Independence from Illnesses | The Restoration-Activation Project

INDEPENDENCE FROM ILLNESSES

BY SATPREM

"Once we are freed from the tension and constant buzz of the thinking mind, from the tyranny and restlessness and endless demands of the vital mind, from the stupidity and fears of the physical mind, we begin to appreciate what the body is without all these exhausting encumbrances, and we discover that it is a marvelous instrument – docile, enduring, and full of unlimited goodwill.

The body is the most misunderstood instrument of all, and also the most ill-treated. In this newly acquired clarification of our being, we observe, firstly, that the body is never ill; it only wears out – though even this wearing-out is perhaps not inevitable, as we will see, with the supramental yoga.

It is not the body that falls ill; it is the consciousness that fails. As we advance in yoga, we see that each time we get sick or succumb to an external "accident," it is always the result of unconsciousness, a wrong attitude, or a psychological disorder.

These observations are all the more fascinating because the moment we set foot on the path of yoga, something in us becomes alerted, constantly pointing out our mistakes, indicating the real cause of everything that happens to us, and leaving nothing in the dark, as if "someone" were taking our search in earnest. Thus we come to witness, at times with amazement, a perfect correlation between our inner state and the outer circumstances (such as illnesses, for example, or "accidents") that befall us, as if life were no longer unfolding from outside in but from inside out, the inward molding the outward, to the most trivial circumstances; though in fact, nothing is trivial anymore, and everyday life appears as a network filled with signs waiting to be recognized.

Everything is connected. The world is a miracle.

We may make a childish mistake when we imagine spiritual life to be full of visions and apparitions and "supernatural" phenomena. The Divine is nearer to us than we think, the "miracle" less pompous and more profound than all this primitive imagery. Once we have deciphered one of those little signs that pass us by, or even once seen the imperceptible link that ties all things, we are closer to the great Miracle than if we had touched some heavenly manna. Indeed, perhaps the real miracle is that the Divine is also natural, but we do not know how to look.

Thus, the seeker will become aware of this reversal of the life current, from the inside out (indeed, since the psychic Master has come out of its confinement); he will read these everyday signs and see that his inner attitude has the power to mold outer circumstances in both directions, good and bad. When we are in a state of harmony and our action conforms to the deeper truth of our being, nothing seems to resist – even "impossibilities" dissolve, as if another law came to supersede the "natural" one. (This is actually the true "nature" emerging from beneath the mental and vital complications.)

Then we begin to enjoy a royal freedom. But when there is inner disorder, whether mental or vital, we notice that this disorder irresistibly invites detrimental outward circumstances, some accident or illness.

The reason for this is simple: when something goes wrong within us, we send out a particular type of vibration that automatically elicits and contacts all other vibrations of the same type, at every level of our being; there is total jamming, and all external circumstances are upset and disrupted. Not only does the negative inner state create chaos, but it also weakens the circumconscious protective envelope mentioned earlier, which means that we are no longer protected by a certain intensity of vibration; we are open, vulnerable – for there is nothing like a vibration of disorder to poke holes in our protective envelope, or to disintegrate it – and then anything whatsoever can enter.

We should also remember that a bad inner state is contagious; associations with certain people always tend to attract accidents or troubles. After we have had the same experience ten times or a hundred times – which might be anything from catching a cold to tripping on the stairs to having a serious accident, depending upon our inner state – we will finally realize that neither our own self no so-called chance has anything to do with all this, and that the remedy lies not with any drug, but with restoring the true attitude, the inner order – in other words, with consciousness.

If the seeker is conscious, he can live in the midst of an epidemic or drink all the filth of the Ganges River if he pleases; nothing will touch him, for what could touch the awakened Master? We have isolated bacteria and viruses, but we have not understood that these are only external agents; the illness is not caused by the virus but by the force behind that uses the virus.

If we are clear, all the viruses in the world cannot do anything to us, because our inner force is stronger than that force; the vibration of our being has too high an intensity for that lower vibration to enter. Only like can enter like.

Perhaps cancer will be cured or will disappear the way other medieval diseases have, but we still will not have eradicated the forces of illness, which will simply use something else, another agent, another virus, once their present vehicle has been exposed. Our medical science touches only the surface of things, not the source. The only disease is unconsciousness.

At a later stage, when the inner silence is well established and we are capable of perceiving mental and vital vibrations as they enter our circumconscient, we will similarly be able to feel the vibrations of illness and drive them out before they can enter us:

If you can become conscious of this environmental self of yours, Sri Aurobindo wrote to a disciple, then you can catch the thought, passion, suggestion or force of illness and prevent it from entering into you.

There are two other categories of illness that need mentioning, which are not directly related to any fault of ours: those that result from subconscious resistance (we will discuss them later with the purification of the subconscient) and those that may be called "yogic illnesses," which result from an uneven development between the higher levels of consciousness and our physical consciousness. For instance, our mental or vital consciousness may widen considerably and receive new intensities, while our physical consciousness still lags behind in old vibratory movements and cannot withstand this increased intensity.

This leads to a loss of equilibrium that may bring on illnesses, not through the intrusion of any outer agent, microbe or virus, but through a disruption in the normal relationship among the inner parts of our being; such illnesses may include allergies, colloidal disorders of the blood, and nervous and mental disorders. Here we are touching the problem of matter's receptivity to the higher forces of consciousness, one of the major problems of the supramental yoga.

This is also one of the reasons why Sri Aurobindo and Mother insist so much on the development of our physical body; without it, we may be able to go into ecstasy and soar straight into the Absolute, but we are unable to bring the intensity and plenitude of the Spirit down to our "lower" kingdom – the mental, vital, and material realm – in order to create a divine life there."

~from Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure of Consciousness ~Satprem

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