Rajas Food

Rajas Food

Satwa Rajas Tama dosha in Ayurveda

Ayurveda divides the human diet into two groups – Rajas food, Sattvic food and Tamasik food. These three categories share similar qualities derived from the yogic Mahagunas. Sattvic food is mildly cooked and does not contain onions, garlic, or spices. Vegetables with Kapha properties are considered to be part of the Rajasic diet.

The three dynamic material qualities of all humans. All three are essential and intrinsic qualities. While sattva is important for decision making, rajas is the quality that drives our interests and desires, and tamas is the quality that drives our wake-sleep cycles. We derive our drive or motivation from a disequilibrium in our triguna. The objective of our practice is to bring our triguna back into balance, at which point we achieve moksha.

A person with an imbalanced Tamas Guna is prone to pessimism, possessiveness, and intense hatred. According to Ayurveda’s Gunas, there are seven kinds of Sattva. In contrast, there are six different types of Rajas. The dominant guna is determined by a person’s personality.

In the world of modern medicine, this type of imbalance is called a psyche, but the ancient sages knew the relationship between the mind and body. The Rajas and Tamas are dual entities, the former being positive and the latter negative. Sattva is the nonduality of both Rajas and Tamas and the psyche possesses both positive and negative qualities.

Diet that vitiates Rajas Dosha

According to Ayurveda, we are composed of three doshas – vata, pitta, and kapha. Together, these three elements govern our bodies, organs, and functions. The word “dosha” literally means “that which vitiates”. Tridosas, or diseases, are the result of imbalanced doshas. Healthy balance is achieved by living a balanced lifestyle, which includes the appropriate diet and amount of physical activity and detoxification. Some food items like Sour Food items, Spicy Food items, Fried Food items, Oily Food items, Fermented Food items, Egg, Fish, Meat Food items, Alcohol etc are Rajas food

Symptoms of Vitiated Rajas Dosha

The symptoms of vitiated rajas dosha are various and often related to physical and emotional problems. The mind is also affected with vitiated rajas dosha. Manasika rogas, relating to the mind, are often the culprit for this disorder.

Tamasic guna is one driven by what is impure, dark, destructive, aimed to hurt another, contemptuous, negative and vicious.

Tamas, Rajas and Satva are basically qualities (gunas). They are seen manifest as dominant or subservient in humans. They are also attributes to Hindu divinities humans worship. They are comparable with Three primary colors red, yellow and blue; are used to obtain three secondary colors (green, orange and purple) and Perceptions associated with a given combination of primary colors are predicted by applying the appropriate mixing model (additive, subtractive, additive averaging, etc.) their mixing results in the visible VIBGYOR and the invisible ultra-violet and infrared.

Similarly Tamasa (black-absence of color) Rajasa (red-reflected color) and Satvika (white-presence of all colors) are indicative of the dominant qualities in individuals and Personified: Saraswati Satvika (depicted as wearing white), Lakshmi Rajasika (wearing red), and Kali Tamasika (kala/dark).

Sattva, Rajas and Tamas are the three Gunas (Forces) born of Nature (Apara-Prakriti). Of these Sattva is the Will (Iccha-shakti), Rajas is Action (Kriya-shakti) and Tamas is Inertia (Dravya-shakti). All actions take place in Time by the interweaving of these forces of Nature ; but the man lost in selfish delusion thinks that he himself is the actor.

Sattva binds to earthly happiness and to lower knowledge. Rajas is the nature of passion that binds to selfish action. Tamas is darkness of ignorance that binds man to dullness, slothfulness

Sattvic guna is one driven by what is pure, truth, compassionate, without craving, doing the right because it is right, positive and good.

Rajasic guna is one that is ego-driven, out of personal passion, active, ostentatious, seeking the approval of others.