There is an American Holistic Medical Association which has defined Holistic Health as a state of well-being in which an individual’s body, mind, emotions and spirit are in tune with the natural, cosmic and social environment. It is a state of wellness that leads to a real joy in living, rather than just being able to cope or just able to function.

The American Hoslistic Medical Association further describes Holistic Medicine in the following words : "A system of health care which emphasies personal responsibility, and fosters a co-operative relationship among all those involved , leading towards optimal attunement of body, mind, emotions and spirit. Holistic Medicine encompasses all safe modalities of diagnosis and treatments, including drugs and surgery, emphasis -ing the necessity of looking at the whole person. It includes analysis of physical , nutritional, environmental, emotional, spiritual and life - style values. Holistic Medicine particularly focuses upn patient education and patient responsibility for personal efforts to achieve balance. All Holistic Medicine practitioners let their patients know that health maintenance and healing are done with them and not to them, or for them. "

Health is not merely absence of disease. It is actually a state of vibrant well-being. It is a state in which all our organs and all our systems - we have respiratory, circulatory, nervous, digestive and other systems - are working efficiently. It also means that we are physically fit. This physical fitness depends upon regular exercise, proper rest and adequate nourishment. Let us look briefly into the exercise part of fitness.

Physical Fitness

A physically fit person has :

1. BALANCE : This means balanced development of the body; balance in standing, sitting, walking or other movement, and erect posture are also important. Exercises should involve the right as well as the left half of the body. Tennis, Badminton, Cricket and many other games work out one side of the body (usually right), more than the other. Bilateral exercises such as Calisthenics, Gymnastics, Swimming and Yoga are meant for balanced development of the body.
2. FLEXIBILITY : This means that all joints of the body are able to move through their full range. s babies we are flexible enough to put our toes in our mouths, which, as adults, we cannot. Most of us cannot stand straight-legged and bend forward to touch the toes. This is loss of flexibility.
3. STRENGTH is the ability to a muscle to contract against a heavy resistance. A weight-lifter is a man of strength.
4. ENDURANCE is of two types : (A) Muscular, in which a muscle is able to contract and stretch repeatedly for a long time, and (B) Cardio- Respiratory , in which the heart and lungs are called into action for a prolonged time, as in long distance running, swimming, cycling , etc. or long-drawn matches of tennis, football, etc.
5. POWER cals for sudden burst of energy, as in high jump, long jump, shot put, etc.
6. AGILITY is the ability to duck and dodge which we see in a boxer. To a lesser degree, it is seen in wrestling, soccer, and other body-contact sports, as well as some non-contact sports. On our roads, we have to be agile to move out of the way of a reckless driver, scooterist or cyclist. The aforesaid six criteria of physical fitness are related to outward fitness. But if we do regular exercise to build endurance, strength, balance, etc. we automatically improve the function of all the viscera. Liver, stomach, intestines,pancreas, spleen, kidneys, all the endocrine glands, all other glands,all blood vessels, and nerve pathways benefit by such an all-round programme of exercise. Heart and lungs benefit by exer- cising the legs.

Nourishment

Right type of nourishment is another important requisite for all-round health. The food has to be as natural as possible. By Natural is meant suited to man’s physical and mental make-up. Anatomicaly and physi- oligically we are constituted to ingest food only from the plant kingdom. Though most of us are meat-eaters, we humans were meant to live on the produce of vegetable kingdom e.g., fruits, flowers, leaves, stems, grains, etc. and we need to take these provisions unprocessed, unrefined, uncooked, as far as possible. At the root of our ill-health, whether we have migraine or varicose veins, asthama or arthritis, diabetes, digestive ailment or a heart disease, one major cause in most cases, is eating junk food. Not only we tend to overeat, we overeat of the wrong type of food. We take refined starch and refined sugar every day - perhaps in every meal - which plays a havoc with our health. Our polished rice and ‘maida’ bread have no fibre or roughage in them, which makes them constipating. Besides, these items lack essential vitamins such as the ‘B’ factors, and minerals such as iron and calcium. We also cook food to death; instead of light steaming, boiling or baking, we resort to deep-frying. The result is indigestion, hyperacidity and constipation. Human nutrition is a neglected subject even in medical colleges. Most doctors when asked by their patients regarding dietary instructions, give a curt, ‘Eat what you like’ type of answer, because medicos themselves generally do not see any connection between patient’s ailments and their eating habits. And nobody tells anyone that food is to be eaten in moderation, only at the dictates of true hunger, and chewed thoroughly. At least one-third of total daily food intake should be vegetable salads, raw, without salt and pepper; and fruits (fresh not dry or canned) constitute another one-third of total intake.

Mental Health

Mental health has been described by the American Medical Asso- ciation as the sum total of the following qualities and capabilities :

1. Emotional Stability. 2. Maturity of Character. 3. Ability to recover from the paralysing stresses of life in quick time. 4. Ability to judge reality accurately. 5. Ability to foresee and farsee. 6. Ability to love , and sustain affectionate relationship with people around. 7. Ability to work cheerfully and productively. 8. Ability to gratify hunger , thirst and sex urges in such a way as not to hurt others or oneself. 9. Having an effective conscience. Rishi Patanjali and other sages have emphasised the role of mind in maintaining health. The life-stresses (Klesha) which cause ill-health are ignorance (vidya), egotism (smita), desires (Raga), aversions (Dvesha), and fixations (Abhinivesha).

