A Long Deep Breath

A Long, Deep Breath---

Sri Sri Ravishankar.

Only a healthy bud can blossom and only a healthy being can succeed.So what is being healthy? If you are feeling rough inside, then you are not healthy. If your mind is stiff and not calm, you are not mentally healthy. When the emotions are rough, you are emotionally not healthy.To attain a perfect state of health, one has to remain mentally calm, steady, and emotionally soft. The state of health has to flow from the innermost of your being to the outermost, and vice versa. That state is called swaasthya in Sanskrit.Swaasthya means health. It also means being in one's self. Ancient people said that we exist in five sheaths. The first is the environment, the atmosphere. It is the prime body. Then there is the physical body.Then prana, that is the life force energy. Then there is the mental sheath - that has the thoughts, emotions and ideas. There is also the intuitive body , the instinct, with gut feeling. It is much more subtle in nature and effective.When an illness arises, it comes first in the thought form, then the sound form, and then it manifests in the light form or in the aura. It is only then that the illness manifests in the body.So how do we bring good health to our system? First of all, find out for yourself whether you are healthy. Health is (having) a disease-free body, a quiver-free breath, a stress-free mind, an inhibition-free intellect, an obsession-free memory, an ego that includes all and a soul that is free from sorrow.The holistic approach of wellbeing includes exercise, breathing and meditation. Breath is synonymous to life. If your breath is hot, quivery, shaky, not straight, not easy, you can predict that you will be sick. The main purpose of meditation, pranayama and related breathing practices, is that they increase prana or the subtle life energy. When you are able to handle breath, body gains good health.If you observe infants, you will be amazed at how balanced their breath is. As they breathe in, their belly comes out and as they breathe out, their belly moves in.But the more nervous and tense you are, you will do the reverse. When you breathe out your tummy will come out and when you breathe in, it goes in. But as we grow, we tend to lose this natural rhythm with which we are born. By attending to our breath, we can regain that balance.Breathing is the first act of life and its the last act of life. In between, the whole life we are breathing in and out, but not attending to the breath.Ninety per cent of the impurities in the body go out through the breath because we are breathing 24 hours a day. However, we are using only 30% of our lung capacity. We are not breathing enough.The mind is like a kite and the breath, a thread. For the mind to go high the breath needs to be longer. Your breath gives enormous energy and it also helps in increasing the prana, ie, the life force energy. There are four types of energy - energy from food, energy from sleep, energy through breath - that you can learn through the breathing exercises which will energise every cell of the body.And then, a few moments of pleasant mind through meditation give a lot of energy. All these are important for our overall wellbeing. The immune system can be boosted by attending to the breath and by attending to the breath you can easily handle your mind as well.

Jai Gurudev