Nurturing Life-Force

Prana is the life-force that flows in all living things. When prana leaves the body, the body dies. When prana is in full flow, the person is full of vitality, energy and enthusiasm. Prana creates a field of possibilities where the seed of any idea develops rapidly, where our activities proceed smoothly and bear rich dividends. To develop prana, meditation, pranayama and a calm attitude are key. Freshly-cooked healthy food, pure fresh air and yogic exercise nurture and enhance prana. Eating too much, consuming stale food, exercising till you are ready to drop dead, constant arguments, overworking, getting emotionally upset, breathing polluted air, all interfere with the smooth flow of prana. 

Enhance Positive Energy for Emotional Wellness

Elevate everyday experiences to the level of sacredness. When work is done with such love, it fills the body and mind with bliss and transforms any place into a sacred space. As Kalil Gibran writes in The Prophet, ‘What is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth from the strings of your heart, as though your Beloved were to wear it.’This reverence or shraddha is due to all, because of the divine spark that dwells in all men—whether he is a legend or a leper. Sometimes it is obvious. The Divine spark is the silent flame of consciousness that reaches out to you from a flowering creeper or a healthy pet. Sometimes this life force has lost its vitality and is dimmed by dirt, lethargy and lack of care. Clean the glass of your lamp. Make the light shine through. Decide to approach all events, people, and things with affection, shraddha.

Emotional Wellness

Around every person there is a field of emotional energy. We have a positive energy field and negative energy field around each person. A positive field is created by positive emotions and a negative field draws sustenance from negative emotions. Positive emotions help the person to be radiant, and everything in his life flourishes and grows. On the other hand, negative emotions always have a morose or tense air about them, and everything in their life seems to fade and die.

When the field around is positive, all words spoken in that field would be sweet and loving. Your mind will always focus on gentle and kind thoughts. When the field around is negative with hurt, anger, possessiveness, greed, jealousy, fear and abhorrence, we are less able to act with speed and efficiency. These emotions suck the energy and life-force out of us. That is why it is difficult to be completely happy while hurting others. It is necessary at all times to make sure that the negative field is not created.

The experiments of the great scientist J. C. Bose showed that plants grow faster with pleasant music and their growth is retarded in noise or harsh sound. Learning to create a positive field is an important part of the climate of physical and emotional well-being.

Home - A Safe Sanctuary

The home can be the cause for disease. It can also be the safe sanctuary for healing and reversal of disease. Fill your home with affirmations, with positive strokes, with a peaceful atmosphere, a nurturing space that enhances prana, the life force. Laughter and smiles, compliments and hugs can create a powerful positive field in the home.

‘Family is the shock absorber of society, to which the bruised and battered individual returns after doing battle with the world,’ wrote Alvin Toffler in his landmark work ‘Future Shock’. The family provides unconditional love for the crippled, the old and the helpless. It heals the pain of failure and provides rest from the assaults of a cruel competitive world. Family dynamics can cause disease or reverse it

Meditation to Create Vital life Force

Meditation and a calm attitude cause prana to flow through all our activities smoothly.

When prana is in full flow, the person is full of vitality and energy and enthusiasm.

Prana is nurtured by freshly cooked, healthy food.

Pranayama is very pro-prana.

Prana is fed by breathing pure fresh air.

Moderate exercise and yoga helps develop the life force.

Eating too much, consuming stale food, exercising till you are ready to drop dead, constant arguments, overworking, getting emotionally upset, breathing polluted air, all interfere with the smooth flow of prana. Moderation is the rule.

Prana enhances the positive field and the vital life force flows freely through it. It creates a powerful positive field—a field of all possibilities where any seed of an idea will develop rapidly.

Be Peacefull And Enjoy the Present

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.

‘Irritable Face’ Syndrome

Irritable bowel syndrome is something all of us know about. But how about the irritable face syndrome – the ‘castor oil’ face? Some people, on principle, wake up with the sole purpose of spreading gloom and doom. They act as though nothing good will ever come out of this day.

So when you wake up in the morning, wash your face, like it is a piece of unique, precious china. Blot it dry and give yourself a big smile in the mirror. Remember, the most important thing you will be wearing during the day, will be a smile. Appreciate yourself for all the things you have handled on the previous day.

Daniel Gilbert, Harvard professor who wrote ‘Stumbling on Happiness,’ mentions the following things about the science behind the smile. Here is what he says:

·         Healthy people are usually happier.

·          People who participate in religious organizations are happier

·         People who feel financially comfortable are happier.

·         People in good romantic relationships are happier those who aren’t.

But here is the catch, “a new house or a new spouse can make you happier, but not much and not for long,” he says.

Negative events like losing a job or being disgraced do not make us as unhappy as we think they will, because very soon humans find the silver lining and become adept at seeing why everything works out for the best.  There is the case of Moreese Bickham the who served in the United State Army spent 37 years in jail and on his release said, “I don’t have one minute’s regret. It was a glorious experience.” Pete Best, the original drummer of the Beatles who dropped out just before they become big, said, “I am happier than I would have been in the Beatles.” So the point is, focus on minute to minute, small, joyful events. The high points and catastrophes are few and far between. So work out your daily happiness breaks.

