Holistic Wellbeing

The word ‘Health’ is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word ‘Helig’ meaning holistic or wholeness of the spirit. You are made up of sense organs, mind, intellect, consciousness and the indwelling spirit. ‘Wholeness’ includes all these elements. Your mind should be in a state of fullness; there should be no room for confusion or depression. To achieve such a state of mind, it is necessary to connect with the Divine and understand the situation. For instance, students should not get depressed if they did not score as well as they expected or perhaps failed in an examination. Instead, they should examine the reasons for the result – whether they studied well or understood the subject correctly. If the conclusion is inadequate preparation, then the resolve should be to do better in the next opportunity. You must develop your moral and mental strength by practicing Sadhana for disciplining the mind and achieve holistic wellbeing.

Baba (thought for the day)

Yes, we call that helig – ‘heilig’, the wholeness of the spirit.

We know our sense organs, but everything else is not so clear, for the mind we do not have a good translation, the intellect is easier, but consciousness not and even less the indwelling spirit.

If it would be so easy to just contact that spirit, we would know how, but as it is inside and inside it is dark, we do not have any light to see, we look for it on the outside and there we cannot find it.

So we should get aware of it to be able in that wholeness to include all elements.

How do we get aware of the indwelling spirit?

If we see only part of it, our mind cannot be in fullness, that is just normal.

That is it what reflects in the inner view as colors, usually if it is black dark by experience it has to do with partial knowledge and usually some part of the whole is ignored.

If the mind is in fullness, there is no confusion, but why are we not in fullness?

If we stop at the mind and do not get further, as Baba said not long ago lots of people are doing that, they just go to the mind and think all is done, it means we don’t even use the intellect properly and what about consciousness and the indwelling spirit?

Yesterday we talked about a meditation technique, it is using the mind to go inside, repetition of mantra and we get aware by that of consciousness, because the direction is changed and that makes use of the intellect, the difference between inside and outside.

But that’s it, there is the most important part missing.

To achieve such a state of mind, it is necessary to connect with the Divine and understand the situation.

How do we connect with the divine?

We have to ask the right questions. Who am I?

Without the right question it is not possible to connect.

Baba talks about the example of examination. If we failed a test there must a reason and we have to make it better. We have to understand the subject correctly.

And if we don’t ask, who am I? We are not able to know the indweller and without the indweller it will not be fullness, even if they think it is everything, it is just partial knowledge, part of it is in purpose not there, for whatever reason.

As Baba explained in yesterday’s thought, it is all in vain; if we do Sadhana without asking the right questions, because we cannot possibly get the right answers.

And what is worse and in my own personal experience, we can get cut off the source, uprooted and we think it is intelligent, but in reality it is the opposite, it gets us on the level of dummies.

We cannot understand it anymore, see everything in black and white and think we have the right answer.

But it is all wrong and the mind is caught in always the same trap of wrong conclusion, we call that brainwashed. What is wrong?

We are missing the most important thing.

They also said that ‘little knowledge is dangerous’, but they are not aware that they just go to the level of consciousness and not on the level of the indwelling spirit thinking it is all there is and that is the wrong conclusion and it remains on a mind level, it doesn’t really go beyond it.

Or if we want to see it as a right conclusion, it is a right conclusion but on the wrong level and therefore, it is partial knowledge, the biggest part of the knowledge is missing, that of the indwelling spirit.

You are made up of sense organs, mind, intellect, consciousness and the indwelling spirit. ‘Wholeness’ includes all these elements. Your mind should be in a state of fullness; there should be no room for confusion or depression. To achieve such a state of mind, it is necessary to connect with the Divine and understand the situation.  

I was in Baba’s ashram and still convinced that I did all what was needed to be done in meditating and I went on like that, convinced it was all what needed to be done, but that is a wrong conclusion and it was established with TM and I didn’t understand why.

And he said that it is very difficult to understand and if our mind is trained in such wrong conclusions, we go on and think that it has to be right.

And I met with a devotee and she said she did yoga before and she was a good piano player and I talked about meditation and as soon as I mentioned it, I was back in that wrong conclusion that it was all what had to be done.

Sometime later we got interview and he asked her, not me, ‘who I was’ and he asked it three times, it is on all three levels, body, mind, atman (consciousness).

And he went on asking her questions about me, he said, ‘what is your relationship’? And the third question he asked was, 'to whom does she belong'?

I tried to somehow get the feeling for it, first why did he ask her and speak about me.

That means I could not avoid it anymore to ask those questions and I spoke about it with others. Only fourteen days later I met someone who said he did TM and we spoke and it felt like we were brother and sister on so many levels, it looked ideal, only much later I found out that he never did it. His boss had paid for the course and he got the initiation, for whatever reason, but he never cared to do it, but to be spiritual and to be in good terms with his ex-boss, he was living in his room, he went on telling everybody, that in the moment he was initiated, he knew he would to that for the rest of his life.

I was already in a relationship with him when I noticed that it was not true and it felt that confusing, I couldn’t even get the idea of it why anyone would do such a thing, I didn’t know his boss well enough. Today I know why he said that he would do it all his life.

And it ended with the same wrong conclusion of the mind, he thought nothing was wrong with TM and even Baba’s questions, which lead indirectly to our relationship, I thought he would help me to get answers, even those questions didn’t make sense to him anymore and that way he told me that I had a problem and not TM was the problem and he even went that far to tell the opposite of what Baba had said in the interview room, that difficult it was to understand.

No it is not perfectly alright, because it ends on the level of consciousness and if we don’t know our real identity, it is all in vain.  

Lead us from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality.

They stop on the level of consciousness, they never ask, ‘Who am I?’

If we do not ask the right questions, we do not get right answers and we don’t get to the right conclusion and a Guru’s task is to lead us to the right conclusion.

To get away from illusion and deception, we have to go from darkness to light to get to the right conclusion.

All spiritual practices (Sadhana) will go in vain if you do not know your true identity. Instead of asking others, “Who are you?” ask yourself, “Who am I?”

We say, “This is my book, this is my tumbler.” Then, "Who am I? The feeling of ‘my’ is illusion (maya). All this ‘mine’ is matter; they are negative. You think you are the master of this material world. Master the mind and be a mastermind! Make an effort to know your true identity.

To know this, you should first give up body attachment. When I say this is ‘my handkerchief’, I am separate from the handkerchief. Similarly, when I say this is ‘my body’, I am separate from the body. When I say, ‘my mind’ it means I am separate from my mind. Then who am I? Constant enquiry on these lines would lead you to self-realization.

Baba