Blossoming into perfect health

Only a healthy bud can blossom. Similarly, only a healthy person can succeed. What is good health? If the mind is stiff and not calm, you are not mentally healthy. When the emotions are rough, you are not emotionally healthy. To attain a perfect state of health, one has to be mentally calm and steady and emotionally soft.

The state of good health has to come from the innermost of one's being to the outermost and vice versa. That state is called swasthya in Sanskrit. Swasthya means health. It also means 'being established in one's self'. Swasthya is not just confined to the body or the mind. It has come to you as a gift from the cosmic mind or Indra.

Sometimes when you enter a room inhabited by a disturbed person, you start feeling disturbed for no reason even if the person is no longer in the room. You have the same feelings, same thoughts and same emotions as that person. Similarly, when there is a harmonious vibration like a place of satsang (chanting or singing), you feel good. You don't know why.

So feelings are not isolated to one's body, they are all around. Same is with the breath and the mind. It is in the whole environment because the mind is subtler than the five elements - the earth, water, fire, air and ether. For eg, if there is a fire somewhere the heat is not just in the fire, it is also radiating throughout the place. Subtler than that is air, which is all over.

If you are unhappy or depressed, you spread it to the whole environment. How can we control this? That is the key question and the answer lies in meditation. The main purpose of meditation, pranayama and related practices, is that they increase prana or the subtle life energy. Prana is subtler than emotions.

In ancient times, people used to pray, "Let the collective consciousness, the Indra, always bring health and put me back to my Self. Let it always keep me centred, joyful and happy. Let everyone whom I meet bring me back to the Self". This is important because the words that you hear from people affect your state of mind. They either give you peace and joy, or create disturbance.

How can we gain unshakeable peace? Being individually happy is not enough. Everyone we meet has to be happy and radiate happiness. A frustrated man will spread frustration; a jealous person will spread jealousy.

You can turn every situation into your advantage. There is a story in the puranas of how a saint turned an arrow into a garland. If somebody is shooting an arrow at you, insulting you, realise that they are doing it because they are miserable. Once you are blossomed from within, you can take any insult and turn it into your advantage.

When someone commits a mistake, he is not the culprit; the stress within is causing him to make the mistake. Once we get rid of the stress, there is no culprit; no one to be forgiven.

The objective is to have joy in life and make sure that the knowledge we gain permeates within us. With this, upanishad (sitting close to the knowledge) happens. The learning process begins. As we learn more about life, the mystery of the whole creation unfolds. Then the question in the mind is: What is the meaning of life? and What is its purpose? What is this world? What is love? What is knowledge? And so on.

Once these questions arise in you, know that you are very fortunate. These questions need to be understood; you cannot find their answers in books. You have to live through them and witness the transformation. That is perfect health; you are transformed from within. And the bud becomes a totally blossomed flower.