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The Three Ingredients of Vitality: Ojas, Tejas & Prana Written by John Joseph Immel, Asheville, NC

Ayurveda described the three necessary ingredients for vitality over 5,000 years ago. Balancing these vital forces is the key to your longevity, rejuvenation, and resiliency, as well as successful, happy living. They include a healthy body (ojas), intelligence (tejas), and energy levels (prana).

Ojas

Ojas is the poetic term used in Ayurveda for healthy bodily tissue. The body transforms food into ojas through digestion and metabolism. Ojas is produced everywhere in the body. If a person has healthy bodily tissues and "juiciness" Ayurveda says they have good ojas. A thin person with dry skin might lack ojas. A person who is overweight with clammy skin might have lots of ojas, but poor quality because the tissues are toxic and overwhelmed with fluids. Poor quality ojas is similar to kapha, ama and mucous.

Ojas is hearty and resilient which plays an important role in immunity. Semen is pure ojas because the body produces high quality semen only after other tissues have been nourished. Food that is high in ojas also feeds the genital organs. Ojas is said to have the smell of burnt rice and the color of ghee. Some ojas building foods include ghee, rice, milk, sugar, almonds, and raisins.

Tejas

Tejas is the intelligence of our body and mind. Tejas directs our use of energy, including thoughts, digestion, immunity, and all metabolic activity. Because of Tejas, our cells know how to communicate with each other via hormones and other chemical messengers. They know exactly how much oxygen and food to eat and waste products to eliminate. When this natural intelligence becomes occluded due to injury or toxicity then tejas can be blocked. Excess tejas is similar to pitta type ama and is yellow in color, such as when a person has jaundice or too much bilirubin in the blood.

Prana

Prana is the usable energy directed by tejas and provisioned by ojas. Oxygen is also form of prana because oxygen helps us convert food into energy. Prana is kinetic energy while ojas is potential energy. Using too much prana causes a deficiency of ojas.