The great expanses of natural sceneries, the peace and tranquility of great green paddy fields, the hum of bees, the singing of birds, an availability of proximity to Nature. Nearness to Nature kept us always in gratitude, admiration and wonder, in a prayerful state of mind. Today we do not even have enough trees in our cities, there is so much pollution that Nature gets stifled. Thus Nature is no longer free.

Next, clean pure air to fill our lungs to our fill, the time to meditate, to walk amongst clean green surroundings, to derive the double benefit of Nature, exercise and solitude. Today most educated people live in cities where the pollution levels have been classified as below safety levels … so we find burdened with poverty of clean fresh air. So clean fresh air is no longer free.

A healthy body stands on 4 pillars: Exercise, Attitude, Rest and Nutrition.

(a) Exercise: requires time and mood. We are highly competitive, highly stressed out and lack of time and mood are the easiest excuses for lack of exercise.
(b) Attitude: must be Positive Mental Attitude. Reading newspapers which carry negative stories of crime and exploitation are conducive to stress and worry, migraines, lack of sleep and erosion of trust and faith in fellow human beings. Negative attitude is more prevalent and free advice is available esp to place obstacles for others’ progress.
(c) Rest: should be adequate: neither too much nor too little and at the most optimum time. Optimum time for rest is at night 10pm to early morning 4am. How many of us have the luxury to enjoy rest during this time? Late night life at parties or at work, night shifts, and the great TV serials all contribute towards loss of adequate sleep and rest.
(d) Wholesome Nutrition: as per WHOs Recommended Daily Allowance. First of all we do not know the components of the RDA, the foods we must consume to ensure that we get the RDA daily into our bodies. The vegetables and fruits we consume are treated with fertilizers and contain traces of urea. We no longer grow our own vegetables and fruits and we do not have time to cook meals in slow flame so that the phytonutrients are not lost.
Thus, wrt Health we know that we are paying the price with disorders and diseases in India. Refer to blog “Health Awareness is a must for Indians“ for further details.

Remember any leisurely evening meal when the whole family, often joint family would get together and share the happenings and highlights of the day. Do u now have the time for spending with relatives and friends? The new mantra of quality time does not hold water any longer … ‘cos relationships require both Quantity and quality. This is especially so due to the complexity of choices available with the youth to go astray. It is of course better to have lots of quantity of quality time together. The fad today is to take a video capture and replay that for next 3 months cos the parent(s) is away on travel for work. When the father (or working mother … and often even the stay-at-home mother) are busy in their own worlds of office, travel, cell phone, pagers and worrisome thoughts and do not establish the emotional bonds with their children during the childs youth ... it is not fair to expect that the child will have the time to take care of aged parents. Thus with absence of joint families, a sharing caring atmosphere for growing up is no longer free

Relationships with ourselves: when we do not have time to spend with our near & dear ones who make use of all their rights of proximity to interrupt us as and when they feel they need our attention, then imagine your own self … who will remind us to spend time with ourselves … and this is a very important ingredient to future successes. We know 5 to 10 minutes of solitude, visualization and positive self-affirmations does a great deal of good … but where is the time? For ourselves, for prayer and for increasing our nearness to God? The prayers we say today are like … with God all things are possible. God + 1 = Impossible become I am Possible. So we need to start thinking of God as tangible … and daily not ritual but a daily, hourly, ever-available friend for counseling, for listening to our worries, for giving us courage and directions, who will help us achieve our goals, dreams and worthwhile desires.

Thus just as freedom is not free, u have to work for it. Success will not chase u, u have to earn it thru persistent consistent small small efforts done on a daily basis. Similarly in order to have the essential items: Nature, fresh air, a healthy body, a meditative mind, giving sharing caring relationships and a God-centered soul, we have to put in appropriate and right action on a DAILY basis in persistent consistent manner to achieve and maintain all these ‘bare essentials of life’.