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=What is Health ?=Good health is the exterior expression of an inner harmony. We must be proud if we are in good health and Healing not despise it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in Relation to Other Qualities?=/cwm/15/illness-and-health#p8</ref><center>~</center>It is good health, a solid body, well poised; when one does not have the nerves of a little girl that are shaken by the least thing; when one sleeps well, eats well.... When one is quite calm, well balanced, very quiet, one has a solid basis and can receive a large number of forces. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/15-april-1953#p13</ref><center>~</center>What people generally call "healing power" is a very great mental or vital power that imposes itself through the resistance of Matter—but this isn't that at all! It's the contagion of a vibration. And then it's irrevocable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/08/july-12-1967#p23</ref>
==JoyHealth in its Natural Form==
And within... oh! It's like wavesWhen one is normal, that is to say, unspoilt by bad teaching and bad example, constantlywhen one is born and lives in a healthy and relatively balanced and normal environment, the equivalent of those nuances of color I was speaking aboutbody, spontaneously, waves of this joy of lifewithout any need for one to intervene mentally or even vitally, has the certitude that even if something goes wrong it will be cured. The body carries within itself the joy certitude of life rippling pastcure, touching; but instead of beingthe certitude that the illness or disorder is sure to disappear.It is only through the false education from the environment that gradually the body is taught that there are incurable diseases, irreparable accidents, and that it can grow old, and all these stories which destroy its faith and trust... At timesBut normally, you seethe body of a normal child—the body, I am not speaking of the thought—the body itself feels when something goes wrong that it will certainly be all right again. And if it is in a sort of equilibrium (what wenot like that, this means that it has already been perverted. It seems normal for it to be in our ordinary outer consciousness, call 'equilibrium'—that is, good health), and then this joy is constant, like swells on the sea (Mother shapes great waves): it seems quite abnormal to flow on behind everythingit if something goes wrong and it falls ill; it comes and shows in its face for a momentinstinct, its spontaneous instinct, then vanishesit is sure that everything will be all right. In It is only the very tiny things perversion of life—yesthought which destroys this; as one grows up the thought becomes more and more distorted, physical life—the joy of these thingsthere is the whole collective suggestion, the joy life containsand so, this luminouslittle by little, special kind of vibrationthe body loses its trust in itself, rises up as if to remind us that it's here; it is hereand naturally, it mustn't be forgottenlosing its self-confidence, it's here—but it's kept down by also loses the spontaneous capacity of restoring its equilibrium when thishas been disturbed... tension. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/02/march-14-1961#p11</ref>
==Harmony==If one takes care not to pervert it, the body carries within itself the certitude of victory. It is only the wrong use we make of thought and its influence on the body which robs it of this certitude of victory. So, the first thing to do is to cultivate this certitude instead of destroying it; and when it is there, no effort is needed to aspire, but simply a flowering, an unfolding of that inner certitude of victory.
For instance, that relationship The body carries within itself the sense of simplicity (like that of a child) in which you very simply ask for the thing you feel the need for, but without mental complications; without explanations, without justifications, without all that useless farrago—simply, "Oh, I would like its divinity.There.." You have, for instance, quite a special feeling towards someone or something and you would like that someone or something to be perfectly harmonious, happy (which physically This is expressed by good health or favourable circumstances), and so, spontaneously, simply, what you say, "Oh!..." (you pray), "Oh, may it be like that!" And it happens. Then the thought (the general human thought): "This has happened, therefore it's the expression of the Truth." And it becomes a principle: "This is true, this is the way things should be." But up above, in that Consciousness—that global Consciousness—in that total Harmony, those things in themselves, in their material expression ("good health," "favourable circumstances") are of no more than minor importance, so must try to say, of almost nonexistent importance: things may be this way or that or this (they may be a hundred different ways), without its making any difference to the Harmony; but this particular way is chosen because of the simple, pure, candid beauty of the aspiration—that is lovely, that is powerful find again in its simplicity. And, yourself if you know, without mental complication, without hypocrisy of any sort, without pretence of any sort: very simply, but from a luminous, pure, loving heart, without any egoism, "just like that." So that's a lovely light which has its place; and because of it, things may be this way or that (good health, favourable circumstances), it doesn't matter, it's unimportant. Human beings attach importance only to the external form, to what has manifested; they say, "Oh, this is true, since it is"—and it's ... a passing breath of air. But the cause of it, its origin has a place in that total, universal Harmony: a disinterested goodwill, love devoid of egoism, trust that doesn't argue or reason, simplicity—ingenious simplicity for which evil doesn't exist. If we could catch hold of that and keep have lost it ... That trust for which evil doesn't exist—not "trust" in what takes place here: trust up above, in that all-powerful principle of Harmony. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/agendacwm/0809/31-july-5-19671957#p51p13,p15,p16</ref>
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There are three states, we could say: the state of Harmony—that is the one we reach towards all the time, and sometimes we catch it for a few secondsphysical Nature which is perfectly harmonious, then everything works out as if by miracle; then the usual state of Disorder, in which we are constantly on the verge of something unpleasant, in a precarious balance; and when the disorder grows more visible, there is what they call has an "illness," but absolutely... how to put it isn't real. You see.. yes, we think the body is in good healthharmonious working, without any disorder, that it's balancedwithout disequilibrium, and that "something is introduced from outsidewithout any rupture of harmony, which causes you to fall illwould be expressed," but if it's not like that! We are ALWAYS off balanceexisted upon earth, the body is always off balance (more or less)by a perfect health, and it is something else, abovea growing force, a Will or a Consciousness, that holds it up continuous progress; and makes it work. So if we can call on then all that Will—that Will for Harmony—and if we can have the Flame within, that Flame of aspiration, and make contact, we emerge one would like to obtain from so-called illness, which is unreal, an unreal and false sensation and just one way of being of the general Disorder, 's body one would obtain; and we enter into Harmony, and then everything is fine. Last night I experienced this again, and that's why I can assert with certainty: all sensations are falsego as far as an almost unimaginable progress of perfection.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agendacwm/0607/july29-10june-19651955#p6p7</ref><center>~</center>A body is not a cloth—nor is a sick body a torn cloth. A body weak or sick can renew itself, recover its vitality—that happens to thousands of people. A cloth has not a renewable vitality. It is only if one is old beyond fifty-five or sixty that the renewal becomes difficult—even then health and strength can be kept or recovered enough to keep the body in a good condition. …
==Grace==The body is an instrument for the sadhana no less than the mind and vital, and it should be kept in a good condition as far as possible. Not to care for the body, thinking it is of no importance compared with the inner state, is not the rule of this Yoga. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p34</ref>
You see, it's a light with several degrees, and in But to tell the most material it's slightly... it must be truth (the supramental force, because it's slightly golden, slightly pinkish (you know that light), but very, very pale. One of them (gesture pointing to another, higher layer) is white like milk, opaque—it's very strong. And there's another (gesture very high) which is white like... it's transparent light. With that one, it's strange: one drop true truth of it on the hostile forces, and they're dissolved. They melt like this (gesture before one's very eyes). what I said all that to Sri Aurobindo, he completely confirmed it. That's essentially the Grace in its... (gesture very highKNOW) supreme state. It's a Light... it has no color, you know, it's transparent, and that Light (I have experienced that, I mention it because I know it), if you put it on a hostile being... it melts like that. Itdon's extraordinary.... And then, in its "benevolent" form, as we might call it (that is to say, the Grace helping and assisting and healing), itt think there's white like milk. And if I want any climate a wholly material action (but this is quite recent—itbody can's since this new Consciousness came), then in its physical action, on the physical, it's become slightly colored: it's luminous, golden with some pink in it, but it's not pink... (Mother takes a hibiscus next t adapt to her). It's like this. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/1103/julymay-1129-19701962#p54p13</ref>
=Why is =Misunderstandings of Health and Healing Important?==
GoodOf course injections are all the fashion; for everything it is "inject, inject and again inject". ThatMedicine has gone through three stages in modern times—first (at the beginning in Molière's days) it was "bleed and douche", then "drug and diet", now it is "serum and injection". Praise the Lord! not for the one thing needed—importantillnesses, very important: but for the doctors. However each of these formulas has a part truth behind it—with its advantages and disadvantages. As all religions and philosophies point to keep the body Supreme but each in a different direction, so all medical fashions are ways to health—though they don't always reach it. <ref>https://incarnateword.in good /cwsa/31/doctors-and-medicines#p20</ref><center>~</center>Doctors advise marriage because they think satisfaction of the sexual instinct is necessary for the healthand repression causes disturbances in the system. This is true only when there is no true giving up of the sexual indulgence, but only a change in the way of indulging it. Nowadays a sort new theory has come up which confirms the Indian theory of balanceBrahmacharya, viz. We must keep our balancethat by continence ''retas'' can be changed into ''ojas'' and the vigour and power of the being enormously increase. Very important<ref>http://incarnateword. The rest doesnin/cwsa/31/sex#p72</ref><center>~</center>Health protected by twenty thousand precautions is the gospel of the doctor; but it is not God't matter!s evangel for the body, nor Nature's. [Based on Aphorism 399] <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agendacwm/0410/julyaphorism-394-395-396-397-24398-1963399#p40p6</ref>
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"Of course you are rightIt depends on the consciousness [whether one wants to ''live'' a long life]. As it is, at present, most people do not get tired of life; they die because they must, therenot because they want to—at least, when you say that one should seek is true of the Divine vital; it is only a minority that tire of life and for his own sakemany of these it is due to the discomforts of old age, continued ill-health, misfortune. For you Supposing a consciousness descended in the body that got rid of these discomforts, would people, it's easy to understand since you are bathing get tired of life in this atmosphere herethe same way merely because of its length or would they have some source of perpetual interest within as well as without that would keep them on—that is the question. But for Of course physical immortality would not mean that one is tied down to the Western manbody, a proof but that one is needednot subject to disease and death, he wants to know what he but can keep or leave the body at will gain! The easiest and most striking thing to demonstrate is healing. There. It's really quite simple. I don't know if you understand whether Ashwatthaman lives on because he cannot die or because he won't die—whether itis for him a doom or a privilege. ChristThere are by the way animals that live for many centuries, too, did but as they have not the philosophic mind the same thing!" question for them does not arise—probably they take it as a matter of course. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/agendacwsa/1028/octobertransformation-and-25the-1969body#p12p35</ref>
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It is in good You ask me whether your illness comes from yoga. By no means—far from damaging health, yoga helps to build up a health that the way towards transformation is foundrobust and unfailing.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/illness-and-health#p5p1</ref>
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As There is a result sort of traditional belief in many minds that the practice of this new relation between Yoga is inimical to the Spirit and health of the body, the gnostic evolution will effectuate the spiritualisation, perfection and fulfilment tends to have a bad effect of one kind or another and even finally leads to a premature or an early dropping of the physical being; it will do for the body as for . Ramakrishna seems to have held the mind and life. Apart view, if we can judge from his remarks about the obscurity, frailties connection between Keshav Sen's progress in spirituality and limitations, the illness which this change will overcomeundermined him, that one was the body-consciousness is a patient servant result and can be in its large reserve of possibilities a potent instrument the desirable result of the individual lifeother, a liberation and it asks for little on its own account: what it craves for is duration, health, strength, physical perfection, bodily happiness, liberation release from sufferinglife in this world, easemukti. These demands are That may or may not in themselves unacceptable, mean or illegitimate, for they render into the terms be; but I find it difficult to believe that illness and deterioration of Matter the perfection of form and substance, body is the power natural and delight which should be general result of the natural outflowing, practice of Yoga or that that practice is the expressive manifestation cause of an inevitable breakdown of health or of the Spirit. When the gnostic Force can act in final illnesses which bring about their departure from the body, these things . On what ground are we to suppose or how can it be established; for their opposites come proved that while non-Yogis suffer from a pressure ill health and die because of external forces on the physical minddisorders of Nature, on the nervous Yogis die of their Yoga? Unless a direct connection between their death and their practice of Yoga can be proved—and this could be proved with certainty only in particular cases and material life, on the body organism, from even then not with an ignorance that does not know how absolute certainty—there is no sufficient reason to meet these forces or believe in such a difference. It is not able more rational to meet them rightly or with power, conclude that both Yogis and non-Yogis fall ill and die from some obscuritynatural causes and by the same dispensation of Nature; one might even advance the view, pervading since they have the stuff of Yoga Shakti at their disposal if they choose to use it, that the physical consciousness Yogi falls ill and distorting its responsesdies not because of but in spite of his Yoga. At any rate, I don't believe that reacts Ramakrishna (or any other Yogi) fell ill because of his trances; there is nothing to them show that he ever suffered in that way after a wrong waytrance. A supramental self-acting self-effectuating awareness and knowledge, replacing this ignorance, will liberate and restore I think it is said somewhere or he himself said that the obscured and spoiled intuitive instincts cancer in his throat of which he died came by his swallowing the body and enlighten and supplement them with a greater conscious action. This change would institute and maintain a right physical perception sins of things, a right relation his disciples and right reaction to objects and energiesthose who approached him: that again may or may not be, a right rhythm of mind, nerve and organismbut it will be his own peculiar case. It would bring into is no doubt possible to draw the body a higher spiritual power illnesses of others upon oneself and a greater life-force unified with the universal life-force and able even to draw on do it, a luminous harmony with material Nature and deliberately; the vast and calm touch instance of the eternal repose which can give to it its diviner strength Greek king Antigonus and easehis son Dimitrius is a famous historical case in point. Above all,—for Yogis also do this is sometimes; or else adverse forces may throw illnesses upon the most needed and fundamental changeYogi,—it will flood using those round him as a door or a passage or the whole being with a supreme energy ill wishes of Consciousness-Force which would meetpeople as an instrumental force. But all these are special circumstances connected, no doubt, assimilate or harmonise with itself all the forces his practice of existence that surround and press upon Yoga; but they do not establish the bodygeneral proposition as an absolute rule.<ref>http://incarnatewordA tendency such as X's to desire or welcome or accept death as a release could have a force because of her advanced spiritual consciousness which it would not have in ordinary people.in/cwsa/22/the-gnostic-being#p24</ref>
