Depths of calm

Only a healthy bud can blossom. In the same way, only a healthy being can suceed.

So, what's being healthy?

If you are not feeling rough inside, then you are not healthy; If the mind is stiff and not calm, you are not mentally healthy. When the emotions are rough, you are emotionally not healthy. To attain a perfect state of health, one has to remain mentally calm, steady and emotionally soft.
The stae of healthiness has to flow from the innermost of your being to the outermost, and vice versa. That state is called Swasthya in Sanskrit.

Swasthya means health. It also means being in one's self. Swasthya or health is not just confined to the body and the mind; it has come to you as a gift from the cosmic mind or the 'Indra'

Have you noticed this? When you enter a place, where a very disturbed and stressed person has spent some time, you start feeling disturbed for no reason, even if the stressed person is not around any longer. The same feelings, same thoughts same emotions come to you. Similarly, when there is a harmonious vibration like at a place where a Satsang is happening, you feel good. You don't know why. So feelings are not isolated in one's body, they are all around. So is breath. Same goes for the mind. It is in the whole environment, because the mind is subtler than the five elements - the earth, the water, the fire, the air and the ether.

Like if there is a fire somewhere, the heat is not just in the fire, it is also radiating throughout the place. Subtler than the air, which is all over. So if you are unhappy or depressed, you are not the only one who is feeling it; you are spreading it to the whole environment.

A time may come in the future, when people will be fined for being depressed because they are creating emotional pollution!

But how can we control this? That is the key question and the answer lies in meditation. The main purpose of meditation, Pranayam and related practices is that they increase prana or the subtle life energy. Prana is subtler than emotions. When you atttend to the subtlest, the gross becomes all right. You handle the breath and body gains good health.The words that you hear from people around you, affect your state of mind. They either give you peace and joy or create disturbance. Ususally what happens is that, when people say something that creates jealously, anger, frustration or sadness in us, we hold them responsible for it since we are contributing to the process. We are affected because the mind is not in its Self; it is not centered.