Every waking minute of everyday, we tirelessly engage in tasks dedicated to nurturing, maintaining and improving one aspect of the human existence- the body. We sleep, eat, bathe, embellish our bodies with clothes and makeup, we exercise and rest, and work all day to sustain this lifestyle we have chosen for ourselves. Rarely, if at all, do we spend our precious time and effort in polishing our hearts, minds, and least of all, our souls.
Beneath the cloak of our physical form, lies emotions, thoughts and a spirit which encompasses the most significant facets of who we are and what we are meant to do. Unfortunately, amidst this obsession with presenting our outer garment as most beautiful to the eyes of the society, we forget that real beauty lies deep within – in a beautiful soul. While the body can be decorated with fancy clothes and jewellery, the adornment of the soul is in acts of gratitude, forgiveness, empathy, compassion, love, trust and positive thinking.
As we forget this critical aspect to gain inner peace and harmony, we are, time and again, faced with terrible bursts of emotional, mental or physical illness manifesting the vacuum within. Stuck in a vicious fixation with the physical, we run to doctors and hospitals in the hopes of physically trimming the stems of these diseases and regaining our beautiful garment. But disease keeps springing back, as the root of the problem remains – a scarred and infected soul.
Readers, take the metaphor of an apple in a box. When the box that we can see starts decaying, we realize the apple inside has become completely rotten and spoilt. The box is similar to our physical packaging, and the apple is what in inside of us, while the packaging deteriorates much later, a slow decomposition of the soul has begun long ego, and that is the root, which we barely tend to. When we do, we treat our disease “miraculously” and permanently, when we don’t, we are left in a constant chase for temporary relief, gradually seeing life crumble to pieces before our eyes.
