Are we ageing sooner than we were meant to?
The ancient scriptures would certainly seem to suggest so. The
"Vedas", have referred to the earliest generation of humans as
"sat-yug " or the generation where people lived up to a thousand
years. Following that came the "dwi-yug" or the generation of
the 500-year life span. This progressively declined and the
present generation is called "kal-yug" or the 'generation of
death' in which we do not hope to live even a 100 years.
So what has gone wrong?
Our body is made up of trillions of cells. Science proves that
our cells regenerate every 7 years leading into an entirely new
existence. Einstein said 98% of the intelligence and energy
renews every year.
Then
why do we age?
It has been
seen that for some mysterious reason, the cells suddenly stop
regenerating and then deterioration begins. For some people
it happens very late so ageing is delayed while for others
it happens relatively sooner.
To understand
ageing, it must be understood that all that exists in this
universe is MATTER and LIFE. And it is life that is responsible
for holding the matter together. When there is no life, matter
decays - just like in the case of a dead body. Body is nothing
but matter. Life, in turn, is the outcome of thought.
Therefore,
it follows that our body is the expression of thinking
and the mind. Just like dreams are an outcome of thinking,
so too is the body an expression of thought. If you have beautiful,
young thoughts this will form an 'autosuggestion' to each
body cell to mould itself accordingly. The cells collectively
form the whole body and so the body gets moulded accordingly.
So, if we can
condition our thoughts to be right, it follows that our body
will be right.
Did you
know that most diseases are born in the mind?
We are conditioned
to think that as we reach a certain chronological age
we can expect certain disorders such as cholesterol, heart
ailments, loss of memory, enlarged prostate etc. This serves
as autosuggestion to the clever mind. The mind, in turn, dictates
this to the body, and the body responds accordingly and the
disease actually occurs.
Does this
sound simplistic or naïve? Read on…
The
"age trap"
We are in fact
caught in the "age trap". Right from the time we are born,
the world reinforces in us our age. "C'mon Jim, you're nearing
60, you better take retirement". We are conditioned right
from our birth about where we stand in the chronological
chart and "assume" our life span to be about 80 years.
Sadly, health
magazines perpetuate this with their statistics - "80% of
the people over 50 showed signs of an abnormally increased
prostate" and so on. This statistic reinforces to the mind
at a subconscious level that the problem is likely to occur
at that age. So when a man nears 50, his subconscious mind
dictates this to the body, the ailment occurs and the statistic
is "proved". Thus continues the vicious cycle. As is
famously said, "thinking makes it so".
So the age
trap is the chronological perspective of age that
has been imposed upon us by the world. This conditions our
mind to accept this fact. The mind, in turn, "auto suggests"
this to the body which responds accordingly. This happening
reinforces the society's view of age. In other words, Age
becomes an expression of the collective consciousness of the
world.
Just imagine,
if you were faced with a situation where you had no idea of
your chronological age. This is true of native villages in
India that have zero education levels. The farmer who tills
his soil has no idea of his day of birth. Ask him this, and
he'll look at you quizzically in the face and mumble - "my
aunt says it was a full moon night". It has been observed
that such people "die with their boots on" - working up to
the last minute with no apparent deterioration in their health.
Isn't that
what we really seek? No pain, no suffering - just being young
till the very last day.
The role
of diet
Sadly, even
our diet perpetrates this ageing process. Modern diet is cluttered
with preserved foods. Natural but preserved - a big joke.
There is NOTHING like preserved natural food.
It has been
documented in the scriptures, that one must eat living, vegetarian
food for a positive nutrition to the body AND mind.
Preservatives can be equated to chemicals that are used to
embalm a dead body. Just like embalming retains the outward
appearance of the body but from within there is no life; similarly,
preservatives retain ONLY the outward appearance but there
is NO nutrition left in the food. "Eating dead food leads
to a dead mind and a dead body".
I'll leave
it here this week to give you time to ponder on these facts.
Next week, I'll guide you on the right approach to lead a
fuller, younger and longer life and how yoga can help you
achieve that.
Till then….
Warm wishes,
Arun Goel
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