic-oblong leaflets, which are finely toothed toward the apex. 

The flowers are small and inconspicuous, with white petals and are produced in panicles.

Its oval fruits, about 6–9 cm long, are borne in bunches of 12 or more on a long stalk. Over several weeks, the fruit fall to the ground while still green and hard, then turn golden-yellow as they ripen.

It is a very nutritional food containing Vitamin B,C, and A. In West Java, its young leaves are used as seasoning. In Costa Rica, the more mature leaves are also eaten as a salad green though they are tart. However, it is most commonly used for its fruit.

The fruit may be eaten raw; the flesh is crunchy and a little sour. "The fruit is best when fully ripe (yellow) but still somewhat crunchy. At this stage, it has a pineapple-mango flavor. The flesh is golden in color, very juicy, vaguely sweet, but with a hint of tart acidity.

Source:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spondias_dulcis

Reference 

https://www.facebook.com/myplantdiaries?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Plants of Singapore

NADI PARIKSHA IN WALKESHWAR , CUFFE PARADE MUMBAI

The basic requirement for meditation

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practise 

Day 9

The mind gallops towards the world of five senses. If you just be quiet, close your eyes, or open ur eyes, or do anything, where does your mind go? It goes towards the sensne of sight. It is the same for the sense the smell, taste, sound, touch. 

And this craving for any of these experiences in the mind can prevent you from being in the present moment. Vairagya is retrieving your senses from the craving or from the thirst for something back to its source for a few moments. Then, you will feel that however beautiful a scene is you are not interested in looking at it. 

However great the food, you feel that it is not the time for it, that you are not interested in tasting it then. However melodious the music maybe, you do not want to listen to it at that time. It may be wonderful to touch something but then you are not interested in touching it or feeling it at that time. Vairagya may be present for even a few moments. 

This is a another basic requirement for meditation. This dispassion has to arise in your mind whenever you what to do meditation - a deep meditation. Without dispassion, your meditation is no good. It is of no use. It cannot provide you the rest that you are longing for.

Your mind is tired and burnt out because of its galloping on towards desires after desires. Just look back and check all the desires that you have achieved. Have they given you rest? They have not. They have just created a few more desires in you. 

Have they given you any fulfilment? They have not. They have just given you a greater hope that you can achieve more; that you can have more. And that has sent you on another pointless trip. You are in a merry-go-round. It's not even a merry-go-round. 

A merry-go-round has dummy horses which you sit on. The horses do not go anywhere. They just go round and round in the same place, but give you an illusion that you have travelled miles and miles - an illusion because you have reached nowhere. 

Life has been such a journey where you are galloping, galloping and galloping and reaching nowhere. This is what desires do for you. The mind which is obsessed with desires cannot meditate. There are two types of attitudes. Some people feel that the mind should not have any desires and this becomes another desire. 

Destroy the desires. Some people are in this trip to destroy their desires. They are beating around the bush. Nothing happens to them. This principle should be very well understood.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Syzygium aqueum , watery rose apple, water apple, Jambu air and bell fruit.

Syzygium aqueum is a tree of family Myrtaceae native to Malaysia, Southern India, New Guinea and Queensland. Its common names include watery rose apple, water apple, Jambu air and bell fruit.

The tree requires heavy rainfalls. In the Philippines, it is locally known as tambis and is often confused with macopa (Syzygium samarangense).

The tree is cultivated for its wood and edible fruit. The fruit is a pear shaped, fleshy yellow or red berry which is bell shaped, has a waxy peel and crisp, juicy pulp.

The fruit has a very mild and slightly sweet taste similar to apples, and a crisp watery texture like the inside of a watermelon. Fruit is generally seedless, but sometimes may have 1-4 small seeds.

It is a staple of Southeast Asian fruit stands, where it is inexpensive while in season. It does not bruise easily and may be preserved for months in a household refrigerator.

The fruit skin is rich in Vitamin A. In the past, Malaysian women who had given birth would eat a ceremonial salad containing the fruit.

The wood is hard and can be used to make tools. The bark of the tree is sometimes used in herbal medicines, an astringent bark decoction is used to treat thrush. It is grown in orchards and gardens and parks as an ornamental plant. The leaves are edible and are sometimes used to wrap food.

