When I first read Marshall McLuhan's popular one liner of the sixties: the medium is the message, I felt like he had been clued in about a sutra in Kalidas' Kumarsambhavam, written about 1600 years before. The sutra is: shareer madhyam khalu dharm sadhnam. It translates: the body is the medium to observe all dharma. In this play, Parvati is shown doing intense tapas of self-abnegation to win over the heart of Shiv. She becomes very weak as a result of the self-restraint that she is observing. Shiv approaches her in the guise of a young lad. With the view to reminding her, he asks her if she has made the necessary preparations for any contingency that may arise, in the wake of these austerities.
He drops hints to let her know that the body should be taken care of first because it is only with the help of the body that one can fulfil one's dharma, or obligations. As a first step, one must ascertain that the body is strong enough to survive the rigors of self-denial. If the body fails, the very purpose of embarking on such an arduous journey gets defeated, he advises her. Whether one is on an inner journey or outer, that is to say, whether one is pursuing spiritual attainments or worldly achievements, the body remains indispensable. Neither salvation nor indulgence is possible without the body. The body is the medium and the medium is the message.
Just by casting a glance at somebody, one can easily tell whether one is a renunciant or householder, young or old, healthy or decrepit, upbeat or downcast. Even a look at the face of a Buddha figurine gives the experience of an inner freedom from all fears and desires, such is the significance of the body. Our body is the medium of performing various functions and our body sends out messages, sometimes clear and sometimes subtle, of what it is doing. Therefore it becomes imperative to enter into a close friendship with one's body and forge a loving bond with it. It must always be borne in mind that the body is a unique gift, and also the first of its kind, from God.
Know also that DNA, the body's software, is far more advanced than any software created so far. The functions of a single molecule of DNA far exceed the functions of a supercomputer. Is this good turn of God not sufficient enough to elicit from us a word of gratitude to Him ? Can you name anyone else who would bestow such grace on us, without any obvious or secret deal ? Should we expect a bonus of gifts from God, if we choose to be indifferent, negligent, or abusive to our body ? One can do miracles with the help of this body. Just try to recall to your mind the images of Raman Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekanand, Bhagwan Nityanand, Nisargdatta Maharaj, Baba Muktanand, Neem Karoli Baba, Meher Baba.
What an illustrious galaxy of illuminated souls, they constitute! All of them were big names in the field of soul consciousness. They were all god-intoxicated souls, living examples to show that one can become godlike in this very body. Yet all of them suffered from various ailments, for short or long periods. Swami Vivekanand* tops the list with thirty one ailments in a short life of thirty nine years, most prominent among them being diabetes, asthma, Bright's disease, dyspepsia, and gallstones. To begin with he had a robust, disease free, statuesque body. Don't you think he could have easily doubled his much needed stay on planet earth, had his body received just a little more care ?
While Nisargdatta Maharaj, Raman Maharshi, and Sri Ramakrishna contended with the menace of cancer, Neem Karoli Baba and Baba Muktanand jousted with diabetes. Baba Muktanand, later on, developed cardiac problems which became the cause of his death. Neem Karoli Baba passed away after he slipped into diabetic coma. Bhagwan Nityanand died of chronic rheumatism and Meher Baba lived with peptic ulcers all his life. Why ? Because their bodies had not been properly looked after, in keeping with their necessary requirements. On the other hand, a small group of sages, such as Rishi Dayanand, Paramhansa Yoganand, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Swami Laxmanjoo, Swami Ramtirth, and Swami Sivanand could pay better attention to their bodies, because of a slightly altered backdrop.
The upshot was that they were spared a totally unwarranted intrusion of diseases. Death came to Rishi Dayanand Saraswati, not from disease or old age, but at the hands of an offended nautch girl, who with the complicity of the cook, gave him milk poisoned with powdered glass, to drink. Swami Ramatirth met with his death while taking a bath in the river rapids. Swami Sivananda passed away in dhyan mudra in his own cottage. Paramahansa Yogananda chose to depart before so many eyewitnesses. As he concluded his after dinner speech given in honor of the visiting Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Binaya Ranjan Sen and his wife, he lifted his eyes to the kutasth center and his body slumped to the floor.
