Only a healthy bud can blossom. In the same way, only a healthy being can succeed. Health is (having) a disease-free body, a quiver-free breath, a stress-free mind, an inhibition-free intellect, an obsession-free memory, an ego that includes all and a soul that is free from sorrow.
In Sanskrit, Swaasthya means health. It also means being established in one’s Self. Our ancient people mention, that our body consists of five sheaths of existence.
- The first is the environment, the atmosphere.
- The physical body.
- Prana, or the life force energy,
- Mind sheath- thoughts, emotions, ideas, memories
- The intuitive body represented by your ‘gut feeling’. It is much more subtle but precise.
There are three subtle causes of illness. It is either a violation of natural law or it is a release of past impressions or karma. Karma means impressions in the consciousness. They get released through some illness. Another is you violate the laws of nature. Like you know what you should not eat and yet you eat that. And you know you should not overwork your system but you have overworked it. Our senses have got the limited capacity to experience its objects. When we overdo it, then we get sick. When there is an imbalance between food intake, exercise, and rest, then also we get sick.
There is a key component to health that we have often overlooked-connection between breath, life force and health. Breath is synonymous with life. The main purpose of meditation, pranayama and related practices, is that they increase prana or the subtle life force energy. Prana is subtler than emotions. When you attend to the subtlest, the gross is taken care of too. You handle the breath and your life force, then your body gains strength too.
Ninety per cent of the impurities in the body go out through the breath. However, we are using only thirty per cent of our lung capacity.
Our breath holds many deeply transformative secrets to stay healthy. For example, for every emotion, there is a corresponding rhythm in the breath. And each rhythm affects certain parts of the body, physically. You only need to observe it to know this. For instance, we feel a sense of expansion when we are happy and a sense of contraction when we are miserable. Though we feel that happiness or misery and the sensation, we fail to notice the connection. So, when you cannot handle your mind directly, through breath you can handle the mind.
You mainly get energy from four sources-the food, sleep and rest, breath work that you can learn through the exercises, techniques such as the Sudarshan Kriya which can energise every cell of the body, and fourthly, a pleasant state of mind which you can get through meditation. All these are important for our overall well-being. Today there is research available on how the Sudarshan Kriya and Pranayama affect the immune system. The immune system can be boosted by attending to the breath and mind.
Take one week off every year for yourself, like you take your car for servicing. During that time, align yourself with nature, wake up with the sunrise, practice yoga and breathing techniques with awareness, eat proper food – just as much food as necessary, chant, and keep silence, bear witness to the creation. Doing this recharges our whole system and fills us with vibrance. You smile more, from within. Knowing a little about our mind, our consciousness, and the root of distortion helps. Every individual is bestowed with all the virtues. They simply get covered by stress and lack of proper understanding. All that is needed is just to uncover the virtues that are already there, just like a room filled with darkness for years can be lit in no time, with a lamp.