Depths of Calm

[Guest guest]

Only a healthy bud can blossom. In the same way, only a healthy being

can succeed. So what's being healthy? If you are feeling rough

inside, then you are not healthy; if the mind is stiff and not calm,

you are not mentally healthy. When the emotions are rough, you are

emotionally not healthy. To attain a perfect state of health, one has

to be mentally calm, steady and emotionally soft.

 

The state of healthiness has to flow from the innermost of your being

to the outermost, and vice versa. That state is called Swasthya in

Sanskrit. Swasthya means health. It also means being in one's Self.

Swasthya or health is not just confined to the body and the mind; it

has come to you as a gift from the cosmic mind.

 

Have you noticed this? When you enter a place where a very disturbed

and stressed person has spent some time, you start feeling disturbed

for no reasons even if the stressed person is not around any longer.

The same feelings, same thoughts, same emotions come to you.

 

Similarly, when there is a harmonious vibration like at a place where

a Satsang is happening, you feel good. You don't know why. So

feelings are not isolated in one's body, they are all around. So is

the breath. Ditto for the mind, it is in the whole environment

because the mind is subtler than the five elements - the earth,

water, fire, air and ether. Like if there is a fire somewhere the

heat is not just in fire, it is also radiating throughout the place.

Subtler than that is air, which is all over.

 

So if you are unhappy or depressed, you are not the only one who is

feeling it; you are spreading it to the whole environment. A time may

come in the future when people will be fined for being depressed

because they are creating emotional pollution!

 

But how can we control this? That is the key question and the answer

lies in meditation. The main purpose of meditation, Pranayam and

related practices, is that they increase prana or the subtle life

energy. Prana is subtler than emotions. When you attend to the

subtlest, the gross becomes all right. You handle the breath and the

body gains good health.

 

In the ancient days, the prayer has been that let this 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 around you affect your state of mind.

They either give you peace and joy, or create disturbance.

 

Usually what happens is that, when people say something that creates

jealousy, anger, frustration or sadness in us, we think they are

responsible. No, we are responsible because we are contributing to

the process. We are affected because the mind is not its Self; it is

not centred.

 

How can we gain that peace which is unshakeable? Being individually

happy is not enough. Our wish should be that whomever we meet be

happy and radiate happiness. A frustrated man will create

frustration; a jealous person will create jealousy and so on.

 

You can turn every situation into your advantage. Have you ever

thought of this? There are stories in the Puranas of how a saint

turned an arrow which was going to hurt someone, 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.

 

Realise that they are simply pouring out their stress, tension and

anxiety. When people shout or burst out at you, you can only feel

good that all that was building up inside them is coming out. I am

not saying that we should encourage this tendency or justify it. But

when it happens, do not regret it. What do we normally do? We go on

regretting and with regret, we commit the same mistake again.

 

Even when someone commits a mistake, he or she is not the culprit;

the stress inside is causing him or her to make that mistake. Once we

get rid of the stress inside us, there is no culprit; no one to be

forgiven. Then we begin to realise that the whole thing is just a

game in which there is no winners or losers. It's just a play, and

fun.

 

The objective is to have that fun in life and make sure that the

knowledge that we gain in life permeates inside us. With this,

Upanishad happens and 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's 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 the answers in

books. You have to live through them and witness the transformation.

That is perfect health; you are transformed from within.