==Positive Effects On the other side there can be an opposite use and result of Health the Yogic consciousness: illness can be repelled from one’s own body or cured, even chronic or deep-seated illnesses and long-established constitutional defects remedied or expelled and even a predestined death delayed for a long period. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and Healing==-health#p8</ref>
For =What is Health in Different Parts of Being?=It is evident that if spiritual force exists, it must be able to produce spiritual results—therefore there is no irrationality in the claim of those sadhaks who say that they feel the force of the Guru or the force of the Divine working in them and leading towards spiritual fulfilment and experience. Whether it is so or not in a few daysparticular case is a personal question, but the statement cannot be denounced as per se incredible and manifestly false because such things cannot be. Farther, if it be true that spiritual force is the original one and the others are derivative from it, then there is no irrationality in supposing that spiritual force can produce mental results, vital results, physical results. It may act through mental, vital or physical energies and through the means which these energies use, or itmay act directly on mind, life or matter as the field of its own special and immediate action. Either way is ''prima facie''s becoming increasingly establishedpossible. In a case of cure of illness, someone is lying ill for two days, weak, there suffering from pains and fever; he takes no medicine but finally asks for cure from his Guru; the next morning he rises well, strong and energetic. He has at least some justification for thinking that a force has been used on him and put into him and that it was a spiritual power that acted. But in another case medicines may be used, while at the same time the invisible force may be called for to aid the material means, for it is a known fact that medicines may or may not succeed—there is no certitude. Here for the reason of an outside observer (one who is neither the user of the force nor the doctor nor the patient) it remains uncertain whether the patient was cured by the medicines only or by the spiritual force with the medicines as an impression instrument. Either is possible, and it cannot be said that because medicines were used, therefore the working of a spiritual force is per se incredible and demonstrably false. On the other hand it is possible for the doctor to have felt a force working in him and guiding him or he may see the patient improving with a rapidity which, according to medical science, is incredible. The patient may feel the force working in himself bringing health , energy, rapid cure. The user of the force may watch the results, see the symptoms he works on diminishing, those he did not work upon increasing till he does work on them and then immediately diminishing, the doctor working according to his unspoken suggestions, etc. etc. until the cure is done. (On the other hand he may see forces working against the cure and conclude that the spiritual force has to be contented with a withdrawal or an imperfect success.) In all that the doctor, the patient or the user of force is justified in believing that the cure is at least partly or even fundamentally due to the spiritual force. Their experience is valid of course for themselves only, not for the outside rationalising observer. But the latter is not logically entitled to say that their experience is incredible and must be false. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/the-divine-force#p2</ref>==Physical==To whatever cause an illness may be due, material or mental, external or internal, it must, before it can affect the physical body, touch another layer of the being that surrounds and protects it. This subtler layer is called in different teachings by various names,—the etheric body, the nervous envelope. It is a choice (to express subtle body and yet almost visible. In density something like the vibrations that you see around a very hot and steaming object, it emanates from the physical body and closely covers it. All communications with the exterior world are made through this medium, and it simply)is this that must be invaded and penetrated first before the body can be affected. If this envelope is absolutely strong and intact, you can go into places infested with the worst of diseases, even plague and cholera, and remain quite immune. A choice It is a perfect protection against all possible attacks of every minuteillness, so long as it is whole and entire, thoroughly consistent in its composition, its elements in faultless balance. For this This bodyis built up, on the one side, of a material basis, but rather of material conditions than of physical matter, at any rateon the other, of the vibrations of our psychological states. Peace and equanimity and confidence, faith in health, that's how undisturbed repose and cheerfulness and bright gladness constitute this element in it and give it strength and substance. It isa very sensitive medium with facile and quick reactions. ..<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agendacwm/0903/16-june-15-19681929#p15p11</ref>
==Why Vital==It's a vital that's very intense in its desires (which may not be ordinary desires at all), but with a sort of almost aggressive intensity, and... essentially dissatisfied. ...But every time the vital comes into play (and one is obliged to let the vital play because of the physical health; one can't "calm" it down totally because that would make the physical body suffer), it's like that.... <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/06/december-31-1965#p16</ref><center>~</center>...but in order for you to be completely cured, your vital must be converted, and what I call "to be converted" isn't to surrender—to be converted is to understand. To be converted is to adhere.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/06/december-31-1965#p52</ref><center>~</center>We are aware of a vitality working in this bodily form and structure as in the plant or lower animal, a vital existence which is also for the most part subconscious to us, for we only observe some of its movements and reactions. We are partly aware of its operations, but not by any means of all or most of them, and rather of those which are abnormal than those which are normal; its wants impress themselves more forcibly upon us than its satisfactions, its diseases and disorders than its health and its regular rhythm, its death is more poignant to us than its life is vivid: we know as much of it as we can consciously observe and use or as much as forces itself upon us by pain and pleasure and other sensations or as a cause of nervous or physical reaction and disturbance, but no more. Accordingly, we suppose that this vital-physical part of us also is not conscious of its own operations or has only a suppressed consciousness or no-consciousness like the plant or an inchoate consciousness like the incipient animal; it becomes conscious only so far as it is enlightened by mind and observable by intelligence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-boundaries-of-the-ignorance#p6</ref> ==Mind==Finally, the body obeys the mind automatically in those things in which it is formed or trained to obey it, but the relation of the body to the mind is not in all things that of an automatic perfect instrument. The body also has a consciousness of its own and, though it is a submental instrument or servant consciousness, it can disobey or fail to obey as well. In many things, in matters of health and illness for instance, in all automatic functionings, the body acts on its own and is not a servant of the mind. If it is Important fatigued, it can offer a passive resistance to the mind's will. It can cloud the mind with tamas, inertia, dullness, fumes of the subconscient so that the mind cannot act. The arm lifts itself no doubt when it gets the suggestion, but at first the legs do not obey when they are asked to Resolve walk; they have to learn how to leave the Rift Between Two Different Beingscrawling attitude and movement and take up the erect and ambulatory habit. When you first ask the hand to draw a straight line or to play music, it can't do it and won't do it. It has to be schooled, trained, taught, and afterwards it does automatically what is required of it. All this proves that there is a body consciousness different from the mind consciousness which can do things at the mind's order but has to be awakened, trained, made a good and conscious instrument. It can even be so trained that a mental will or suggestion can cure the illnesses of the body. But all these things, these relations of mind and body, stand on the same footing in essence as the relation of mind to vital and it is not so easy or primary a matter as Augustine would have it. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/the-mind#p30</ref>=What is Health in Relation to Other Qualities?= ==Joy==
The moral And within... oh! It's like waves, constantly, the equivalent of those nuances of color I was speaking about, waves of this joy of life, the condition you describe is not that Yoga should not be done joy of life rippling past, touching; but that you have to go on steadily healing the rift between the two parts instead of the being. The division is very usual... At times, almost universal in human natureyou see, and the following of the lower impulse body is in spite a sort of the contrary will equilibrium (what we, in our ordinary outer consciousness, call 'equilibrium'—that is, good health), and then this joy is constant, like swells on the higher parts happens sea (''Mother shapes great waves''): it seems to almost everybodyflow on behind everything; it comes and shows its face for a moment, then vanishes. It is In the very tiny things of life—yes, physical life—the joy of these things, the phenomenon noted by Arjuna in his question to Krishnajoy life contains, "Why does one do evilthis luminous, even though one wishes not to do itspecial kind of vibration, rises up as if compelled to remind us that it's here; it by force?"is here, it mustn't be forgotten, and expressed sententiously it's here—but it's kept down by Ovid, "video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor"this... By constant effort and aspiration one can arrive at a turning point when the psychic asserts itself and what seems a very slight psychological change or reversal alters the whole balance of the naturetension. <ref>httpshttp://incarnateword.in/cwsaagenda/2802/themarch-psychic14-being1961#p86p11</ref>
==Role in Integral YogaHarmony==
The first time I came here have said that from a young age children should be taught to respect good health, physical strength and spoke with Sri Aurobindo about what was needed balance. The great importance of beauty must also be emphasised. A young child should aspire for beauty, not for the Worksake of pleasing others or winning their admiration, he told me (he also wrote it to me) that but for the love of beauty itself; for beauty is the ideal which all physical life must realise. Every human being has the secure achievement possibility of establishing harmony among the Work we would need three powers: one was different parts of his body and in the power over health, various movements of the second was body in action. Every human body that undergoes a rational method of culture from the power over government, very beginning of its existence can realise its own harmony and thus become fit to manifest beauty. When we speak of the third was the power over moneyother aspects of an integral education, we shall see what inner conditions are to be fulfilled so that this beauty can one day be manifested. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/agendacwm/0112/july-6physical-1958education#p10p12</ref>
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But There are three states, we could say: the effect on me state of Harmony—that is odd: I have the impression that I am ill—there's nothing wrong with meone we reach towards all the time, and sometimes we catch it for a few seconds, then everything works out as if by miracle; then the usual state of Disorder, I am in good healthwhich we are constantly on the verge of something unpleasant, yet I have in a constant impression of being illprecarious balance; and when the disorder grows more visible, there is what they call an "illness," but it isn't real.The truth You see, we think the body isin good health, that it's the transition balanced, and that "something is introduced from the ordinary mental consciousness outside, which causes you to fall ill," but it's not like that! We are ALWAYS off balance, the supramental consciousnessbody is always off balance (more or less), and it is something else, above, a Will or a Consciousness, that holds it up and makes it work. The mental consciousness panics in So if we can call on that Will—that Will for Harmony—and if we can have the presence Flame within, that Flame of aspiration, and make contact, we emerge from so-called illness, which is unreal, an unreal and false sensation and just one way of being of the supramental consciousnessgeneral Disorder, and we enter into Harmony, and then everything is fine. The vibration is so different Last night I feel one could die every minute. Only when experienced this again, and that's why I am very tranquil...can assert with certainty: all sensations are false. <ref>httpshttp://incarnateword.in/agenda/1306/marchjuly-1410-19731965#p7-p8p6</ref>
=What Happens when Why is Health and Healing is Not PresentImportant?=
Usually, unless That's the one has taken good care to make it otherwisething needed—important, the impulses—the impulses of desire—all the enthusiasms and passions with all their reactions are the masters of human life. One must already be something of a sage to be able very important: to undergo a rigorous discipline of keep the body and obtain from it the orderedin good health, regular effort which can perfect itin a sort of balance. There is no longer any room there for all the fancies of desireWe must keep our balance. You see, as soon as one gives way to excesses, to immoderation of any kind and a disorderly life, it becomes quite impossible to control one's body and develop it normally, not to mention that, naturally, one spoils one's health and as a result the most Very important part of the ideal of a perfect body disappears; for with bad health, impaired health, one is not much good for anything. And it is certainly the satisfaction of desires and impulses of the vital or the unreasonable demands of certain ambitions which make the body suffer and fall ill. The rest doesn't matter!<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmagenda/0904/8july-may24-19571963#p3p40</ref>
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What is not good is too much preoccupation with itI heard the authentic story of one of these African women who are accustomed to walk for miles carrying heavy loads. She was pregnant and the time of delivery came during one of the day's marches. She sat on the side of the track, anxietyunder a tree, despondency in illness etc.gave birth to the child, waited for these things only favour half an hour, then she rose and adding the prolongation of illnew-health or weaknessborn babe to the former luggage, went on her way quietly, as if nothing had happened. For such things as the liver attacks treatment This is a splendid example of what a woman can always be taken do when necessaryshe is in full possession of her health and strength. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3112/illnessto-andwomen-about-their-healthbody#p81p46</ref>
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All ill-health is due to some inertia or weakness or Do not forget that to some resistance or wrong movement there [succeed in the vital], only it has sometimes our yoga one must have a more physical strong and sometimes a more psychological characterhealthy body. ... Medicines can counteract It is in good health that the physical resultsway towards transformation is found.<ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3115/doctorsillness-and-medicineshealth#p6p3,p5</ref>
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The habit you speak of is exceedingly harmful first time I came here and dangerous; it wastes the energy that should be preserved spoke with Sri Aurobindo about what was needed for the sadhana; Work, he told me (he also wrote it tends to weaken me) that for the mind, dislocate secure achievement of the consciousness, exhaust Work we would need three powers: one was the nervous powerover health, diminish the life-forcesecond was the power over government, create inertia and impotence in the body. The excitations etc. that accompany it build up nothing; their tendency is to disintegrate. Often third was the result of this habit is to destroy the health and bring in undermining illnesses—it always does so when there is unrestrained indulgencepower over money. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsaagenda/3101/sexjuly-6-1958#p172p10</ref>
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If to anyone among you X says has received spiritual forces, forces of the Divine Ananda, for example, he knows from experience that her suffering and ill-unless he is in good health are due he cannot contain them, keep them. He begins to your behaviourweep and cry, gets restless to Y she expend what he has said it is all due to the bad room she has got! In fact it is due to her vital cherishing desires received. He must laugh and talk and getting disappointed because they are not fulfilled. If one cherishes desiresgesticulate, there is bound to be disappointment and sufferingotherwise he cannot keep them, especially if at the same time one does Yoga and takes up the spiritual lifehe feels stifled. For such desiresAnd so by laughing, weeping, demand for vital affection and love from men and demand for physical comforts are not consistent with the spirit of Yoga in which one must turn one's heart to the Divine and be vitally pure and in physical things must be content with moving about he throws out what one gets and equal-minded in all conditionshe has received. You were quite right in telling her that these outer demands should be given up altogether. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/desire#p37</ref>
