Food, verily, is Prajāpati. From it, verily, comes the semen; from it these creatures are born.

The chain of manifestation is reduced to its simplest essence: Anna (food) is the creative principle. From food is produced retas (semen, reproductive essence), and from semen come all beings.

This vision is biologically precise: nutrition determines reproductive health. But it has a deeper meaning: everything we consume — not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally — is transformed into the “seed” of our future existence.

In haṭha yoga, there is great emphasis on the conservation of bindu (the drop of vital essence, equivalent to retas). The practice of amari-mudrā and other techniques aims to “raise the bindu,” transforming sexual energy into spiritual energy.

Anna is also Rayi in its most tangible form. To eat is to receive the matter/nutrition principle that allows us to exist. The yogī eats consciously, recognizing that food is the offering (bali) that the earth makes to the fire of digestion.

The practice of prāṇāgnihotra (the sacrifice of prāṇa and fire) rests on this understanding: every act of nutrition is a sacrifice, a transformation of matter into life, of rayi into prāṇa.