The condition of the normally healthy man may be called health. Consciousness and vibration are the forces of creation. They emerge from their evolving centre and spread in the world around. When at last their movement is stopped, new means are needed to fulfil their restless urge. They divide. Their combined stream becomes two, -male and female, and when these two unite again in the bosom of the infinite, a new, richer, more varied creation springs forth. Matter with five qualities-vibration, shape, texture, taste and smell-evolves, and ever richer, more variegated combinations are required to meet new needs of energy and matter. Three conditions of created matter appear: balanced, restless and listless. And the five primary elements of ether, air, fire, water and earth provide mediums for the qualities of matter. From these elements in various combinations comes all this material world as we know it. By gradual evolution the infinite is made finite, the unseen seen, the timeless temporal.
In physics they speak of gases, liquids, solids, and a radiant form of matter. This comes close and bears resemblance to the Ayurvedic five. Chemistry speaks of some 92 elements. But our ancients maintained that the above five were all, and that along with consciousness they made up also the tempers of the Self.
The Supreme Father is the evolving centre of creative forces. And the individual self is His image. From Him do we come. The individual is self, soul, or consciousness. In Ayurvedic language self or soul is the root of consciousness. If we look into selves and our bodies, we will see that we are made up of the five elements plus consciousness. We feel the sensation of the five elements in our bodies. When these elements plus consciousness are in right proportion and balance, we feel healthy. When they are disproportioned and out of balance, we feel sick. This is Ayurvedic theory and science, and our ancients dealt with many points of health on this basis.
Judged by these standards of our ancient Ayurved, we are rarely healthy nowadays.
Soul or spirit is present throughout the animate and inanimate world according to Hindu philosophy; for the whole world is but a display of the Supreme Spirit. A man can realize the existence of soul and make it grow. We live in the soul-as a mud of soil and water. And we must learn to live-like a droplet of oil in water, or a lily pad in a pond.
There are havocs in East and West. They are not new. History is filled with power-lusts. Countless people and properties have been destroyed. Yet wars are also necessary. Lord Krishna presided over one for the sake of right. When Arjuna was unwilling to fight, Krishna said to him, “Don’t be an impotent, it doesn’t befit you! Shake off this eunuch faint! Arise and scorch the foe!” When Arjuna objected that he would he killing his own kin, Lord Krishna replied, “You grieve for naught and talk big talk, seeming wise, but there’s no avoiding war.”
Wars generally break out due to an outbrust of complex. The world spins on two poles: one of time and space, the other infinite and eternal. Things of time and space are changeable but the spirit is not changeable. Every man has two these poles. When Lord Krishna found war was inevitable he threw Arjuna into the turmoil of time and space. He refused to let him hide under the cape of eternity. In this way he established the kingdom of God, and so strong was it that no invader could prevail against it until after Asoke’s reign.
In 1914 war broke out in Servia. There resulted a huge loss of life and wealth. But that war did not end war. Within twenty years another conflagration started in Europe and spread to Asia. We now await a third more tremendous conflict. These wars are only wars of complex. They establish no right. They go against the Lord. There is also warfare in our daily lives, institutions, families. Until we mend, the wars won’t end. The spirit prefers an nonviolent path. Nonviolence means to keep one’s head above the flurries of time and space, to waken infinite spirituality, to keep consciousness and libido ever operative; it is our instinct built up by centuries of practice.
We know the art of meditation, the art of upholding the mind, even exalting it into super-consciousness. On that level there is no conflict. The libido and consciousness are in control. There is no loss of consciousness as there is when chloroform is administered. Sir Oliver Lodge says, “we are each larger than we know.” Exactly so. We are the size of mustard seeds in our own conceptions. But our ancients taught us how to realize our true dimensions. They dealt with the mind as well as the body. If we move according to their instructions, We can realize the positive from the negative. The unexpressed is sometimes thought empty. But is it? Lord Buddha did not think so. In an absence there is bliss. When we attain salvation, we go beyond many worldly cares. Until we do so, we cannot be said to have our mind intact. We cannot be said to be healthy. To fulfil our creed of nonviolence, to attain health, we must somehow lift ourselves above the changing, decaying things of time and space. O Spirit ! Awaken and let me live in Thee!
Nowadays few are satisfied to remain in the Spirit. So the turmoil goes on. And there is no telling when it will stop.
We are getting weaker, unhealthier, and falling victims to more untimely deaths. You can ask any old man how today compares with yesterday. And you can look at any European passing by at his movement, body formation and strength,-and compare your health with his. Just how healthy are we?
What health is we have already said. And there are three ways of having it. The Europeans know only one way, the physical, and to this they are applying all their patience and energy. But if we want more than this, if we want a three-fold health of body, mind and spirit, we shall also have to arouse consciousness and libido. Modern people think that in order to rouse and raise consciousness and libido we would have to leave our families and wordly activities. That is the common idea of what religion means. But our ancestors-those that lived in the Self or Nature-knew how to rouse consciousness in the body and have both mental and. physical health. Jabali wanted to take Ramachandra to his home and argued, “You don’t belong to your father, and your father doesn’t belong to you. You belong to the greater ‘I’.” But Ramachandra replied that duty was based on nature. He rejected the unhealthy proposal.
We are highly elated to eat special dishes. But we don’t know how to prepare them. We think, “O let us have them anyway!” We eat and suffer the consequences. But the western peoples who do not bother their head about high matters of mind and spirit stick to their plain fare and get on well enough. We are in such a position that we cann’t follow our own recipes nor the plain fare of the West. You can easily imagine the condition of our health. We are going down and down-physically, mentally, and spiritually.