==What To be well balanced, to be able to absorb what one receives, one must be very quiet, very calm. One must have a solid basis, good health. One must have a very solid basis. That is Illness?==very important.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/15-april-1953#p14,p15</ref><center>~</center>As a result of this new relation between the Spirit and the body, the gnostic evolution will effectuate the spiritualisation, perfection and fulfilment of the physical being; it will do for the body as for the mind and life. Apart from the obscurity, frailties and limitations, which this change will overcome, the body-consciousness is a patient servant and can be in its large reserve of possibilities a potent instrument of the individual life, and it asks for little on its own account: what it craves for is duration, health, strength, physical perfection, bodily happiness, liberation from suffering, ease. These demands are not in themselves unacceptable, mean or illegitimate, for they render into the terms of Matter the perfection of form and substance, the power and delight which should be the natural outflowing, the expressive manifestation of the Spirit. When the gnostic Force can act in the body, these things can be established; for their opposites come from a pressure of external forces on the physical mind, on the nervous and material life, on the body organism, from an ignorance that does not know how to meet these forces or is not able to meet them rightly or with power, and from some obscurity, pervading the stuff of the physical consciousness and distorting its responses, that reacts to them in a wrong way. A supramental self-acting self-effectuating awareness and knowledge, replacing this ignorance, will liberate and restore the obscured and spoiled intuitive instincts in the body and enlighten and supplement them with a greater conscious action. This change would institute and maintain a right physical perception of things, a right relation and right reaction to objects and energies, a right rhythm of mind, nerve and organism. It would bring into the body a higher spiritual power and a greater life-force unified with the universal life-force and able to draw on it, a luminous harmony with material Nature and the vast and calm touch of the eternal repose which can give to it its diviner strength and ease. Above all,—for this is the most needed and fundamental change,—it will flood the whole being with a supreme energy of Consciousness-Force which would meet, assimilate or harmonise with itself all the forces of existence that surround and press upon the body. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-gnostic-being#p24</ref>
=What is Illness?= I have told you first of all that all illness without any exception—without exception—is the expression of a break in equilibrium… First, I am speaking only of the body, I am not speaking of the nervous illnesses of the vital or of mental illnesses… That is, if all your organs, all the members and parts of your body are in harmony with one another, you are in perfect health. But if there is the slightest imbalance anywhere, immediately you get either just a little ill or quite ill, even very badly ill, or else an accident occurs. That always happens whenever there is an inner imbalance. … First of all, from the point of view of the body—just the body—there are two kinds of disequilibrium: functional and organic. I do not know if you are aware of the difference between the two; but you have organs and then you have all the parts of your body: nerves, muscles, bones and all the rest. Now, if an organ by itself is in disequilibrium, it is an organic disequilibrium, and you are told: that organ is ill or perhaps it is badly formed or it is not normal or an accident has occurred to it. But it is the organ that is ill. But the organ may be in a very good condition, all your organs may be in a very good condition, but there is still an illness as they do not function properly: there is a lack of balance in the functioning. You may have a very good stomach, but suddenly something happens to it and it does not function properly; or the body may also be excellent, but something happens to it and it does not work properly any more. Then you have an illness due to functional imbalance not organic imbalance.<ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/22-july-1953#p29,p31</ref>
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“An illness of the body is always the outer expression and translation of a disorder, a disharmony in the inner being; unless this inner disorder is healed, the outer cure cannot be total and permanent.” <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/inner-causes-of-illness#p12</ref><center>~</center>"Disease" no longer means anything, it really doesn't: it's distortions of vibrations and shiftings of vibrations, and... (what can I call it?) encrustations—from the point of view of movement, it's like bottlenecks, and from the point of view of the cell, it's like encrustations: it's what remains of the old Inertia out of which we came.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/05/november-28-1964#p9</ref>
==What is Resistanceare the Causes of Ill-health?==
You have resistances The origin of an illness may be in the mind; it may be in the vital; it may be in your body, haven't you? When you want any of the parts of the being. One and the same illness may be due to do a variety of causes; it may spring in different cases from different sources of disharmony. And there may be too an exerciseappearance of illness where there is no real illness at all. In that case, can if you do with your body whatever are sufficiently conscious, you want? And when will see that there is just a friction somewhere, some halting in the movement, and by setting it right you try to will be cured at once. This kind of malady has no truth in good healthit, does your body always obey? And even when you want it seems to learn your lesson, does your brain follow it without difficulty?.have physical effects.. That It is the resistance, it is all that refuses to progress. And I believe that unfortunately the amount half made up of resistance is much greater than imagination and has not the amount of receptivitysame grip on matter as a true illness. One must work very hard to become receptive. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/16-september-1953#p28</ref>
=Why In short, the sources of an illness are manifold and intricate; each can have a multitude of causes, but always it indicates where is the weak part in the being. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/16-june-1929#p9,p10</ref><center>~</center>Usually, unless one has taken good care to make it otherwise, the impulses—the impulses of desire—all the enthusiasms and passions with all their reactions are the masters of human life. One must already be something of a sage to be able to undergo a rigorous discipline of the body and obtain from it the ordered, regular effort which can perfect it. There is no longer any room there for all the fancies of desire. You see, as soon as one gives way to excesses, to immoderation of any kind and a disorderly life, it becomes quite impossible to control one's body and develop it normally, not to mention that, naturally, one spoils one's health and as a result the most important part of the ideal of a perfect body disappears; for with bad health, impaired health, one is not much good for anything. And it is certainly the satisfaction of desires and impulses of the vital or the unreasonable demands of certain ambitions which make the body suffer and fall ill. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/8-may-1957#p3</ref><center>~</center>If one cherishes desires, there is bound to be disappointment and suffering, especially if at the same time one does Yoga and takes up the spiritual life. For such desires, demand for vital affection and love from men and demand for physical comforts are not consistent with the spirit of Yoga in which one must turn one's heart to the Divine and be vitally pure and in physical things must be content with what one gets and equal-minded in all conditions. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/desire#p37</ref><center>~</center>All ill-health is due to some inertia or weakness or to some resistance or wrong movement there [in the vital], only it has sometimes a more physical and sometimes a more psychological character. Medicines can counteract the physical results. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/doctors-and-medicines#p6</ref><center>~</center>In other cases, if the body lacks receptivity altogether or if its receptivity is insufficient, one sees the inner correspondence with the psychological state which has brought about the illness and acts on that. But if the cause of the illness is refractory, not much can be done. Let us say the origin is vital. The vital absolutely refuses to change, it clings terrifically to the condition in which it is; then that is Health hopeless. You put the force, and Healing Important usually it provokes an increase in the illness, produced by the resistance of the vital which did not want to accept anything. I speak of the vital but it can be the mind or something else. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/31-march-1951#p12</ref><center>~</center>It's something in the subconscient—in the cells' subconscient. Its roots are there, and on the least occasion ... And it's so very, very ingrained that ... For example, you can be feeling very good, the body can be perfectly harmonious (and when the body is perfectly harmonious, its motions are harmonious, things are in their true places, everything works exactly as it should without needing the least attention—a general harmony), when suddenly the clock strikes, for Physical Wellexample, or someone utters a word, and you have just the faint impression 'Oh, it's late, I'm not going to be on time'—a second, a split second, and ... the whole working of the body falls apart. You suddenly feel feeble, drained, uneasy. And you have to intervene. It's terrible. And we're at the mercy of such things! To change it, you have to descend into it—which is what I'm in the midst of doing. But you know, it makes for painful moments. Anyway, once it's done, it will be something. When that is done, I'll explain it to you. And then I'll have the power to restore you to health.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/november-5-Being?=1960#p12,p13</ref>
If this envelope is absolutely strong and intact, you can go into places infested with the worst of diseases, even plague and cholera, and remain quite immune. It is a perfect protection against all possible attacks of illness, so long as it is whole and entire, thoroughly consistent in its composition, its elements in faultless balance.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/16-june-1929#p11</ref>=How to Cultivate Good Health?=
=How Care should be taken of the body certainly, the care that is needed for its good condition, rest, sleep, proper food, sufficient exercise… <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p81</ref><center>~</center>So far I have referred only to the education to be given to children; for a good many bodily defects can be rectified and many malformations avoided by an enlightened physical education given at the proper time. But if for any reason this physical education has not been given during childhood or even in youth, it can begin at any age and be pursued throughout life. But the later one begins, the more one must be prepared to meet bad habits that have to be corrected, rigidities to be made supple, malformations to be rectified. And this preparatory work will require much patience and perseverance before one can start on a constructive programme for the harmonisation of the form and its movements. But if you keep alive within you the ideal of beauty that is to be realised, sooner or later you are sure to reach the goal you have set yourself. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/physical-education#p13</ref><center>~</center>In all cases, as well for boys as for girls, the exercises must be graded according to the strength and the capacity of each one. If a weak student tries at once to do hard and heavy exercises, he may suffer for his foolishness. But with a wise and progressive training, girls as well as boys can participate in all kinds of sports, and thus increase their strength and health.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/to-women-about-their-body#p39</ref><center>~</center>You are young, you have plenty of time before you. And to be young, to be really young, we must always, always keep on growing, developing, progressing. Growth is the sign of youthfulness and there is no limit to the growth of consciousness. I know old people of twenty and young people of fifty, sixty, seventy. And if one does manual work, one keeps in good health. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/13/aspiration-talks#p23</ref><center>~</center>To this general education of the senses and their functioning there will be added, as early as possible, the cultivation of discrimination and of the aesthetic sense, the capacity to choose and adopt what is beautiful and harmonious, simple, healthy and pure. For there is a psychological health just as there is a Physical health, a beauty and harmony of the sensations as of the body and its movements. As the capacity of understanding grows in the child, he should be taught, in the course of his education, to add artistic taste and refinement to power and precision. He should be shown, led to appreciate, taught to love beautiful, lofty, healthy and noble things, whether in Nature or in human creation. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/vital-education#p11</ref><center>~</center>The body in its normal state, that is to say, when there is no intervention of mental notions or vital impulses, also knows very well what is good and necessary for it; but for this to be effective in practice, one must educate the child with care and teach him to distinguish his desires from his needs. He should be helped to develop a taste for food that is simple and healthy, substantial and appetising, but free from any useless complications. In his daily food, all that merely stuffs and causes heaviness should be avoided; and above all, he must be taught to eat according to his hunger, neither more nor less, and not to Cultivate Health make his meals an occasion to satisfy his greed or gluttony. From one's very childhood, one should know that one eats in order to give strength and health to the body and not to enjoy the pleasures of the palate. Children should be given food that suits their temperament, prepared in a way that ensures hygiene and cleanliness, that is pleasant to the taste and yet very simple. This food should be chosen and apportioned according to the age of the child and his regular activities. It should contain all the chemical and dynamic elements that are necessary for his development and the balanced growth of every part of his body.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/12/physical-education#p7</ref><center>~</center>This is the Higher Mind in its aspect of cognition; but there is also the aspect of will, of dynamic effectuation of the Truth: here we find that this greater more brilliant Mind works always on the rest of the being, the mental will, the heart and its feelings, the life, the body, through the power of thought, through the idea-force. It seeks to purify through knowledge, to deliver through knowledge, to create by the innate power of knowledge. The idea is put into the heart or the life as a force to be accepted and worked out; the heart and life become conscious of the idea and respond to its dynamisms and their substance begins to modify itself in that sense, so that the feelings and actions become the vibrations of this higher wisdom, are informed with it, filled with the emotion and the sense of it: the will and the life impulses are similarly charged with its power and its urge of self-effectuation; even in the body the idea works so that, for example, the potent thought and will of health replaces its faith in illness and its consent to illness, or the idea of strength calls in the substance, power, motion, vibration of strength; the idea generates the force and form proper to the idea and imposes it on our substance of mind, life or matter. It is in this way that the first working proceeds; it charges the whole being with a new and Healing?=superior consciousness, lays a foundation of change, prepares it for a superior truth of existence. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-ascent-towards-supermind#p23</ref>
==What are the Prerequisites?==
Health naturally depends upon …whatever the effort, whatever the difficulty, whatever time it takes, whatever number of lives, you must know that all this doesn't matter: you KNOW you ARE the Master, that the Master and you are the sadhana; but even same. All that 's necessary is ... to know it INTEGRALLY, and nothing must belie it. That's the way out. When I tell people that their health depends on their inner life (an intermediate inner life, not so sure: there are other factorsthe deepest), it's because of this. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/julyoctober-625-19581960#p11p59,p60</ref>
