January 6, 2026
Traditionally, religion has adopted one or the other inflexible attitudes toward health. There are many in the world to whom health is itself a religion: they are the members of the 'Body Beautiful' cult or of the 'Back to Nature' movement. You might sense a deep religiousness in them, though they may outwardly refrain from a show of that spirit. In them you often encounter fanatic adherence to vegetarianism, exercising, drugless living, etc.
At the other extreme, you have the ascetics to whom any activity or attitude to life that has anything to do with body-building is worldly, materialistic and irreligious. They either ignore their physical well-being or positively glorify the sick and the weak body, which to them is proof that the spirit has completely overcome the physical! There is one thing in common between them: that is an artificial and arbitrary division of what is one, into the spiritual and the physical. There is no such division between the physical and the spiritual. Body, mind and spirit are one; and this one wholeness is health, and it is also holiness. True religion, therefore, strives to harmonize the body, mind and spirit, so that this harmony may eventually radiate from the healthy-holy person as social harmony and the realization of the one infinite being (God). That is the very definition of yoga.
Yoga (or religion) is harmony, 'bringing together'. It is good to stop the definition there: thus challenging each one to discover in how many ways disharmony manifests itself. Disharmony has thus to be discovered by oneself for oneself; otherwise it cannot be effectively dealt with!
The cultivation of the inner harmony is implied in the commandment that we should love our Lord with all our mind, with all our heart, and with all our strength. And Lord Jesus commanded further that if you have fought against your brother, better leave your offerings, go and get reconciled with your brother before placing it on the altar.
To do this requires an inner sensitivity. This inner sensitivity acts like a lamp, the light of wisdom, which constantly illuminates our inner personality and preserves health, holiness and wholeness. Without this, no amount of yoga, exercising, half hour meditations or mechanical and occasional prayers are of much use.