It grows best in open, tropical environments. Add well-rotted compost to the soil before planting. During the first 2 years of growth, the trees should be carefully weeded, watered and mulched with regular applications of manure or complete fertilizer. After the trees have become established, they require minimal maintenance. This species grows quickly and will produce fruits within 2- 3 years. For optimal fruit production, apply a compound fertilizer after harvesting the fruits. 

This species is typically propagated by air layering. It can also be propagated by cuttings, budding, marcotting and grafting. Although seeds can be planted, they do not store well and must be planted immediately.

Reference 

https://www.facebook.com/myplantdiaries?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Plants of Singapore

Water Apple

Rose Apple

JambuAir

Syzygium Aqueum

Trees Of Singapore

Honouring the Master is honouring the Master's word

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practise 

Day 8 

This is another important point - with honour and respect. Sometimes, we grumble when we do something. It is no use of doing something unenthusiastically. That is not abhyasa. 

Abhyasa is something done with gratitude, gratefulness, honour and with respect. This is something we lack in our life. We should do everything in life with honour and respect. Even if you do something with honour and respect, it lasts a very short period. 

And, if you have to do something over a period of time, you tend to lose that honour and respect. If you have to arrange a stage and, if you're doing it for the first time, you will do it with all honour and respect. You will put in so much attention, so much love, so much heart and awareness. 

But if you have to do it everyday for the next five to six months, you will just do it without the spirit with which you did on the first day. As time goes on, you seem to lose that alertness, attention, attention, attentiveness, and honour.

You feel wonderful the first day when you sit for meditation because you are doing it with all honour. But after some sessions you will feel bored by it. You will just sit and close your eyes. It does not have the same effect. If any day, your meditation or Kriya is a little low, it is because you have lost respect for it, not that you disrespect it, but the attentiveness and alertness towards it is reduced. 

When you come together in a course, periodically, your meditation is deeper because you are receiving it with honour. You are honouring that knowledge. You are honouring yourself. What is honour and honouring? Have you ever thought about it? 

Honour is totally attentiveness to the present moment, with a tinge of gratefulness. If you honour a mountain, it means that you are seeing the mountain with all your heart and mind - without questioning or without debating within yourself. 

You are just honouring, being happy and grateful for what the mountain is. You honour some Nobel scientist. What does this mean? When the Nobel scientist is there, you are completely in the moment, being with that moment with all your heart - respecting and honouring.

Respect and honour every moment of your life. Then that becomes a practice. You respect your own body. That is practice, the asanas. What is Asanas? Asanas are respecting your own body consciously every moment. Respecting and honouring your breath and keeping it up over a period of time is pranayam. 

This is just like Kriya and the dimensions in Kriya. What is needed here is that you have to do the Kriya with the rhythm. Any practice is a practice only of it is down over a period is time- respectfully and without a gap. It is a practice only if you honour it every day and every moment. 

Then it becomes firmly established. This is very vital. Any day when you feel that your meditation has becomes dull, check if you have kept up the continuity of the practice. If you feel that you have, then check if you have been honouring the mantra and the chanting time, if you have been honouring the life in you.

If any of these is not being followed, then your meditation will do haywire. So, determine to honour. Consider, all the other events to be trivial. Just honour the moment. It is very precious. However the moment may be, it is very precious. Honour the word. A master has given you the word. It is precious. 

Honouring the Master is honouring the Master's word. If you don't have honour or respect for the Master, your meditation will not work. This is because that honour and the respect awakens the consciousness and raises awareness in you. It helps you to focus on the moment totally. 

If you do not honour the Master, the Master will not lose anything. Your own mind will lose it because it 'll be unable to be in the moment totally and dive deep into the source. Honouring the source of knowledge, honouring the Master, honouring the knowledge, honouring the receiver.

A good musician will honour the music, and the one who has taught him and the one who composed it. His full attention is there. It is the same with a good sportsman. He will honour his coach. If he doesn't honour his coach, he will not progress. Due to his attentiveness and the honour that he has for the coach, he is able to move ahead in his sports. 

Otherwise, if he keeps judging his coach and does what he wants to, then what is the need for a coach? This is abhyasa, the practice. Is this enough? Is just the Abhyasa, the practice? No, it is not. There are two oxen that are needed to pull this cart. One is abhyasa and the other is vairagya.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS 

Honouring The Practise

Chapter 2 - Honouring The Practise 

Day 7 

The mind can never go where you are. A wave can never go to the depth of the ocean. By the time the waves go to the depth, it ceases to be a wave. So the mind can never come to you. The mind can never be you. That is why never mind! You are never the mind. It's superficial. 