The Heart Factor

Mental health includes the ability to love as said above. Love is the blanket term to cover Compassion, Reverence for life, Sympathy and Empathy, which are the qualities of heart. In an article titled ‘ Head for the Heart, ‘ I have said, " Head is extrovert though centred in I. Heart is introvert, and yet reaches out in ‘We’. Head uses senses ; Heart has extra sensory perception. It sees not : Love is blind. We need to move from the heart rather than the head. Our headquarters need to be our Heart-Quarters. Compared to the head, the Heart is nearer our Centre of Being. In fact, Head is far removed from the Centre. "

We need to be less cerebral, and more cordial. Especially, we need to use more the right hemisphere of brain, which isthe seat of intuitiveness, creativity, and Love. Perhaps our emotional heart is in our right brain.

We all need to experience the Shakti part from the head to the heart to Shunya. All spiritual paths have to merge on the highway of Love before the Self can be Known. There is no bypassing the heart in spiritual enlightenment.

Man - The Unknown

Our Central Nervous System consists of a somatic limb, which deals with awareness of sensation and voluntary control of muscles. But there is an Autonomic limb also, which is in involuntary control of internal organs. This utomatic Nervous System is divided into two types of nerves :

1. Sympathetic Nervous System prepares the body for fight or flight. Its activity can limit the blood supply to digestive system, and augment it to the skeletal muscles especially of arms and legs. 2. Parasympathetic System works to conserve bodily resources and relax the physique. These systems are not under our voluntary control, so we cannot do anything normally to improve their functioning. But, sure enough,we can cultivate our sang-froid by methods such as Shavasana and Meditation. Nobel prize winner Dr. lexic Carrel in his monumental work ‘Man- the Unknown’ brings down the essence of holistic approach to health in these studied medical observations :

"Functions of the body are less precisely located than organs. The skeleton, for example, is not merely the framework of the body. It also constitutes a part of the circulatory, respiratory and nutritive system. since, with the aid of the bone-marrow, it manufactures leucocytes and red cells. The liver secrets bile, destroys poisons and microbes, stores glycogen, and regulates metabolism in the entire organism ... IN a like manner, the pancreas, the supre-renal and the spleen do not confine themselves to one function. Each is involved in mutiple activities, in fact, in almost all events of the body. In illness the body preserves the same unity as in health. It is sick as a whole. No disturbance remains strictly confined to a single organ. Doctors have been led to consider each disease as a specialty by the old anatomical conception of the human being. Only those physicians who know man both in his parts and in his entirety, physically and mentally, are capable of understanding him when he is sick. "

Dr. Carrel sums up this fact of the body-mind complex acting as a whole, in these beautiful words : "Man thinks, invents, loves, suffers, admires and prays with hisbrain, and all his organs. " Naturopathy has a principle called Unity of Disease, which is based on observations of thousands of patients by thousands of Doctors such as Dr. Carrel. All such Holistic Practitioners emphasise the study of total human being, not merely human body and /or human mind. I, for one, have always believed that it is much more important to know what sort of patient has a disease, rather than what sort of disease, a patient has.

A man may be a physical giant, but a mental dwart, or vice versa. In either case, he is not totally healthy. A chain is as strong as its weakest link. A man is as strong as his greatest weakness.

Human health is influenced by many factors, some of which are beyond our control. For example, the genes we are born with will remain as they are, and make us prone to certain ailments. However, even where certain weaknesses are inherent , by good living habits, we can often remain disease-free for a longer span of life, and even where we do not escape the element, we may suffer little and be able to contain the disease to certain confines, not letting it flare up.

Ecological Health

Health of this planet also influences our health, naturally ! Biospheric pollution has reached even Himalyas, and the Antarctic region. Our soil, water, air, all are polluted. We eat polluted food, drink polluted water, and breathe polluted air. Living in good health has become very difficult even if we follow all the rules of health and hygiene. And, yet, our right mode of living, i.e. eating, thinking, exercising, does mitigate a lot of evil influence of these pollutants on the spread of which we have no control individually. Ecologists say that all life is interdependent. All flora and all fauna on this planet owe their existence to the rest of them. None can leave in isolation. The concept of Holistic Health has evolved as a natural corollary of this widespread understanding of Ecological sciences.