Parameters of Physical wellness

Perfect Breathing

Focus on your breathing. Take a deep breath then exhale slowly.Repeat a couple of times a day. You can bring equilibrium to your mental state by breathing correctly. The first exercise in the ancient pranayama tradition—the art of filling every part of your body with life-force or prana. Always take longer to exhale so that the lungs are empty of stale air. Only then can oxygen flow in. The body is the boat human beings are given to sail across the sea of life. It is your duty to take care of it.

Rest, Relaxation and Rejuvenation.

A 20 minute nap improves memory retention and Nike expects workers to ‘just do it’ in their ‘quiet rooms.’ Meditation has the same effect, but delivers even better benefits. Rest enables stress chemicals to subside after competing all day. Non- competitive sports like walking, sailing, reading or socializing can provide a relaxing change of pace.

Healthy Food

Food brings people together, allows human beings to feel satisfied and comfortable, connects us with the earth and provides us with health. Freshly-cooked healthy food, pure fresh air and yogic exercise nurture and enhance prana.

Positive Thinking

Positive emotions like love, courage, humor, compassion wonder and peace create a positive field. To infuse our lives with what poets call “the rapture of being” is to create a positive field. Learning to create a positive field is an important part of the climate of well being. 

Action Plans to Maintain Perfect Health

·         Start the day with a glass of warm water and a dash of lime.

·         Once a week have only fresh fruits until noon; let your lunch be the first meal of the day.

·         Kick the old coffee drinking habit.  Have a glass of fresh fruit juice instead.

·         Include foods with high fibre content – plenty of fruits, vegetables and grains – in planning your diet    

 Don’t rush through your meals.  Set aside enough time to appreciate, enjoy and digest your food.

·         Shop for groceries yourself.  Notice the look, feel and smell of fresh fruit and vegetables and enjoy their intrinsic goodness.

·         Make it a point to have dinner with the entire family at the table, and not in front of the TV.

·         Focus on your breathing.  Take a deep breath, then exhale slowly.  Repeat a couple of times a       day.

·         Learn to relax.  Spend twenty minutes consciously relaxing each muscle of your body.

·         Spend twenty minutes a day in silent meditation, prayer or contemplation.

Healthy food for good physical wellness

Food brings people together, allows human beings to feel satisfied and comfortable, connects us with the earth and provides us with health.  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. In both cases, food is offered as an oblation to the five pranas which are 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.

Meditation for Wellness

In order to treat or prevent disease, it is essential to look into our emotional, mental and psychological environment, as our thoughts and emotions directly contribute to our wellbeing or otherwise. Some doctors believe that it is more important to know the patient who has the disease than to know the disease the patient has. Wise gurus, and now modern research, both believe that meditation can contribute enormously to an individual’s psychological and physiological wellbeing. It reduces stress, hypertension, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, depression, improves cardiovascular health, memory and concentration, work efficiency, and immunological resistance to diseases. As a result, some form of meditation has become an essential part of wellness programs.

Physical Wellness

‘Physical fitness is of utmost importance as it is the starting point for wellness of the mind and spirit. We would have perfect health as a state where all body parts function at their optimal level and wherein the body, mind and spirit are in perfect balance and in a state of bliss. Positive health implies perfect functioning of body and mind in a given society. To be healthy is to have the ability, despite an occasional bout of illness, to live with full use of your faculties, to be vigorous, alert and with a sense of joie de vivre, even in old age. In order to treat or prevent disease, it is essential to look into our emotional, mental and psychological environment, as our thoughts and emotions directly contribute to our wellbeing or otherwise. Your Happiness Quotient is directly affected by your physical condition. Hence it is said, health is the foundation for a feeling of wellbeing and joy.

Joyful Living

In order to experience the spontaneous happiness that bubbles out of your heart like a mountain stream. We need to concentrate on the following seven actions

1.      Physical Wellness

2.      Emotional Wellness

3.      Personal Wellness

4.      Family Bonding

5.      Nurturing Workplace

6.      Social Bonding

7.      Dharmic Living

Great mountain and beyond, a green sunlit valley is a beautiful and enjoyable sight. Only when you climb the mountain can you see the beauty of the journey ahead. Hence in the same way only when you learn the seven actions of happiness, you can realize and enjoy the real happiness.

Positive Mindspace

When the garden is clean, blooming and full of life, the snakes of anger have no place to hide; the thorns of greed get cleared away. Adbuta, or wonder, is one of the positive navarasas—the nine emotions. It heals and energises. To stand in wonder before the splendour of God’s creation is to be rejuvenated. The body and bloodstream are bathed in endorphins and serotonins which are Nature’s tranquillisers.’

Enjoy the nature - the chirping of the birds, the wind through the fluttering leaves, the murmuring river. The harmonious fabric of nature enfolds us in a blanket of pure beauty. The colours and shapes that flowed from the hands of the great Architect of the universe soothe us in positive emotions.

Life’s Greatest Gift

Happiness is a life’s greatest gift. There is joy to be found in the small things. Go peacefully amidst the noise and the haste. Enjoy the sweetness of everyday things. Events or people around us are not under our control. But our reactions, our responses to them are. Respond with love and peace. Focus on happiness and on cultivating happy people. Build protective walls against toxic events that threaten your tranquillity. Let the cells of your body be gently bathed in happiness, positive thoughts and healing energies. The Vedas speak of the self as a beautiful lotus growing in the muddy waters of life. With its roots in the muck the lotus rises above it, in perfect beauty and bliss.