The moment that mind starts coming towards you, it is not a mind. That's why it's said, "Never Mind." You are accepted there, never the mind. Your mind can never go there. You know you have had this experience often. 

The mind keeps on asking questions, "Why, why, why, why?" You feel that something is bothering you is your mind's stuff. At that moment there is alertness, and an awareness dawns. And then there is a relief in the mind. And the more you feel that your questions are just "mind's stuff", more and more you are aware and then, the questions just vanish. This is Abhyasa, this is practice.

In the next sutra, Patanjali says,

"The effort to be still and steady comes with practice. At some time you may realize that it is the moment. And then it vanishes. You feel that the moment had come and you lost it. You say, "Now," and then "Now" is lost. 

It may not be right to say you have lost it but, in some sense, you feel you are not in the "Now." But, this effort is not just linear - this effort to be steadily established in the "Now" because of it. The "Now" is not linear. The "Now" is very deep and vast. The "Now", the present moment, is not just a point; not just a dot. It is infinity. 

It is "Now" in all dimensions and from all sides. Practice gives stability in that moment - that is the purpose of practice. And how can that be arranged? How can that be achieved? Anything of value in life take some time to culture. To master an art - cooking, playing a guitar, sitar, or a flute - takes some time. 

You cannot learn to play the flute in a day. It is not possible. To learn to play an instrument takes quite a while, and to master it even more. A coach is needed to teach how to play football. If you want to be a sportsman, you need a coach and you need practice. You need a coach in a gymnasium. You cannot make your body muscular overnight. 

It takes quite a long time. The body has its own requirement of time for its growth. Similarly, the mind takes even longer for its growth. It takes some time to memorize something. In the same way, any practice takes some time. It need not be too long but sufficiently long and without interruption. 

We usually learn something for a time and then stop. We will start again after some time. If we feel like doing it , we do, and don't do it if we do not want to; when we feel a little lazy. Then, the connection is broken, and what we want doesn't happen. Constant practice without a gap is essential. 

If you go to the gymnasium for a couple of days and stop and then go again after some time, you will not achieve anything. You may practice on the piano for two days and lay off for two days and nothing is gained. Lack of consistency prevents you from learning any art.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS

This moment is so new, so fresh and so total

Chapter 1 - Discipline Of Yoga

Day 6 

That which you do to 'be' is called abhyasa or practice. Abiding in the seer is abhyasa. That which you do to be there, now, here or in this moment is abhyasa. An effort is needed for you to relieve yourself from five modulations and just be here - now, now, now, to bring the mind to the present and not dwell on past memories. 

This effort is called abhyasa. You can start by being determined that you are not going to dwell on any logic. You are free from pramaana. You are not going to be interested in any proof. If the mind is asking for proof, just know it. Know it, observe it and relax. 

You are not interested in any wrong knowledge or right knowledge. Often when the mind is on wrong knowledge, it thinks it is on the right one. So, it is not even interested in knowing anything. Retrieve the mind from knowing, and from knowledge. 

There is no anxiety to see, smell, touch, feel or understand anything. Let things be the way they are. Do not care. Do not pass judgements of right or wrong. Free yourself form viparyaya, vikalpa. Check if the mind is on some imagination or some fantasy. 

By just knowing that it is imagining or fantasizing, it drops off. It is just like the time you know that you are dreaming - the dream vanishes. Knowing you are on a Vikalpa, or a fantasy, it just drops off, thereby freeing you. 

This moment is so new, so fresh and so total. Abhyasa is just recognizing the moment when you are free, fresh, full and totally in the present moment. Here your mind might try to go into the past. 

You know that the mind is getting into the five vrittis without any aversion or craving. This is coming back to the centre, to the seer. This moment, again and again and again, is Abhyasa.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS

The whole world is full of probabilities and possibilities

Chapter 1 - Discipline Of Yoga 

Day 5

The third vritti is Vikalpa.

Vikalpa is a sort of hallucination. There may be some thought. But, it is not true. However, something hovers in the mind. This is called Vikalpa. People become paranoid. 