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…whatever the effortIn its normal state, whatever the difficulty, whatever time body always feels that it takes, whatever number of lives, you must know that all this doesn't matteris not its own master: you KNOW you ARE illnesses invade it without its really being able to resist them—a thousand factors impose themselves or exert pressure upon it. Its sole power is the Masterpower to defend itself, that to react. Once the Master illness has got in, it can fight and you are overcome it—even modern medicine has acknowledged that the same. All that's necessary body is ... cured only when it decides to know get cured; it INTEGRALLYis not the drugs per se that heal, and nothing must belie it. Thatfor if the ailment is temporarily suppressed by a drug without the body's will, it grows up again elsewhere in some other form until the way outbody itself has decided to be cured. When I tell people that their health depends on their inner life (But this implies only a defensive power, the power to react against an intermediate inner lifeinvading enemy—it is not true freedom. But with the supramental manifestation, not something new has taken place in the body: it feels it is its own master, autonomous, with its two feet solidly on the deepest)ground, as it's because were. This gives a physical impression of thisthe whole being suddenly drawing itself up, with its head lifted high—I am my own master.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/october-2517-19601957#p59-p60p3,p4</ref>
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Obviously, logically you are right, because You may have a physical aspiration also; that the body may feel the need to acquire a kind of equipoise in which all the healing capacity is there; so if one has parts of the healing capacitybeing will be well balanced, there is and that you may have the capacity power to remedy wear hold off illness at a distance or overcome it fast when it enters trickily, and tearthat the body may always function normally, harmoniously, in perfect health. ObviouslyThat is a physical aspiration.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agendacwm/1105/march7-25october-19701953#p79p11</ref>
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You may have a physical aspiration also; The faith in spiritual things that is asked of the body may feel the need to acquire sadhak is not an ignorant but a luminous faith, a kind of equipoise faith in which all the parts of the being will be well balanced, light and that you may have not in darkness. It is called blind by the power sceptical intellect because it refuses to hold off illness at a distance be guided by outer appearances or overcome seeming facts,—for it fast when it enters trickilylooks to the truth behind, —and does not walk on the crutches of proof and that the body may always function normallyevidence. It is an intuition, harmoniously—an intuition not only waiting for experience to justify it, but leading towards experience. If I believe in perfect health. That is self-healing, I shall after a physical aspirationtime find out the way to heal myself—if I have faith in transformation, I can end by laying my hand on and unravelling the whole process of transformation. But if I begin with doubt and go on with more doubt, how far am I likely to go on the journey?<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/0528/7doubt-octoberand-1953faith#p11p29</ref>
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The faith in For the spiritual things that life to give and not to demand is asked of the rule. The sadhak is not an ignorant but a luminous faith, a faith in light and not in darkness. It is called blind by however can ask for the sceptical intellect because it refuses Divine Force to be guided by outer appearances aid him in keeping his health or seeming facts,—for recovering it looks to the truth behind,—and if he does not walk on the crutches that as part of proof his sadhana so that his body may be able and evidence. It is an intuition,—an intuition not only waiting fit for experience to justify it, but leading towards experience. If I believe in self-healing, I shall after a time find out the way to heal myself—if I have faith in transformation, I can end by laying my hand on spiritual life and unravelling a capable instrument for the whole process of transformationDivine Work. But if I begin with doubt and go on with more doubt, how far am I likely to go on the journey? <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2829/doubtseeking-andthe-faithdivine#p29p6</ref>
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The Hathayogic method is to bring an immense vital force into the body and by this and by certain processes keep it strong and in good health and a capable instrument.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/transformation-and-the-body#p4</ref><center>~</center>For the spiritual life to give and not to demand is the rule. The sadhak however can ask for the Divine Force to aid him in keeping his health or recovering it if he does that as part of his sadhana so that his body may be able and fit for the spiritual life and a capable instrument for the Divine Work. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/29/seeking-the-divine#p8</ref><center>~</center>Whatever it may be—the power of the illness to prevent the sadhana ought not to exist. The Yogic consciousness and its activities must be there whether there is health or illness.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p1</ref>
==What is the ProcessHow to Deal with Pain?==
You know, in a very precise, material and detailed way I am developing the power to To heal. I don[''t do it deliberately, thatillness's just how it is. And then (laughing), I am given opportunities to test, to experiment on my own body—there's always something ] by the matter. Suddenly something goes wrong and I apply my hand, or simply do a concentration, some movement or other, and everything disappears—but materially: true force is obviously the power to heal. You know, I apply my hand and then best—provided the Force goes throughbody is amenable. It's very interesting. Only (laughing), I am the laboratory! That's not so funnyhas a consciousness of its own which must be fully enlightened before it gives a full response. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agendacwsa/0731/marchdoctors-2and-1966medicines#p6p1</ref>
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But I know in an absolute way that once this whole mass of It is only by emerging from the physical mind is mastered 's prison and consciously soaring into the Brahmic consciousness is brought into it in light of the spirit that, through a continuous wayconscious union with the Divine, you CAN ... you become we will be able to let Him give us back the MASTER of your balance and healthwhich we have lost. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/0111/octobermarch-2518-19601970#p51p10</ref>
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I went down into a place ... a place simply in the human consciousness, thus necessarily in my body ... I have never seen anything more timorous, fearful, feeble and mean! It's ... it must be a part of the cells, part of the consciousness, something that lives in apprehension, fear, dread, anxiety ... It was truly, truly dreadful. And we carry that within us! We aren't aware of it, it's almost subconscious—for you see, the consciousness … what is there to prevent us from yielding to that—it's cowardly, and it can make you fall sick IN A MINUTE. I saw it, I saw things that had been cured and overcome in myself (cured in the true manner, not in an outer way), and then they return! It's cured, but then it begins again.So then I went in search of its origin. It's something in the subconscient—in the cells' subconscient. Its roots are there, and on the least occasion ... And it's so very, very ingrained that ... For example, you can be feeling very good, the body can be perfectly harmonious (and when the body is perfectly harmonioustoo much preoccupation with it, its motions are harmoniousanxiety, things are despondency in their true places, everything works exactly as it should without needing the least attention—a general harmony), when suddenly the clock strikesillness etc., for example, or someone utters a word, and you have just the faint impression 'Oh, it's late, I'm not going to be on time'—a second, a split second, and ... the whole working of the body falls apart. You suddenly feel feeble, drained, uneasy. And you have to intervene. It's terrible. And we're at the mercy of such these things! To change it, you have to descend into it—which is what I'm in only favour the midst prolongation of doing. But you know, it makes for painful moments. Anyway, once it's done, it will be something. When that is done, I'll explain it to you. And then I'll have the power to restore you to ill-healthor weakness.<ref>httpshttp://incarnateword.in/agendacwsa/0131/novemberillness-5and-1960health#p10-p13p81</ref>
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But because of my inner workKnowledge, I become increasingly aware when it goes to the root of thingsour troubles, increasingly aware of has in itself a marvellous healing-power as it were. As soon as you touch the Care, the Solicitude and the hierarchical Organization quick of circumstances so that the most precious and useful thing for the divine work is favored—of course not conspicuously sotrouble, but inwardly. And yet, in the three domains—governmentas soon as you, money diving down and health—things always reach a POINTdown, a point of such tension and complication that if get at what really ails you didn't have , the inner certitude, they would always seem to point simply pain disappears as though by a miracle. Unflinching courage to reach true knowledge is therefore the catastrophe, the fallvery essence of yoga. And it's ALWAYS at that point thatNo lasting superstructure can be erected except on a solid basis of true Knowledge... (gesture of abrupt reversal) everything turns around—not before, not one minute before. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/agendacwsa/0431/octobersentimentalism-sensitiveness-19instability-1963laxity#p8p10</ref>
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I have some interesting things to tell you. It's about this cold. An extraordinary healing power ... All the phases in their most acute form, with the study The body had based its sort of sense of good health on a certain number of the processvibrations, and each phase gone through whenever those vibrations were present, it felt in a few hoursgood health; when something came and disturbed them, it felt that it was about to fall ill or a few minutes (that it was ill, depending on what it was)the intensity. All that has changed now: those basic vibrations have simply been removed, they no longer exist; the vibrations on which the body based its sense of good or ill health—removed. UsuallyThey are replaced by something else, when you and something else of such a nature that "good health" and "illness" have a coldlost all meaning! Now, you go through one phase, then another (you know how it there is)the sense of an established harmony among the cells, then it goes lower downincreasingly established among the cells, then you coughwhich represents the right functioning, then... All whatever that was gone through quickly, and in two days may be: it was over's no longer a question of a stomach or a heart or this or that. And with the whole processslightest thing that comes and disturbs that harmony is VERY painful, but not at the same time there is the knowledge of what to do to reestablish the mentalized process, not at all: harmony instantly; and if the vibratory processharmony is reestablished, showing how the Force comes, acts, and at oncefunctioning isn't affected... OhBut if out of curiosity, for instance (it was very's a mental illness in humans), very interestingyou start asking yourself, because there was "What's that? What effect will it have? What's going to happen?" (what the part played by body calls "the inconscientdesire to learn"), the part played by conscious reactionsif you are unlucky enough to be that way, the part played by the will you can be sure (tremendous, an enormous part''laughing'')that you'll have something very unpleasant which, according to the part played by mental suggestion doctor (tremendous tooaccording to ignoramuses), becomes an illness or disrupts the body's functioning. While if you don't have that unhealthy curiosity and... , on the action of contrary, will the supreme Vibration. The whole thing in detailharmony not to be disrupted, day and night, constantly; you only have to such a point that at moments I stood still, like thatwe could say poetically, to follow bring one drop of the course. And it lasted (I saw you Lord on Saturday) the troubled spot for... Sunday, Monday, Tuesday: those three dayseverything to be fine again.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/0804/februaryjuly-820-19671963#p1p39</ref>
==How Does the Physical Healing Happen?Useful Practices for Dealing with Pain==
It readily takes in all kinds But there is a preparation which may be of a general kind. That is, to accustom the body methodically to understand that it is only the outer expression of suggestions a truer and deeper reality and these can rapidly change that it is this truer and almost remould deeper reality which governs its condition…Depression and discouragement have a very adverse effect; they cut out holes in destiny―though it, as is not usually aware of it were, in its very stuff, render it weak and unresisting and open to hostile attacks an easy passage. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/16-june-1929#p11</ref>
==How to Deal with Pain?==One can prepare the body through a series of observations, studies, understandings,by showing it examples, making it understand things as one makes a child understand them, either by observing its own movements―but generally, in this, one is comparatively blind!―or by observing those of others. And in a more general way, this preparation will be based on recognised studies, on clear facts. Like this, for instance: that a certain number of persons, placed in exactly similar circumstances, experience, each one of them, very different effects. One may go even further: in a given set of definite circumstances, there is a certain number of particular, definite individuals, in apparently quite identical conditions, and for some the effects are catastrophic, while others escape without any harm.
... So it is very difficult to make a general rule.
But there is a preparation which may be of a general kind. That is, to accustom the body methodically to understand that it is only the outer expression of a truer and deeper reality and that it is this truer and deeper reality which governs its destiny―though it is not usually aware of it.
One can prepare the body through a series of observations, studies, understandings,1 by showing it examples, making it understand things as one makes a child understand them, either by observing its own movements―but generally, in this, one is comparatively blind!―or by observing those of others. And in a more general way, this preparation will be based on recognised studies, on clear facts. Like this, for instance: that a certain number of persons, placed in exactly similar circumstances, experience, each one of them, very different effects. One may go even further: in a given set of definite circumstances, there is a certain number of particular, definite individuals, in apparently quite identical conditions, and for some the effects are catastrophic, while others escape without any harm.
During the war there was a very large number of such examples for study. In epidemics it is the same thing; in cataclysms of Nature, like tidal waves or earthquakes or cyclones, it is the same thing.
The body understands these things if they are shown and explained to it as one explains things to a child: "You see, there was something else that acted there, not only the plain material fact by itself." And, unless some bad will is there, it understands.
This is a preparation.
Gradually, if you make use of this understanding, you must, with a methodical work of infusing consciousness into the cells of the body, infuse at the same time the truth of the divine Presence. This work takes time, but, if done methodically and constantly, it produces an effect.
So you have prepared the ground.
Suppose that as a result of some illness or other, there is some sort of pain at a precise spot. At that moment all will depend, as I said at the beginning, on the approach most familiar to you. But we can give an example. You are in pain, in great pain; it is hurting very much, you are suffering a lot.
First point: do not stress the pain by telling yourself, "Oh, how painful! Oh, this pain is unbearable! Oh, it is being worse and worse, I shall never be able to bear it", etc., all this sort of thing. The more you go on thinking like this and feeling like this and the more your attention is concentrated on it, the pain increases amazingly.
So, the first point: to control yourself sufficiently not to do that.
Second point: as I said, it depends on your habits. If you know how to concentrate, to be quiet, and if you can bring into yourself a certain peace, of any kind―it may be a mental peace, it may be a vital peace, it may be a psychic peace; they have different values and qualities, this is an individual question―you try to realise within yourself a state of peace or attempt to enter into a conscious contact with a force of peace.... Suppose you succeed more or less completely. Then, if you can draw the peace into yourself and bring it down into the solar plexus―for we are not talking of inner states but of your physical body―and from there direct it very calmly, very slowly I might say, but very persistently, towards the place where the pain is more or less sharp, and fix it there, this is very good.
This is not always enough.
But if by widening this movement you can add a sort of mental formation with a little life in it―not just cold, but with a little life in it―that the only reality is the divine Reality, and all the cells of this body are a more or less deformed expression of this divine Reality―there is only one Reality, the Divine, and our body is a more or less deformed expression of this sole Reality―if by my aspiration, my concentration, I can bring into the cells of the body the consciousness of this sole Reality, all disorder must necessarily cease.
If you can add to that a movement of complete and trusting surrender to the Grace, then I am sure that within five minutes your suffering will disappear. If you know how to do it.
You may try and yet not succeed. But you must know how to try again and again and again, until you do succeed. But if you do those three things at the same time, well, there is no pain which can resist.
