A STUDY ON HOLISTIC DEVELOPEMENT AND EFFECT OF MEDITATION ON HEALTH

Holistic health care includes natural, alternative, integrative and complimentary medicine. When alternative medicine is used with conventional medicine in a fully co- ordinated approach to patient care, this is referred to as complimentary medicine, integrative medicine or holistic health care. The main cause for holistic health care to stagnate is modernisation. There are ample of merits and demerits in today’s treatments such as time consuming, side/adverse effect etc. Taking a holistic approach to our lives helps to create a balance in personal life, family relationships and work environment. Raja Yoga therapy enhances holistic health care. By merging modern and traditional treatments with holistic health care, we can develop a complete health. Holistic healing is an ancient science dating back to at least 5000 years ago and has origins in China and India. Holistic healing practitioners propagated the idea of a healthy way of living, in harmony with nature. The general principle of holism was summarized by Aristotle in the Metaphysics : "The whole is more than the sum of its parts". The philosopher Socrates also acknowledged the holistic approach and suggested that people should look at the body as a whole and not part-by-part. In 1926, the term "holism" was introduced by Jan Christiaan Smuts in his book "Holism and evolution", and was defined as, "the tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution". Holistic medicine became more recognized through the 1970's and has since become one of the accepted methods of medical practice.