In our body, kutasth center is the crown chakra or sahasrar. Sri Aurobindo had a fall and broke his thigh bone, which took its toll of his health. Sri Laxmanjoo had an uneventful, and peaceful exit. One must be very clear in one's mind that it is not at all obligatory to become sick. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that one can't lead one's life without ever being sick. On the contrary, even if one embarks on one's life's journey on a sticky wicket, one can have a good innings, through meticulous effort. BKS Iyengar, who is a living legend, and adored as bhisma pitamah, redoubtable grandfather of yoga, was a weak and sickly child upto the age of sixteen. He had been prey to many serious illnesses, such as typhoid, tuberculosis, anemia, malaria.
His brother in law, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, a polyhistor and yoga guru of the Royal House of Mysore, took him rather reluctantly under his tutelage! Baba Ramdev, the modern day yoga megastar, claims on his website that he was struck by paralysis at the age of two. He had knock knees and also problems with his stomach. It was not an auspicious start for a toddler, but now at 41, not only has he rid himself of his maladies, he hopes to make every willing individual, healthy. It is not a wild dream. Anybody intent on being disease free can be so. Now whatever I have given here is anecdotal, I agree. But the field is so rarefied, that it is hard to produce statistics.
Swami Ramatirth coined the term shishnodar to denote a phenomenon which he underlined, was responsible for the break down of the human system of values as a whole. This included the moral, physical, and intellectual aspects. Though it is not a literal translation, I call it FFS or the Freud and Food Syndrome. While it is true that FFS plays a very prominent role in bringing down the level of human values, I feel that FFS itself depends upon the quality of our thoughts. And our thoughts, in a large measure, depend upon our inner state of harmony. FFS becomes conspicuous only when there is a lack of inner harmony in us. People who depend too much on food and Freud would do well to look inside themselves for the inner imbalance in them.
Let us stop here to understand the etymology of the word disease. The term disease has a very fascinating origin. Whoever thought it out must have been a very thoughtful individual. Now this word comes straight from the Old English word desaise (des+aise). In modern day spelling des becomes dis and aise morphs into ease. So disease refers to the condition of being deprived of ease. It is not a factuality but the absence of a factuality. The factuality in this case is ease. Now ease issues from inner harmony. Disease therefore, points a finger towards inner disharmony. Now see that if there is one word that can sum up the inner state of a sage, it is harmony.
So if our sages have suffered from diseases, it is not from any inner disharmony nor because of the FF syndrome. The reason is they were not householders. In Upanishadic times we had sages who ran their households as well. The body needs as much attention as the soul. A householder is in an ideal position to work for both, body consciousness and soul consciousness. Swami Vivekanand would remain without food for three days, and on the fourth day he would be suddenly invited to a lavish meal. Baba Muktanand had been without food for a week, and then was offered poorees to break his forced fast!
It happened this way with Meher Baba, with Sri Ramakrishna, with Nisargdatta Maharaj, with Neem Karoli Baba, either out of ignorance, or indifference, or compulsion, but it did happen.
Those sages who led a comparatively settled and regular life, remained disease free through out their lives. Charak talks of vyayamashakti, or the power of exercise as a vital element of staying disease free. In an episode Charak is shown in a garden with his disciple Agnivesh, while a herd of gazelles run past them, and the herdsman wobbles along with the help of his pikestaff. To Agnivesh's query why the man was infirm, while all around the animals were bouncing cheerfully, Charak says that the human beings are very intelligent. They know how to think and they think very hard to sideline physical labor somehow. It is lack of vyayamshakti that makes them diseased.
Recent research shows that children have more of friendly fat called brown fat. It keeps them warm, beefs up their immune system, and guzzles their calories. See how vigorously they kick and paddle even as helpless infants! But those adults who manage to keep exercise at bay, store white fat. While brown fat has a lot of mitochondria, which is what is called the body's chemical factory, white fat works just like a storehouse for saturated fats. However the redeeming factor is that one can convert white fat into brown fat, any time one makes up one's mind to become friends with one's body. You thought it right. Yes, just by doing exercise! And you don't have to sweat yourself in a gym or on a race track. Our yogins had done the forethinking for us.
