Mathew Hayden: We talk a lot about physical wellness; it’s Men’s health week here in Australia. We don’t often talk about two of the biggest health issues, and that’s spiritual health and mental health. So, from a yoga perspective Sadhguru, can you share with us the importance of mental health through the eyes of a yogi?
Sadhguru: Namaskaram, howdy mate? Hey, Matthew, am I sounding Australian? Ha, I’m sure I’m not. I know you tried to train me last time, but it looks like I’ve not gotten it.
The word health comes from the root word whole
So about men’s health, about health. The word health comes from the root word whole. That means feeling healthy means to be complete, a sense of wholeness within ourselves. For this to happen, our body should be vibrant, our physical energies must be vibrant, our mind must be joyful, and emotion must be exuberant – only then you feel a sense of wholeness. Just being disease-free, medically being certified that you’re healthy is not good enough, because you need to burst with health, you need to bounce around with health. That is only possible when you manage all these four dimensions of body, mind, emotion, and energy, in an exuberant manner.
There is a whole system of yoga, there is a whole system of yogic sciences. When I say yoga, don’t scare the… all your mates, they will think that you will have to twist and turn and hang upside down – that is not the sort of yoga. Yoga means you kind of broke the limitations of your body and you became a little more perforated, that you’re able to feel life beyond the physical boundaries of your body. That means you’re always exuberant and energetic… because this is how life is happening. Because we are inhaling what is in the atmosphere as breath. We are alive because we’re ingesting the food, we’re drinking the water – that’s the only reason why we are alive.
Health can be achieved only by living yoga
So it is not only in terms of respiration, ingestion, and digestion that this is happening. Every pore in this body, every cell in this body, even the subatomic particles are in constant communication with the rest of the universe. Yoga means that you consciously experience this. When you experience that your life is not just wrapped in this little physical self, but it is much beyond that – your physiological and psychological spaces are not a limitation but are stepping stones for a larger possibility. When this becomes a living reality in your life, you’re in yoga.
Health can be achieved only by living yoga. When I say living yoga, it is not that only those who practice yoga or some system of yoga are experiencing yoga. You looked at the sunrise, and you connected with this, this is yoga. You went for a swim in the ocean and you really became one with it, this is yoga. Every breath you’re becoming one with the world, every step that you take you’re one with the planet that you’re walking upon. if this happens to you, you are in yoga.
So this yoga can be systematically worked at, in the sense, you can gradually work with your body, mind, emotion, and energies in such a way that they’re constantly open to this experience. Every human being has experienced some form of yoga, some sense of union with something or the other, but it doesn’t last. Now there is an entire science to see that you craft yourself in such a way that this experience of union which is always the most profound experience in your life becomes a living experience every moment of your life, then you are truly healthy.
It’s my wish and my blessing that all the Australian men should become really healthy.
