Pharmacy for the Soul
The relationship of stress to a variety of physical illnesses is by now well known. In the United States, it is estimated that stress helps to account for two-thirds of family doctor visits, and according to the US. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, it is a significant contributor to half the deaths in Americans under the age of 65. It has been predicted that by 2020, five of the top ten medical problems worldwide will be stress-related.
But in today's environment, it's often difficult for people to balance the overwhelming demands of work, family, and community with the need to take time out for rest and relaxation. All too often our approach to dealing with stress comes down to having a drink or two in the evening or taking the occasional over-the-counter sleeping pill.
Pharmacy For the Soul
offers a wide variety of simple, non-chemical techniques for dealing with the symptoms of stress. In its pages, you’ll find remedies for everything from tension headaches to insomnia, from the vague feelings of discomfort we all experience at one time or another to very specific issues such as trying to quit smoking or changing your relationship to what and how much you eat.
Because bringing our lives into a more harmonious balance between work and play, stress and relaxation, responsibilities and freedoms isn't just about finding ways to combat stress— it's also about discovering and nourishing the inner wisdom of torture it: "The body is your enemy and you have to get free from the body, its attachments."
I also know that you are more than the body and there is no need to have any attachment to it. But love is not an attachment; compassion is not an attachment. Love and compassion are absolutely needed for your body and its nourishment. And the better your body, the better the possibility for growing consciousness. It is an organic unity.
A totally new kind of education is needed in the world, where fundamentally everybody is introduced into the silences of the heart—in other words, meditations—and everybody has to be prepared to be compassionate to his or her own body. Because unless you are compassionate to your own body, you cannot be compassionate to any other body. It is a living organism, and it has done no harm to you.
It has been continuously in service since you were conceived, and will be in your service till your death. It will do everything that you would like it to do, even the impossible, and it will not be disobedient to you. It is inconceivable to create such a mechanism that is so obedient and so wise.
If you become aware of all the functions of your body, you will be surprised. You have never thought about what your body has been doing. It is so miraculous, so mysterious. But you have never looked into it. You have never bothered to become acquainted with your own body—and you pretend to love other people? You cannot, because those other people also appear to you as bodies.
The body is the greatest mystery in the whole of existence. This mystery needs to be loved—its mysteries and its functioning need to be intimately inquired into. The religions have unfortunately been absolutely against the body. But this antagonism is a clue, a definite indication that if a man learns the wisdom of the body and the mystery of the body, he will never bother about the priest or about God. He will have found the most mysterious within himself, and within the mystery of the body is the very shrine of your consciousness. Once you have become aware of your consciousness, of your being, there is no God above you.
Only such a person can be respectful toward other human beings, other living beings, because they all are as mysterious as he himself is—but different expressions, varieties, all of which make life richer. And once a man has found consciousness in himself, he has found the key to the ultimate. Any education that does not teach you to love your body, does not teach you to be compassionate to your body, does not teach you how to enter into its mysteries, will not be able to teach you how to enter into your own consciousness.
The body is the door—the body is the stepping-stone.
But in today's environment, it's often difficult for people to balance the overwhelming demands of work, family, and community with the need to take time out for rest and relaxation. All too often our approach to dealing with stress comes down to having a drink or two in the evening or taking the occasional over-the-counter sleeping pill.
offers a wide variety of simple, non-chemical techniques for dealing with the symptoms of stress. In its pages, you’ll find remedies for everything from tension headaches to insomnia, from the vague feelings of discomfort we all experience at one time or another to very specific issues such as trying to quit smoking or changing your relationship to what and how much you eat.Because bringing our lives into a more harmonious balance between work and play, stress and relaxation, responsibilities and freedoms isn't just about finding ways to combat stress— it's also about discovering and nourishing the inner wisdom of torture it: "The body is your enemy and you have to get free from the body, its attachments."
I also know that you are more than the body and there is no need to have any attachment to it. But love is not an attachment; compassion is not an attachment. Love and compassion are absolutely needed for your body and its nourishment. And the better your body, the better the possibility for growing consciousness. It is an organic unity.
A totally new kind of education is needed in the world, where fundamentally everybody is introduced into the silences of the heart—in other words, meditations—and everybody has to be prepared to be compassionate to his or her own body. Because unless you are compassionate to your own body, you cannot be compassionate to any other body. It is a living organism, and it has done no harm to you.
It has been continuously in service since you were conceived, and will be in your service till your death. It will do everything that you would like it to do, even the impossible, and it will not be disobedient to you. It is inconceivable to create such a mechanism that is so obedient and so wise.
If you become aware of all the functions of your body, you will be surprised. You have never thought about what your body has been doing. It is so miraculous, so mysterious. But you have never looked into it. You have never bothered to become acquainted with your own body—and you pretend to love other people? You cannot, because those other people also appear to you as bodies.
The body is the greatest mystery in the whole of existence. This mystery needs to be loved—its mysteries and its functioning need to be intimately inquired into. The religions have unfortunately been absolutely against the body. But this antagonism is a clue, a definite indication that if a man learns the wisdom of the body and the mystery of the body, he will never bother about the priest or about God. He will have found the most mysterious within himself, and within the mystery of the body is the very shrine of your consciousness. Once you have become aware of your consciousness, of your being, there is no God above you.
Only such a person can be respectful toward other human beings, other living beings, because they all are as mysterious as he himself is—but different expressions, varieties, all of which make life richer. And once a man has found consciousness in himself, he has found the key to the ultimate. Any education that does not teach you to love your body, does not teach you to be compassionate to your body, does not teach you how to enter into its mysteries, will not be able to teach you how to enter into your own consciousness.
The body is the door—the body is the stepping-stone.
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