Seemingly paradoxical, the caption (the title of the book authored by Daneil Goleman) is proving to be true in the light of scientific interpreters of mind-body-spirit symbiosis like Dean Ornish, Deepak Chopra Bohm Canadace B Pert,Neale Donold Walsh.
What they interpret scientifically from the known data of mind-body medicine, and rationally from the discoveries of our own experience is the wonderful and even powerful ancient wisdom of our spiritual self enunciated in Vedas and exemplified in Budha, Mahavira, Christ, Prophet Mohammed, Sankara and various less known sages and philosophers like Jiddu Krishnamurti and Yogananda Paramhamsa.
The modern masters of the “subjective science”, to name a few like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Satya Sai Baba and Sri Sri Ravi Shanker expound the truth of this science by urging us observe the self beyond the sensory-self of reactions and emotions sustained by in Jiddu Krishnamurti’s words, “the network of thought”.
What we inevitably suffer of is the security- seeking self groveling in the pursuit of materialistic and egoistic desires fulfillment of which offers neither comfort nor contentment.
Wearing us out, these stressful pursuits ultimately prove to be self-destructive besides being others-destructive. Gripped by the manias of money, power, position and sex, we end up a sickly ‘egopuffs’ and parasites. Slaving to the ego’s cravings, we become chronic cases of lifeless bores. Stressed out, we will be too tired either to receive or transmit the enlivening hormones of love and affection in human relations. Nor will we be capable of any creative or; innovative approach in our work and living style.
Life-weary, we live on burdened and bored being incapable of eliciting that response of real rest and relaxation of the mind and hence the body. Our search for mental peace is confined to visits of temples or holiday resorts, or now the health resorts. Our education has only enhanced our struggle for livelihood without enriching our life. Our civilisation made the living so complex that we are dependent upon so many things and persons, and our culture is refined sensualism. Vested interest sans any regard for values and ethics has come to be our guiding principle.
Only a stress-free relaxed mind can help our inherent sensitive serene self to surface.
And without that love-transmitting persona, our acceptability, respectability and lovability we crave for remain skin-top pretentious masks. such ego-induced false appearances are fine-turned self-deluding stratagems to conceal our wretched psychic self.
It is the design-motivated self that keeps endeavouring and manipulating others with the false smile and wily words. We may succeed with such tactics professionally and socially, but the soul or spirit keeps mocking us at it’s betrayal. Others referring to us as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ person is determined by our apparent sincerity to our own spirit constraining us to be sensitive towards others and our restraining ourselves being harmful or hurting towards them. Our openness in mind and heart is what underlies our sensibility and sensitivity, the hallmarks of not only innocence but also intelligence.
Only elicitation of “Relaxation Response” by accessing the said spiritual energy could reverse the tension and stress reaction. But the most formidable precondition for this tranquillising relaxation response to emanate is the cessation of thought in the mind which is commonly understood as “mental peace”.
Such tranquil relaxation is facilitated by the process of meditation that suspends the mental activity of visualising, verbalising and emotionalising. But only such meditation as on the tranquil silence in the core of our being in the depths of the heart region could cut off the mental state arising that in the words of William Wordsworth, “happy stillness of mind”.
The article has been taken from the book ‘The Art of Being and The Art of Living’ by Captain KV Reddy