"I first learned about rasa from Mohandas Gandhi's grandson, the philosopher Ramachandra Gandhi, while studying at the University of Delhi in India. We were watching an outdoor rehearsal of the Manipuri dance troupe while sipping chai at the Triveni Art Gallery's café. I noticed the way he inhaled the graceful circular dance as if it were a natural form of prana (vital energy)."
"Literally translated as "juice, essence, taste, plasma, or transformational state," rasa assumes one of several meanings, depending on its context. From an Ayurvedic perspective, it refers to the concentrated essence of something, such as the sweetness of a mango, but also to the nourishing energy that infuses us with life; it is the enlivened state of a dry plant that has just been watered, or of a person newly relaxed after a massage, or of a yogi after an inspired practice."
An experience at a Manipuri dance rehearsal revealed rasa as a state of reverie created by sensory immersion: wind, movement, drum tempo, conversation, and jasmine scent. Rasa literally translates as juice, essence, taste, plasma, or transformational state. In Ayurveda, rasa denotes the concentrated essence and nourishing energy that animates life. Rasa describes the enlivened condition of a plant after watering, a person relaxed after a massage, or a yogi following inspired practice. Rasa functions as life's fluid reality, a sustaining juice that infuses vitality and prevents existence from becoming dry and tasteless.
Read at Yoga Journal
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