Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 4
I have found it difficult to understand fully from the facts and impressions written and wired by you what we are to think about Janak’s condition and her chances of outlasting the present long-continued crisis. On the one hand, there seems to be little hope and at any moment there may be the collapse and final end; on the other, there have been sometimes an appearance of improvement and a chance that her strong psychic resistance may bring her out of this terrible attack of many combined illnesses and other dangerous conditions surrounding her. But one thing we feel that so long as there is the slightest shadow of a hope we must fight to the end to save her. Her strong psychic resistance, her openness to the spiritual force is the element most in her favour in spite of the damage done by her past tendency to give up and leave the body; now that this has gone there is a greater chance of her coming through if she can survive the present danger created by the complications of asthma and lack of sleep and inability to take sufficient sustenance. But her other main support has been your presence and all that you have been doing for her: we feel that if she has been able to overcome these terrible assaults so long, it has been largely due to that. I can fully appreciate what a tremendous strain it has been on you and how painful to see her suffer with the feeling that has been growing on you of the hopelessness of her case in such circumstances; but without you things might have, I think, certainly would have been much worse and might have come already to the worst. Mother very strongly feels that your presence has been our best help and gives the greatest chance and she wants you to continue some time longer. It is these considerations and one other contingent, one which I will come to at the end of the letter, which made me ask you to stay a little longer. If it turns out that there is really no hope or that your remaining cannot really help and would only be an unnecessary strain on you, then it is different. Of course I will try to the end; for my experience is that even a hopeless effort in the fields of the working of the spiritual force is often better than none and can bring in the intervention of the miracle.
One very serious difficulty has been the entire darkness in which the medical aspects of all this trouble have been wrapped by the inability of the doctors to account for the mortal seriousness of her case. None of the symptoms has been definitely accounted for, neither the osteoarthritis nor the pressure of the extra bone can have any mortal effect. The relapse into asthma is also not of itself a fatal illness and cannot account for the terrible pain in the heart, however serious may be the aggravation to which it has led owing to the sleeplessness and the inability to take sufficient sustenance. The doctors here are agreed that the bleeding from the mouth and nose can have nothing to do with any heart trouble and moreover it has now ceased. As for the heart itself one doctor finds there is no organic illness and the other speaks of dilatation but that by itself gives no clue. Dr. Satyavrata has seen the X-ray plate and noticed a shadow in the chest and suggested certain possibilities which could account for the more serious aspects that have actually developed without the doctors being able to give an elucidating diagnosis. To make certain it would be necessary to take another X-ray plate of the chest and under present conditions that is not possible. As for thrombosis if these formidable pains had been due to that, they would have finished her long ago. If one knew the exact seat and cause of illness that would help in the working of the force, because in spiritual working as well as in any other an exact direction in the light of a sure knowledge is always the most effective.
I come now to the thing from which I started. It is contingent on her coming out in spite of everything and escaping from the apparent hopelessness of the present conditions. It comes from our feeling that her stay in that house is dangerous for her and undesirable because of other considerations than those connected with her present illness. If she can recover sufficiently to make the movement possible and safe, then we think that she ought to be moved at least to another house where she can still be looked after and receive the care and comfort necessary for her. Her husband’s proposal of taking her to the Delhi hospital is of course out of the question since she refuses to submit to medical treatment and is determined to trust to the spiritual force alone; nor is medical treatment likely to be of much benefit in her case.
But I suppose in his present attitude he would give his help and Surindar also and make the necessary arrangements. If she could recover by that time so much as to be able to leave Jubbulpore, that would be much the best; but this much at least we think to be very desirable. I will not enter into the reasons; some of them must be obvious but there are others of an occult order. It would not be necessary for you to wait long enough to carry out this arrangement yourself provided you get the cooperation of Mulkraj and Surindar.
I will write further if it is necessary, but I must send this letter at once if it has to go today.