5,  April 2007

After 7 weeks of studying, reflecting and practicing in India and Nepal I head back home today. As always, the inner exploration has been a remarkable and profound experience and it my aspiration for each one of you that you have the opportunity, within the spiritual tradition that meets your disposition and heart, to similarly undertake this journey of mind and heart towards a larger health, happiness and wholeness.

One cannot explore the interior dimensions of life without simultaneously apprehending the various levels of health that lie hidden beneath our coarse sense of health. To the conventional and ordinary mind health is seen as the absence of the signs and symptoms of disease or disability - the absence of any gross appearance of an abnormality. However, even this, when analyzed, is seen as an inaccurate view of of health. As we explore with greater and greater scientific insight we find risk factors and subtle biological indications that disease or the precursors of disease are present even when the outer appearance of health seems present. Although we can say that there does exist a coarse form of health based upon the overt absence of the signs of disease this view is undermined as we examine with increasing precision our intricate  biology. What once appeared to be a good indication of health is found lacking in precision and accuracy.

A more subtler approach to health is what we have termed mind/body health which begins to consider the interior aspect of health and disease. The fields of psychology, biofeedback, psychoneuroimmunology as well as our exposure to mind/body techniques and therapies have given rise to a more profound understand of health and disease. There are many levels of understanding of the mind/body which go from coarse to subtle. The conventional approach generally deals with strategies to normalize psychological function, diminish stress, and enhance awareness of and coping skills for afflictive emotions. As the body and mind move together working with the mind is working with the body at the same time. What cannot be accomplished by our common mind/body approach is to cut to the roots of emotional and mind/body distress, alleviating suffering at its source and providing the foundation for the subtlest level of health - human flourishing. As we take this next step it again becomes apparent that our view of health, mind/body health, although more subtle than a coarse biological view of health is found lacking in depth and precision.

Human Flourishing - the stabilized state of a profound and vast health, happiness and wholeness - is the most subtle form of health which when experience undermines our unquestioned fiath in both coarse biological and the more subtle mind/body healing. Here we have chosen to work with the mind, body, and spirit in a manner that uncovers the source of self-created mental and physical distress and disease. We seek not to temporarily remedy disorders but to fully and decisively heal them at the source. It is only then that our true nature which is a natural health, wholeness, and happiness can arise and fill our life. This most subtle health is characterized by a  deep and powerful presence, wisdom, love, and compassion. We have moved away from the more coarse understandings of health and discovered that our destiny as humans is to meet our essence and live it in its fullness and joy. Once one has had a taste of health at this level all previous notions of health become stepping stones, and important ones, as we move towards what is the perfection of our potential for health as fully conscious humans.

No more than our scientific acumen comes without diligent effort and  methods can a health of human flourishing come without effort, perseverance, and methods that fully cultivate the mind and heart. This brings me back around the circle to my time spent studying, reflecting and practicing this level of health in the East where it has  been most fully evolved. It is not to reject the brilliance of medical science but rather,to bring it into union with the sicence of the interior. It is this union of inner and outer that will bring us towards the full and complete perfection of health.

So I shall return to where I started and say it is my aspiration that we can all ascend to the most subtle and perfected level of health and in this manner become an example and beacon for others.