Health and wholeness is a broad category and different people may define it different ways. In this article I will be referring to health and wholeness in the sense of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health and wholeness, with a special emphasis made upon the latter three (emotional, mental, and spiritual). The reason for this special emphasis is you don't necessarily need to be physically perfect in order to be truly healthy and whole.
For example you can be crippled or physically handicapped in some way, maybe blind, or deaf, or lame, or perhaps you are not the perfect physical specimen, not so attractive, maybe overweight or underweight, and still with all these seeming physical imperfections you can yet be healthy and whole when it comes to what really matters. That said, there are still certain laws of health which, if followed, will keep your physical body in good health, and in tune to positive thoughts and healthy emotions which originate from an often untapped spiritual level of being the superconscious mind. More about that later.
Now, we all have our physical body to carry around, and some of us seem to mostly live in a survival of the fittest mode (sleep, eat, work, procreate). Others tend to be more emotional. Reasoning and analyzing are the lot of those who have a dominant mental make-up. And still others seem to be more intuitive and susceptible to divine impressions from a higher level of consciousness than that of the conscious or subconscious levels of mind. They live mostly from the spiritual level of being. Lets take a look at each category (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual), beginning with the physical.
When you stop and think about it much of society is geared towards catering to the physical body. Look at all the clothing and shoe stores. There are places where you can have your hair done, or get a pedicure and manicure, and have make-up put on, all for dressing up the physical body. The entire world transportation systems are for getting the physical body from one place to another. Every restaurant, or food product imaginable is for the body. Houses and apartments are all shelter for the physical body. Education, college, and money all work in one accord to provide comfort and security and pleasure to the body. Hospitals and doctors are here to repair the body if something goes wrong with it. Every imaginable sex practice is out there for the very brief sex pleasure of the body. A very popular body centered emphasis in our day and age is diet and nutrition, weight loss, fitness and bodybuilding programs. I am sure the list goes on. If physical health and perfection is what you desire there is a lot of information out there about how to go about accomplishing this to the very art.
The important thing, as far as health of the physical body goes, is to eat fresh living food (fruit, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts etc.), as well as dairy and meat (in moderation) if you are not a strict vegetarian. Add exercise and fresh air and pure water to all this then you are sure to maintain physical health. But remember there are other laws governing your overall being and breaking any of these laws can manifest in ill health even if you are eating the perfect diet. This brings me to the emotional category.
We all have an unseen emotional or astral body to carry around too and when we feed this body with negativity it can eventually manifest in ill physical health. I like to say the subconscious mind is the mind of our emotional body. If this aspect of our mind is filled with negative emotions and wounded memories we need healing at this level. It all needs to be replaced by healthy food in this case positive emotions.
A lot can be said about the subject of the emotions but I will emphasize only two areas at the emotional level which seem to cause many of us so much pain. I am speaking about hurting someone emotionally or psychologically either by manipulating them, controlling them, psychologically abusing them, or maliciously gossiping about them, slandering them, and backbiting about them (basically sending negative energy their way.) If we practice this we open the door for our eventual ill health, maybe manifesting in a disease.
The key to emotional health and wholeness is to not hurt anyone (or yourself) psychologically or emotionally. Actually this is one of the many manifestations of what love is. However there is a fine line between maliciously hurting someone elses feelings, or hurting them by way of constructive criticism and positive reinforcement. The latter two are for their betterment, but the former is destructive. It all depends upon your motive. Being hard on yourself, or working yourself up into a depression, or even thoughts of suicide, are ways you attack yourself destructively. And this can have an effect on your physical health if you persist in it. There is a fine line between healthy criticism towards oneself, and health destroying hate towards oneself. So not only should we not attack others (maliciously or by way of slandering, backbiting, gossiping etc.), but we should take care not to destroy ourselves emotionally. What we allow into our emotional body is very closely tied in with the mental category, which we will look at next.
Getting into the mind can be a deep subject. The obvious areas of the mind include the conscious and subconscious aspects. The not so obvious area is what has been termed (in spiritual literature) the superconscious level of mind. This latter belongs to the spiritual category but compliments what I will share here about the conscious and subconscious levels of the mind. It is said we have a right half and left half of the brain. Those who are dominantly left brained are said to be more analytical. Those who are mostly right brained are more intuitive and visionary. I will speak more about this in the spiritual category.
In general the conscious aspect of our mind thinks, reasons, and analyzes. It is programmed by its environment, upbringing, education, culture, peer pressure, genes, and so on. The subconscious mind is programmed by conscious influences coming from without, and also by unconscious impressions from the past. It is said we become what we think. Think thoughts of fear, depression, hate, etc, we program that into our subconscious and emotional body, and eventually we become what we think. But also we carry over a lot of unconscious impressions that are already programmed into our subconscious which is why everyone manifests different personality traits, some in need of more healing then others from the get go.
The main emphasis of this mental category is to guard our mind and nip negativity in the bud, not allowing it to enter the interior recesses of our being where it can create havoc or future suffering. Unfortunately sometimes unconscious set ways of thinking creep upon us and we become something we really are not (as far as the spiritual aspect of our being goes).
To be emotionally and mentally healthy and whole means to be spiritually in tune with the highest level of our consciousness, the super consciousness, so that there is a steady flow life and energy from that level of consciousness flowing into our subconscious and conscious levels of mind all the time cleansing and healing them as it is allowed to flow through. The end result is a healthy and whole person, even a new person. This brings me to the last and final category of this article, the spiritual category.
Being spiritual is not to be confused with being religious. Someone who is religious can be operating from a physical, emotional, and mental level only, but be void as far as being spiritual goes. In context of this article being spiritual means living your life from the spiritual level of your being first and foremost. By living from that super conscious level the mind, emotions, and physical health fall into place and are balanced. The esoteric or mystical side of all religions emphasize this same point in so many different words. Yoga and meditation in particular teach someone how to get in touch with the highest aspect of their being.
It is one thing to be trained and programmed from without by books, teachers or what have you. But it is another thing to be nourished and inspired from within from that level of consciousness which is beyond reason, beyond thought. All the confusion in religion happens when people try to be moral, or religious, or ethical or spiritual from the level of their mind, emotions and willpower only. At most the end result is self righteousness or a man made god which is only a dead image or form of the truly spiritual. On the other hand someone who is spiritual is someone who is naturally spiritual by living from that level of consciousness which is above the conscious and subconscious mind, and above what is termed the emotional or astral body.
Those who are mainly right brained often experience glimpses of this level of consciousness and they sometimes try to share what they perceive. Some write, some paint, some sing, and some dance etc. Everyone has their own unique way to bring that light and love to the world which they sense in the silence and stillness when the emotions, reasoning and physical body are calm and collected.
As we spend time to do that which is most important of all overall health and wholeness are the end result, as well as more love towards ourselves and others.
To learn more about physical health, weight loss, proper diet and nutrition, fitness, self help, emotional transformation, yoga and meditation, please visit my website at http://body-mind-soul.net Here you will find a choice selection of ebooks, cds, programs, articles, and products emphasizing a healthy body, mind, and soul for overall physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being.
Hatha Yoga Dvds
