Set the centre right and all will be right. A vigorous physical and even an intense psychological culture done for the sake of the egoistic self cannot produce a healthy humanity. Such a pursuit may no doubt awaken the hitherto hidden faculties of our body, give it unusual capacities and unleash the latent powers of life and mind. However in the absence of an awakened soul these capacities turn all to a glorious doom. The quality of our life depends on our aim. If the aim is high the rest will develop, health included. The siege of Troy, the destruction of the Kuru clan, the drowning of Atlantis, the fall of Rome all reveal that no group or empire can last if its central theme is hedonistic alone. For Nature’s wisdom works through a subtle paradox. When we try to wrest its powers by force there is great destruction. But if we surrender ourselves to its secret will and purpose, it leads us through sure and swift footsteps towards a natural efflorescence. As with the individual so with the collective. As long as the ego of an individual or a group continues to place themselves at the centre, there will always be strife, competition, war, discord, disharmony and its result of crime — social and moral, corruption, illness and the rest.
Thus to discover our soul and organise life around it is the precondition for individual holistic health. To discover the world-soul and live for the divine purpose in creation is the condition for social and global health.
The Technology Within
There is an outer technology of machinery and equipment which has made human life a little more comfortable. A lot of time, money and energy continues to be invested in inventing and perfecting more and more instruments for the future use of mankind. Development has been stupendous and science has come a long way from Mendel’s laws of inheritance to gene mapping and manipulation.
But is that all? Is this the only possible direction of development? There seems to be an assumption that the human body and its laws are fixed and unalterable, except through external manipulation. But the pressure of evolution is not yet over. Man is not the last word of Nature. An excessive reliance on gadgets and machinery to support the human body in distress may work against the evolutionary force through inhibition of the body’s own powers to heal.
For there is a healing force within. And there is a technology woven into the inner fabric of our bodies. We must wake up and use this inner technology, if we are to master life and conquer death.
Great wonders have been achieved by the technology devised by man. Greater wonders await us by mastering the technology concealed in man.