The most likely area where the white fat gets deposited is the cavity of the abdomen. All the organs that fit into that cavity are called the viscera. The visceral fat shows itself up on the waistline also. The visceral fat is the doorway that flashes a welcome sign to most of the illnesses. Our yogins have given us three very remarkable yogic exercises to convert the harmful white visceral fat into beneficial brown visceral fat. They are 1. Nauli 2. Agnisaar 3. Kapalbhati. Choose any of them according to your liking and mental disposition. You may, if you like, combine any two of them. Or if you are too much forthcoming, you may do all the three at a time, with the watchword caution.
To begin with, one is advised to do them under an expert's guidance. I know of two cases where hyperenthusiasm on the part of the practioners proved counter productive. In one case the practioner developed hernia, and had to undergo an operation. In the second case, enteritis or the inflammation of intestines ensued and the enthusiast had to give it up altogether. Done properly, these yogic exercises have an edge over physical exercises. At the end of physical exercises, one feels tired and longs for rest. Not so with yogic exercises. After a full session of yogic exercises one feels fully charged to undertake any challenging work.
Sri Aurobindo had made it amply clear to his preceptor, Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, that his interest in learning yoga was not with a view to withdrawing himself from worldly affairs. It was rather to secure strength for working energetically towards things vitally important for him, his fellowmen, and his countrymen. His integral yoga is a perfect blend of his passive brahma and his active shakti. He was able to build up inside himself a solid mass of psychic energy while his body worked out its day to day obligations like anybody else. His main tools were pranayam, mindfulness, and walking. Like Buddha, Sri Aurobindo walked for exercise and mindfulness.
He had created *a channel a foot wide and two inches deep in the soft floor of his rooms by his regular walking, according to Peter Heehs, his biographer. Sri Aurobindo was a householder, to begin with. It was tragic that his wife, Mrinalini, died at a young age, of influenza. He considered his household a laboratory where he experimented on transforming it from mental to supramental level. With his household as the epicenter, he developed a yogic community of supramental level around him. He hoped that a time would come when this community would work as a template for the rest of the world to charter a supramental course for itself.
Multibillion dollar worth cosmetic industries are vying with each other to give shape to the exteriors of the seven billon strong population of our planet. With what success, only the users and the promoters of the products can testify. Our yogins thought otherwise. They didn't bother themselves about the exterior as such. They were happy and contented with the barest of accouterments. However they were keen about keeping the interior in a shipshape manner. They knew that energy spreads out from the epicenter, that evolution always happens inside out, not outside in. They respected the body like we respect a temple, and did all they could to keep it clean and healthy.
There were no temples in Vedic times. Where was the need to have them, when the bodies served the same purpose? They gave their bodies clean thoughts, pure food, and yogic exercises to keep them fit for living and for god-realization. For clean thoughts, mantra repetition, and hymn singing were used. Food was essentially organic, and eaten frugally. Remember what Napoleon advised: However little one may eat, one always overeats. I would like to modify it a bit--eat little but eat nutritional; add exercise to stay functional. As for exercise, yogic asanas, mudras, and pranayam were routine. It is exercise that releases irisin, the wonder hormone that changes white fat into brown fat.
The domestic life included all the motions of a sanyasin's life. Where then was the need to have separate streams of householders and ascetics? It was only when hypocrisy took roots that the need arose to bifurcate one broad stream of life into two narrow sreams, that of householders and sanyasins. As of now hypocrisy is not dead. In fact it is thriving, and so are the divisions and the sub-divisions. There are myriad types of pujaris and their countless types of temples and tabernacles, and their ensuing inconsequential feuds. Temples are built and broken, every now and then. If only they turn their outward gaze towards their own bodies, I am sure God will feel obliged.