<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/08/4-july-1956#p12,p13,p14,p15,p16,p17,p18,p19,p20,p21,p22,p23,p24,p25,p26,p27,p28</ref><center>~</center>… it is the conscious will which acts on matter, not the material fact. But you only have to try it, you will understand very well what I mean. For instance, all the movements you make when dressing, taking your bath, tidying your room… no matter what; make them consciously, with the will that this muscle should work, that muscle should[p.155] work. You will see, you will obtain really amazing results.Going up and down the stairs—you cannot imagine how useful that can be from the point of view of physical culture, if you know how to make use of it. Instead of going up because you are going up and coming down because you are coming down, like any ordinary man, you go up with the consciousness of all the muscles which are working and of making them work harmoniously. You will see. Just try a little, you will see! This means that you can use all the movements of your life for a harmonious development of your body. You bend down to pick something up, you stretch up to find something right at the top of a cupboard, you open a door, you close it, you have to go round an obstacle, there are a hundred and one things you do constantly and which you can make use of for your physical culture and which will demonstrate to you that it is the consciousness you put into it which produces the effect, a hundred times more than just the material fact of doing it. So, you choose the method you like best, but you can use the whole of your daily life in this way…. To think constantly of the harmony of the body, of the beauty of the movements, of not doing anything that is ungraceful and awkward. You can obtain a rhythm of movement and gesture which is very exceptional. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/17-july-1957#p7,p8,p9</ref>
==Useful Practicesfor keeping Good Health==
What It is only by correcting your way of living that you have to do is to remain calm and confident and not worry or be restless—be perfectly quiet and prepared to rest as long as rest is needed. There is nothing can hope to be anxious about; rest, and the secure good health and strength will come. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3115/specific-illnesses-ailments-and-other-physical-problemsgeneral#p5p25</ref>
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But It is your body that's how does not feel very strong and is sad because it worked with healingdoes not have a sound balance of health. When the Power was there, he said it was even effortless, all he had to do was to put that Power The best cure is plenty of order, of supramental harmony, open-air exercise and it would act instantlyabundant food. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agendacwm/0416/16-march-9-19631935#p9p4</ref>
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To separate yourself from the thing and call Only when you become absolutely regular in the Mother's force to cure it [is the Yogic method]—or else to use your own material life will force with faith in the power you be able to heal, having the support of the Mother's force behind you. If you cannot use either of these methods then you must rely on the action of the medicinehave good health. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/3116/doctors6-andseptember-medicines1935#p3p4</ref>
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Remain The ordinary period of sleep most people give themselves is 8 hours. In bad health (I am not speaking of acute illness) it can extend to 9. 12 hours is excessive unless one is seriously ill or recovering from illness or else has underslept for a long time and the body is making up arrears of needed sleep. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sleep#p17</ref> ===By Quietude and Peace=== The first thing to do is to keep throughout a perfect equanimity and not to allow thoughts of disturbed anxiety or depression to enter you. What you have to do is to remain calm and confident and not worry or be restless—be perfectly quietand prepared to rest as long as rest is needed. There is nothing to be anxious about; rest, within, concentrated only on receiving strength and the health, confident that we are with you all the time, and you strength will soon be all rightcome.[as told to a person recovering from a severe attack of influenza] <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illnessspecific-illnesses-ailments-and-healthother-physical-problems#p46p5</ref>
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As for curing you by the Force, the main obstacle is your own vital movements. All this egoistic insistence on your own ideasRemain quiet, claimswithin, preferences—assertion of your own righteousness as against the wickedness of others, complaints, quarrels, disputes, rancours against those around you and the reactions they cause—have had this effect concentrated only on your liver receiving strength and stomach and nerves. If health, confident that we are with you give up all that and live quietly and at peace with others, thinking less of yourself and others and more of the Divinetime, it would make things much easier and help to restore your health. Quietness of the mind in facing your illness is also necessary—agitation stops the action of the Forceyou will soon be all right. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/doctorsillness-and-medicineshealth#p10p46</ref>
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These pains are a part As for curing you by the Force, the main obstacle is your own vital movements. All this egoistic insistence on your own ideas, claims, preferences—assertion of your own righteousness as against the pressure wickedness of others, complaints, quarrels, disputes, rancours against those around you and the old nature reactions they cause—have had this effect on the body; your liver and stomach and nerves. If you give up all that is why we consider it can only be healed by the Peace and Power bringing a new movement live quietly and at peace with others, thinking less of the physical nature there. In the stage yourself and others and more of the struggle between the two natures, the peace does not always remainDivine, but it will remain longer would make things much easier and longer as you get help to restore your health. Quietness of the mind in facing your illness is also necessary—agitation stops the habit action of opening constantly to itthe Force. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illnessdoctors-and-healthmedicines#p93p9</ref>
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To heal [illness] by the true force is obviously the best—provided the body is amenable. It has a consciousness Catch hold of its own which must be fully enlightened before it gives a full response. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/doctors-peace deep within and-medicines#p1</ref>It is only by emerging from the mind's prison and consciously soaring push it into the light cells of the spirit that, through a conscious union with body. With the Divine, we peace will be able to let Him give us come back the balance and health which we have lost.<ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/agendacwm/1115/marchpeace-18and-quiet-faith-and-1970surrender#p10p26</ref>
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Illness must not be accepted as These pains [nervous pain in the stomach] are a means part of transformation; it rather indicates certain difficulties encountered by the force pressure of transformation especially in the vital and old nature on the body. But ; that is why we consider it is not necessary that these difficulties should can only be allowed to take this obscure form healed by the Peace and Power bringing a new movement of illnessthe physical nature there. All illness should be rejected and all suggestions In the stage of illness; the Force should be called in to cure by struggle between the two natures, the assent to health peace does not always remain, but it will remain longer and longer as you get the refusal habit of assent opening constantly to the suggestions that bring or prolong its oppositeit. <ref>httpshttp://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p4p93</ref><center>~</center>It ===By Sincerity and Aspiration=== Naturally, it is similar with this japaalways the same thing: an imperceptible little changeone must... must sincerely want to be healed, and for otherwise it does not work. If one can pass from a more or less mechanical, more or less efficient and real japa, wants to have the true japa full of power and light. I even wondered if this difference is what the tantrics call experience solely for the experience'power' of s sake and then the japa. For examplenext minute one returns to what one was before, the other day I was down with a coldthis does not work. Each time I opened my mouthBut if sincerely one wants to be healed, there was if one has a spasm in real aspiration to overcome the throat and I coughed and coughed. Then a fever came. So I lookedobstacle, I saw where it was coming fromto rise—rise above oneself, and I decided that it had to stop. I got give up to do my japa as usualall that pulls one back, and I started walking back and forth in my room. I had to apply a certain will. Of course, I could do my japa in trance, I could walk in trance while repeating break the japalimits, because then you feel nothingbecome clear, none purify oneself of all that blocks the way, if truly one has the body's drawbacks. But the work has 'intense'' will not to fall back into past errors, to be done in surge up from the body! So I got up darkness and started doing my japa. Then, with each word pronounced—the Lightignorance, to rise into the full Power. A power that heals everything. I began the japa tiredlight, ill, and I came out stripped of it refreshedall that is too human, restedtoo small, curedtoo ignorant—then that works. So those who tell me they come out of it exhausted, contracted, emptiedIt works, works powerfully. At times it means that they are not doing it in the true wayworks definitively and totally. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/october-6-1959#p11</ref><center>~</center>Each spot of the body is symbolical of an inner movement; But there is there a world of subtle correspondences.... The particular place in the body affected by an illness is an index to the nature of the inner disharmony must be nothing that has taken place. It points clings to the originold movements, it is a sign of the cause of the ailment. It reveals too the nature of the resistance that prevents the whole being from advancing keeps quiet at the same high speed. It indicates the treatment and the cure. If one could perfectly understand where the mistake ismoment, find out what has been unreceptivehides itself, open that part and put the force then later shows its face and the light theresays, "Yes, yes, it is very fine, your experience, but now it would be possible to re-establish in a moment the harmony is my turn!" Then, when that has been disturbed and the illness would immediately go. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/16-june-1929#p8</ref><center>~</center>To medical knowledge and experiencehappen, I do not answer for anything, because sometimes, add full faith in the Divine's Grace and your healing capacity will have no limits. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/doctors-and-medicines#p10</ref><center>~</center>Catch hold of as a peace deep within and push reaction it into the cells of the bodybecomes worse. With the peace will That is why I always come back to the same thing, say always the healthsame thing: one must be truly sincere, truly. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/1506/peace-and-quiet26-faithmay-and-surrender1954#p25</ref><center>~</center>It is difficult to say exactly which of ===By Calling the two possibilities would be more helpful to recover your healthForce=== ''Q. But in a general way a change Mother, is more helpful for the body at the beginning than it possible to develop in oneself the long run, as the thing most detrimental capacity to the bodyheal?''s welfare is the lack of interest in life and surroundings. Anything new can wake up this interest for the time being—but the effect is never very lasting. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/general#p15</ref><center>~</center>It is only by correcting your way of living that you can hope to secure good health.<ref>http''A://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/general#p25</ref><center>~</center>'' In principle, everything is possible by uniting consciously with the Divine Force.
But a method has to be found, and this depends on the case and the individual.
The first condition is to have a physical nature that gives energy rather than draws energy from others.
The second indispensable condition is to know how to draw energy from above, from the inexhaustible impersonal source. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/12-january-1972#p1,p2,p3,p4,p5</ref>
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In Each spot of the body is symbolical of an inner movement; there is there a world of subtle correspondences.... The particular place in the body affected by an illness is an index to the first case, they are nature of the faculties inner disharmony that develop in man as he opens has taken place. It points to the higher mind and overmindorigin, and through those regions he receives it is a sign of the light cause of the Truthailment. These faculties are not a direct expression It reveals too the nature of the supreme Truth, but a transcription, an indirect reflection of itresistance that prevents the whole being from advancing at the same high speed. It indicates the treatment and the cure. They include intuitionIf one could perfectly understand where the mistake is, foreknowledgefind out what has been unreceptive, knowledge by identity open that part and certain powers such as that of healing put the force andthe light there, it would be possible to an extent, of acting upon circumstancesre-establish in a moment the harmony that has been disturbed and the illness would immediately go. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/16/23-apriljune-19601929#p4p8</ref>
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It is To separate yourself from the thing and call in fact something very superficial, but still the Mother's force to cure it should be cured. It [''is the Yogic method'']—or else to use your body that does not feel very strong and is sad because it does not have a sound balance own will force with faith in the power to heal, having the support of healththe Mother's force behind you. The best cure is plenty If you cannot use either of these methods then you must rely on the action of open-air exercise and abundant foodthe medicine. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1631/16doctors-marchand-1935medicines#p4p3</ref>
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I don't need to tell you where your headache comes fromIllness must not be accepted as a means of transformation; I suppose you know. Only when you become absolutely regular in your material life will you be able to have good health.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/16/6-september-1935#p4</ref><center>~</center>I do not also quite catch what you mean about the inner being. If you mean it rather indicates certain difficulties encountered by the vikās the development force of transformation especially in the sadhana, to recover health vital and strength the body. But it is very not necessary for thatthese difficulties should be allowed to take this obscure form of illness. The body is an instrument for All illness should be rejected and all suggestions of illness; the sadhana no less than the mind and vital, and it Force should be kept called in a good condition as far as possible. Not to care for cure by the assent to health and the body, thinking it is refusal of no importance compared with assent to the inner state, is not the rule of this Yogasuggestions that bring or prolong its opposite. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p35p4</ref><center>~</center>The complete immunity from all illness for which our Yoga tries can only come by a total and permanent enlightenment of the below from above resulting in the removal of the psychological roots of ill health—it cannot be done otherwise.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p38</ref>
===Through Receptivity==='''Japa'''
It depends on the part. The method is almost the same for all parts of the being. To begin with.one can pass from a more or less mechanical, more or less efficient and real japa, the first condition: to remain as quiet as possible. You may notice that in the different parts true japa full of your being, when something comes power and you do not receive it, light. I even wondered if this produces a shrinking—there difference is something which hardens in what the vital, tantrics call the mind or 'power' of the bodyjapa. There is a stiffening and this hurtsFor example, one feels the other day I was down with a mental, vital or physical paincold. SoEach time I opened my mouth, the first thing is to put one's will and relax this shrinking, as one does there was a twitching nerve or a cramped muscle; you must learn how to relax, be able to relieve this tension spasm in whatever part of the being it may bethroat and I coughed and coughed.The method of relaxing the contraction may be different in the mind, the vital or the body, but logically it is the same thingThen a fever came. Once you have relaxed the tensionSo I looked, you see first if the disagreeable effect ceases, which would prove that I saw where it was a small momentary resistancecoming from, but if the pain continues and if I decided that it is indeed necessary had to increase the receptivity in order stop. I got up to be able to receive what is helpfuldo my japa as usual, what should be received, you must, after having relaxed this contraction, begin trying to widen yourself—you feel you are widening yourselfand I started walking back and forth in my room. There are many methods. Some find it very useful I had to imagine they are floating on water with apply a plank under their backcertain will. Then they widen themselvesOf course, I could do my japa in trance, I could walk in trance while repeating the japa, widenbecause then you feel nothing, until they become none of all the vast liquid massbody's drawbacks. Others make an effort But the work has to identify themselves with be done in the sky body! So I got up and the starsstarted doing my japa. Then, so they widen, widen themselves, identifying themselves more and more with the sky. Others again don't need these pictures; they can become conscious of their consciousnesseach word pronounced—the Light, enlarge their consciousness more and more until it becomes unlimited. One can enlarge it till it becomes vast as the earth and even the universefull Power. When one does A power that one becomes really receptiveheals everything. As I have saidbegan the japa tired, it is a question of training. In any caseill, from an immediate point and I came out of view, when something comes and one feels that it is too strongrefreshed, that it gives a headacherested, that one can't bear it, the method is just the same, you must act upon the contractioncured. One can act through thought, by calling the peace, tranquillity (the feeling So those who tell me they come out of peace takes away much of the difficulty) like this: "Peaceit exhausted, peacecontracted, peace... tranquillity... calm." Many discomfortsemptied, even physical, like all these contractions of the solar plexus, which it means that they are so unpleasant and give you at times nausea, the sensation of being suffocated, of not being able to breathe again, can disappear thus. It is the nervous centre which is affected, doing it gets affected very easily. As soon as there is something which affects in the solar plexus, you must say, "Calm... calm... calm", become more and more calm until the tension is destroyedtrue way. <ref>httpshttp://incarnateword.in/cwmagenda/0401/31october-march6-19511959#p17,p18p11</ref>
===Through FaithBy Receptivity===
YesYou have resistances in your body, but it must be haven't you? When you want to do an integral faith and it must be absolute. exercise, can you do with your body whatever you want? And it must when you try to be of the right kindin good health, not merely a force of mental thought or willdoes your body always obey? And when you want to learn your lesson, but something more and deeperdoes your brain follow it without difficulty?.. The will put forth by . That is the mind sets up opposite reactions and creates a resistance, it is all that refuses to progress. You must have heard something of And I believe that unfortunately the method amount of Coué in healing diseases. He knew some secret of this power and utilised it with considerable effect; but he called it imagination and his method gave resistance is much greater than the faith he called up too mental a form. Mental faith is not sufficient; it must be completed and enforced by a vital and even a physical faith, a faith amount of the bodyreceptivity. If you can create in yourself an integral force of this kind in all your being, then nothing can resist it; but you One must reach down work very hard to the most subconscious, you must fix the faith in the very cells of the bodybecome receptive.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/0305/516-mayseptember-19291953#p18p28</ref>
