The special group of the WHO Executive Board for the review of the Constitution proposed that the preamble be modified to read (World Health Organization (1997) Review of the Constitution… , EB 10 1/7, p.2)
“Health is a dynamic state of complete physical, mental, spiritual and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”
In January 1998, the Executive Board endorsed this proposal of the Special Group and adopted resolution EB 10 1.R2 recommending the World Health Assembly to modify the preamble of the Constitution accordingly (World Health Organization (1998) Executive Board 101st Session, Resolutions and Decisions, EB101.1998/REC/l, p.52-53)
In 2005, the Bangkok Charter for the Health Promotion in a Globalized World endorses a “positive and inclusive concept of health as a determinant of the quality of life and encompassing mental and spiritual well-being.”
From the earliest definition of WHO – “Health is the absence of an illness”, we have come a long way. And this is certainly on time because after a long run for science and discovery, the world is fast entering into a new era that is feeling lost for the lack of wholesome answers to many of its questions in its materialistic domain.
Especially where health and diseases are concerned, we can only move forward to a certain extent and then we draw blank. There are breakthrough medicines and super talented surgeons and yet children die young, babies are born with deformities, the organs stop functioning before their expiry dates and otherwise healthy people lose their memory. This is in addition to the multitude of mental illnesses that are baffling the experts world over while they use trial and error methods to “fix” things. And we are in the 21st century!!
Can man really claim to have understood the human body and its process of reproduction? Some may swear by genetics to have acquired all the knowledge but I always have one question- You know certain genetic coding leads to certain features and others decide the placement of organs in the body and other details, however who did this super intelligent genetic coding in the first place? I mean it is way beyond the expanse of the word “Amazing”! A man’s child is born a man with all the systems and Microsystems in exactly the same place with exactly the same function for ages together!!! The system that makes it happen or that made it happen in the first place can’t be a random “Big Bang”!! No, it was not a random happening that not just humans but thousands of creatures inhabit this earth with perfect genetic coding and a perfect place in the ecosystem and each one with a perfect intelligence in the art of survival!!
It had to be a superpower and Spirituality is the recognition of this superpower that constructed the tiniest of its creatures with perfection and with a PURPOSE.
This purpose and connection to the superpower makes us all spiritual beings that have been given a human body to experience challenges and learn the very essence of life.
Many diseases are form of these challenges that come to us with some lessons. Many studies are currently available where energy healing and faith healing methods significantly cured or at the least improved the quality of life in patients with intractable and life threatening diseases. Most of these methods work with emotional work. Many a diseases have been cured with the release of negative energy trapped due to long standing unresolved issues sometimes traceable even to past lives.
Experts from various scientific fields around the world have experienced the positive effects of spiritual healing on their patients and that includes American Psychiatrist Dr. Brian Weiss, who has done ground breaking work in Past life regression and regression therapy.
This is no way to dispute the role of medicine, however there is a need to understand that there are things beyond our physical that determine our health quality and while considering treatment one has to look beyond what is popularized more.
Today the medical practitioners all over are over-loaded with work leaving little or no time to understand the needs of the patient as a person. Patients, especially with chronic illnesses and terminal illness suffer from a lot more beyond the physical incapability and pain. There is emotional pain over loss of health, family disturbances, pain of dependence, financial burden and much more which needs to be addressed as much as the physical illness.
In this era of specialization there is hardly any consideration of the patient as a person… he is a kidney, a heart, a lung… But the sufferer is not the kidney or heart, it is a person that is also a much more than the organs, he is emotions, needs and feelings. Plus, illnesses being a call for awakening of self, the spiritual needs are at its highest. In the absence of no one to cater to these needs the illnesses spread from physical to mental to emotional to the spiritual realms.
Man has achieved a lot and science has given us a lot, however, our truth goes beyond that. The famous need Hierarchy theory by great philosopher Sir Abraham Maslow talks about the highest need of man to be ‘transcendental self- actualization’ While Albert Einstein, the man of science, said, “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe-a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.”
“Unless we open up to this holistic definition of mankind, our questions and our efforts would always be half rewarded. We all know what Einstein famously quoted, “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind”