*Vivekanand's 31 ailments: From The Monk As Man: The Unknown Life of Swami Vivekanand by Sankar; Penguin Books, Pages 175-176
*a channel a foot wide and two inches deep: From Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography by Peter Heehs; Oxford University Press, Page 78.
Om Shantih
Ajit Sambodhi
He drops hints to let her know that the body should be taken care of first because it is only with the help of the body that one can fulfil one's dharma, or obligations. As a first step, one must ascertain that the body is strong enough to survive the rigors of self-denial. If the body fails, the very purpose of embarking on such an arduous journey gets defeated, he advises her. Whether one is on an inner journey or outer, that is to say, whether one is pursuing spiritual attainments or worldly achievements, the body remains indispensable. Neither salvation nor indulgence is possible without the body. The body is the medium and the medium is the message.
Just by casting a glance at somebody, one can easily tell whether one is a renunciant or householder, young or old, healthy or decrepit, upbeat or downcast. Even a look at the face of a Buddha figurine gives the experience of an inner freedom from all fears and desires, such is the significance of the body. Our body is the medium of performing various functions and our body sends out messages, sometimes clear and sometimes subtle, of what it is doing. Therefore it becomes imperative to enter into a close friendship with one's body and forge a loving bond with it. It must always be borne in mind that the body is a unique gift, and also the first of its kind, from God.
Know also that DNA, the body's software, is far more advanced than any software created so far. The functions of a single molecule of DNA far exceed the functions of a supercomputer. Is this good turn of God not sufficient enough to elicit from us a word of gratitude to Him ? Can you name anyone else who would bestow such grace on us, without any obvious or secret deal ? Should we expect a bonus of gifts from God, if we choose to be indifferent, negligent, or abusive to our body ? One can do miracles with the help of this body. Just try to recall to your mind the images of Raman Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekanand, Bhagwan Nityanand, Nisargdatta Maharaj, Baba Muktanand, Neem Karoli Baba, Meher Baba.
What an illustrious galaxy of illuminated souls, they constitute! All of them were big names in the field of soul consciousness. They were all god-intoxicated souls, living examples to show that one can become godlike in this very body. Yet all of them suffered from various ailments, for short or long periods. Swami Vivekanand* tops the list with thirty one ailments in a short life of thirty nine years, most prominent among them being diabetes, asthma, Bright's disease, dyspepsia, and gallstones. To begin with he had a robust, disease free, statuesque body. Don't you think he could have easily doubled his much needed stay on planet earth, had his body received just a little more care ?
While Nisargdatta Maharaj, Raman Maharshi, and Sri Ramakrishna contended with the menace of cancer, Neem Karoli Baba and Baba Muktanand jousted with diabetes. Baba Muktanand, later on, developed cardiac problems which became the cause of his death. Neem Karoli Baba passed away after he slipped into diabetic coma. Bhagwan Nityanand died of chronic rheumatism and Meher Baba lived with peptic ulcers all his life. Why ? Because their bodies had not been properly looked after, in keeping with their necessary requirements. On the other hand, a small group of sages, such as Rishi Dayanand, Paramhansa Yoganand, Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Swami Laxmanjoo, Swami Ramtirth, and Swami Sivanand could pay better attention to their bodies, because of a slightly altered backdrop.
The upshot was that they were spared a totally unwarranted intrusion of diseases. Death came to Rishi Dayanand Saraswati, not from disease or old age, but at the hands of an offended nautch girl, who with the complicity of the cook, gave him milk poisoned with powdered glass, to drink. Swami Ramatirth met with his death while taking a bath in the river rapids. Swami Sivananda passed away in dhyan mudra in his own cottage. Paramahansa Yogananda chose to depart before so many eyewitnesses. As he concluded his after dinner speech given in honor of the visiting Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Binaya Ranjan Sen and his wife, he lifted his eyes to the kutasth center and his body slumped to the floor.
