Quick Reads From Awakening Wholeness: a book that helps young leaders develop compassion for Myself, Others and The Earth.
Our Mission is supporting Youth Globally in learning Compassion for Oneself, Others & our Environment.
There have been many moments in my life when I have felt totally at peace. Standing on the top of a mountain peak, looking out onto the valley below, I am pleasantly tired yet strangely joyful inside as I eat a delicious sandwich. I want you to remember some similar moments in your life: times when you were “in the zone”, totally oblivious to the past or the future, joyfully living life in that moment. This is how being healthy feels.
Many years ago, I asked Prof. Dr. G. G. Gangadharan, a reputed practitioner of the ancient Indian healing science of Ayurveda, about the meaning of “health”. I still remember my amazement at listening to his answer. He said, “Health is when you forget yourself; when you don’t know that you are there.” Recovering from the sudden shift in perspective, I asked him, “What do you mean?” He questioned, “Were you thinking of the toe on your left foot right now?”
I replied, “No, I wasn’t. I didn’t even remember it until you mentioned it.” “That’s the point,” he said. “If it had not been well or healthy, would you be remembering it?” “Yes, sure,” I responded. “Then my attention would be pulled to my left toe because it would either be swollen, throbbing, or hurting because something was not right with it.”
Dr. Gangadharan summed up the conversation in one simple sentence:
“When everything in your body and mind is balanced, happy, and at total peace, you are in perfect health.”
I found this definition of health to be very beautiful. It showed me that anything that is seeking my attention is really an indicator of some imbalance, stress, or something that is not at peace. And this alarm is going off because some processes are out of balance and need attention so that they can come back to balance.
If I sense there is a headache, my body may need to rest, get some exercise, or simply breathe deeper! Popping a pill to “cure the headache” is like cutting off the wires leading to a fire alarm, which was triggered by a fire somewhere.
The alarm is now silent and turned off, but the root cause — the fire that triggered it — is still burning somewhere!
“Modern” medicine treats the symptoms of a disease and not the underlying cause. In modern medicine, health is the absence of disease, aka “symptoms.”
Wholesome living, on the other hand, works to align with and restore the natural balance of life. It sees health as “ease” in its totality. Notice that “ease” is the opposite of “disease”.
