Health is wealth; a healthy person is far more capable of earning than one who is disabled. A healthy body is a must for a healthy mind. Compared to an orchestra performance, health is harmony and disease is discord.
Health implies harmony in all aspects of one's life: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual The closer to perfection it is, the greater the person's efficiency will be. The greater the output and creative capacity, and the high the living standard will be. When the spiritual aspect is at a lower ebb, society lives as a parasite/host rather than in a peaceful, coexistent style.
If the objective of society is efficiency and creativity at the individual and collective level, all of us must be healthy. How can this objective be achieved? Is health available as a purchase-able commodity? The answer is clearly no! One can buy the best brains, but not health. However through regular practice of yoga, health can be acquired free of cost.
These days a lot of medications are being sold in the marker which claim to make one slim and strong. Various machines have been devised to give passive exercises. The various western style games: hockey, football, cricket, volleyball, as well as numerous Indian games, like kabbadi, kho-kho, involve little or no capital and give a feeling of team spirit along with some physical benefit. But there is no system other than yoga which benefits all aspects of our being, thus developing an integrated personality and perfect health at no cost.
The health of a nation is gauged by its morbidity and mortality index i.e. the rate of disease and death per million. The object is to keep both as low as possible. The axiom 'prevention is better than cure' is most aptly applicable to the health program and budget of a nation which can be divided into two parts: prevention of disease and hospital services.
If yoga were adopted as a regular feature of the nation's health program, it would curtail both the preventative as well as hospital services budget of a nation. Asanas and pranayamas produce and maintain physical fitness as well as prepare one for raja yoga which acts as an antidote for all the diseases resulting from prolonged stress and strain. The practices of raja yoga: yama and niyama, yoga nidra, ajapa japa, concentration on the chakras, etc. make one mentally and psychologically strong enough to ward off nervous breakdowns, hysteria, anxiety, neurosis and other states of restlessness and depression - the penalty which mankind is paying for modern civilization.
As far as treatment or therapy is concerned, these practices can dispense with all the drugs manufactured and dispensed for psychosomatic disorders. The various endocrine and sexual diseases, hypertonism, obesity and so many other diseases can be removed without incurring great financial expenditure.
Yoga is a complete science with an anatomical and physiological basis for treatment. Its avenues of treatment and mode of action are different from the modern system of allopathy, but physiologically it is similar. The various chakras correspond to different plexes and glands of the central and autonomic nervous system. Yoga is a very clear science which can be closely inter-related and explained in modern medical terminology.
Today's psychologist can learn a lot from the science of yoga, the theory and practice of which achieves much more than modern therapy. If the systems of psychology and yoga are combined, the results will be far more beneficial to mankind.
Finally the practices of kundalini yoga lead to the perfection and evolution of mankind. In an unenlightened man only 10% of the intellect and consciousness is active; the rest is lying dormant. When kundalini shakti awakens, all the higher faculties manifest under one's control without material expense to the practitioner.
The blissful science of yoga is a boost to the underdeveloped and a boon to the overdeveloped nations. It costs nothing and saves so much.