All such unfolded and baseless fears do not mean anything. Such thoughts and ideas are called Vikalpas - fantasies. The mind either gets stuck in proof or in wrong knowledge, misconception or fantasies. Fantasies are vikalpas. 

You may be already 40, 50 or 60 years old, and you fantasize what it would be like if you were 16 again. Then, you go on and think that you would go somewhere and get a big haul of gold and that, then, you would become rich. 

Then, you would have your own helicopter to fly in. It is not just the children who fantasize. Adults also get into their own fantasies. This fantasy is called Vikalpa,the third modulation of Chitta. Vikalpa, could be of two types. 

One could be of a joyful and pleasurable fantasy, and the other could be baseless fears. Even fear is a Vikalpa. You may be apprehensive about what will happen if you die the next day. You may meet with an accident. You may become disabled. These are all just sounds that have no value. 

Baseless fears in the mind or fantasies are called Vikalpa. The fourth one is Nindra or sleep. If the mind is not in anyone of the three vikalpas, then it is asleep. The fifth activity of the mind is smriti - remembering the experiences it has had. When you are awake, are you in any of these four states of modulations? 

Then, that is not meditation. That is not Yoga. Are you looking for some proof? Are you debating with yourself? Are you hanging on to the wrong knowledge or concepts about how things are? You don't know how things are because the whole world is fluid. 

There is nothing solid here. No thoughts are solid. Nobody is solid. Nobody's mind is solid. No thoughts are solid. The whole world is fluid or even airy. Go one step further, and you can say it is all airy-fairy. Anything can change at anytime and in any manner.

The whole world is full of probabilities and possibilities. But your mind gets fixed on things, people, ideas, places, etc. It categorizes them into definite items, quantities, etc. 

This is how it is - set ideas, using the proof of the wrong information or the Vikalpa, fantasizing and dwelling in the past experiences. The four modulations of mind plus the sleep, the fifth modulation, are the five different vrittis of the mind.

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji 

PATANJALI YOGA SUTRAS

Mahogany family, the Melaiceae

We have studied plants from the Melaiceae family, over the past weeks. Now let's have a quick recap of the general characteristics of this family. 

🌳-Commonly known as the Mahogany family, the Melaiceae is classified under the order Sapindales.

🌳- It includes plant6s that are generally trees or shrubs, rarely herbs.

🌳- Members usually have pinnate leaves without stipules. These are alternately arranged in whorls and have characteristic asymmetric leaflets.

🌳-Flowers are generally small and unisexual, and produced in panicles, spikes or cymes. Never solitary. Flowers are usually fragrant with 5 petals and a superior ovary.

🌳-Fruits vary over species from woody capsules in Swietenia to fleshy drupes in Azadirachta, Lansium and Sandoricum. Fruits split open on maturity as in Swietenia and Aphanamixis or the pulp is segmented as in Lansium and Sandoricum.

🌳- Most species are evergreen, but some are deciduous, either in the dry season or in winter.

🌳-The family includes some mangroves like Xylocarpus species.

Important genera include 

Aglaia

Aphanamixis

Azadirachta

Andiroba/Carapa

Dysoxylum

Epicharis

Khaya

Lansium

Melia

Sandoricum

Swietenia and

Xylocarpus

Identity and name the pictures of the plants shown here.

Reference 

https://www.facebook.com/myplantdiaries?mibextid=ZbWKwL

Plants of Singapore

Crescentia pinnata, Kigelia pinnata , Sausage Tree, Common Sausage Tree, Balam khira in Hindi , Bignoniaceae

Kigelia africana Syn.: Crescentia pinnata, Kigelia pinnata (Common name: Sausage Tree, Common Sausage Tree, Balam khira in Hindi) - Bignoniaceae, the mature fruits are seen dangling from the long stalks like giant sausages. 

They may be up to two feet long and weigh up to 6 7 kg. The fruit, while not palatable for humans, is popular with hippos, baboons, and giraffes. Mainly grown as a curiosity and ornamental, both for its beautiful deep red flowers and its strange fruit. There are also a range of traditional uses for the fruit, varying from topical treatments for skin afflictions, to treatment for intestinal worms. There are some steroid chemicals found in the sausage tree that are currently added to commercially available shampoos and facial creams.

Reference 

Surendra Parihar

Ex.Professor and Head.

Deptt. of Seed , Science and Technology.

Indian Agricultural Research Institute,

Pusa, 

New Delhi, 

India 110012