“Out of mental diseases, the physical diseases arise. What are the mental diseases? Anger, greed, jealousy, selfishness. … [They] produce your own physical pains.” (Swami Veda Bharati, citing Charaka Samhita, a fundamental text of Ayurveda - Meditation for Pain Management Conference 2009)

Integrating Health with Spirituality

We are ‘bombarded’ nowadays with so much health information and therapeutical options (including spiritual healing) that one gets easily confused about where to start and what to choose to improve or maintain one’s health. Below are a few suggestions to guide you in choosing a therapy that is right for you.

We are blessed these days with an extraordinary variety of options when it comes to personal health. One health college in Australia advertises 130 different courses for future therapists. New therapies are being discovered or developed, and traditional therapies from everywhere are being revitalised or re-discovered. While the Western system of medicine forms the basis for primary health care in most parts of the world, alternative therapies receive increasing recognition either as independent or as complementary health care approaches. Their success in affluent countries is often the result of success stories where they seem to resolve or better manage diseases or dis-functions for which mainstream medicine has reached its healing limits. In developing countries, alternative therapies are often popular either due to tradition or because they represent a more affordable option, especially when it comes to expensive prescription drugs. A balance between the various therapeutical approaches still needs to be found to avoid severe errors in disease management while at the same time integrating reliable alternative therapies within a holistic strategy for public health and wellness, but this would represent another topic.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. This definition brings the concept of disease closer to the original meaning of the word, that is ‘dis-ease’, or not being at ease. Although WHO adopted this definition over 50 years ago, health systems have still got a long way to reflect this concept even in affluent countries like Australia. Perhaps an approach to achieving this goal would be the integration of Western medicine with traditional medicine systems such as Ayurveda or traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), that benefit of thousands of years of experience. Building a bridge between health and spirituality may also help here.

All religions teach that human beings are more than their body, that they have a spirit or a soul. This view is also upheld in many alternative therapies and wellness practices (e.g. yoga, Tai Chi). However, when one gets sick, often this message is forgotten and the focus tends to remain only on the body. As a result, one defines its sickness only in terms of body symptoms and signs: sore throat, upset stomach, high blood pressure, etc. I’d like to comment on this conceptual incongruence regarding health.  

Scientific and technological improvements in the health care system that started the previous century may have had the unnecessary side-effect of encouraging us to view health and spirituality as two entirely separate aspects of life. There is no reason to maintain such strict delimitation. Maintaining your health is spiritual, and spiritual people from various religions and practices tend to be healthier than the average person. Many alternative therapies and traditional medicine systems view disease in an integrated manner linking mind, body and emotions and looking for a cure at all levels. This suggests alternative ways to approach mental and social well-being as per WHO definition, rather than regarding them as mere by-products of physical being. Health and spirituality can be easily viewed in an integrated manner as outlined below.

Levels of personality

In yoga and other Eastern traditions as well as in most religions it is generally recognised that human beings are multi-layered entities. The oldest and most comprehensive philosophical system known to date is the yoga system. This system has been formulated many thousands of years ago in the cultures developed at that time around Himalayas and has inspired many Eastern religions. In yoga, a human being is regarded as being composed of five koshas, which are layers or sheaths that envelop the true self. Briefly, these are: annamaya (physical body), pranamaya (energy body), manomaya (mental body), vijnanamaya (wisdom), and anandamaya (bliss). Other cultures and traditional therapies may describe these layers in slightly different concepts, but acknowledge the same multilayered composition.

One may better understand this concept with the use of the ‘onion’ parable, in which onion layers represent personality levels.

Every personality level is controlled by next inner level (personality here should be understood as the sum of components that constitute a human being, rather than in its narrow definition as psychological profile). Recurring imbalances at outer levels that are the subject of various therapies may be a good indication that the cause lies within.

Linking physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health

Based on the holistic personality levels system described above, we can now group therapeutic options on four levels depending on the personality level at which they act (achieving the innermost kosha it is said to be beyond method). The number of available therapies is too large to include them all here; I will only give a few examples. The following classification may not be perfect; indeed some therapies may claim effects at more than one level. I have attempted to classify them here based on the primary intent of the therapy, rather than on their occasional beneficial by-products.

Physical therapy

These approaches aim to achieve a comfortable body (e.g. pain-free) that has smooth and optimal mechanics and balanced biochemistry.  

We can include here all prescription and over-the-counter medication (including psychiatric drugs who act on the brain by altering its chemistry and not on the mind itself), herbal medicines (e.g. traditional Indian and Chinese medicine), homeopathy, and nutrition counselling.  

Still at physical level are therapies and well-being practices such as physiotherapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, various types of massage (including Rolfing), aromatherapy, fitness programs of various kind, Pilates, and physical yoga asanas.

Energy therapy

These therapies tend to bring calm and inner comfort to patients as they often release deep, emotionally-related, energetic blockages in the body that are generally not accessible by purely physical methods.  

At this level we find health systems and practices such as TCM (e.g. acupuncture), acupressure, Reiki, kinesiology, Ayurveda (acupuncture and marma points), breathing practices (e.g. yogic pranayama), and bio-energy healing. We can also include here yoga asanas with prana awareness (prana vidya), Tai Chi, Qi Gong, etc.