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I ...you cannot imagine the immense flood of force that is at your disposal! And generally you do not see how the method of faith in the cells can be likened to eating a slice of the moonfeel it even. Nobody ever got a slice of the moonWhen you feel it, but the healing by faith something in the cells you shrinks because it is an actual fact too much and produces a law kind of Nature instinctive fear in your cells; and has been demonstrated often enough even apart from Yoga. The way to get faith and everything else when you receive it, more than three-quarters of it is thrown away like an overfilled vessel! It gushes out, spills over, because you are not able to insist on having them and refuse to flag or despair or give up until one has them—it hold it. I have met a very large number of people who complained that they were receiving nothing, that is the way by which everything has been got since this difficult world began to say, they said they did not have thinking and aspiring creatures upon itthe forces they needed. It is to open alwayswas because they were absolutely incapable of receiving them, always to the Light and turn one's back on the darknessthere was a hundred thousand times more force than what they could receive. It is to refuse the voices like that cry persistently, ". You cannotare all in a sea of tremendous vibrations, and you shall are not, at all aware of it because you are incapablenot receptive. And there is such a resistance in you that if something succeeds in entering, three quarters of what enters is thrown out violently because you are not able to contain it. ... It is something unbelievable. For example, just take the puppet consciousness of a dream"—for these are the enemy voicesForces, they cut one off from like the result that was coming by their strident clamour and then triumphantly point to force of love, the barrenness force of result as a proof understanding or the force of their thesis. The difficulty of the endeavour is a known thingcreation (for everything, but the difficult it is not the impossible—it is same: the difficult that has always been accomplished and force of protection, the conquest force of difficulties makes up growth, all that is valuable in , and the earth's history. In the spiritual endeavour also it shall be sopower for progress, for everything). <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwsacwm/2905/faith16-september-1953#p50p29</ref>
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These auto-suggestions [of being restored To begin with, the first condition: to good health]—it is really faith in a mental form—act both on the subliminal and the subconscientremain as quiet as possible. In the subliminal they set You may notice that in action the powers different parts of the inner your being, its occult power to make thoughtwhen something comes and you do not receive it, will or simple conscious force effective on this produces a shrinking—there is something which hardens in the body—in vital, the subconscient they silence mind or block the suggestions of death body. There is a stiffening and illness (expressed this hurts, one feels a mental, vital or unexpressed) that prevent physical pain. So, the return of health. They help also first thing is to combat the same things (adverse suggestions) in the mindput one's will and relax this shrinking, vitalas one does a twitching nerve or a cramped muscle; you must learn how to relax, body consciousness. Where all be able to relieve this is completely done or with some completeness, tension in whatever part of the effects can being it may be very remarkable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p37</ref>
===Through Knowledge===The method of relaxing the contraction may be different in the mind, the vital or the body, but logically it is the same thing. Once you have relaxed the tension, you see first if the disagreeable effect ceases, which would prove that it was a small momentary resistance, but if the pain continues and if it is indeed necessary to increase the receptivity in order to be able to receive what is helpful, what should be received, you must, after having relaxed this contraction, begin trying to widen yourself—you feel you are widening yourself. There are many methods. Some find it very useful to imagine they are floating on water with a plank under their back. Then they widen themselves, widen, until they become the vast liquid mass. Others make an effort to identify themselves with the sky and the stars, so they widen, widen themselves, identifying themselves more and more with the sky. Others again don't need these pictures; they can become conscious of their consciousness, enlarge their consciousness more and more until it becomes unlimited. One can enlarge it till it becomes vast as the earth and even the universe. When one does that one becomes really receptive. As I have said, it is a question of training. In any case, from an immediate point of view, when something comes and one feels that it is too strong, that it gives a headache, that one can't bear it, the method is just the same, you must act upon the contraction. One can act through thought, by calling the peace, tranquillity (the feeling of peace takes away much of the difficulty) like this: "Peace, peace, peace... tranquillity... calm." Many discomforts, even physical, like all these contractions of the solar plexus, which are so unpleasant and give you at times nausea, the sensation of being suffocated, of not being able to breathe again, can disappear thus. It is the nervous centre which is affected, it gets affected very easily. As soon as there is something which affects the solar plexus, you must say, "Calm... calm... calm", become more and more calm until the tension is destroyed.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/31-march-1951#p17,p18</ref>
"Knowledge, when it goes to the root of our troubles, has in itself a marvellous healing-power as it were. As soon as you touch the quick of the trouble, as soon as you, diving down and down, get at what really ails you, the pain disappears as though by a miracle. Unflinching courage to reach true knowledge is therefore the very essence of yoga. No lasting superstructure can be erected except on a solid basis of true Knowledge....<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/10/november-29-1969#p47</ref>===By Faith===
===Through Calm Presence===To medical knowledge and experience, add full faith in the Divine's Grace and your healing capacity will have no limits. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/doctors-and-medicines#p10</ref><center>~</center>''Q. Can mere faith create all, conquer all?''
I ''A:'' Yes, but it must be an integral faith and it must be absolute. And it must be of the right kind, not merely a force of mental thought or will, but something more and deeper. The will put forth by the mind sets up opposite reactions and creates a resistance. You must have noticed heard something very interestingof the method of Coué in healing diseases. He knew some secret of this power and utilised it with considerable effect; but he called it imagination and his method gave the faith he called up too mental a form. Suppose there Mental faith is not sufficient; it must be completed and enforced by a painvital and even a physical faith, some sign or other that something a faith of the body. If you can create in yourself an integral force of this kind in all your being, then nothing can resist it; but you must reach down to the most subconscious, you must fix the faith in the very cells of the body . <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/5-may-1929#p18</ref><center>~</center>...the healing by faith in the cells is out an actual fact and a law of orderNature and has been demonstrated often enough even apart from Yoga. In the consciousness—in The way to get faith and everything else is to insist on having them and refuse to flag or despair or give up until one has them—it is the consciousness—you are absolutely indifferent, way by which means that whether everything has been got since this difficult world began to have thinking and aspiring creatures upon it. It is to open always, always to the Light and turn one's life or death, disease or health, there back on the darkness. It is equality; but if to refuse the body reacts according to its old habitvoices that cry persistently, "What should be done to get over it?You cannot, you shall not, you are incapable, you are the puppet of a dream" —for these are the enemy voices, they cut one off from the result that was coming by their strident clamour and all that it involves (I am not speaking then triumphantly point to the barrenness of result as a reaction in proof of their thesis. The difficulty of the mindendeavour is a known thing, but here, the difficult is not the impossible—it is the difficult that has always been accomplished and the conquest of difficulties makes up all that is valuable in the earth's history. In the spiritual endeavour also it shall be so. <ref>https://incarnateword.in /cwsa/29/faith#p50</ref><center>~</center>One sees the body)negative side only during the attack, because the first thing takes rootthe attack or obstruction does is to try to cloud the mind's intelligence. Why? Because If it cannot do that, it is difficult for it has to stay thereprevail altogether for the time being... (laughing) For if the mind remains alert and clings to enable you the truth, then the attack can only upheave the vital and, though this may be painful enough, yet the right attitude of the mind acts as a corrective and makes it easier to study it! recover the balance and the true condition of the vital comes back more quickly. Ifthe vital keeps its balance, on then the attack touches the other handphysical consciousness only with its suggestions and is much more superficial or even it can do no more than create a temporary restlessness, uneasiness or ill-health in the body—the rest of the consciousness remaining unaffected. It is therefore very important to accustom oneself to keep the cells have learned their lesson and say right away, "Lord, Your presence" (without words—the mental attitude)even in the midst of an attack, pfft! however strong it is. To keep faith is the best help for that—the faith that the Divine is there always and I shall pass to Him through whatever trials. That helps to look at other things also in the thing goestrue light.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agendacwsa/0631/novemberdealing-with-23hostile-1965attacks#p20p59</ref>
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But it keeps increasing, and that sort These auto-suggestions [''of "crouching" being restored to good health'']—it is greatly lessened by really faith in a mental form—act both on the knowledge subliminal and experience that if you are per-fect-ly calmthe subconscient. In the subliminal they set in action the powers of the inner being, all goes well—alwaysits occult power to make thought, even in will or simple conscious force effective on the body—in the worst difficulties.... Very recently, subconscient they silence or block the day before yesterday, there was suggestions of death and illness (always on expressed or unexpressed) that prevent the physical level; it can't be called "return of health," but it's . They help also to combat the body's functioningsame things (adverse suggestions) a rather serious attack, which found expression in a rather unpleasant pain; it came with unusual brutality. Thenthe mind, immediatelyvital, the body remembered and said, "Peace, peaceconsciousness... Lord, Your Peace, Lord, Your Peace..." and it relaxed in Peace. And in an objectively perceptible wayWhere all this is completely done or with some completeness, the pain went awayeffects can be very remarkable. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agendacwsa/0531/octoberillness-30and-1964health#p4p37</ref>
===Through TapasyaCalm Presence===
This explanation [Mother’s experiences of the Body consciousness]I have noticed something very interesting. Suppose there is clear; and a pain, some sign or other that something in the healing was the result body is out of tapasyaorder. ItIn the consciousness—in the consciousness—you are absolutely indifferent, which means that whether it's self-explanatory. Something was even saying to my bodylife or death, disease or health, to there is equality; but if the body's SUBSTANCEreacts according to its old habit, "O unbelieving substance, now you won't What should be able done to say there are no miracles.get over it?" Throughout and all the work that was being done on the 20th, something was saying it involves (I don't know who, because it doesn't come like something foreign to me any more, it's like a Wisdom, it seems like am not speaking of a Wisdom, something that knows: not someone reaction in particularthe mind, but "that which knowshere," whatever its formin the body), something that knows was insisting to the body, by showing thing takes root. Why? Because it certain things, vibrations, movements, "From now on, O unbelieving substance, you can't say has to stay there are no miracles." Because the substance itself is used .. (''laughing'') to each thing having its effect, enable you to illnesses following a particular course and certain things even being necessary for study it to be cured. This process is very subtle! If, and it doesn't come from on the intellectother hand, which can the cells have a totally different interpretation of it; it's rather a kind of consciousness ingrained in physical substance, learned their lesson and that's what was being addressed and being shown certain movementssay right away, certain vibrations and so forth: "You seeLord, from now on you can't say there are no miracles.Your presence" In other words, a direct intervention of the Lord(without words—the attitude), who doesn't follow pfft! the beaten path, but does things... in His own waything goes.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/0306/februarynovember-2423-19621965#p17p20</ref>
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The 19th was so-soBut it keeps increasing, and on the 20th I was concentrated all day long: no contacts with anyone, nothing external, only an intense invocation... as intense and concentrated as when you're trying to melt into the Lord at death. It was like that. The same movement sort of identification, but at its core a will for everything to work out in a good way here [on the material plane]. "In a good waycrouching"... I mean I said to is greatly lessened by the Lordknowledge and experience that if you are per-fect-ly calm, "YOUR Goodall goes well—always, even in the true Good, notworst difficulties.... The true Good, a victorious GoodVery recently, a real progress over the way life is usually lived." And I stayed in this unwavering concentration the whole daybefore yesterday, all there was (always on the timephysical level; it can't be called "health, all " but it's the time: even when I spokebody's functioning) a rather serious attack, which found expression in a rather unpleasant pain; it was something very external speakingcame with unusual brutality. And then at night when I went to bed I felt something had changed—the body felt completely different. When I got up in the morningThen, immediately, all the pains body remembered and disorders and dangers had.said, "Peace, peace.. vanished. "Lord," I saidYour Peace, Lord, "You have given me a gift of healthYour Peace..." and it relaxed in Peace.And in an objectively perceptible way, the pain went away."<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/0305/februaryoctober-2430-19621964#p19p4</ref>
===Through PurificationBy Formations===
I could never cut myself off A suggestion is not one's own thought or feeling, but a thought or feeling that comes from outside, from others, from people the general atmosphere or cut myself off from external Nature,—if it is received, it sticks and acts on the worldbeing and is taken to be one's own thought or feeling. I had If it is recognised as a suggestion, then it can be more easily got rid of. This feeling of doubt and self-distrust and hopelessness about oneself is a thing moving about in the atmosphere and trying to answer all these calls enter into people and these questions, be accepted; I had want you to send reject it, for its presence not only produces trouble and distress but stands in the necessary force, way of restoration of health and return to the necessary light, inner activity of the healing power, I constantly had to purify all these formations, these thoughts, these wills, these false movements that were falling on mesadhana. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/agendacwsa/0131/mayillness-21and-1960health#p6p25</ref>
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In its normal state, the body always feels that it is not its own master: illnesses invade it without its really being able to resist them—a thousand factors impose themselves or exert pressure upon it. Its sole power is the power to defend itself, to react. Once the illness has got in, it can fight and overcome it—even modern medicine has acknowledged that the body is cured only when it decides to get cured; it is not the drugs per se that heal, for if the ailment is temporarily suppressed by a drug without the body's will, it grows up again elsewhere in some other form until the body itself has decided to be cured. But this implies only a defensive power, the power to react against an invading enemy—it is not true freedom. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/01/october-17-1957#p3</ref>
===Through Force===
you cannot imagine the immense flood of force that is at your disposal! And generally you do not feel it even. When you feel it, something in you shrinks because it is too much and produces a kind of instinctive fear in your cells; and when you receive it, more than three-quarters of it is thrown away like an overfilled vessel! It gushes out, spills over, because you are not able to hold it. I have met a very large number of people who complained that they were receiving nothing, that is to say, they said they did not have the forces they needed. It was because they were absolutely incapable of receiving them, and there was a hundred thousand times more force than what they could receive. It is like that. You are all in a sea of tremendous vibrations, and you are not at all aware of it because you are not receptive. And there is such a resistance in you that if something succeeds in entering, three quarters of what enters is thrown out violently because you are not able to contain it.... I do not speak of this usually, but since we are talking about the subject, I am telling you. And perhaps one day I shall give you examples of it. It is something unbelievable. For example, just take the consciousness of the Forces, like the force of love, the force of understanding or the force of creation (for everything, it is the same: the force of protection, the force of growth, all that, and the power for progress, for everything). <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/16-september-1953#p29</ref>
===Through Formation===
When you have a thought, a well-made mental formation which goes out of you, it becomes an independent entity and continues on its way and it does that for which it was made. It continues to act independently of you. That is why you must be on your guard. If you have made such a formation and it has gone out, it has gone out to do its work; and after a time you find out that it was perhaps not a very happy thing to have a thought like that, that this formation was not very beneficial; now that it has gone out, it is very difficult for you to get hold of it again. You must have considerable occult knowledge. It has gone out and is moving on its way.... Supposing in a moment of great anger (I do not say that you do so, but still when you were in quite a rage against someone, you said: "Ah! couldn't some misfortune befall him?" Your formation has gone on its way. It has gone out and you have no longer any control over it; and it goes and organises some misfortune or other: it is going to do its work. And after sometime the misfortune arrives. Happily, you do not usually have sufficient knowledge to tell yourself: "Oh! It is I who am responsible", but that is the truth.
