Tapa and Dhyāna: From Vedas to Buddha to ‘Back to the Vedas’

Abstract

One of the greatest challenges faced by the mankind of twenty-first century is struggle with oneself. The technology driven world has brought all the possible comforts at the doorsteps. The revolution in social media has connected every user with thousand likes of men from the virtual world but has distanced him from the real one. The lesson has been well learned to post a happy picture of oneself on virtual social platforms, which in most of the cases is just the opposite of reality. The fast pacing world has burdened the shoulders with high expectations and man has succumbed to them. This has created anxiety that is directly proportional to the mental health and inversely proportional to the physical health. The mental health is as important as the physical fitness. If the physical well being is important to put work in action; a sound mind is required for healthy functioning of cognitive and psychological health - the foundation of the ‘social’ for the homo sapien sapien. Imbalance in mental health can lead to depression, anxiety, diseases related to personality disorders such as bipolar personalities, autism, alzheimer, schizophrenia, delusions, paranoia only to name a few along with several addictive behaviors. Aggravated mental illness can bring in unexplained physical pain and suicidal thoughts. The gravitas of mental illness in one of the most developed nations of the world, The United States of America, can be gauged from the data released by the American Psychiatric Association, where one in five (19%) of adults experience mental illness, one in twenty four (4.1%) have serious mental illness and one in 12 (8.5%) have diagnosable stage of mental illness.[i] The table below summarises data released by the World Health Organisation on severe mental illness worldwide, through which one can assess the urgency for treatments.