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any chemical inbalances. In the words of doctors, patients, scientists and policymakers. who in June,1999 attended an international meeting in Britain to explorethese ideas, much of the suffering consists of ‘diseases of meaning’. The searchfor meaning is evident in so many aspects of our lives, What is my life allabout? What does my job mean? This relationship? What does it mean that I amgoing to die some day? People living in earlier societies would not even haveasked such questions. Their lives were culturally embedded in a set framework.They had living traditions, living gods, living communities, functioning moralcodes, problems that had known boundaries and fixed goals. But in moderntimes we have lost what some philosophers call the ‘taken for-granted ness’of life, We are left with existential or spiritual problems and with the need tocultivate a kind of intelligence’ spiritual intelligence’ that can deal with them.Effect of religious and spiritual beliefs and practiceson health and wellness:The Spiritualism is identified with something super conscious, super naturaland towards divinity. Spiritual inspirations are considered as a rare blessing andit is believed that through the path of spiritualism a man attains perfection,immortality and ultimate fulfillment. Yogas had been a subject of great research.It is found that to attain super conscious state one is required to pass thoughvarious stages of yoga. Vahia 1973, Selvamurthy 1983 & De’Souza 1984 reportthat yoga has a positive influence in stress management and relief of anxietyand mental tension. Orme Johnson (1973) found that meditation stabilizes theautonomic nervous system and make a person withstand environmental stressesbetter. As per Bhamgara (1990), spiritual dimension of health pervades all otherdimensions of health i.e. physical, mental and social. The Vipasana meditationmay also help in deaddiction. Naidu and Pande (1988) presented an interimresearch report on non- attachment and health. The results indicated that thosewho were non-attached, though they experienced as many events as their attachedcounterparts, did not get as distressed by these events. Non-attached persons,compared to less non-attached subjects, perceived lesser degree of stress, exhibitfewer symptoms of strain and show a smaller correlation between stress andstrain. To that extent this data supports the assertions of the various commentarieson the Gita regarding the health endowing capacity of non-attachment.Along with psychical research are the recent investigations in the area ofepidemiology of religion and clinical studies of the effect of religious and spiritualbeliefs and practices on health and wellness. There are now many researchersactively engaged researching in this area.Religion of one kind or another has existed in all societies; and it has hadprofound effects on the lives of those who practice it. prayer is central to all68Arhat Vacana, 23 (1-2), 2011