Note that this power of formation has a great advantage, if one knows how to use it. You can make good formations and if you make them properly, they will act in the same way as the others. You can do a lot of good to people just by sitting quietly in your room, perhaps even more good than by undergoing a lot of trouble externally. If you know how to think correctly, with force and intelligence and kindness, if you love someone and wish him well very sincerely, deeply, with all your heart, that does him much good, much more certainly than you think. I have said this often; for example, to those who are here, who learn that someone in their family is very ill and feel that childish impulse of wanting to rush immediately to the spot to attend to the sick person. I tell you, unless it is an exceptional case and there is nobody to attend on the sick person (and at times even in such a case), if you know how to keep the right attitude and concentrate with affection and good will upon the sick person, if you know how to pray for him and make helpful formations, you will do him much more good than if you go to nurse him, feed him, help him wash himself, indeed all that everybody can do. Anybody can nurse a person. But not everybody can make good formations and send out forces that act for healing.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/1-july-1953#p13,p14</ref>
===Through Sincerity Note that this power of formation has a great advantage, if one knows how to use it. You can make good formations and Aspiration===if you make them properly, they will act in the same way as the others. You can do a lot of good to people just by sitting quietly in your room, perhaps even more good than by undergoing a lot of trouble externally. If you know how to think correctly, with force and intelligence and kindness, if you love someone and wish him well very sincerely, deeply, with all your heart, that does him much good, much more certainly than you think. I have said this often; for example, to those who are here, who learn that someone in their family is very ill and feel that childish impulse of wanting to rush immediately to the spot to attend to the sick person. I tell you, unless it is an exceptional case and there is nobody to attend on the sick person (and at times even in such a case), if you know how to keep the right attitude and concentrate with affection and good will upon the sick person, if you know how to pray for him and make helpful formations, you will do him much more good than if you go to nurse him, feed him, help him wash himself, indeed all that everybody can do. Anybody can nurse a person. But not everybody can make good formations and send out forces that act for healing.<ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/05/1-july-1953#p13,p14</ref><center>~</center>But with regard to health, whenever I had an illness (for me it was never an "illness," it was still part of the blows), I had a trust, a complete assurance that it had no reality. And very young (very young, maybe around the age of thirteen or fourteen), every time a blow came, I would tell my body, "But what's the use of being ill since you'll just have to get well!" And that stayed until I was over thirty: what's the use of being ill since you have to get well? And it faded away only little by little, with that growing pessimism.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/05/october-10-1964#p40</ref><center>~</center>A bad suggestion acts very strongly upon it; a good suggestion operates in the contrary sense with the same force. Depression and discouragement have a very adverse effect; they cut out holes in it, as it were, in its very stuff, render it weak and unresisting and open to hostile attacks an easy passage.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/16-june-1929#p11</ref><center>~</center>But when you have had either an experience or, like this, some kind of phenomenon or an illness (above all in the case of illness or even an accident), the body remembers for a very long time. If you want to be completely cured, you must cure this memory in the body, this is absolutely indispensable. And whether you know it or not, you work in order to cure the memory in the body. When the remembrance is effaced, the body is truly healed.
NaturallyUnfortunately, it is always instead of destroying the same thing: one must... must sincerely want to be healedremembrance, for otherwise you push it does not workback. If one wants to have Most of the experience solely for time you push it down into the experience's sake subconscient and then sometimes into the next minute one returns to what one was beforeinconscient, this does not workstill more deep. But Well now, if sincerely one wants to be healedit is pushed back, if one has a real aspiration to overcome the obstacleit is not completely effaced, then very gently, to rise—rise above oneselfvery gently, without seeming to give do so at all it comes up all that pulls one back, to break the limitssurface; and something of which you have been cured for years, if by chance it crosses your mind simply like that, become clearjust like a little dart, purify oneself of all as fast as that blocks the way, if truly one has the intense will not to fall back into past errorslike a passing dart: “Why, to surge up from the darkness and ignoranceat this time I had that”, to rise into the lightyou may be sure that sooner or later—a few seconds, stripped of all that is too humana few minutes, too smalla few hours or days later, too ignorant—then that worksit will return. You can… It worksmay come back in a much milder form, it may come back in the same form, it may come even more strongly. That depends on your inner state. If you are in a pessimistic state, works powerfullyit will come back more strongly. At times If you are in an optimistic state, it works definitively and totallywill be much weaker. But there must be nothing that clings it will come back and you will have to begin the old movements, keeps quiet at battle all over again against the momentmemory of your body so as to destroy it—if this time you are more attentive. If you can destroy it, hides itselfyou are cured. But if you don’t destroy it, and then later shows its face and says, "Yes, yesit will return. It will take a longer or shorter time, it is very fine, your experiencewill be more or less total, but now it is my turn!" Thenwill return. It can come back in a flash. If you are wide awake and, when that happenit returns, I do not answer for anythingif you have enough knowledge and indeed enough clear-sightedness to tell yourself, because sometimes“Well, as a reaction it becomes worse. That here is why I always that wretched remembrance come back again to the same thingplay its tricks”, then you can give, can strike a violent blow and indeed destroy its reality. If you know how to do this, say always then it is an opportunity to get rid of the same thing: one must be truly sincere, trulyimmediately. <ref>https://incarnatewordBut it is not very easy to do this.in/cwm/06/26-may-1954#p25</ref>
===Through Working with Memory===''Pavitra: How to do it?''
But when you have had either an experience or, like this, some kind of phenomenon or an illness How to do it? (above all in the case of illness or even an accidentMother laughs.), How to do it? It is the body remembers for a very long time. If you want to be completely curedsame thing as, you must cure this memory in the bodysame method as, this is absolutely indispensable. And whether you know it or notknowing how to destroy a formation, you work in order to cure the memory in the body. When the remembrance is effaced, the body is truly healed.<ref>http://incarnatewordunderstand.in/cwm/06/13-october-1954#p47</ref>
It is a certain strength to dissolve things, which can undo formations. It depends on the nature of the formations. If it is like this, a formations of an adverse kind, then you need the force of a perfectly pure constructive light. If you have this at your disposal, all that you have to do is to bombard the thing with it, and you can dissolve it. But it is an operation which must be performed with inner forces; it cannot be done physically.That is why all physical remedies, you see, are simply palliatives; they are not cures, because they are not strong enough to touch the living centre of the thing. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/06/13-october-1954#p47,p48,p49,p50,p51,p52</ref> ==Useful but Limited PracticesCommon Errors==
OhThere is a kind of unconscious fluidity between people, how I would like it to be true: when I put my hands here, like have told you this (''Mother lays her hands on Satprem's shoulders''), it would heal! Because I feel such force in these hands! Such CONSCIOUS force—conscious, you understand: don’t know how many times; it's vibrant with consciousness, light and force. It should heal.It heals me. If I have produces a pain or something wrongmixture, I put my hand here or thereall that, and as soon as it goes away in the space of a minute or two. So why shouldn't it heal others! Maybe because nobody would be ill anymore! (''Mother laughs'')<ref>https://incarnateword.in/agenda/07/may-7-1966#p1-p4</ref>There is however usually less need of food and therefore less appetite. From the point of view of Yoga if one can keep a certain quiet in the material body, "peace in the cells", the heat is easier to bear.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/specific-illnesses-ailments-and-other-physical-problems#p20</ref>I mean it may be—it may be—that even an inner transformation (a complete conversion of the vital being, for instance) wouldn't necessarily bring an improvement in your health. It is here where.... It's not something I see imperatively. And to go back to ordinary life would be the end of everything—of your physical life and your inner life too. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/03/may-27-1962#p41</ref><center>~</center>It [inhibition of the sex-impulse] would not be permanently effective in itself, no longer altogether material… It’s because the seed would always be there unless removed by you have a transformation of the sex-impulse; but the inhibition can help towards this transformation. It is now being recognised in Europe by the doctors—who used formerly to say skin that sex was to be inhibited at the risk of complications in the body, that on the contrary there is part of the seminal force that is used for health, strength, youth etc. (turned you don’t enter into ojas, as the Yogins say), one another like that serves for sex purposes; if a man is perfectly chaste, otherwise even the latter turns more and more into the former. Only of course the external inhibition does not help this changesubtle physical, if the mind indulges in sex-thought or the vital or body in the unsatisfied sex-desire or sex-sensation. But if all these are stopped then the inhibition is useful. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sex#p77</ref><center>~</center>If your husband is in a perilous period of his life and suffering from ill-health and you feel for him, the best thing for him is still that you should tranquillise yourself and call the Divine to his help to pass through. Even in the ordinary life disquietude and depression create an unhelpful atmosphere for one who is ill or in difficulties. Once you are see… like a sadhak, then whether for yourself or to help others for whom you still feel, the true spiritual attitude kind of reliance on the Divine Will and call for the help almost perceptible vapour which goes out from above is always the best and most effective course. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/interactions-with-others-and-the-practice-of-yoga#p53</ref><center>~</center>One sees the negative side only during the attackbodies, because the first thing the attack or obstruction does which is to try to cloud the mind's intelligence. If it cannot do thatsubtle physical, it is difficult for it to prevail altogether for the time being. For if the mind remains alert and clings to the truth, then the attack can only upheave the vital and, though this may be painful enoughintermingles terribly, yet the right attitude of the mind acts as a corrective and makes it easier to recover the balance and the true condition produces all kinds of the vital comes back more quickly. If the vital keeps its balancereactions, then the attack touches the physical consciousness only with its suggestions and is much more superficial or even it can do no more than create a temporary restlessnessconstantly, uneasiness or ill-health in the body—the rest of the consciousness remaining unaffected. It is therefore very important to accustom oneself to keep the right mental attitude even in the midst of an attack, however strong it is. To keep faith is the best help for that—the faith that the Divine is there always and I shall pass to Him through whatever trials. That helps to look at other things also in the true light. <ref>http://incarnatewordone person upon another.in/cwsa/31/dealing-with-hostile-attacks#p59</ref>
==Common Errors== But there is a considerable difference between the real fact, that is, what this body [Mother's body] represents, and X's conception. He has always remained all the way down. This is what, in fact, had ruined his health for a time. And the odd thing is that every time he was ill and CONSENTED to inform me, he was instantly cured—he KNOWS this, but still his first instinct is always to turn to the gods with his ordinary puja. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/05/january-4-1964#p4</ref><center>~</center>But with regard to health, whenever I had an illness (for me it was never an "illness," it was still part of the blows), I had a trust, a complete assurance that it had no reality. And very young (very young, maybe around the age of thirteen or fourteen), every time a blow came, I would tell my body, "But what's the use of being ill since you'll just have to get well!" And that stayed until I was over thirty: what's the use of being ill since you have to get well? And it faded away only little by little, with that growing pessimism.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/05/october-10-1964#p40</ref><center>~</center>If people had an absolute faith in the healing power of the Grace, perhaps they would spare themselves quite a few diseases. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/11/march-14-1970#p12</ref><center>~</center>One may without knowing why, without having the least idea of the cause, pass precisely from a harmony of good health to a disequilibrium and a great uneasiness! One doesn't know why, there is no outer cause, suddenly it happens; one may have been peaceful, content, in at least a pleasant, tolerable condition, then all of a sudden to become furious, discontented, uneasy! One doesn't know why, there is no reason. One may have been full of joy, gaiety, enthusiasm, and then, without any apparent reason, one is sad, morose, depressed, discouraged! It happens sometimes that one is in a state of depression, and then one passes on somewhere and everything is lit up: a light, a joy—why one becomes suddenly optimistic! This of course is rare—it can also happen, it is the same thing, it is also contagious; but still one risks much more catching destructive rather than constructive things. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/07/27-july-1955#p24,p25</ref>
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The yogi or aspiring yogi who does asanas to obtain a spiritual result or even simply a control over his body, obtains these results because it is with this aim that he does them, whereas I know some people who do exactly the same things but for all sorts of reasons unrelated to spiritual development, and who haven't even managed to acquire good health by it! And yet they do exactly the same thing, sometimes they even do it much better than the yogi, but it doesn't give them a stable health... because they haven't thought about it, haven't done it with this purpose in mind. I have asked them myself, I said, "But how can you be ill after doing all that?"—"Oh! but I never thought of it, that's not why I do it." This amounts to saying that it is the conscious will which acts on matter, not the material fact.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/09/17-july-1957#p6</ref>