Mental therapy

These approaches aim to sort out negative thinking patterns and self-assumed limitations at personal, social or professional level. Some of these patterns and limitations may aggravate existing physical disease, or produce psychosomatic disease.   

Many of the previously listed practices would affirm indirect benefits at this level. However, maintaining focus on the entry level of the therapy we could place here psychotherapy, neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), guided imagery, hypnotherapy, biofeedback, and yoga concentration (dharana).  

Spiritual therapy 

These practices aim to develop the intuition and discrimination needed to identify personal beneficial lifestyle changes, stimulating a change from within oneself rather than as a result of external influence (e.g. from health information or therapeutic advice).  

While many practices claim spiritual benefits, the most universally accepted are meditation (e.g. dhyana yoga) and its complementary practice of yoga nidra, contemplation (e.g. Zen), and devotional prayer.

Choosing a therapy 

How is this of help to someone struggling with a disease and who is committed to use all available options in order to heal? The following applies equally to physical disease, emotional or psychological disturbances.  

We are all unique individuals and this upholds when we come to personal health. Some would even go to say that there are no diseases, only patients. In any case if we consider personality levels described above, it should go without saying that until curative change has been performed at the level where it occurred, any therapeutic change will remain superficial and incomplete. If an underlying imbalance persists, then any therapy will either have only a temporary effect, or the cause will manifest itself in another form (i.e. another disease) at a later time.  

This may well explain why even very effective and well-reputed therapies have limits. If you have a condition that doesn’t seem to get resolved, consider the level at which you have tried so far and attempt other therapies at the inner level. Incidentally, the mark of a good therapist is to recognise the limitations of one’s own method.  

For example, if you have recurring back pain without clear objective X-ray evidence of damage, and you have taken pain killers, underwent physiotherapy and tried chiropractic (i.e. physical level therapies), perhaps you should now consider acupuncture or kinesiology (energy level therapies), or NLP (mental level therapy). Even if apparently very different, therapies acting at the same personality level tend to achieve similar effects. Generally, if you have already tried at least a couple of therapies at one level, try going up to the next level. Peel back the layers like in the onion parable.  

As you go deeper the effort and demand on personal responsibility often tends to increase. Taking painkillers requires less effort than practicing energy movements or meditation. This may deter some people from taking a more active role to regain or preserve their health.  

Even with chronic conditions that mainstream medicine cannot resolve, its approaches should not be dismissed. They can play an important role in controlling symptoms (e.g. back pain, allergy, depression) whose resulting discomfort would prevent a person from further exploring their problem(s) at the deeper level. In case of serious or life-threatening conditions, they should remain an essential component of the overall approach. And if you break your leg, don’t go mystical about it - get to the hospital as quickly as possible! 

Our suggestion is, resolve the acute condition first, but then look at possible factors that may have favoured your illness, such as body imbalances, poor nutrition or improper life style. And if the condition keeps re-occurring or becomes chronic, you may want to investigate potential deeper causes and try other therapies. Find out where the cause lies and treat at that level.  

Remember, you have the right to try anything to be healthy. Do not give up so easily on your health and well-being. Definitely use your discrimination to not fall prey to false healers, but lack of compelling clinical trials by Western standards does not necessarily mean that many therapies on the market are not worth trying. Let you be the final judge on whether a therapy works or not.  

Here is another suggestion. Think of how you can reduce with 5% your dependence on external help for staying healthy. There are many potential ways, for example by improving your health awareness, by studying self-healing techniques, or by undergoing a moderate lifestyle change. There is always something you can do to improve your health and well-being.  

There are many examples in the Himalayan Yoga Tradition of experienced practitioners that have used meditation and yoga nidra practices to alleviate pain or even heal themselves completely of various illnesses. One example is of someone who has resolved a severe multiple allergy through intensive yoga nidra practice (for more details on this practice see 'Yoga Nidra' section), after many years of trying various therapies. After being diagnosed and placed on a strict diet as well as on regular anti-allergic medication, every interruption in his regime would result in symptoms like hives and skin swelling bouncing back with a vengeance. Trying to remove his dependence on anti-allergic medication, this person tried homeopathy. This miraculously prevented symptoms for about five years, but they slowly returned since the true cause was not yet resolved. He also tried kinesiology with little success. Confronted with the prospect of dietary limitations and a life-time dependence on medication and being somewhat of an independent spirit, this person has managed to explore the emotional roots of this body reaction to various dietary compounds through intensive yoga nidra introspection. Eventually, this person intuitively indentified the necessary changes to his lifestyle that keep him allergy-free ever since without any medication whatsoever. After that realisation, he gradually became able to indulge in all the foods that in the past would have immediately triggered his allergy. While this particular solution may not work for everyone or for every disease, such experiences indicate that one should never give up on one’s health without careful investigation of all options available.   

Suggested reading

• Swami Rama (1980). A Practical Guide to Holistic Health. Honesdale, PA, Himalayan Institute Press.

Suggested listening

• Swami Rama (2008). The Spiritual Origins of Health [Video]. Honesdale, PA, Himalayan Institute Press.

• Swami Veda Bharati (2009). Meditation for Pain Management [Audio]. Meditation for Pain Management Conference 2009. Rishikesh, India, AHYMSIN Publishers.

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Last modified: 12-Feb-2011