18 Apr 2008
Mental health promotes physical health. The reverse is also true. The mind and the body are two mutually connected entities. However, the mind's influence on the body is deeper than that of the body on the mind. Mental health is connected with the feeling of equality. Without this feeling the mind cannot be healthy. The principle of equality is also the principle of mental health.
The first principle of mental health is: Know thyself. One who does not know his own strength and weakness cannot be mentally healthy. We do not know our strength because we are weak and we feel a sense of being wretched. We become excited when somebody misbehaves with us because we do not know our weakness. In such cases we overlook ourselves and try to find fault with others.
The second principle of mental health is the willingness to admit one's responsibility for whatever has been done. We are not prepared to visualise the consequences of our actions and that is why our mind has no peace. It is unhealthy to avoid responsibility for our actions. It can lead to mental illness. One needs courage to admit his faults. A weak mind does not have this courage.
One should take responsibility for the good as well as bad consequences of one's actions. It is the weak who find fault with others. They want to save their own skin. We generally like to be praised for our good actions but are not prepared to be blamed for the bad consequences of our actions.
Devotion to truth is the third principle of mental health. Truth is experience of the law governing the universe. Death is a universal law. It has no exception. All the prophets and great men of the world met death. Nobody is immortal. Everyone who is born must die one day. Death is, therefore, a truth. In the same way karma (action) and tela (time) are also truths. One who admits the operation of the laws, which govern nature, is a mentally healthy man.
Tolerance is the fourth principle of mental health. An intolerant man is always miserable. Moreover, the behaviour of an intolerant man is always unpredictable. If an intolerant man is meditating and if the fan is stopped, his mind will be upset and his meditation will break.
He who commands tolerance is indifferent to losses and gains. Wealth and riches are not lasting. Heat and cold, comfort and pain and convenience and inconvenience do not affect the tolerant man. They affect those who do not possess the requisite strength to face them. Those who have been born and brought up in the midst of difficulties and privations ultimately develop in themselves the spirit of tolerance.
The fifth principle of mental health is that we should present ourselves as we are. We should not put up appearances. Generally people are snobs in their social life and when people see them in their true colours they are put in a quandary. Secretiveness creates ill feelings.
Those who put up appearances not only deceive others, they deceive themselves also. They create difficulties for all. We try to create false impressions on the minds of others in order to hide our own real state. You cannot hide reality for a long time. Only he whose mind is weak tries to hide facts. On the other hand he whose mind is strong and sound will always present himself as he is.