We all need balance in our lives
Balance
Balance - we have to have it or we fall over. We could topple and injure ourselves.
When I was a little boy of seven I lived in rural England. My best friend was a twelve-year-old boy named Peter. Peter was the son of a dairy farmer. That farmer had over twenty milking cows and he had to milk them twice a day. He had no machine to do that. He did it all by hand. Peter and I would walk the cows in from the fields and bring them to the milking shed twice a day.
Peter's father would then come into the milking shed and sit on his three legged milking stool next to each cow in turn. Always he sat on his sturdy, three-legged wooden milking stool.
Why three legs? Why not four? Or even five, as some business chairs are today?
Because the floor of the shed was of cobble stones. Also it was sloped towards the middle of the shed into a low channel where the water would flow when we washed the place out.
The three legs of that stool were short and stout = but of even length. The message was clear. When all three legs are of the same length, balance is assured.
We human beings are like that. We require balance. You see, we are made up of three aspects: body, mind and spirit. If we put too much emphasis on one of these aspects and ignore the others, the balance is gone. If, for example, the leg we call the physical is the one we spend virtually all our time on, then we will be into everything physically gratifying at the expense of the others.
Take for example the man or woman who believe that they are a body - just a body. They realize they have thoughts but they live for the body alone. They might exercise it, feed rich, flavoursome but unhealthy food. Squander their health in all manner of hedonistic activities, as they seek for a joy which always seems to elude them. If their body is hurt or damaged they fully believe they've damaged their essential self. They have thoughts, of course, but anything to do with thinking about their reasons for living are laid aside. One leg of that stool which brings balance is now longer than the other two.
On the other hand, they might pay little attention to their physical welfare and spend most of their time in their minds. They gather knowledge year after year. This becomes their vanity. They are lifelong learners but pay little heed to their physical welfare and none at all to their spiritual side. They could well be atheists. They are a body with a mind and the gathering of knowledge is all important.
Here again. You have imbalance. The knowledge, the mind, and what proudly parade to others is what they live for. It never occurs to them that knowledge is anything other than personal power.
Then we come to the religionist. They spend their entire lifetime reading Holy Books and then quoting what they've picked up from those books to others. They annoy the hell out of a lot of people around them. They cannot hold a conversation without bringing it around to religion. Their particular brand of religion. Everybody else is wrong. They are right. Religious fanaticism and terrorism stems from this sort of imbalance.
What's happened here? These people have probably laid aside any chances of developing a tolerance and more sound philosophy of life. So, once again, we have imbalance.
What is needed to ensure good physical, mental and spiritual well being is to give at least roughly equal attention to each of these three: body, mind and spirit. That way we have balance. That way we have stability. That way our lives are more harmonious. Balance, stability, equilibrium. When we have these - then we will never fall over.