Integral health

By Soumitra Basu - Apr 24, 2014

It is difficult to conceive the connotation of ‘divine life’. Ordinarily it would signify a life steeped in spirituality or religionism with a certain aloofness from materialistic pursuits. It would encourage a dwelling in the realm of high ideals. Indeed, such a divine life would be based on a eulogising of virtues, a glorification of ethical ideals and a rejection of all that constitutes ‘sin’. It would reject the pleasures of hedonism for an austere coldness or else for a religious ecstasy. It would be the rule of the pious, the preacher and the puritan. It would reject the sinner, the rebel, the anarchist. To be justified, it would reject the ordinary human being subject to the petty needs, the small desires, the selfish attachments and the mundane joys of earthly life. A ‘divine life’ thus constituted would have not accommodated science per se except for applications that would serve its purpose. Such a ‘divine life’ would be suitable for a handful of aspirants with the rest of the world immersed in filth and mire, enmeshed in falsehood and suffering, burdened with ignorance and crowned with death. Or else, the ‘divine life’ would have to be sought away from the earth in some elusive paradise.

By Soumitra Basu - Jan 15, 2014

The conflict between the votaries of Matter and Spirit has yet to be solved. The glorification of Matter has come at the cost of the adventure in the realms of Spirit. Material prosperity has been achieved by devaluing spiritual ideals. On the other hand, spiritual riches have very often blossomed in the impoverishment of material life. The call of the Spirit had been so encompassing and overwhelming that generations of mystics and seers had abandoned the lure of Matter and dispensed with the comfort of material life. Yet the call of the Time-Spirit today is neither to ignore Matter nor to ignore Spirit. The world has experienced the extremes of material prosperity and spiritual austerity. An exploitation and over-indulgence of Matter has led also to disastrous consequences ranging from drug abuse to terrorism. A world of competition has triggered a plethora of stress linked diseases. A hedonistic culture has culminated in diseases like Aids. An excessive exploitation of natural resources has resulted in grave ecological imbalances. And the world suffers while a host of spiritual luminaries are absorbed in meditative contemplation in the security of hermitages far away from the battle of life. The ideal solution of the conflict between Matter and Spirit would be the flowering of spirituality in material life. Such a metaphysical poise would be of great pragmatic value in all areas of life ranging from education to health. However the key to the reconciliation of Matter and Spirit still remains an enigma.

By Soumitra Basu - Oct 15, 2013

A new synthesis of Spirit and Matter is the demand of the zeitgeist today. It is only then that spirituality will be effectual in material life and not just confined to ashrams and hermitages. However the reconciliation of Spirit and Matter is difficult to conceive as they represent two entirely different paradigms. The Spirit has been conceived by many spiritual stalwarts as silent, inactive, passive, detached, self-absorbed, self-existent and even as a supreme Nihil, a zero, a denial of reality, an absolute nothingness, an experience that can be facilitated if material life is considered to be illusory. How can such a blankness be reconciled with the turbulence, vitality and throb of material life? In fact, if such reconciliation were to have an effect in the realm of health, wouldn’t it be to encourage a passive acceptance of disease, a glorification of suffering, an eulogising of emaciation, a movement towards dissolution and death, an authentication of euthanasia?

By Soumitra Basu - Jul 15, 2013

Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Vol.18 The Life Divine.

By Soumitra Basu - Apr 24, 2013

Sri Aurobindo. Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library, Volume 12. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust; 1971.