Covid pandemic -- wellbeing and spiritual practice

 Hari Aum.

Further to my post last month, I would like to share some more thoughts regarding the pandemic. Why write a medical post on a spiritual blog one may ask. Well the reason is very simple. 

My Guru Sivananda was a practical man. He believed that spirituality needed to be practical not an airy-fairy philosophy. It needed to benefit people. He was a doctor before he became a monk, and ran a hospital providing free treatment to the needy even after becoming a spiritual teacher. He served humanity in a variety of practical ways throughout his life as he believed that 'manava seva is Madhava seva', i.e. service of humankind is service of God.

He lived through the last pandemic about a century ago. This killed a great number of people as there were no vaccines then and medical treatments were also very limited. This blog post is dedicated to him. It is intended to inspire people to take practical steps to stay safe and well, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

I am writing this because there are increasing reports of people adopting a 'don't care' approach to this pandemic at the present time-- this is very disturbing. In some countries, people are rioting to indicate their rejection of the advice of their own scientists and doctors who are acting in their best interests. There are people openly flouting public health advice to self-isolate, test and to get vaccinated. This is a dangerous approach and will only result in helping the virus gain more ground and prolong the pandemic.

I note that a significant percentage of people do not seem to be coming forward to have a Covid vaccination in many countries. There appear to be a variety of reasons for this ranging from worries about side-effects to conspiracy theories.

I would like to share a link that will hopefully address some of the concerns about Covid vaccinations (please see below). 

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/facts.html

I would like to state that Covid vaccinations are far safer than the Covid illness. In life one has to make choices. The risk of nasty complications from Covid are far greater than the relatively rare side-effects of the vaccinations. Therefore it is simply common sense to have the Covid vaccination. This will protect us and society and help to reduce the impact of the virus on our lives. (Just to say, my family and I have all had whatever doses of the Covid vaccination we have been eligible for.)

In the past two years of the pandemic, every country has had a good phase and a bad phase. In Europe and America, winter is when the infections have risen steeply and the numbers have come down again in summer. This is happening again with the appearance of the Omicron variant of Covid. Let us have patience and adhere to the rules and restrictions for the next few months (based on the advice of local medics and governments) and remain hopeful that things will improve from spring next year. Let us be optimistic that better times will come as they have done in the past two years. Also, there are new antiviral and other medications being developed which will help reduce the impact of this illness on us in the future.

From a spiritual perspective, as I mentioned in my previous post, this would be regarded as a time of collective human karma. We are all in this together. Prayers and mantras will help increase our mental strength and draw the grace and protection of God. Let us pray daily for ourselves, for each other and for the world. Let us repeat any mantra or prayer from any spiritual tradition of our liking from 5 minutes to an hour a day for this purpose. This is a spiritual duty that we all have as yogis, as knowers of mantras, as believers in God.

My Guru was particularly fond of kirtan or bhajan, i.e. singing the names/praise of God. He said this is one of the most powerful spiritual practices of this age as the name of God is a sound vibration that is God Himself. When we sing His/Her names, we bring our consciousness near Him/Her whether or not we realise it. This is said to have a powerful cleansing effect on the body, mind and soul-- it clears past negative karmas, and produces new positive impressions in the mind. 

For those who enjoy singing, let us sing a little daily in praise of God, even just 5-10 minutes (needless to say, one does not have to be a good singer for this, any level of ability is fine!). The collective effort by all of us will have a good effect. If one is very busy and there is a lack of time, one can simply sing in the shower for a few minutes or for 5 minutes before a meal. It is good to set a fixed time of day when this mini-singing practice will happen.

I would have loved to do a regular Zoom session inviting readers to participate in a short chanting session of Om Namo Narayanaya or the Hare Rama mantra or similar. However due to having a two year old toddler and juggling work and home commitments, I struggle to find time these days for most of the things I would like to do. I am just about managing to keep up my my own daily spiritual practices. I have not given up on this idea though. Maybe I will try this in the new year, perhaps even just once a week for 20 minutes or so, let us see.

In the meantime, let us all stay hopeful, take sensible precautions, pray and stay strong. This too shall pass. 

Om Namo Narayanaya.

Hari Aum Tat Sat