Do you look after yourself?

Every morning I give thanks for my precious human birth. At least, every day I mouth the thanks but then how deep is my sincerity and my true reflection on how I am going to live this life of mine during the coming day? Am I fully in the moment when I say these words? Am I going to honour my thanks by truly looking after myself, by thinking and doing what is for my highest good every moment of the day? Do I really look after myself and so honour my precious birth in this lifetime? And what about you? Do you look after yourself each day? Truly?

Actually, we need to extend the question and ask: "How do I look after myself?" And then we soon begin to realise that this goes far deeper than merely fulfilling our physical needs. Yes, we need to eat healthily in a way that suits our personal dietary requirements, we need to keep our body stretched and exercised so that we can carry out all our daily activities with ease of movement. Of course, we must honour our body and look after it with care and respect as it is the means by which we can help ourselves and others. Also, its healthy state can enable us to create and to bring pleasure and fulfilment to our lives, whether we are painting a picture, playing the piano, performing a sport, or pushing our baby round the park in a pushchair. We need to accept the responsibility for enabling our bodies to work smoothly.

Yet, there is much more to the way we live life than just having a healthy body. Our spiritual dimension, too, needs to be active and healthy. We need to work on our awareness, on what we do and say each moment of the day. For, everything we do and everything we say carries a consequence that gets noted down in a list of positives and negatives that work themselves out in one way or another in our future. That is what karma is about. And you and I are each responsible for our own karma. Nobody else is. How we deal with each and every moment in our lives will add another building block to how our lives will pan out in the future. So, how we look after ourselves in this moment in time is critical. Each time we do or say something in a right way will bring health to our future. Each time we smile at someone with love in our hearts, joy will accrue. Each time we think well of someone, we will feel good. When we carry out a compassionate act, we are adding a beautiful building block to our future. And the more we realise this, the more our awareness will grow. Our moments of joy will expand. Our hearts will open and we will gradually find the path to unconditional loving-kindness and compassion. Is this not how to look after ourselves? Is this not a part of our integrated well-being?

Now, let us take the question further: "Why do we look after ourselves?" And the answer, surely, is that we all seek joy in our lives. Joy is more profound than happiness, for happiness is transitory and joy is heart-sustaining. In fact, joy is a state of being. But, we mustn't try and cling on to it because if we practise grasping and attachment we won't find it. We will have missed the point.

So, we look after ourselves to create our own well-being. Yet, it doesn't stop there because when we are ourselves well then we can better help others. And therein lies the greatest joy, concerning ourselves for the well-being of others, developing loving-kindness and compassion so that we can bring the light of joy to the world around us. That is surely why need to look after ourselves.

Thus, we need to become spiritual athletes, training our spiritual dimension alongside the physical and mentals aspects of our being. If we are to find the joy we seek, we need to cultivate openness and awareness and that is all a part of our spiritual training. But, this training is not about winning; it's about find joy and helping others. And the ultimate reward is Nirvana.

"He who binds to himself a joy
does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
lives in eternity's sunrise".

William Blake