Living Perfect Health

“What is laughter?
What is this precious love and laughter
Budding in our hearts?
It is the glorious sound
Of a soul waking up!”
~Hafiz

Do you remember the last time you laughed so hard that you could barely stand or walk? Even if you were in the midst of a difficult situation, you may have felt lightened by a feeling of pure joy and ease, letting go of the past and forgetting the future.

When you play and laugh with abandon, you enter into the present moment, which is the only place where you can experience healing and happiness. Fully established in the present, you see the world with fresh eyes, relinquishing rigid ideas about how things “ought to be” and opening yourself to creative solutions and transformation.

Ayurveda teaches that if you want to enjoy vibrant health and longevity, cultivating the qualities of a youthful mind is essential. As an ancient Vedic aphorism says, “Infinite flexibility and creativity are the secrets to immortality.”

What are the qualities of a youthful mind? It is playful, spontaneous, and open to new possibilities. A youthful mind is a beginner’s mind and is enthusiastic about everything – a butterfly, the stars at night, a silly joke, a new song, and splashing through a puddle. Observe a child and you will see all the qualities of a youthful mind in action.

As we grow up and seek to prove ourselves in the world, there is a tendency to lose our playfulness and flexibility. We may get stuck in conditioned patterns of thought, resisting change and struggling against the natural force of evolution. We fall into the grip of ego, which has no sense of humor and is easily offended.

The ego is obsessed with control and security and doesn’t trust the unknown, stubbornly clinging to conditioned patterns of belief. If we’re unable to flow with the river of life, however, we experience stagnation, which leads to decay, disorder, entropy, and ultimately, death. According to Vedic wisdom, death is the soul’s response to the loss of flexibility, in both body and mind.

Fortunately, the loss of flexibility and creativity is completely preventable if you choose to cultivate the qualities of a youthful mind. We encourage you to lighten up and be open to the wonder and delight of living a human life. Here are few suggestions to get started:

• Watch Deepak Chopra on Conan O’Brien
• Go to an improvisational theater show. If you really want to explore your infinite potential, take an improvisational acting class, which will give you a chance to slip out of your habitual roles and try on the other disguises of God.
• Go to a toy store. Even better, buy a toy you would have loved as a child and donate it to a shelter or other charitable organization.
• Throw a costume party. You can choose a theme such as your favorite historical era and play music and serve food from that time.
• Go see The Love Guru
• Take a walk a really notice what’s around you – the plants, buildings, and animals. Pretend you’re an artist and notice the colors and textures you’d include in your painting.
• Eat something you’ve never tried before or try combining foods in new ways. Ideas: Strawberries with balsamic vinegar; hot chocolate with a dash of cayenne, salted pineapple or watermelon; peanut butter and carrots; potatoes seasoned with nutmeg.
• Read humorous writing. Suggestions: Why Is God Laughing? , Deepak Chopra, Life Is Short, Wear Your Party Pants, Loretta LaRoche
• Come up with an exaggerated dialog for a situation that frequently triggers stress in you, and see how the feelings start to dissipate. When you are feeling particularly stressed, it helps to exaggerate your feeling, using your creativity to short-circuit the tendency to be Very Serious. For example, if you are feeling frustrated in traffic, you might say to yourself, “I can’t believe how slow these cars are moving. Don’t they know how important I am? They may have time to cruise along, but I’m the Director in charge of Operation Save the World and if I don’t get to work on time, I don’t even want to imagine the consequences for lives everywhere.”
• Rent old Marx Brothers movies.
• Put on your favorite music and dance.
• Paint your toenails blue or wear something silly, such as a clown’s nose. The latter can be particularly fun in potentially stressful situations, such as the morning commute or a tax audit.
• Spend time with children, who have no problems being creative and imaginative. Let yourself be silly and play.

If you’d like to learn more about creating health, joy, and balance in your life, join us for a week of Perfect Health, a five-day immersion in Ayurveda and mind-body healing held each week at The Chopra Center for Wellbeing.

To learn more, please call 888.736.6895 or ask your question here.