The Spiritual Dimension of Health

Recently, Dr. D.B. Bisht has come up with a book titled ‘The Spiritual Dimension of Health, ‘ (Publisher, The Director General of Health Services, Government of India, New Delhi 1.). Dr. Bisht avers : "It is the ‘soul’ that sustains all the other parts of the being. Otherwise, the body and the mind and the emotions, being often at conflict with one another, would easily fall apart." A workshop organised lst year in Bangalore under the auspices of the World Health Organisation to discuss this neglected dimension of health, came forward with several suggestions, such as :

1. The existing definition of health accepted by WHO, should include the spiritual aspect.
2. There is a need to recognise the spiritual aspect of health, and the fact that the spiritual component pervades all the dimensions of health - physical, mental and social.
3. Meditation, the means of experiencing the spiritual energy, should be incorporated in the educational system.
4. The present crisis in the life of a man is due to the neglect of the most important dimension of life - spiritual. To begin with, methods of Meditation, Asana, deep breathing, etc. should be introduced in the process of education.
5. Health care should be in the hands of those who are fully aware of and sympathetic to, the spiritual dimension. Spiritual here means a total harmony with living and non-living, perceptible or non-perceptible environment. The World Health Organisation should involve itself in active denunciation of all human manoeuvres to destroy the eco-system we live in.
6. The Health Ministry should be bold enough to start a centre for teaching the Holistic Health under a charter of Parliament, outside the existing structure of medical education, and outside the boundaries of Indian Medical Council. Health is not a purely medical issue.

Man : An Ice-Berg

We humans are like ice-bergs; not in the sense of being cold - though, that too is true of many of us - but in the sense that we live an invisible life of thoughts, dreams, aspirations, feelings , etc. behind the facade or veneer of the visible, physical self. A floating ice-berg ( berg = mountain) has only one-eighth of its mass above the surface of water, the remaining seven-eighths being under the waters, invisible outwardly. Same is the case with us. At the most only 20% of us is the visible, physical body; the remaining 80% being non-physical and therefore hidden from people around us.

It is a pity that our attention - nay, focus - in life is on the external, the visible, the palpable, the tangible. The Upanishads describe human beings as creations - not creatures - with five bodies. Apart from the physical or Annamaya Sharir, which is only a small corpus of our being, there is Pranamaya Sharir the vital body which shrouds the first body. Enveloping both these bodies is the still larger, Manomaya Sharir, or the mental body, and around it again is the Vigyanmaya Sharir, or the knowledge body. The largest of all, which drapes the preceding four, and which seems to be infinite, is the Annadamaya Shrir or the body of bliss.

In ‘The Spiritual Dimension of Health,’ Mr. M.P. Pandit of Pondicherry contends that each of these Sharirs has its own substance, and all five bodies are called the sheaths of the Self, which is deep within in the Centre. It is the Self which upholds all five bodies, and gives them direction. This Self or the Soul is the concentration of consciousness, which is essentially divine. As Mr. Pandit puts it, " Largeness or vastness is happiness. It is Bhumaiva Sukham. It is tragic that though the life-force, the Prana Shakti, that is operative in the universe and in the individual existence isthe same, man limits himself in his egoshell and regards everything else as alien. Consequently, at every impact, every contract from the universal life force at whatever level, we shrink. We shrink and suffer thereby. We suffer because we have alienated ourselves from our own universal existence. The Upanishads say, ‘The smaller we become, the more miserable we are. ‘ Enlarge yourself, break through the walls, and you will find infusion of health. This is the spiritual dimension ... It seems necessary to make people aware that they are living on only one-tenth of their resources. Not only doctors, but every one must be made aware of it. It is this truth now that must be driven home, that each one of us has something divine, something spiritual. "

Dr. Ms. Aneeta A. Minoch of New Delhi, who also participated in the aforesaid workshop, has this to say : "Spirituality raises the threshold of bearing pain, reduces medicalisation, reduces dependence on drugs. It promotes a positive attitude to physical work, exercise, diet, and personal habits such as drinking and smoking. It cultivates a desire for introspection and self-analysis... "

We see therefore, that Holistic Health is a vast subject which embraces all of us, our entire beings, and the environment in which we live and work, and the ecological health of this planet. It is a subject, mind- boggling in its ramifications, which cannot be discussed in brief. We conclude here to reflect over a sage’s remark :

"Whole is always more than the sum total of its parts. "

MEDITATION

MEDITATION is of far greater importance than medication, for whatever afflicts mankind today.

Meditation is pure awareness, without any intruding thoughts. Thoughts die a natural death if they are simply stopped in their movement. Thoughts have to be mobile to survive. Cessation of thoughts at least once every day for a few minutes is a prime requisite for sound mental health. Sleep which overwhelms us, and compels us to rest our bodies, does not succeed similarly in giving our minds a rest. Mental rest can be had only via Meditation.

Let us take a simile. Much of the food we eat is not required by the body; the body’s needs are small; it throws out in faeces a large part of the indigested food. The mind too requires little food. Again, just as we usually feed the physique undesirable or junk food, we feed the mind also with the junk thoughts. And just as we are often constipated in the colon, we are constipated mentally as well. We do not release the muck easily, whether it is in the colon or the cranium. And so it happens that just as colonic constipation is the fertile mother of many diseases, mental stasis also gives rise to psycho-emotional ailments, neurotic traits, etc., which are epidemic and endemic among all human societies .... Mental fasting alias Meditation is a must for us all, on a regular basis daily, just as physical fasting of twelve hours or more is.

Meditation is the normaliser of our nature : it is the cleanser of our mental garbage ; it establishes us in our Sahja compassionate, loving being ... MEDITATION SETS US UP SO THAT WE ARE NOT UPSET !