ILLNESS


Usually it is something in the vital, sometimes it is a small formation in the physical mind which does not agree to follow. Sometimes it is simply an element in the body, an inertia which has no intention of moving, which remains as it is and asks things to remain as they are. This it is that holds back, separates itself and stands behind willfully and, it seems, naturally.


THE CAUSE AND THE REMEDY

(By kind permission of the Mother, Shri Aurobindo, Ashram, Pondichery. The Text is based on a talk given by the Mother to a class of young children of the Ashram).

ILLNESS, I have said, always without exception means a disturbance of equilibrium. Though this may be of different kinds, I speak for the present in relation to the physical body alone; I will refrain from speaking about diseases due to vital and mental causes. We shall have occasion to refer to them later on. Today I speak only of this poor little body. I repeat all illnesses whatsoever, even the accidents, arise from loss of equilibrium. In other words, if all the organs, all the parts and all the elements of your body are in harmony with each other and with the environment around you, you are in perfect health.

If, however, a slight displacement of equilibrium occurs anywhere, you immediately attract an illness, trivial or serious; or even an accident happens to you. In the latter case, the cause can always be referred to a subtle inner loss of equilibrium. That is to say, if you are to go about and do anything without an accident, you must possess a threefold equilibrium of mental, vital and physical being; an equilibrium not only within each one of them, but between the three also.

Now if you do a little bit of mathematics you will see the number of possible combinations are almost innumerable. So you will understand that the causes of illness are countless and countless likewise the causes of accidents.

Let us try to classify diseases for a little better understanding. From the standpoint of the body, there are two kinds of disturbances, functional and organic. Organic means when an organ or organs are affected with structural changes in them. The organs of the body, you know, are parts that do a specialised work, as the Heart, Lungs, Stomach, Kidneys, Bones etc. An organ may be in disequilibrium when it is badly built, deformed, wounded or disabled; we say that it is ill, or diseased.

But your organ or organs may be perfectly all right as regards form and structure and yet may not do their work properly; the organ is ill and there is functional disequilibrium. For example, you have a splendid stomach, but suddenly something happens to it and it does not function as it should. Your body as a whole may, without any notice perhaps, begin to feel uneasy; there is a functional disequilibrium here which is not an organic one. Usually functional diseases due only to functional disequilibrium are cured more quickly than the organic, which may be very serious, and even grave in certain cases.

Thus if you have a knowledge of your body and are accustomed to inner observation, not a mental speculation which will lead only to psychoneurosis, you can easily find out the kind of unbalance and illness you suffer from, whether it is organic or functional. Most often when one is young and leads a normal life, the disequilibrium is functional. It is usually those people living in adverse circumstances and having no inner life, that carry the unbalance, even before birth, in a subtle form. They are difficult to cure, but not impossible I must add. for there is nothing fundamentally incurable.

Now with regard to the causes. They are innumerable as I have already said; there are inner or personal causes and there are external causes. These are the two broad categories of the causes. Now about the internal causes. I have told you, you have different organs like the heart, lungs, brain, intestines, liver etc. If each of these fulfills its task and functions normally, and all move together harmoniously as a unified team, in that case you enjoy perfect health. But note how complicated the business is if you were to think of it in order to have it done, I am afraid it would not work at all; but fortunately it does not depend upon your thinking.

Supposing, however, one of them, for some reason, would not work with the required energy and at the right time and went on some sort of strike, then do not think that the particular element only would be ailing but all the others, the whole system would suffer in consequence. In other words, you will fall completely ill. If, in addition, there happens to be an unbalance, an upsetting in your vital being, a disappointment, a too violent emotion, high passion, something that disturbs your vital, then illness turns more serious and complicated. That is not the end of the story. For your mind, the mental being, can come and join in the fray.

It may bring wild dark thoughts, you may begin to think of terrible happenings, make catastrophic formations, then there is no way out. You definitely and seriously fall ill. You now see the complication of it all. A small thing going wrong somewhere can bring about through an inner contagion a very serious result. Therefore the important thing is to check it immediately. You must be inwardly conscious, conscious of the functioning of the organs: take note of the one which is not behaving well and teach it to correct itself. For you must remember that the organs are to be taught as children are taught their lesions.

Take again a simple example, your heart begins to beat violently (palpitation), you tell it immediately to calm and quiet itself, it is doing what it should not do; and in order to help it to regain its normal rhythm you take long deep breaths in a regular and rhythmic movement, that is to say, the lungs becomes the mentor and teaches the heart to behave properly. On the contrary, if you add to it your mental or vital part, a simple functional thing, in time, may become a serious disturbance. Then we said that there might be a lack of balance between the different parts, a disagreement with regard to their functioning. That means an inner conflict. It is a domestic feud. You know the story of Aesop?

The quarrel between the stomach and other limbs; One organ, for example, needs rest, another demands activity. They fight with each other. How to resolve the difficulty? You have to find out some middle term between the two to make them agree. Now if you add the vital and the mental to the purely physical, the field of the quarrel and the occasions for it increase immeasurably. I do not speak of the pure or speculative mind nor of the independent or vital proper, but the vital in the physical, the mental in the physical – the last one is particularly troublesome; for it is all the while active, terribly busy, and never thinks of stopping.

Now if there is a dispute among these three, if one wants a thing, another does not want, then your inner being becomes a battlefield, and there is a great turmoil within. That may bring you fever, at least much uneasiness and loss of self – control. Indeed the illness of the body means this trepidation and agitation, this shaking which goes on increasing and which you find difficult to check and control. But then you must know what is the dispute about and the reason, and bring harmony to the quarrelling parties.

There is another type of functional disturbance. You have within you an aspiration. I now speak of people who are doing yoga, at least who know what the spiritual life is like and try to follow the path. You have in you a part, either in the mind or in the vital or even sometimes in the physical that has understood, and has the aspiration and possesses the necessary disposition; it received the force and easily makes progress.

There may be other parts however that will not or cannot understand, which is rather a bad sign; others again that have the will but not the capacity to change, they are not ready yet. There is something that stands up in the way and does not move. That brings about a serious unbalance and generally it shows itself in an illness, because of the tension in you caused by the thing that cannot or will not progress, and that clings to you and does not want to move.

Or the situation may be slightly different, in a sense even somewhat opposite. That is to say, your whole being goes forward, progresses, in a continuously growing harmony and balance. Your progress is truly remarkable and all is all right. Suddenly there is a slip and you fall ill, for no reason whatsoever, you declare. You are surprised, you say to yourself: “How is it? I was in such a good state and now I am ill!” Well, the reason is you are not sufficiently conscious of yourself. There was in you a part, a small part may be, which did not want to move.

Usually it is something in the vital, sometimes it is a small formation in the physical mind which does not agree to follow. Sometimes it is simply an element in the body, an inertia which has no intention of moving, which remains as it is and asks things to remain as they are. This it is that holds back, separates itself and stands behind willfully and, it seems, naturally. A very little thing like this can produce an unbalance sufficient to make you ill. You grumble and say: “It is a pity, I was going on so well, God is not kind or just. He ought to have stopped from falling ill when I was making such good progress.” So this is that.

N C Das
N C Das
Calcutta