Teachings on Health: Moving from Aging to Timeless Consciousness
By Gurudev

The inner spiritual journey begins with the health and care of the body. Over the years, the body accumulates blocks and tensions that reflect emotions suppressed by the persistent denial of reality. We can discover and release these blocks and tensions; but to do this, we must learn how to listen to the body. Through years of avoidance and resistance, we have become desensitized. Yoga and meditation are practices that develop our capacity to attune to our internal messages. These practices initiate the journey towards greater integration, harmony, and well-being, towards awareness of the true Self – the source of all the solutions to our problems.

As you grow older, you may feel a restlessness of spirit. You need to recognize that this restlessness comes from an inborn urge to find a deeper meaning in life. If you pay attention, you can begin to explore the real values of life, your true needs, not the values based on false needs and hopes for fulfillment somewhere down the road. There are no answers to your life to be found outside of you. The answers lie within. The truth is that nothing you can acquire or achieve will ever replace your need to align yourself with the natural and spiritual laws by which life works. This comes not from external control, but inner control – self-mastery. When you develop the capacity to be consciously aware of all that happens within you, you can experience the reality of life.

The motivation for exploring the real meaning of life often comes through pain and suffering. Whether physical or emotional, pain is life screaming for attention. But it is not necessary to wait for life to SHOUT at you. You have it in your power to avoid the suffering often associated with aging. You can become aware of, and directly address, your physical and emotional needs now.

Guided by your intuitive inner knowing, you begin to choose what supports your highest intentions for yourself. You're able to let go of temporary pleasures in favor of enduring satisfactions, to move from a self-destructive lifestyle to a healthy one. The desire to indulge in excessive eating, drinking, spending, and entertainments diminishes, because alignment with your highest good brings you true satisfaction and joy.

With this shift in priorities, you are naturally attracted to a simpler way of living. The later years of life provide you the ideal opportunity to experience the richness a simple life can provide. It is a mistake to believe that fullness of life is a matter of how much you accomplish or acquire. Actually, fullness comes from consciously using the lessons of life to realign with reality.

Simplicity unclutters your life and your mind. You can respond to life just as it is in each moment, seeking no more than this. You may believe that such a life would be very dull. In fact, however, life is a perpetual adventure when you are attentive to what is happening inside and around you. When you feel no need to suppress, deny, hold onto, or fight with life, as you let go more and more of illusory expectations, you can enjoy its simple swee­ness. There is no greater satisfaction than the ability to be absorbed in basic activities: eating a balanced, nourishing meal with gratitude, with full attention to its flavors, textures, and smells; walking in nature – aware of the aroma of fresh earth, the feel of the breeze in your hair; listening openly and attentively to a loved one. When you experience life with such childlike freshness, then life reveals its joys, its wonder, its mysteries, and your deepest longings are fulfilled.

Problems will come. But when you live with awareness, every problem reveals its own solution. You develop the Midas touch that converts base metal into gold. Problems become opportunities. Pain changes into freedom from pain. This is called the alchemy of life.

As you move towards your inner Source, your internal knowing guides you to your next step. You receive the higher calling of your spirit to live the truths of love, beauty, peace, service, and full creative expression. Many people – Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Peace Pilgrim – moved into their greatest life work in their 60's. Their extraordinary contribution, their spiritual energy, resulted from aligning their lives with the will of God.

You can use your later years to realize the purpose for which you were born. When you cultivate true, enduring values, you reap the harvest this season of life can provide – the fully ripened fruits of spirit. Wisdom, compassion, trust, and peace then increase with age. They become your true contribution and legacy.