Mind, Body, Spirit: Strike a Balance

By ASHUTOSHJI MAHARAJ

Health is a key factor in the human evolutionary process. Health is not just physical fitness or absence of disease. In ancient India, the term health had a much wider connotation; it was something that went beyond physical and mental dimensions. The spiritual dimension reinforces and also uplifts the physical and mental dimensions of health.

We are unique; God has endowed us with peerless organic capacity to comprehend not only the outer physical world of objects but also His divinity that is innate in us. Human fulfilment and well-being in real terms requires us to go beyond physical, mental and emotional dimensions of health.

Having bestowed on man a privileged position vis-a-vis other creatures, God obviously expects man to do what others cannot do.

But, as the philosopher Spinoza said, men ignore health and the love of the eternal and infinite and deem riches, fame and sensual pleasures as the highest good. When Yudhishtira was asked by the Yaksha in Mahabharata the highest gain in human life, the prince declared that it was sound health.

Today's materialistic view of life is a huge departure from this approach. While sense gratification is invariably followed by repentance, the hunger for fame and riches is never satiated.

The love of fame compels us to order our lives by the opinion of others. Diseases of body and mind are fallouts of this. The Manu Smriti says that desire is never satisfied by the enjoyment of objects of desire; it grows more and more as does the fire to which fuel is added.

We need to be healthy not only at the physical and mental level but also at the spiritual level. Attainment of God is the foremost duty enjoined upon human beings. Every other work we undertake is for satiation of senses.

Worldly obligations are indeed to be performed, but with detached attachment. We need to learn to exercise inward detachment. Let us dedicate all our actions to God and never nurture the feeling of being the doer. The physical body is, thus, essential both for the attainment of God and for undertaking mundane duties. Efficient and effective worldly life calls for a sound and disease-free body.

Mental health is no less important. But, a person cannot be said to be mentally healthy if he continues to be afflicted with the five vices - lust, anger, greed, attachment and ego. It is a matter of common experience that we do a lot to cure physical ailments but precious little to cure mental maladies.

Mental afflictions constantly torment the soul and are even responsible for physical ailments. This leads to serious malfunctioning of body and mind. For balanced development, it is essential that body and mind work in tandem with each other.

So, a sound body, mind and spirit help human beings attain the zenith of perfection. It calls for spiritual illumination, which starts with a trans-dichotomous experience of cosmic vision. Scriptures say, without atma bodh, physical and mental health are of no consequence. Bereft of atma gyan, even an otherwise healthy person is likely to indulge in negative tendencies.

Scriptures speak of the body as being the living temple of God. Sages have stressed on healthy body and mind for attaining the state of eternal bliss. Just as one cannot cross a river in a leaky boat, even so without healthy body and mind we cannot cross the ocean of life.

Vivekananda aptly said: ÒPeople with emaciated bodies and long faces are the subjects for the physician; they are not yogis.Ó Thus, the acme of human perfection can be attained only with an ideal mix of physical, mental and spiritual health.