Customer Reviews

Diet, Shatkarmas and Amaroli - Yogic Nutrition & Cleansing for Health and Spirit

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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.

First off, I must say that Yogani's AYP book is simply amazing. Never before have I seen such a comprehensive step-by-step guide to Yoga in one place. I would give it 6 stars if I could.

However, this complimentary book on Diet, Shatkarms, and Amaroli is suprisingly dull and lacking the detail found in Yogani's AYP book. There is a lot of redundancy throughout this book and between Yogani's other complimentary books. Seems like he needed to fill out 100+ pages with about 5 pages worth of real information.

The general premise of balance and steady progress is the core of this book as well as Yogani's others, and is very valuable. Where this book lacks is in the details. There is nearly no information beyond the general premise. There is no description of the traditional ayurvedic yogic diet, use of herbs, or insight into food combining/doshic balancing. There is even no mention of cleansing foods and building foods. Amaroli (urine therapy) gets even less attention, even though it is such an amazing and effective practice.

Unfortunately, Yogani just dropped the ball with this book. If you are interested in the yogic diet, I recommend Ayurveda and Panchakarma by Sunil Joshi or a Vasant Lad book. If you want Amaroli (urine therapy), read Golden Fountain: Complete Guide to Urine Therapy by Coen Van Der Kroon.

If you are on the path this book is absolutely essential. If you are not on the path this book is also great for you. If you are interested in a better understanding of a genuinely good diet in all aspects of the word, cleaning your body the way our parents should have taught us to... if they only knew, and the fantastic benefits of urine theory then this is the book for you. Explanations of all of these topics are covered in a way that makes it easy for anyone to practice. All of Yogani's books provide a simple yet profound overview of whatever the topic is, including this book. With all of the health issues in the world today everyone could use a little help from this book. A few simple modifications in daily bodily up keep taught in this book will change the vessel your carrying throughout this life. I HIGHLY recommend it!

I was pleasantly surprised by this little book, not because I wasn't expecting the highest quality from Yogani which he seems to continuously deliver, but because I didn't think I would find anything of value from an area of yoga I wasn't overly interested in.

Diet, Shatkarmas and Amaroli provides practical, clear and easy to understand steps on how you can accelerate your spiritual transformation by cleansing and caring for your body. For those interested in knowing what else they can do, this well written little book certainly fills the bill.

A must read for anyone who has any questions or concerns with this part of their spiritual practice and/ or for their general health and well-being. Also of benefit for anyone including the most experienced yoga practitioners.

In the "AYP Enlightenment Series", Yogani presents a thorough and accessible introduction to Yoga, and this, in conjunction with his book 'Advanced Yoga Practices' is probably the most comprehensive and complete course in Yoga that is currently available. He covers all the bases, ranging from the popularly-known aspects of Yoga such as Asanas, through the controversial and largely secret, such as Tantra and Advanced Kecharimudra. His emphasis in the Series is on teaching Yoga practically, rather than in creating an academic understanding, and in this he succeeds very well.

'Diet, Shatkarmas and Amaroli' is a great tutorial for all things Yogic and dietary. Diet can actually be very important in the yogic life, but yogic teachings on the matter tend to be mixed, with some teachers disregarding it entirely, with others handling it obsessively, inconsistently, or in a fad-like manner.

The truth is that one cap does not fit all in the area of diet, because, not only are all of our bodies different from each other, but we even need different things at different times in our lives. Yogani explains all this, and how to avoid the pitfalls of fads and extremes, and how we can the best balance for ourselves in terms of diet.

He covers all important aspects of diet, including fasting, and also the rather singular (but very valuable) yogic practice of Amaroli. He also covers important Yogic methods of gastro-intestinal cleansing such as Shatkarmas. These last (the cleansing methods) I have not ever tried (yet), but I can still recommend them and his treatment of them because he's an expert in general!

You will not make a mistake buying any of the 'Enlightenment Series' by Yogani. While you are at it, buy them all, and 'Advanced Yoga Practices' while you are at it!