Sacred Space

Auspiciousness or a feeling of wellbeing is created in a space or a field by treating it as sacred. What happens to a space that is sacred is transformation. When you consider yourself as sacred, you will treat yourself well. You will wear clean, good smelling clothes. Maybe ironed and starched, mended if torn, but clean and fresh. You will smile at yourself, encourage yourself. Just as you put on clean fresh clothes, you will also clean up the mental space or field around you. Sweep out all ill will, anger, fear and anxiety. Let there be the fragrance of incense, divinity of prayer and mantra, the smiles of loved ones, laughter and joy, the smell and taste of good plain, food. It is as important to clean the field around you as it is to have a bath. Sweep out the sad baggage of the past. Take into that field only what is bright and elevating, fine and happy. The space around you, your house, your office needs the same kind of careful attention.When a space is sacred, it magnetizes wonderful people and attracts beautiful events into it. All the words spoken in that space should be sweet and loving. When harsh words or events happen, do not allow them to take root like evil weeds. Sweep them away and find gentleness and kindness that grows beneath.

Enhance Positive Health

Your Happiness Quotient is directly affected by your physical condition. Health is the foundation for a feeling of wellbeing and joy. It is very difficult to be full of enthusiasm if you are not in a state of positive health. The absence of disease is no indication of this state of perfect health. It is a hygiene factor for improving your HQ. There are many steps that will take you to a state of optimum health. A complete medical check-up once a year can provide accurate information about the state of your body to your physician. Make sure this becomes an annual habit. Just as you would not tolerate a minor malfunctioning in your car, so too, you and your doctor should be vigilant for the slightest disturbance in your state of health. Minor problems, aches and pains should be dealt with immediately, rather than be endured with gritted teeth. Listen to your body. If you are tired, rest. If you are hungry, eat. If you are lonely, communicate, ask for a hug. If you are angry, deal with your anger constructively, resolve it. The body is our vehicle for the journey of our soul in this world. You may be an immortal soul who happens to own a body, but the body-vehicle has to be maintained in good condition, so that we may achieve the goals for which we were created.

Emotions that Enhances

Emotions and the way you deal with them, create the positive field. The Mind is a field, which is filled with positive and negative emotions. The nava rasas can be your guide to understanding the nine emotions. The nava rasas are a 2000 year old Indian concept on emotions. The nine emotions have been built into a system of dance called Natya Shastra by Sage Bharata. Rasa means rapture or relish and 37 chapters of the Natya Shastra are devoted to eight of them, as Bharatha does not consider ‘Shantha’ or peace a major rasa. Bharata’s Natya Shastra even described each rasa with a different color. The positive emotions create a positive field, which fills your blood with the chemicals of happiness and well-being, which are conducive to the building or rebuilding of a healthy body and mind. The negative emotions create a negative field, which fills your blood with the chemicals of unrest and unhappiness. It is important to have a closer look at the nine rasas.

Ancient Ways to Holistic Health

Enlightened Masters have also shown that meditation produces beneficial effects such as reduction of tension, lowering of blood pressure, relaxation of muscles, increased concentration and work efficiency, and increase of immunological resistance to diseases. As a result, some form of meditation has become an essential part of most holistic health programmes. Service to others, music, prayer—all are forms of meditation—make the blood flow with serotonins—the happiness chemical. Hindu scriptures enjoin five types of service known as pancha-mahayajna—service to gods; service to sages; service to ancestors; service to humans, guests and the poor; and service to animals. A traditional Indian home, at dawn, feeds ants with the rice-flour rangoli drawn near the threshold, and crows and cows with leftover food. Eating should be regarded as a sacred act. In an orthodox Hindu home, food is offered to the family deity first and is then consumed as prasad or offering with the diety’s blessing. There is a basic similarity between the rituals involved in offering food to the deity and those involved in eating oneself. In both cases, food is offered as oblations to the five pranas regarded as five fires. Even if one does not follow this ritualistic concept, one should make eating a fully conscious and peaceful act. Hurry, worry, anger, distractions and chattering should be avoided while eating.

External and internal well being

Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing, not merely an absence of disease or infirmity. Really speaking, health is not a state but a continuous adjustment to the changing demands of life and the environment. Positive health implies perfect functioning of body and mind in a given society. Ayurveda defines health as ‘svasthya’—to be one’s highest spiritual self. It is the state of equilibrium of the three doshas or mind-body energies that govern our external and internal environment―vata (wind); pitta (bile); and kapha (phlegm), along with a contented state of the senses, mind and soul. All the ancients believed that no attempt should be made to cure the body without treating the mind and soul. To be healthy is to have the ability, despite an occasional bout of illness, to live with full use of your faculties and to be vigorous, alert and having a joie de vivre, even in old age. This concept of operational health has been termed ‘wellness’. It is a sense of all-round wellbeing.

Bring out the Happiness Inside You

Each new day holds out a chance to create a whole new beginning, a sparkling new field of possibilities. At dawn, sweep out the toxic waste of hatred, anger and petty disappointments from your life. Sprinkle the pure waters of prayer on your soul and prepare afresh for a brand-new day. Go peacefully amidst the noise and the haste. Enjoy the sweetness of everyday things. Practice swayambhu―a word that describes happiness welling out of you, like an underground stream in the mountains. Very rarely will an event or a person crash-land to disturb your life. We all have a choice to make every moment, through our senses, our thoughts and our actions. We can choose what we want to see, hear, touch, taste and smell, think, feel and do. Most of the time, we are responsible for our decisions―for our happiness and unhappiness. We can decide how we want to feel even in the worst-possible situations. To a jealous mind, an innocent smile is proof of adultery. A prisoner can choose to keep the flame of freedom alive within him and maintain a cheerful disposition. Events or people around us are not under our control. But our reactions, our responses to them are. Respond with love and peace.

Doctor’s Day

Perfect Health is not Just an absence of illness. It is a state of total physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well being. That is why it is important to celebrate our partners in the quest for positive health – doctors. India celebrates Doctor’s day on 1st July every year on the birthday of the freedom fighter, educationalist and physician Dr. B.C. Roy. Choose and make friends with a doctor younger than you for the sole purpose of helping you maintain and improve your state of positive well being. Most patients go to doctors when they are really ill, when it is too late to do anything. The Chinese were wise. They paid their doctors as long as they were well. They stopped paying when they became ill, since the doctor had failed in maintaining their health. On Doctor’s day, you could wear a red carnation which is the official symbol of that day. The flower, with its glowing colour represents the spirit of the profession – charity, sacrifice, bravery and audacity. We honour our doctor’s spirit of service and show our appreciation of the fact that even a minor mistake by this professional, can ruin or end your life. Meet your doctors on that day with a little gift, appreciating the pressure of the job and the daily practice of gentle loving kindness that they practice. So today promise yourself that you will meet and talk to your doctor to retain and improve your health. Do not ignore even minor signs and symptoms which your body uses to tell you about its disease or lack of ease. Take positive steps like an annual check-up, regular exercise, wise diet, meditation. Honour your doctor who is your partner in health. Measure your feeling of wellness by monitoring your energy levels, your zest for life, your capacity to live to its fullest. Maybe with your doctor’s help, you die young at ripe old age.