The current issue of the newsletter focuses on the significance of reflective practices in Integral Health. Reflection refers to serious thought or consideration or contemplation. It implies that for every event or experience in one’s life, for every move he or she makes, for every action or non-action, there is a corresponding movement of reflection, of serious thought, a consideration or contemplation. This further implies that impulsion is no more a primary player in the motivation of an action but rather, a back bencher held in check by the “serious thought, consideration or contemplation” on the action and its source and cause. Integral Health refers to the order and balance operating in the three aspects of nature, namely, health in the physical, the vital and health in the mental. Integral Health means that the higher portion of the being, The Psychic, which is a spark of the Divine Force or Soul, takes over the play of nature, perfecting these parts and opening them to a higher light and subsequently rendering these parts capable of expressing the Highest or the Divine in a progressive precision. In this newsletter, we take a glimpse of how reflective practices contribute towards Integral Health.
A crucial aspect of reflective practices is the practice of self-observation coupled with self-reflection. Both these practices are self-motivated and can happen only when one sees the need to truly know oneself, all one’s strengths that uplift and all the defects in one’s nature that plunge one down into darkness and chaos. The inbuilt instinct in one to progress sets into motion in one who finds the need to be progressive. Self-observation and self-reflection are effective tools that can steer one in the direction towards the realization of one’s goals, whatever these may be. In one who has chosen to progress spiritually, these tools may even be are indispensable aims.
According to The Mother, when an ailment inflicts the being, the root cause may either be a mental, vital or physical shrinking in the being. These shrinkages throw the being off balance, manifesting some kind of disorder that interferes with the fine working of the being. His progress forward is naturally slowed down or even curtailed. Self-observation throws light on parts of the being that are off balance. Through self-reflection, one understands the nature of the disorder and the manner in which the being is being thrown off-balance in whatever measure according to the magnitude of the disorder and imbalance. One knows himself in different parts of the being; what disturbs the being, what contributes to calm and peace and well-being. This knowledge is powerful. This knowledge throws light over one and opens pathways that would seek to reduce, clear and eliminate the disorder. The Mother has suggested the widening of the consciousness in order to keep each part wide and open and receptive to the healing rays of light and love from regions above and yet accessible. When this light of consciousness reaches out to the physical parts of the being, and the vital and the mental, removes all contractions, spots of darkness and obscurity, balance is restored. Integral Health becomes a possibility.
We often read in the works of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo that the nature that is full of goodwill towards oneself and towards others tends to be a happy one. One who does not have desires or does not nurture them is one who tends to be a balanced one. In one where joy overflows, one finds health. Most of all, when one is in touch with the psychic being, the being, it seems, reverts to its natural state of deep peace, joy and love. In such a one, there is a natural harmony and balance, which is the hall mark of the psychic entity. When this is discovered and expressed in the being from the core to the outermost crust, Integral Health is established.
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