Looks like winter is setting in early this year. Hesitating to catch the thread of the change in story — what if it is only today? Calling back the wild horses to the present moment I rebound on the fact that it is the first day of Navratri. The over cast sky right upto the horizon, the gusts of wind which lift the heart of even the heartless; and the shower of rain carried by the wind – Devi’s leela. Wonder if Amma’s flicker her fair or unknowingly breathed a little harder which manifests like this to us here. The first chill brings to mind the visions of winter clothes tucked in the cabinet. And we haven’t even begun on what a human being can feel simultaneously all at the same time. The galloping horses of emotions..

The chill persisted the next morning. I hesitated for a moment before going barefoot on the grass until I noticed a couple stretching in the distance in a sliver of sunlight filtering from the gap between the buildings. ‘It is cold’, I justified my act. The park was relatively devoid of the usual activity. Imagined the regular enthusiasts rendered into the comfort of the blanket with the first gust of chill. Which meant that the couple stood out in their vivid red and dusty blue amidst the green around. I caught the whiff of a newly-found enthusiasm in the man and the lady’s strenuous struggle with her belly. I moved my gaze to the pleasure spots,  trees I watched grow each day, bushes which had flowered and which stood green, the shedding on the ground when I overheard the man, certainly the husband, enthusiastically reminded the wife of the fortune of soaking in Vitamin D as she stretched. 

The bullet was fired and the stall gate was thrown wide open. The race horse with its blinkers on was set free. And it only knows how to gallop. So gallop it was!

Vitamin D! The brilliance of human beings to be able to dissect the sunlight and to know close to nothing about our bodies! Rather the audacity of it all. Me included. But at least I have moved from dissecting my food and eating ’wisely’ to uncovering the real pleasure aspect of food. Besides, do we even know if my body can absorb that ‘Vitamin D’ given where it is. The swollen lady’s belly certainly spoke otherwise. I patted my own belly and urged myself to bring attention back to where it should belong.

For the longest time, health meant being a healthy weight. Through whatever means required. And they were all means. None of it pleasure. None of it an end. Diet, exercise, sunlight, sleep, etcetera etcetera. Until the word health began to form in my psyche and it extended beyond the physical – literally encompassing also the air around me.

At the sam time, the expansion also made space to witness the contraction, the inward rhythm. It brought to awareness an awakening to the orientation of the cellular life, and by extension the orientation of life itself. What is the life within us organised around? What does it receive as nourishment? What does it recognise as necessary? And towards what does it direct its energy? These questions took me beyond the body as a physical structure and towards the self that inhabits it.

I began to notice people around me. Most people, leaving the ones with malicious intent, carry goodness and earnestly desire to live well. They work, care for their families, pursue ambitions, fulfil responsibilities and make efforts to improve their health. Much of life is spent learning how to do things better. There is a great deal of movement. And somewhere within this movement lies a quieter question: towards what?

The pace of modern life leaves little room to sit with that question. We learn to organise our time, optimise our routines and work towards measurable outcomes. Even our inner lives become projects to attend to. We learn how to heal, how to improve, how to become more capable.

All of this has its place. Yet good health, too, asks for an orientation — a gradual alignment between the life we live and the life we are here to live. For even if we were to heal, regain our vitality and enjoy good health, what would we choose to do with that life? What would we give our energy to? What would make the effort of being alive meaningful to us? To become interested in physical healing is, sooner or later, to step into philosophy. Remedies and protocols may change the body’s experience. They may offer relief, nourishment or support. But the question of what we are living for belongs to another order of inquiry.

Without an orientation to life, even the pursuit of health can become another activity — one more thing to accomplish. When we begin to understand what matters to us, care itself acquires direction. We begin to see that health is not simply a condition to attain, but a capacity through which we participate in life.

Our actions follow our understanding of existence. Medicine, too, rests upon an understanding of what a human life is and what it is for.

In Iqbal’s celebrated couplet, we encounter a vision of khudi that speaks directly to this relationship between will and destiny:

ख़ुदी को कर बुलंद इतना कि हर तक़दीर से पहले,

ख़ुदा बंदे से ख़ुद पूछे बता तेरी रज़ा क्या है।

“Endow your will with such power
That at every turn of fate it so be
That God Himself asks of His slave:
“What is it that pleases thee?”