In our body, kutasth center is the crown chakra or sahasrar. Sri Aurobindo had a fall and broke his thigh bone, which took its toll of his health. Sri Laxmanjoo had an uneventful, and peaceful exit. One must be very clear in one's mind that it is not at all obligatory to become sick. There is no scientific evidence to suggest that one can't lead one's life without ever being sick. On the contrary, even if one embarks on one's life's journey on a sticky wicket, one can have a good innings, through meticulous effort. BKS Iyengar, who is a living legend, and adored as bhisma pitamah, redoubtable grandfather of yoga, was a weak and sickly child upto the age of sixteen. He had been prey to many serious illnesses, such as typhoid, tuberculosis, anemia, malaria.
His brother in law, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, a polyhistor and yoga guru of the Royal House of Mysore, took him rather reluctantly under his tutelage! Baba Ramdev, the modern day yoga megastar, claims on his website that he was struck by paralysis at the age of two. He had knock knees and also problems with his stomach. It was not an auspicious start for a toddler, but now at 41, not only has he rid himself of his maladies, he hopes to make every willing individual, healthy. It is not a wild dream. Anybody intent on being disease free can be so. Now whatever I have given here is anecdotal, I agree. But the field is so rarefied, that it is hard to produce statistics.
Swami Ramatirth coined the term shishnodar to denote a phenomenon which he underlined, was responsible for the break down of the human system of values as a whole. This included the moral, physical, and intellectual aspects. Though it is not a literal translation, I call it FFS or the Freud and Food Syndrome. While it is true that FFS plays a very prominent role in bringing down the level of human values, I feel that FFS itself depends upon the quality of our thoughts. And our thoughts, in a large measure, depend upon our inner state of harmony. FFS becomes conspicuous only when there is a lack of inner harmony in us. People who depend too much on food and Freud would do well to look inside themselves for the inner imbalance in them.
Let us stop here to understand the etymology of the word disease. The term disease has a very fascinating origin. Whoever thought it out must have been a very thoughtful individual. Now this word comes straight from the Old English word desaise (des+aise). In modern day spelling des becomes dis and aise morphs into ease. So disease refers to the condition of being deprived of ease. It is not a factuality but the absence of a factuality. The factuality in this case is ease. Now ease issues from inner harmony. Disease therefore, points a finger towards inner disharmony. Now see that if there is one word that can sum up the inner state of a sage, it is harmony.
So if our sages have suffered from diseases, it is not from any inner disharmony nor because of the FF syndrome. The reason is they were not householders. In Upanishadic times we had sages who ran their households as well. The body needs as much attention as the soul. A householder is in an ideal position to work for both, body consciousness and soul consciousness. Swami Vivekanand would remain without food for three days, and on the fourth day he would be suddenly invited to a lavish meal. Baba Muktanand had been without food for a week, and then was offered poorees to break his forced fast!
It happened this way with Meher Baba, with Sri Ramakrishna, with Nisargdatta Maharaj, with Neem Karoli Baba, either out of ignorance, or indifference, or compulsion, but it did happen.
Those sages who led a comparatively settled and regular life, remained disease free through out their lives. Charak talks of vyayamashakti, or the power of exercise as a vital element of staying disease free. In an episode Charak is shown in a garden with his disciple Agnivesh, while a herd of gazelles run past them, and the herdsman wobbles along with the help of his pikestaff. To Agnivesh's query why the man was infirm, while all around the animals were bouncing cheerfully, Charak says that the human beings are very intelligent. They know how to think and they think very hard to sideline physical labor somehow. It is lack of vyayamshakti that makes them diseased.
Recent research shows that children have more of friendly fat called brown fat. It keeps them warm, beefs up their immune system, and guzzles their calories. See how vigorously they kick and paddle even as helpless infants! But those adults who manage to keep exercise at bay, store white fat. While brown fat has a lot of mitochondria, which is what is called the body's chemical factory, white fat works just like a storehouse for saturated fats. However the redeeming factor is that one can convert white fat into brown fat, any time one makes up one's mind to become friends with one's body. You thought it right. Yes, just by doing exercise! And you don't have to sweat yourself in a gym or on a race track. Our yogins had done the forethinking for us.
