When people ask how you are doing, you may have a tendency, like many others, to answer that question based on your physical condition or your “worldly activities. ‘I feel fit,’ you might say, or busy, happy or ailing. You’re going on a trip soon or you’re full of enthusiasm in your new job. Sometimes people ask a deeper question, because they are curious to know how you really are, apart from your partner, children, vacations or career. Maybe then you scratch your head uncomfortably, because that question and the answer have already long disappeared behind the light of the horizon.
In ancient times it was customary when someone had health-related complaints, to send them to the doctor. Doctors would give the following advice: ‘Free yourself from things. Seek silence in a forest or hermitage, and devote several hours daily to attentively following your breathing movement. Examine your mind. What drives you? Come back when you have found peace.’ Often the practical application of this good advice gave rise to struggle and frustration. Occasionally, the stilling of the mind made the symptoms disappear ‘as if by magic’.
It is striking that in these days of knowledge and opportunity the simple questions are forgotten. There are few people who, once life has taken its full flight, occasionally return to the source of that existence: their own self. Who are you, what gives you fulfillment, where are you moving? Yet that re-sourcing might be the most important foundation of your health. For the body follows the mind, and the mind follows the Self. At least that’s how it would ideally be, if there were no oblivion.
First and foremost, man leads a thinking life. If thinking does not know its basis and is left to its own devices, it is like a rudderless ship at sea. Who sails a good course without knowing his Self, where does he find his meaning? Thinking is restless without a home – fickle and impetuous, says Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gītā, and is harder to tame than the wind. Patañjali, in the Yoga sūtra (I.30), names all kinds of obstacles that get in the way of clear awareness, such as apathy, laziness, carelessness, inconstancy, lack of mastery, and also disease. They are accompanied by pain, dejection, nervousness and restless breath. From where should happiness and health come, if you do not know peace?
Patañjali sees the deeper cause of our suffering in the so-called afflictions (kleśas): ignorance, I-feeling, craving, aversion and self-preservation. In these, ignorance – the confusion about who we are – is considered the breeding ground of others. Together they play and darken the mind and keep it confused. The mind swirls and throws up thoughts all the time, like a swirling river cutting through an indeterminate landscape. Its movements are confused, ephemeral and unfettered. Yet in them we search for something to hold on to.
Described as ‘locked’, it seems almost impossible to turn the tide. Yet, the widely shared view in Indian philosophy, the way out, is quite simple. For, says the old sage, that whole history of yourself as a lost, powerless person rests on a misconception. Ignorance causes us to confuse the Self, which is infinite, pure and joyous, with the non-Self, which is finite and imperfect. We imagine ourselves a cloistered, self-possessed individual whose fulfillment lies in the world. Those who know their true selves see that imagined I-person perish and find peace and fulfillment in themselves.
As a practical practice, Patañjali recommended, among other things, his famous eightfold path (Aṣṭāṃga Yoga), of which, as “health advice,” I like to mention the first two: yama and niyama. Yama, ‘inner control,’ consists of nonviolence, love of truth, non-stealing, abstinence, and letting go of possessiveness. Niyama, “practice,” consists of purity, contentment, discipline, the study of sacred texts, and the focus on the “sovereign” Self (or God, Īshvara). The first component, yama, is called “the Great Vow,” perhaps because it has such far-reaching effects. The practice bestows vitality and cheerfulness, clarity, vitality and peace. The body becomes resilient and inwardly healthy. It follows the mind, which in turn finds pleasure in the Self.
The yamas and niyamas may sound noble and lofty, but they are easy to translate into everyday life. What are you doing right, what would be better for you to leave behind? What helps you move forward? Are you sincere? Can you let the momentary craving for satisfaction pass, so that there is room for something else? Perhaps it is the small steps of daily care that pave the way to health and enlightenment.
We often praise the greats of this world, those who found liberation: Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, Jesus, Mahavir, as if their ‘achievement’ was too high for us, almost out of this world. But perhaps they look back, smiling as if they want to say: go ahead, the time is right….
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