These days the whole world seems to have become too much health-conscious. Or, one can say that we are suffering from so many diseases that most of us have become very afraid of losing our life to them. Hence, out of fear of such dreadful diseases, we are becoming increasingly health-conscious. The innumerable findings by researchers make us suspect that our fruits and vegetables are losing their natural qualities due to of all kinds of chemicals entering the soil. The fruits and vegetables have always been considered to be health-givers but now the presence of poison in them may be giving us new kinds of diseases. The modern medicine to cure such diseases also produces some strange side-effects of its own. This whole situation is urging man to return to an organic natural life. And that too is not so easy.
In the earlier times, before chemical methods were used in agriculture, the organic food was the norm, and was cheaper to buy, but now the organic food is so much costlier because of its scarcity. We have to pay a heavy price to eat pure food for our perfect health and natural life. The perfect health also depends on the good quality of air to breathe, and we are devoid of it in most parts of India. As per an UN report, the trees per head in various countries are Canada 8,953, Russia 4,461, US 716, China 102 and India only 28. India’s population explosion is the main reason for this scarcity. We can teach yoga to the whole world and become jagatgurus, but we ourselves are not going to be healthy. We can do our vipassana and watch our breath consciously, but there is very little pure air to breathe. And to have a real healthy life, we must breathe pure air. That is the first thing to remember.
Osho tells us: Breathing is the mechanism of life, and life is deeply related with breathing. That is why in India we call it prana. We have given one word for both — prana means the vitality, the aliveness. Your life is your breath. Your breath is a bridge between you and your body. Constantly, breath makes a bridge to your body, connecting you, relating you to your body. Not only is the breath a bridge to your body, it is also a bridge between you and the universe. The body is just the universe which has come to you, which is nearer to you. Your body is part of the universe. Everything in the body is part of the universe — every particle, every cell. It is the nearest approach to the universe. Health and meditation are also deeply connected through our breath. To live a healthy and peaceful life, we need to have pure air for prana energy and to meditate, we need to breathe consciously. A child breathes in unconsciousness. A sage breathes consciously. He becomes a child again, a rebirth happens to him. Now he breathes and he is aware also. This is the way of real yoga: The natural communion with the universal energy.
