Once Mullah Naseeruddin met with an accident and he landed in a hospital. In every part of the body something was broken. One of his friends came and asked him, Mullah how are you doing? He said,” I am fine. Only it hurts when I laugh.” The friend then asked Mullah, “How can you laugh being in this condition.” Mullah replied, “If I don’t laugh now I have never laughed in my life.”
Undying enthusiasm is one aspect of being in perfect health. The word health in Sanskrit means an enlightened being. ‘Swasthi’ means one who is established in self. What are the signs of being in oneself?
First is enthusiasm — one who can laugh and say “today nothing worked.” To be able to say that you need a state of mind that is stress-free and tension proof.
There are two conditions of the mind. One is body and mind together. And the other is body and the mind looking in different directions. Whether it is schools or in hospitals, attention deficiency syndrome is so prevalent today.
So mindfulness, being alert and aware is the second sign of good health. Sometimes when you are stressed, you are also alert, but that is not good. You need to be alert as well as relaxed and that is what you call enlightenment.
Half of our health we spend in gaining wealth and then we spend that wealth to gain back our health. This is not economical. There are 7 layers to our existence — body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, ego and self. It is the breath that connects the body and the mind. Self is the subtlest aspect of our being, our existence.
Everything goes on to change, the body undergoes a change and so does our mind. Mind is thoughts and the sense of perception in your consciousness that changes all the time; intellect, understanding, judgements, intellect changes, memory, ego.
But there is something that doesn’t change within you. And that is called self— which is the reference point of all the changes.
Unless and until you are in touch with this subtlest aspect, you are not called a healthy person according to the ancient system of Ayurveda.
Nature has provided us with an inbuilt mechanism, sleep. Sleep is very important as that is when the body releases stress and energy gets recuperated. But most of the times, stresses remain in the system.
For tackling these kinds of stresses, there are techniques of meditation which focus on how the rhythm of breath is linked to the state of the mind.
