Freedom and Health on the Levels of Body, Emotion, and Mind
A human being has a physical body, which is the most visible and superficial expression of their existence. Alongside the body, there is a world of feelings and thoughts that we usually call the emotional level and the mental or rational level.
Unlike some older philosophical or medical schools that separated these layers and studied them as if they were independent, the body, emotions, and mind are actually one unified reality. Of course, we can’t blame those traditions too much, because even in our own self-perception, our body, feelings, and thoughts often seem separate—and sometimes even in conflict with one another. For example, your natural desire may say: “Eat three plates of your favorite food!”But your intellect steps in and warns you: “Survival and long-term health are more important.”
Your emotions may whisper: “Start a relationship with this married person who is flirting with you,” while your reason and conscience say: “Don’t do that. You will create pain and suffering for yourself and others.” All of us have positive and negative traits, strengths and weaknesses, and we often feel we are internally at war with ourselves. From here, we can naturally turn to the subject of illness…
When Illness Appears
When a person becomes ill, their weaknesses—physical, emotional, and mental—can show up more clearly and sometimes become amplified. Imagine a person who is normally passionate, intense, and emotionally expressive. Under stress, this person may become much more irritable and explosive than others. If the stressor continues and presses on them day after day, they may feel as if they must fight with everyone and everything. Eventually, a point may come when they find themselves isolated—and the next likely step is something we can all guess: depression.
So, if we do not limit the definition of illness only to the physical body, even chronic stress can gradually make our psyche more “unwell” and move us further and further away from a sense of joy. Given all this, what word could describe true health on all three levels—body, feelings, and mind—at the same time? The answer may be surprising, but that word is “freedom.”
Physical Health
On the level of the body, health can be understood as freedom from pain. Someone who is free from pain is no longer a slave to it. Think about a bad toothache: your whole being becomes focused on that pain and the effort to escape it. Your attention, your energy, your plans—everything is hijacked by that one spot in your body.
Of course, a person may have no pain but still feel constantly tired and drained. Such a person isn’t truly healthy either. So, we can expand the definition of physical health to: Freedom from pain, along with a sense of well-being and sufficient energy.
Emotional Health: Freedom from Extreme Attachments
Now imagine a person living in a village. They are physically robust, strong, and have never needed a doctor. There is no pain, no fatigue. One day, the neighbor secretly moves the boundary marker between their lands to slowly encroach on this person’s property, assuming they won’t notice. When the person finds out, they go into the house, take a gun, and shoot the neighbor. (This is based on a real story.) Is this person healthy? Clearly, something is wrong at the emotional or psychological level. Their body may be fine, but they are not well in this other dimension.
Another example: you may have heard that people with severe mental disorders—such as certain forms of schizophrenia—often don’t catch colds easily and may have very strong immunity and physical endurance. Here again, the body appears healthy, but illness has manifested on another level. Or consider someone who is “in love” in such an extreme way that if they lose the beloved, they might attempt suicide. Even while the relationship is ongoing, their behavior can become irrational or even absurd.
If someone is so emotionally dependent on another person that, after losing them, they fall into deep depression and cannot function in daily life, can we really call that person emotionally healthy? These examples bring us back to the idea of freedom. A person who is excessively attached to someone else is a slave to that attachment. Emotional attachment, when it has the potential to create deep depression or constant restlessness, is a sign of illness on the emotional and mental level.
When Lack of Feeling Is Also a Problem
Now imagine someone who never reacts emotionally to anything. They are indifferent. Nothing excites them, nothing brings joy, and nothing can touch them deeply enough to make them even a little upset. Our natural intuition tells us that this person is also not psychologically healthy. So, emotions must exist, but in a balanced way—strong enough to bring meaning and connection, but not so intense that they destroy our inner peace.
From this perspective, we might define emotional health as: “Freedom from rigid fanaticism and extreme emotional swings,” or “Freedom from unreasonable attachment.”
Mental Health: Freedom from Obsessive Focus and Ego
Attachment and lack of freedom can also show up on the mental level. Think of someone who dedicates their entire life to a single goal: a particular career, money, a big scientific discovery, solving a specific problem— to the point where they become its slave. Or someone who is so obsessed with keeping the house perfectly clean that even the slightest bit of mess causes an unbearable feeling inside.
Or the person who becomes extremely irritated or even enraged when they hear small sounds others make—like swallowing, chewing, or breathing. These people are slaves to their obsessions. There is no freedom of mind or spirit in any of these situations. Most of us may not like the sound of someone chewing loudly, but as long as we can stay composed, manage our reaction, or simply move away kindly, we remain in a state of mental health regarding that trigger.
It’s quite likely that none of us knows anyone who is completely free on all three levels—body, emotions, and mind—with no trace of slavery or bondage to anything. This may sound idealistic, but knowing the direction gives us something to move toward. We can gradually reduce the distance between our current state and that ideal.
I still haven’t given a precise definition of health on the level of the mind. If we want to capture it in a single word, it might be: “Freedom from selfishness.” But, achieving full freedom on this level is even harder than on the other two. Perhaps no one ever accomplishes it completely. Selfishness—or ego—creates inner dialogues like:
“I want this.”
“That should have been mine.”
“This belongs to me.”
And how much do these kinds of thoughts steal our mental freedom?
The disappearance of selfishness would be equivalent to recognizing ourselves as one with all of humanity and the entire universe. Ego arises when we see ourselves as separate from everything else. If that illusion truly dissolved, a person would experience oneness with existence itself—and reaching that state fully seems almost impossible. We can only move closer to it.
The Illusion of Artificial Freedom
It might interest you to know that one of the reasons some people are drawn to psychedelic substances is precisely this experience of temporary ego-dissolution—a feeling of merging and losing the sense of a separate “self.” In such states, the person may feel deep peace, bliss, and a sense of total freedom and lightness. (Please don’t take this as encouragement!)
The problem is that when such states are induced artificially in the brain, the later consequences and the price to be paid can be extremely severe—sometimes threatening the person’s existence on all three levels: body, mind, and emotions. In reality, after these experiences, the person often becomes a slave to the substance itself, putting their freedom on a much deeper level up for sale.
In this way, when we look at health through the lenses of freedom and non-slavery, it becomes clear that true healing must address not only the physical body, but also the emotional life and the inner workings of the mind.
Sara Allahverdi, CCH — June 2025
This article is inspired by a lecture(Definition of Health) by the renowned homeopath George Vithoulkas, as well as teachings from Dr. Masoud Naseri, the distinguished Iranian physicist and classical homeopath.