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Prolonged fasting may lead to an excitation of the nervous being which often brings vivid imaginations and hallucinations that are taken for true experiences; such fasting is frequently suggested by the vital Entities because it puts the consciousness into an unbalanced state which favours their designs. It is there fore discouraged here. The rule to be followed is that laid down by the Gita which says that "Yoga is not for one who eats too much or who does not eat"; a moderate use of food sufficient for the maintenance and health and strength of the body. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/occult-powers-or-siddhis#p14p13</ref>
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Pranayam There is safe only nothing wrong in taking care of the body in regard to health and, if one knows how the liver has gone wrong, the instinct to do it and refuse too sweet or greasy or heavy foods is on guard against its possible dangers: (1) danger a right instinct. Mother has no objection to health by mistakes in your abstaining while the methodillness is there.... Her objection is only to what people often do, (2) rising getting ideas about this or that food and abstaining even when there is no acute illness. During an acute state of the vital forcesbad liver, especially lust, egoism and wrongly directed strength and force, (3) the awakening of concealed sanskaras abstinence is often necessary. Only one must not create by wrong ideas a nervous incapacity of the physical nature stomach or latent karma from past livesa chronic nervous dyspepsia. She had no other meaning. <ref>httpshttp://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2931/sankhyaillness-and-yogahealth#p18p28</ref>
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A suggestion is not one's own thought or feeling, but a thought or feeling that comes from outside, from others, from the general atmosphere or from external Nature,—if it is received, it sticks and acts on ...quarrelsomeness opens him to all all sorts of forces of the being vital plane and is taken to be one's own thought or feelingtheir attacks. .. If it is recognised as a suggestion, then it can be more easily got rid of. This feeling of doubt for anger and self-distrust quarrelsomeness always tend to spoil the liver and hopelessness about oneself is a thing moving about in through it the atmosphere stomach and trying to enter into people intestines. ...He must get rid of his egoism, quarrelsomeness and be accepted; I want you bad feelings towards other, if he wants to reject it, for its presence not only produces trouble and distress but stands in the way of restoration of recover his health and return to the inner activity of the his sadhana. <ref>httpshttp://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p25p83</ref>
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There is nothing wrong in taking care of the body in regard to health and, if the liver has gone wrong, the instinct to refuse too sweet or greasy or heavy foods is a right instinct. Mother has no objection to your abstaining while the illness is there nor has she insisted on your taking dal. Her objection is only to what people often do, getting ideas about this or that food and abstaining even when there is no acute illness. During an acute state of bad liver, abstinence is often necessary. Only one must not create by wrong ideas a nervous incapacity of the stomach or a chronic nervous dyspepsia. She had no other meaning.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p28</ref>
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What has caused all the trouble for X is his insistence on his ego, its ideas, claims, desires, intentions and his aggressiveness in expressing them so that he quarrels with everybody. This quarrelsomeness opens him to all all sorts of forces of the vital plane and their attacks. It is also the cause of the damage done to the liver and organs of digestion—for anger and quarrelsomeness always tend to spoil the liver and through it the stomach and intestines. As his quarrelsomeness is colossal, so also is the damage done to liver and digestion extreme. He must get rid of his egoism, quarrelsomeness and bad feelings towards other, if he wants to recover his health and his sadhana. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p83</ref>
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The healing of the nervous pain in the stomach does not depend on more or less eating—often these pains come when one does not eat enough, not only when one eats too much—so it is not by eating less you can cure it. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/illness-and-health#p92</ref>
The ordinary period of sleep most people give themselves is 8 hours. In bad health (I am not speaking of acute illness) it can extend to 9. 12 hours is excessive unless one is seriously ill or recovering from illness or else has underslept for a long time and the body is making up arrears of needed sleep. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/sleep#p20</ref>
===Overreliance on Medical Science===
No external measure can enable us to react against the harm caused by mental faith in the necessity of drugs. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/11/march-18-1970#p10</ref>
Medical Science has been more a curse to mankind than a blessing. It has broken the force of epidemics and unveiled a marvellous surgery; but, also, it has weakened the natural health of man and multiplied individual diseases; it has implanted fear and dependence in the mind and body; it has taught our health to repose not on natural soundness but a rickety and distasteful crutch compact from the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. [Based on Aphorism 386]
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/11/march-14-1970#p7</ref>
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Do you know the story of the two simultaneous operations of E. and of T.? T. is that vice-admiral who came here and became quite enthusiastic—he had a kind of inner revelation here. The two of them were operated on for a similar complaint, a dangerous ulcer in the digestive system. He was in one town and she was in another, and they were operated on a day apart—both serious operations. And in each case, after a few days had gone by, the surgeon who did the operation said, 'I congratulate you.' Practically the same phrase in both cases. And they both protested: 'Why are you congratulating me?' (Each one wrote me about this separately; they were living far from one another and only met afterwards.) 'Why? You did the operation—you should be congratulated for my quick recovery.' And in both cases the doctor replied, 'No, no; we only operate, the body does the healing; you have healed yourself in a way which can qualify as miraculous, and I genuinely congratulate you.' And then the two of them had the same reaction—they wrote to me saying, 'We know where the miracle comes from.' And they had both called me. Moreover, E. had written me a remarkable letter a few days before her operation, where she quoted the Gita as if it were quite natural for her, and told me, 'I know that the operation is ALREADY done, that the Lord has already done it, and so I am calm.'
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/02/june-24-1961#p53</ref>
=More on Health and Healing=Examples==And this man (I saw his photoAll the circumstances of life are arranged to teach us that, he has a magnificent head) saysbeyond mind, "I live faith in God's presence." That's what he says, and I don't think he makes any fuss—besides he doesn't have the time because he goes Divine Grace gives us the strength to bed after midnight and gets up at five every daygo through all trials, starts work at five-thirty to overcome all weaknesses and spends find the contact with the whole day working, that is, seeing people Divine Consciousness which gives us not only peace and people joy but also physical balance and more people (when that good health. [Based on Aphorism 382 - For nearly forty years behind the wholly good I was read out to me, weakly in constitution; I thought, "And I complain!"). It's admirable. He did some studies, but he isn't a philosopher, he doesn't have any theories: he seems to have been born like that, with healing hands. He probably gets rid of infections by dehydrating them, so he cures all suffered constantly from the diseases of that nature. And they did (poor man, they must have made his life impossible!), they did encephalograms, cardiograms smaller and so on, the greater ailments and they noticed that just when he lays his hands (mistook this curse for a few seconds, two or three minutes at burden that Nature had laid upon me. When I renounced the most), at that moment his heartbeats suddenly go up from sixty to eightyaid of medicines, then fall back they began to normaldepart from me like disappointed parasites. And he doesn't seem Then only I understood what a mighty force was the natural health within me and how much mightier yet the Will and Faith exceeding mind which God meant to be making any fuss, unlike that German I told you about—nothing at all, very simple, very nicethe divine support of our life in this body.]<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agendacwm/0810/october-4aphorism-1967382#p2</ref>
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The doctors were quite concerned about the intestinal ulcer. If it had perforated, it would have been very, very serious—the ordinary recourse is an operation, so.... The doctors were quite concerned. But they didn't show anything, I didn't know about it—I found out about the ulcer only when it was healed (I mean when it was in the process of healing).<ref>http://incarnateword.in/agenda/12/january-16-1971#p47</ref> ==How to Cure an Illness?== There are two ways of curing an illness spiritually. One consists in putting a force of consciousness Visions and truth on the experiences need not at all depend upon physical spot which is affected. In this case the effect produced depends naturally on the receptivity of the person. Supposing the person is receptive; the force of consciousness is put upon the affected part and its pressure restores order. Many of you here can tell how Sri Aurobindo cured them. It was like weakness or a hand which came and took away the painpathological taint. It is as clear as that.In other not safe to judge from individual cases, if the body lacks receptivity altogether or if its receptivity is insufficient, one sees the inner correspondence with the psychological state which has brought about the illness and acts on that. But if the cause of the illness is refractory, not much can be done. Let us say the origin is vital. The vital absolutely refuses to change, it clings terrifically to the condition in which it is; then that is hopeless. You put the force, and usually it provokes an increase in the illness, produced by the resistance majority of those who have developed the vital which did faculty do not want to accept anythingsuffer from these defects. I speak of the vital but it can be the mind or something else.When the action is directly upon the body, that is, Those on the affected part, it is possible that one is relieved; then, some hours later or even after other hand who cannot keep their psychic experiences when in a few days, the illness returns. This means that the cause has not been changed, that the cause is in the vital and is still there; it is only the effect which has been cured. But if one can act simultaneously upon both the cause and the effect, and the cause is sufficiently receptive to consent to change, then one is completely cured, once for all. <ref>https://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/31-march-1951#p11,p12,p13</ref> ==How to Heal in Different Parts of the Being?== ===Physical=== The body in its normal robust state, that is to say, when there is no intervention of mental notions or vital impulseshealth, also knows lose them because then they get into a very well what is good external consciousness and necessary for feel at ease in it; but for this to be effective in practice, one must educate the child with care and teach him to distinguish his desires from his needs. He should be helped to develop a taste for food that is simple and healthy, substantial and appetising, but free from any useless complications. In his daily food, all that merely stuffs and causes heaviness should be avoided; and above all, he must be taught to eat according to his hunger, neither more nor less, and not to make his meals an occasion to satisfy his greed or gluttony. From one's very childhood, one should know that one eats in order to give strength and health to the body and true psychic does not to enjoy the pleasures of the palate. Children should be given food that suits their temperament, prepared in a way that ensures hygiene and cleanliness, that is pleasant to the taste and yet very simple. This food should be chosen and apportioned according to the age of the child and his regular activities. It should contain all the chemical and dynamic elements that are necessary depend for his development and the balanced growth of every part of his bodyexperiences on disease. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1228/physicaloccult-powers-or-educationsiddhis#p7p25</ref>
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In all cases, as well for boys as for girls, the exercises must be graded Green light can signify various things according to the strength and context—in the capacity emotional vital it is the colour of each one. If a weak student tries at once to do hard and heavy exercisescertain form of emotional generosity, he may suffer for his foolishness. But in the vital proper an activity with vital abundance or vital generosity behind it—in the vital physical it signifies a wise and progressive training, girls as well as boys can participate in all kinds force of sports, and thus increase their strength and health. <ref>httphttps://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1230/to-women-about-their-bodycolours#p39p71</ref>
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You are young, Do you have plenty know the story of the two simultaneous operations of E. and of T.? T. is that vice-admiral who came here and became quite enthusiastic—he had a kind of inner revelation here. The two of time before them were operated on for a similar complaint, a dangerous ulcer in the digestive system. He was in one town and she was in another, and they were operated on a day apart—both serious operations. And in each case, after a few days had gone by, the surgeon who did the operation said, 'I congratulate you.' Practically the same phrase in both cases. And to they both protested: 'Why are you congratulating me?' (Each one wrote me about this separately; they were living far from one another and only met afterwards.) 'Why? You did the operation—you should be youngcongratulated for my quick recovery.' And in both cases the doctor replied, to be really young'No, no; we must alwaysonly operate, always keep on growingthe body does the healing; you have healed yourself in a way which can qualify as miraculous, developing, progressingand I genuinely congratulate you. Growth is ' And then the sign two of youthfulness and there is no limit them had the same reaction—they wrote to me saying, 'We know where the growth of consciousnessmiracle comes from.' And they had both called me. Moreover, E. had written me a remarkable letter a few days before her operation, where she quoted the Gita as if it were quite natural for her, and told me, 'I know old people of twenty and young people of fiftythat the operation is ALREADY done, sixtythat the Lord has already done it, seventy. And if one does manual work, one keeps in good healthand so I am calm. '<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmagenda/1302/aspirationjune-24-talks1961#p24p53</ref>