Spiritual Health
Spiritual Health – An Ayurvedic Perspective
Ayurvedic Treatment for Spiritual Health
Let me start today’s show by asking you some questions like have you ever seen air? Or have you ever seen god? or have you ever seen the fragrance of flowers? The answer is no but its true that we can feel them all. The power which enables us to feel them is called spiritual power. Today in our show we will talk about how spiritual power is connected with spiritual health. So our today’s topic of discussion is spiritual health. To talk further about spiritual health we have our Ayurvedic expert, Dr. Parmeshwar Arora with us. We welcome you on our show Dr. Arora.
Q. As I have told our viewers, things like air, fragrance and God are among such things which cannot be seen although they can be felt or experienced through our emotions, feelings or probably through the god gifted power i.e. spiritual power. So, my first question for you is, how will you define spiritual health?
It’s a beautiful topic and somehow quite exciting too. I would say our connection with the inner self is what I call spiritual health. Any person who is connected to his inner self or something which we call jeeva ( i.e. soul) or something formless and shapeless (referred to as god), and he listens to it, can be considered a spiritual person or adhyatmik vyakti. A spiritual person is the one who maintains spiritual health.
Q. So that means, you relate inner self with spiritual health. But I am sure there must be some requirements to get connected with one’s inner self. What are these?
Everyone has a desire to feel god. Everyone wishes for meeting god or being able to see god. But in my opinion, first of all we must admit the power of god inside ourselves. We must admit that in the form of soul, god who is creator and a writer, is present inside our body. See, you would have heard people saying that we would live till god would want us to. So, if we analyze life then according to Ayurveda, we are alive till the chances of our survival are alive. According to a shloka in Ayurveda, a person stays alive till there is connection between sharira (i.e. body), indriyan (i.e. sense organs ), satva (i.e. entity) and atma (i.e. soul). So, somehow soul is a part of life or sensation. When a person is dead, we can still see his body. His eyes, ears, nose are all there but somehow they have lost connection with the soul or atma. The god inside our body in the form of soul is nirwikar i.e. formless. When one realizes this god inside his/her body then he/she admits his power.
Q. In today’s world, I don’t think there are too many people who believe that there is a god inside our body. So, can you give us a proof of this?
Well I can try but I would like to tell you that the things of spirituality can only be felt or experienced. The difference between sukha (happiness) and ananda (pleasure) can be related to the difference between physical and spiritual pleasure. It’s like I ate a rasagulla. Though I can feel its unique sweetness and although I can tell you that it is sweet but it would be impossible for me to explain that unique sweetness of rasagulla. Sugar is sweet and so are various other sweets but then the unique sweetness of rasagulla is something which I can enjoy but still I am unable to explain it. About spiritual health, I would like to tell our audience that it is such a pleasure which you would need to experience yourself. And to personally experience it, you would need to connect with your inner self. Once you get connected with it the pleasure that you would experience will just leave you smiling. Sometimes it so happens that somebody who is connected with his inner self is playing and having fun with god and also sometimes there comes a time when people around him think that he is losing or going through losses but he himself is happy and enjoying that too. He has accepted the fact that everything which happens, happens with the wish of almighty and nothing can happen against his wishes. So it is this type of knowledge which keeps a person happy in all circumstances.
Still, if you want me to prove the existence of god within us then I will definitely try to do that. I would like to share the fact which I use to convince myself. See, what we eat is vegetables and fruits but once inside our body, food contributes in creation of fluid, blood, flesh, bones etc. Somehow, food provides nourishment to each one of these. We admit the existence of god outside because we believe that he is the creator of nature. If we can perceive god as a creator of nature then why can’t we perceive the creator inside us. He is the life inside us. If you feed a dead body with vegetables and fruits obviously it is not going to nourish the dead body. A body has life only till the live component (to which we refer to as spirit, soul or sensibility) is present inside it. This component is formless and shapeless and is regularly monitoring all our activities. Also, it regularly indicates us about our activities and warns us against all our bad deeds. It is a different thing if we do not pay attention to its warnings. The reason is probably we are living in a noisy world where we are unable to hear him or probably we are paying more attention to our physical desires.
Q. We all have a god inside us. But whether we recognize him or not, it totally depends upon us. Is it possible to befriend god?
As I told you in case of mental and physical health, here also there are five thing which one requires to follow to attain spiritual health. If you follow these five things you will feel as if you have befriended god. You will acquire the power to remain happy in all circumstances. But to attain this, the first thing that you need to do is to admit the power of god. You would need to believe that there is god inside you in the form of atma i.e. spirit. Secondly, you will have to consider him as your boss and accept that whatever happens in your life has to have his wishes involved in it. Thirdly, you will have to trust his decisions completely so that you accept all of them happily without being even slightly upset about any of them. Fourthly, you would have to understand that whatever he has decided for you has to be in your favor. This is very important point because sometimes people believe in the power of god. They treat him like their boss and follow his wishes as commands but they follow his decision with the mindset that they have no other choice. Here the fourth point differentiates the two mindsets. We should understand that whether we can figure out or not but somehow, whatever happens to us has something in our favor. We may not be able to understand the goodness of his decision at the moment but should have that trust within our hearts.
We should not get hurt with the loss but remain happy that this too has something good for us. It may seem like a huge loss to rest of the world but the god must be having some better plans and there has to be something good about it. If you follow good karmas and trust god then god will do things in your favor. You need to be optimistic and be happy with whatever comes in life. There are two conditions which everyone has to go through. Those who borrow huge sum from bank have to repay it afterwards and those who save little sums over a time get a huge sum later on. In both the conditions it gives you a pleasure when you receive money but it seems to be a trouble when you have to give it away. We should treat our happiness and sorrows in similar ways and understand that god needs to maintain a balance amongst them. If we were rewarded at some time then probably our loss today is just an adjustment against that. Similarly if we have never been rewarded and are going through continuous loss then probably we will receive a huge reward at some point of time. We just need to remain satisfied as god has his own ways of adjusting things and maintaining a balance.
The fifth point is, you should remain neutral in all circumstances such that no joy or sorrow can affect you. If you are a spiritual man then your social or mental expression should not be moved by any circumstances whether happy or sad, good or bad. Just nothing should affect you. Once this is achieved, nobody can take away the joy from your life. So to conclude, in order to attain spiritual wisdom, we need to follow five points i.e. 1) believe in the power of god 2) consider god as your boss in real sense 3) accept all decisions of god with pleasure (never get upset with his decisions 4) trust his decisions completely and believe that whatever he decides for us is for our betterment 5) neither be excited about good things nor be upset over bad ones. Our expressions whether social, physical or mental should never be moved by any circumstances. It should be uniform always.
These five points are simple and not at all difficult. We just need practice them in our life and once we do that we will see that our life becomes full of joy. Spiritual intelligence is such an intelligence which is capable of keeping you happy in all circumstances. I have seen people who have lost their foot but are still happy and satisfied but in contrast there are people who cry over mild injuries. That’s where spiritual attainment makes a big difference.
Q.I must say Dr. Parmeshwar, you talk really nice.
I am not talking nice. I actually practice and implement these things in my life and trust me, I am liking it very much. That’s the reason I want everyone else to implement it too. It just needs some understanding and implementation. I always advise everyone to adopt a business plan which has only profits. If a loss in business makes you upset then what is the worth of your intelligence. The real intelligence is one which keeps you happy through your losses as well.