Illness, Faith, Yoga-Power and Medicines

If we examine how illness comes upon us, and what effects it has, we can identify multiple different contributing factors that can lead to the physical imbalances that we call illness. Many of the symptoms of illness are the result of the physical body actually resisting the effect of the illness. Is it possible to do away with illness? Is it possible to prevent illness? Is it possible to heal illness?

We live in a world that is enamoured of the idea that illness is caused by ‘germs’, that is, bacteria or viruses. These germs proliferate and enter our body and start to cause the illness and we then become sick. But the cause of illness is not so simple as to blame some external factor and avoid the deeper insights that are part of the complex.

Some people rarely if ever get sick. They are said to have a strong immunity. Generally these people have a vibrant and strong vital sheath which radiates an energy that repels contrary forces. Germs, after all, are simply physical carriers that create a vibratory pattern when they find a receptive host. If the vital sheath is able to prevent or neutralize the action, then the individual does not become ill.

In many cases, the mind actually weakens the vital protective sheath through the operation of fear. We see this in the case of epidemics or pandemics. People become infected with fear and this creates gaps in the armour of the vital sheath that allows the feared illness to enter and embed itself in the physical frame.

The physical body is habituated to the idea that certain vibratory patterns will take over and create the imbalances we recognise as illness.

It is possible for individuals to build up the strength of their vital sheath to such a degree that illness has little chance of passing through and creating the physical vibrational pattern. Certain individuals, such as dedicated practitioners of yoga for many years, use mantras, pranayama or other mechanisms to enhance the sheath and thereby find that they do not become ill.

Just as the mind can help create the environment for illness through acceptance of fear, modern science shows that the mind can be also a powerful tool in healing the body. What is known as the ‘placebo effect’ is worth examination. An individual sick with an illness participates in a study. Certain people are given medicines that have an ‘active’ property to tamp down the activity of the germs in the creation of their vibratory patterns. Other individuals are given a remedy that in fact has no active force associated with it. Their belief in the remedy, regardless of its actual ability to attack the invading germs, has been found to cure individuals some 25% of the time, or more. If there is no active medicine, then we have to attribute the healing power to the mind and the body itself.

Some people are able to experience a feeling of pressure on their vital sheath which they associate with a potential attack of illness. In some cases, they succumb to the feeling and then they become ill. In other cases, however, they resist the feeling, strengthen their resolve and their vital sheath and throw off the feeling before it becomes a full-blown illness. For some people, adding a physical medium, such as an herb, or a tea of some sort, adds to the mental and vital resolve to strengthen the immune response, by convincing the body that it is being helped.

Many people report the significant benefit they received from use of homeopathic medicines, which have no identifiable ‘active’ ingredient, but are supposed to work solely on the subtle vibrational level. One case in particular that has been brought to our attention involved an individual who was suffering from a severe case of amoebic, bleeding dysentery while he was visiting India. He asked about a doctor and was told the best person to see was the local homeopath. He immediately visited this doctor who asked a series of seemingly random questions, then prescribed a little sugar pellet of a particular homeopathic remedy and advised that with 15-20 minutes the severe abdominal motions and pain would be stopped and the body could then heal from the damage that had been done in the meantime. In fact, the result was exactly that! Strong Western medicines could not have done better, and in fact, were discounted as solutions by those ‘in the know’ in that place.

Sri Aurobindo observes: “Illness marks some imperfection or weakness or else opening to adverse touches in the physical nature and is often connected also with some obscurity or disharmony in the lower vital or the physical mind or elsewhere.”

“It is very good if one can get rid of illness entirely by faith and Yoga-power or the influx of the Divine Force. But very often this is not altogehter possible, because the whole nature is not open or able to respond to the Force. The mind may have faith and respond, but the lower vital and the body may not follow. Or, if the mind and vital are ready, the body may not respond, or may respond only partially, because it has the habit of replying to the forces which produce a particular illness, and habit is a very obstinate force in the material part of the nature. In such cases the use of the physical means can be resorted to, — not as the main means, but as a help or material support to the action of the Force. Not strong and violent remedies, but those that are beneficial without disturbing the body.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 5, Physical Consciousness — Subconscient — Sleep and Dream — Illness, pg. 104