The most likely area where the white fat gets deposited is the cavity of the abdomen. All the organs that fit into that cavity are called the viscera. The visceral fat shows itself up on the waistline also. The visceral fat is the doorway that flashes a welcome sign to most of the illnesses. Our yogins have given us three very remarkable yogic exercises to convert the harmful white visceral fat into beneficial brown visceral fat. They are 1. Nauli 2. Agnisaar 3. Kapalbhati. Choose any of them according to your liking and mental disposition. You may, if you like, combine any two of them. Or if you are too much forthcoming, you may do all the three at a time, with the watchword caution.
To begin with, one is advised to do them under an expert's guidance. I know of two cases where hyperenthusiasm on the part of the practioners proved counter productive. In one case the practioner developed hernia, and had to undergo an operation. In the second case, enteritis or the inflammation of intestines ensued and the enthusiast had to give it up altogether. Done properly, these yogic exercises have an edge over physical exercises. At the end of physical exercises, one feels tired and longs for rest. Not so with yogic exercises. After a full session of yogic exercises one feels fully charged to undertake any challenging work.
Sri Aurobindo had made it amply clear to his preceptor, Vishnu Bhaskar Lele, that his interest in learning yoga was not with a view to withdrawing himself from worldly affairs. It was rather to secure strength for working energetically towards things vitally important for him, his fellowmen, and his countrymen. His integral yoga is a perfect blend of his passive brahma and his active shakti. He was able to build up inside himself a solid mass of psychic energy while his body worked out its day to day obligations like anybody else. His main tools were pranayam, mindfulness, and walking. Like Buddha, Sri Aurobindo walked for exercise and mindfulness.
He had created *a channel a foot wide and two inches deep in the soft floor of his rooms by his regular walking, according to Peter Heehs, his biographer. Sri Aurobindo was a householder, to begin with. It was tragic that his wife, Mrinalini, died at a young age, of influenza. He considered his household a laboratory where he experimented on transforming it from mental to supramental level. With his household as the epicenter, he developed a yogic community of supramental level around him. He hoped that a time would come when this community would work as a template for the rest of the world to charter a supramental course for itself.
Multibillion dollar worth cosmetic industries are vying with each other to give shape to the exteriors of the seven billon strong population of our planet. With what success, only the users and the promoters of the products can testify. Our yogins thought otherwise. They didn't bother themselves about the exterior as such. They were happy and contented with the barest of accouterments. However they were keen about keeping the interior in a shipshape manner. They knew that energy spreads out from the epicenter, that evolution always happens inside out, not outside in. They respected the body like we respect a temple, and did all they could to keep it clean and healthy.
There were no temples in Vedic times. Where was the need to have them, when the bodies served the same purpose? They gave their bodies clean thoughts, pure food, and yogic exercises to keep them fit for living and for god-realization. For clean thoughts, mantra repetition, and hymn singing were used. Food was essentially organic, and eaten frugally. Remember what Napoleon advised: However little one may eat, one always overeats. I would like to modify it a bit--eat little but eat nutritional; add exercise to stay functional. As for exercise, yogic asanas, mudras, and pranayam were routine. It is exercise that releases irisin, the wonder hormone that changes white fat into brown fat.
The domestic life included all the motions of a sanyasin's life. Where then was the need to have separate streams of householders and ascetics? It was only when hypocrisy took roots that the need arose to bifurcate one broad stream of life into two narrow sreams, that of householders and sanyasins. As of now hypocrisy is not dead. In fact it is thriving, and so are the divisions and the sub-divisions. There are myriad types of pujaris and their countless types of temples and tabernacles, and their ensuing inconsequential feuds. Temples are built and broken, every now and then. If only they turn their outward gaze towards their own bodies, I am sure God will feel obliged.
*Vivekanand's 31 ailments: From The Monk As Man: The Unknown Life of Swami Vivekanand by Sankar; Penguin Books, Pages 175-176
*a channel a foot wide and two inches deep: From Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography by Peter Heehs; Oxford University Press, Page 78.
Om Shantih
Ajit Sambodhi
