Diet, Shatkarmas and Amaroli - Yogic Nutrition & Cleansing for Health and Spirit [Tapa blanda]

Once on the spiritual path, you will get a calling from within to watch what foods you put into your body and how you keep your body clean and healthy. This, namely saucha or purity, as Yogani explains in his book, belongs to the Niyama limb, one of the eight limbs of yoga from the sutras of Patanjali.
Yogani has done an excellent job in covering various factors of diet, and explains why most "fad diets" fail. The concept that one diet plan will fit all is not practical and it is important to listen to your body when you decide to improve your diet. He covers what kinds of foods to eat, how much to eat, and ways to cook food. He explains the foods that help balance the Ayurveda doshas - vata, pitta, kapha. He also covers fasting, addictions, drugs and yoga, and talks about the relation between kundalini (specifically the inner processes of soma, amrita and ojas), digestion and diet .
In Shatkarmas he covers cleansing techniques for mouth, nasal passages and sinuses (various forms of "neti"), colon ("bhasti"), intestinal wash ("dhauti"), nauli ("churning" of the abdominal muscles), kapalbhati ("shining face" technique) and trataka ("steady gazing").
This book also covers detailed instructions for Amaroli (urine therapy) and explains the many applications and benefits this practice has in health and spirituality.
He finally puts all of the techniques together and describes how all of this, when done along with meditation and pranayama, will help us progress on our spiritual path, increasing our inner silence, happiness and creativity in all we do in life.
This book helped me understand how to listen to my body for cues on what kind of foods I should eat to pacify the various dosha flare ups that I seem to go through on my spiritual path. Light and nutritious diet along with eating smaller quantities do help a lot. This book also helped me understand the changes occurring in me with respect to soma and amrita. I have added the neti, nauli, kapalbhati and trakata to my yoga practices and they do help with the movement of inner energies and seem to enhance my practice by a lot.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for one place to find all the information required for yogic diet and cleansing in one book. Really awesome book.

I have read all of Yogani's books and this one suits the line of his informative and motivating works. This is a book offering not only practical Yogic methods of inner and outer purification via diet, cleansing, and amaroli - but also Yogani's humble words of wisdom. Somehow when you read Yogani's books it feels like he is writing it personally for YOU. He has a way of motivating you to follow the practices, but the motivation he offers seems to come from within yourself rather than because a book says so.

The section of amaroli, while not a full investigation of its physiological effects on the biological and scientific level that some may require in order to take on this taboo practice, offers practical suggestions for how to get started and what to expect.

I really recommend this book to anyone interested in Yogic health and nutrition, and of course to anyone who follows Yogani's teachings.

I'm thrilled with Yogani's latest book.

The term "moderation" really fits what he teaches. With respect to diet, he meets mainstream Americans where they are at: On an obsessive quest to slim down, focused either on low fat or low carb. He moves from there in the direction of healthful eating, emphasizing self pacing and inner silence.

The section on Amaroli is both sensitive to the stigma issue, and persuasive in argument. And it is nicely dovetailed into his discussion of fasting. One little note gave me an Ahaa, like, "I was just noticing that!" When soma energy is rising, observes Yogani, it reduces to the volume of urine produced sometimes. When I was fasting and also doing a little amaroli recently, I noticed that although I was drinking lots of water, I was not urinating that much. Now I see that as related mysteriously to the process of soma energy rising.

The one practice I have never tried, but am now planning to do, since reading the book, is the enima. All the teachings are linked to core practices. Yogani also pays due respect to the spontaneous yoga which I like because I personally usually try intentional practices only after spontaneous yoga has pointed the way.

Many thanks to Yogani for another excellent contribution to his teaching series.