Nirodbaran

Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo

Second Series

3. Matters Medical

The Doctor and the Divine Force (II)

I hear that plenty of forces come to people while meditating. Even the force of illness can come, I am told, if one gets scared.

Well, that is quite possible. If it does one has only to kick it away and say, “Get off, you fool.” Or if you are not vigorous enough to do that call the Mother's force.

When the forces come during meditation, it seems that if one lets fear possess one, there is even a chance of madness.

Not necessarily madness. Plenty of people get afraid without getting mad. Madness is exceptional. What fear does is to stop the experience or else it exposes you to blows from the vital beings. If you don't fear, they can't hit you. Fear must not enter in Yoga. As Vivekananda said, the Yogi must be .¹

I can't understand how any illness can come by subtle forces. How is that to be reconciled with the action of the germs?

What is the difficulty? You are like the scientists who say or used to say that there is no suck thing as mind or thought independent of the physical brain: mind and thought are only names for brain quiverings. Or that there is no such thing as vital Force because all the movements of life depend upon chemicals, glands and what not. These things and the germs also are a minor physical instrumentation for something supraphysical.

How do the subtle forces work to bring about illness?

They first weaken or break through the nervous envelope, the aura. If that is strong and whole, a thousand million germs will not be able to do anything to you. The envelope pierced, they attack the subconscient mind in the body, sometimes also the vital mind or mind proper – prepare the illness by fear or thought of illness. The doctors themselves say that in influenza or cholera in the Far East 90 p.c. get ill through fear. Nothing to take away the resistance like fear. But still the subconscient is the main thing.

If the contrary Force is strong in the body one can move in the midst of plague and cholera and never get contaminated.

What about Ramakrishna dying of cancer? But he was an Avatar!

Why should he not? Why on earth limit the possibilities of an Avatar?

Even if we take his Avatarhood to be compatible with his cancer, should not the cancer be accepted as a physical fact due to physical causes rather than as due to subtle forces, the result (if we are to believe Ramakrishna himself) of a moral-spiritual situation? Do not the Laws of Nature and the existence of the material world that is proved by our instruments of observation make things like soul and God and subtle worlds superfluous?

What did he himself say about it – that it was the sins of his disciples which constituted the cancer? There is a physical aspect of things and there is an occult supraphysical aspect – one need not get in the way of the other. All physical things are the expression of the supraphysical. The existence of a body with physical instruments and processes does not, as the 19th century wrongly imagined, disprove the existence of a soul which uses the body even if it is also conditioned by it. Laws of Nature do not disprove the existence of God. The fact of a material world to which our instruments are accorded does not disprove the existence of less material worlds which certain subtler instruments can show to us.

The spiritual Force is said to be enough to cure illnesses. Why then do you encourage Dr. X's treatment? This Force and his medicines – aren't they incompatibles?

Where the illness becomes pronounced and chronic in the body, it is necessary often to call in the aid of physical treatment and that is then used as a support of the Force. X in his treatment does not rely on medicines alone, but uses them as an instrumentation for the Mother's force.

Can the anti-illness force of the Yogic consciousness be absolute?

The absoluteness can only come with the supramental change. For below the supramental, it is an action of a Force among many forces – in the supramental, it becomes a law of the nature.

Can the supramental really make immortal a tottering old man, with all his anatomy and physiology pathological? It seems too much to expect even from the Yogic Force!

Well, don't you know that old men sometimes get a new or third set of teeth in their old age? And if monkey-glands can renew functionings and forces and can make hair grow on a bald head, as Voronoff has proved by living examples, – well? And mark that Science is only at the beginning of these experiments. If these possibilities are opening before Science, why  should one declare their absolute impossibility by other means?

There is a difference between Yogic Force and Supra-mental Nature. What is acquired and held by the Force in the one becomes inherent in the Supramental and exists by nature – it becomes self-existent and absolute.

I was myself going to write to you about Voronoff and rejuvenation. Have you any idea why the moneky-gland is used? I wonder how far the rejuvenating operation is successful.

It is successful partially and for a period – one cannot say more than that. But even that – rejuvenation for a period – is a tremendous progress and how can one say where it will end? As for the monkey, it is because it is nearest to man and at the same time of an extremely vital nature, I mean full of vital force. As for the gland, it is because the seat of the physical energy is there which supports and reinforces all the rest. Voronoff's selection is perfectly logical and intuitive at the same time.

¹ fearless

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