— Muhammad Iqbal

What would it mean to cultivate a will so deeply rooted that even destiny must make room for its direction? How does one come to know what one truly wills? And what allows that will to become strong enough to guide a life?

Khudi: The Authority to Choose

In my pondering of the word khudi, what stood out for me as the beginning thread was my idea of wastage or wastefulness. Not the wastefulness of carelessness, but the deliberate refusal to spend one’s time, attention and life-force on what does not serve one’s purpose. To recognise what deserves my attention and what is just noise. The more I can align to this khud, the more I feel in me as khudi. The khudi doesn’t merely respond to whatever walks in through the door. It trusts the yes which comes from a full-body-yes — the intuitive self and to not engage if it isn’t the case. This is not willpower in isolation. It is will shaped by an understanding of life. And this is where the body enters the conversation again.

Our choices arise not just from the mind. There are some which arise from the body, inclusive of the mind. When rattled by pain, fatigue, disturbed sleep and prolonged stress there scope of what is possible narrows. When much of our energy is occupied by getting through the day, immediate relief naturally takes precedence. 

Even pursuits that appear admirable — pleasing others, seeking approval, maintaining status — take on a different meaning when we ask whether they belong to our own direction. The question is not whether these pursuits are good or bad. It is whether they are ours to pursue, and whether they receive the life we wish to give them.

A strong self emerges through alignment. It develops as we begin to organise our lives around what we genuinely value, allowing our choices, habits and actions to reflect that understanding. This orientation is not intellectual alone. It is lived through the body: in our capacity to be present, to meet uncertainty, to sustain effort, to rest, and to return to what matters. The body is not separate from the will. It is the vessel through which the will takes form.

The Role of Plants

This is where my relationship with plants finds its place. I do not approach herbs merely as answers to bodily complaints. I am interested in the relationship they invite us into — one that begins with attention, develops through experience, and asks us to participate in our own lives. Traditional herbal practices offer ways of working with the body through nourishment, ritual and familiarity with plants. Preparing an infusion, sitting with its aroma, noticing its taste and returning to it over time can become part of a larger practice of care.

The plants do not choose our direction for us. They become companions in the conditions through which we live, listen and respond. Their place in our lives is not simply a matter of what they offer us, but also of what our relationship with them asks of us: patience, observation, discernment and participation.

When care becomes a lived practice, rather than another task to complete, it can begin to find its place within the larger movement of life.

We become more attentive to what nourishes us, to the rhythms we sustain, and to the ways we spend our energy. We begin to notice the difference between reacting to life and participating in it.

In Iqbal’s terms, khudi is not merely the strength to insist upon one’s will. It is the cultivation of a self capable of carrying that will into the world — with discernment, values and sustained action. The plants do not dictate the path. They accompany the person walking it.

Health, as a Capacity for Life

Perhaps health can be understood, in part, as the capacity to direct our lives towards what matters.

The body needs care. It needs nourishment, movement, rest, relationship and the conditions in which its rhythms can unfold. These are not separate from purpose; they are part of how purpose becomes possible. When we begin to inhabit the body with greater attention, the question of health opens into a larger inquiry. How do I wish to live? What deserves my time? What am I willing to cultivate? What kind of self am I becoming through the choices I make each day?

These are questions of khudi. And perhaps the movement from khud to khudi begins in such ordinary moments: a walk in the morning, the warmth of a small patch of sunlight, a tree releasing its needles, a cup of herbs prepared with attention.

Life is continually offering itself. Our work is to become participants in that offering — to develop the discernment to receive, the will to choose, and the capacity to act upon what we recognise as true.

Health, then, is not simply about feeling better. It is about having a life to direct, and the capacity to live it with intention. The body carries that life. The will gives it direction. And the awakened self learns what to do with both.

Khud — The Self

The self that exists. The one who is here, before the world tells it who to be.

Khudi — Selfhood

The self that discovers its will.

Khuda — The Awakened Self

The self that has come into its own. Awake to its authority, conscious of its direction, and able to participate in the shaping of its destiny.