Positive Health Online

Alternative/complementary medicine and orthodox medicine disagree on many issues. However, the issue they certainly agree on is that inner harmony is essential for our health.

Stress Prevents Inner Harmony

In 1976, while I was at business college in London, our class was asked to write a dissertation on a subject of our choice regarding business. My subject choice was Meditation and Retailing. The response from my lecturer to my choice of subject was amusement mixed with scepticism. He said it was most unlikely that this would be acceptable but that I should provide a brief list of the chapter headings and he would check with the college principle.  I did as my lecturer suggested and my proposal for my dissertation subject was approved after I had shown that science supported the belief that meditation supports inner harmony and good health by treating stress. Clearly the world has moved a long way since the 1970s. We now hear of meditation and mindfulness being taught at schools and it’s now considered respectable in the business world. What has brought about this major shift in thinking in society and the business world? Science.

It became clear to me that so many problems in the business world were caused by stress. It is now  acknowledged that stress is a major cause of ill health. The person we can thank for this is Hans Selye 1907-1982. Hans Selye showed that we all require a certain amount of stress (good stress) but when the stress was too much it became bad stress. To quote from Has Selye “Stress (pressure) can be seen as neutral. Whether it causes anxiety, stress or strain depends on the individual who responds to the stress”.

According to the Mental Health foundation, stress can be defined as “the degree to which you feel overwhelmed or unable to cope as a result of pressures that are unmanageable”.  https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/s/stress. Why are these findings by Hans Selye so important to us? Because as any doctor will confirm, stress can cause inner disharmony. Clearly what people mean by stress is too much stress.

See http://www.tm.org/healthpro/downloads/circulation-aha.pdf

Meditation Can be a Solution

The person we can thank for making meditation acknowledged as a tool for dealing with stress in the 1970s was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He appreciated that convincing the Western World of the value of meditation required scientific research. He provided this scientific research in abundance.

There are 234,000,000 entries on Google on the subject of the effects of stress on the brain. Clearly stress prevents inner harmony and affects all aspects of our wellbeing. The American Psychological Association website outlines the areas effected by stress on the body. They are listed as:

• Musculoskeletal system;
• Respiratory system;
• Cardiovascular;
• Endocrine;
• Gastrointestinal;
• Nervous system;
• Male reproductive system;
• Female reproductive system.

Inner Peace and Harmony

Hazrat Inayat Khan, a renowned musician and spiritual teacher, who was born in India in 1882, was also greatly influential in bringing meditation to the West in the early 20^th century. In one of his many profound books, Healing; Mental Purification; The Mind World, he wrote on the subject of healing, “Most of the cases of physical and mental illness come from exhaustion of the nerves”. He goes on to explain that “Health depends on the balance between activity and repose”. It depends on the condition of one’s health how much activity one can stand and how much rest and relaxation are necessary. He suggests physical exercise and exercises of concentration and repose of the mind. This sounds very similar to today’s methods of dealing with stress currently recommended by the medical profession. So it seems that the scientists have caught up with the mystics in this respect at least.

Silence, inner stillness or meditation clearly gives us wellness and strength. We can’t be strong if we are out of balance.  

So what do we need to do to achieve inner harmony? Control our minds so that we can maintain inner calmness. How do we do this? 

We are all different. For some, the solution may be calming, sacred music or yoga. For others, a simple, easy to learn form of meditation, such as just being aware of our breath, has a really calming effect. Personally, I use as many tools as I can.

The most important thing is to keep reminding ourselves how to achieve and maintain inner harmony. Reading a simple quote or looking at a peaceful image can remind us and the people around us to stay calm. It’s a positive affirmation publicly stated. That way we are not imprisoned by continuous negative thoughts which can have a detrimental effect on our inner harmony, both physical and mental.

Wearing an item of clothing with a powerful statement, not only acts as an affirmation but also spreads the message of peace and good feeling to others.

As Hazrat Inayat Khan said: “It is harmony, established with everyone one meets in life which tunes one’s soul with the infinite”. Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Complete Sayings.

Acknowledgement Citation: All the above images are taken from Peace Gifts Shop.