WILLIAMSJI MAVELI: HUMAN BODY AND MIND : TWO

HUMAN BODY AND MIND  (Continuation)
One can begin with the body first, as it is very natural. Energetically one can talk to the body and communicate with it. Osho gave a meditative method which is “Reminding yourself of the forgotten language of talking to your body and mind”. He says: “People need to be taught how to be friends with one’s body. The body has to be loved — you have to be a great friend. It is your home, you have to clean it of all junk, and you have to remember that it is in your service continuously, day in, day out. It is doing everything for your survival, for your life, although you are so ungrateful that you have never even thanked your body.”
Modern medical science is now beginning to recognize what the mystics have always known — that the body and mind are interconnected and deeply related. The remedy is yoga and meditation. The mind can affect the condition of the body, just as the condition of the body can affect the mind. Again, the remedy is yoga and meditation. Yoga can fix the body and meditation can take care of the mind at a deeper level.
According to the Yoga Sutras of sage Patanjali, the seventh stage is dhyana, which is understood as meditation in modern times. It is basically dealing with the distractions of the mind. This way, real yoga includes meditation also. In Sanskrit, yoga means union. It is the union of body, mind, and spirit. And finally what matters is the spirit, which rules both — the body and the mind.
It is the life force together with godliness, the all-pervading consciousness. The prana energy functions at the optimum with the help of yoga and meditation. So one should not stop at asanas only one should keep going further, deeper and deeper, higher and higher. The deeper the roots, the higher one rises.
The roots and flowers are deeply connected. Our biology is our roots and our consciousness is our own flowering. A tree cannot flower independently of its seed and roots. Growth is a continuum; we cannot skip the birth pains, the sufferings, the effort, the pushing upwards, and begin with the flower, the bliss, the meditation. There is no choice to be made. If you accept the roots, explore them deeply and consciously. In other words be where you are: that is the nourishment the roots need to blossom into flowers. And finally, life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.

WILLIAMSJI MAVELI
End of the Essay