The first things needed is that we do not yet know everything about anything. Rationally speaking, it is absurd to ‘believe’ that man is simply a lump of clay or a bundle of neurons ticking away to glory or a clock set in the heart to tick us slowly towards inevitable death. I refuse to believe that man is just a bunch of chemicals or animalcules. This too is a kind of faith that many ‘scientists’ unwittingly have and I find it worse than a blind faith in totems and taboos that at least admit of something more than the two-legged worm called man. For what else would we be if we are nothing more than a bag of chemicals and physiology? Both Science and Reason demand of us a humility that we do not know and may never know all the mysteries of existence. This keeps us open to new vistas and horizons of discovery. One may say that but Science is after all making new discoveries. Well, yes on the face of it. But a closer look we shall see that unable to shed its obsession with chemistry and biology and physics it is simply running the bullock of effort in the same groves of matter around the same physical tracks despite increasing evidence that the mind (forget about higher consciousness for a moment), our thoughts and feelings and faith and will all have an impact upon our physical health. Can you tell me why research does not go in these directions as much as it should? Simply because this would mean empowering the people, of giving health in their hands which would mean closing down many pharma industries which are big business now (among the top ten in the world). are these people saintly and doing all their research with a selfless motive for the sole purpose of the good of humanity in their heart? One has to be too naïve to believe it. So much for our beliefs and non-beliefs.
Coming back to the healing process, let us admit that it is a complex affair and to reduce it to one simple cause is not doing justice to science or reason. at any given point there are many factors involved including physical such as heredity and constitutional vulnerability of specific organs, exercise and lifestyle, food habits, sleep and rest balance, etc. Then there are vital factors such as the will to live, the joy of life, the strong instinct to survive or simply a tremendous vitality with which some are born. Besides these, there are a host of several other mental, occult and spiritual factors. All these different factors form a hierarchy of determinism. It is by bringing in a higher determinism that one can alter the usual course of the lower plane. Practically, this means that a strong mental or vital will can change the course of an illness, make it milder or less complicated than it may have turned out. Since spiritual consciousness is still higher its intervention can seem almost miraculous. But the highest of all is Grace that can completely change fixed destiny.
However, the cosmic play involves the creation as well as the Creator. Though the Creator can override all rules and laws, it is with His sanction as the Cosmic Being that these things have come into existence. A responsiveness, a receptivity is needed on the side of the creation as well. What we experience as pain is an acute response to the contact with world forces. Its purpose is indeed to awaken and open and make the hard crust of matter more receptive. It is here that we must understand the role of faith and fear. Faith opens the doors wide to the workings of the healing forces that can use even a material medium to act. The Divine is least bothered (to use a human expression) whether we believe in this or that. It is enough that we have faith in the recovery, or faith in destiny, in the doctor, the system, the medication, or just faith in ourselves. It is enough to provide support to the higher forces that are always ready and willing to act if we simply allow them to.
However isn’t it also true that mankind opens much more readily to the lower and darker forces through anger, revolts, agitation, lust for money and power, aggressive ambition, greed, above all distrust in higher things, fear and despair? It is not just a question of belief in God but the kind of forces to wh8ch we are open. Leave aside those who are not yet ready for higher things and are genuinely in ignorance, but even those who have some kind of opening towards greater things. They too so readily shrink back into a selfish fear focused around preserving their physical body so that they can continue devouring nature and exploit others for their selfish ends and brief pleasures! Not that the Divine abandons them. The Grace is equally for all but we shut our doors by putting ourselves in a small hole of fear and doubts. That is what makes life so needlessly complicated by the human mind that has a natural tendency (being on top of the food chain) that he is the highest and best and surrounds his ignorance with armour of arrogance.
If only we could learn to be simple and humble and open like a flower to the Grace, then life would be so much wonderful. But the sceptic mind stands in the way and an aggressively selfish consciousness opens doors to fear and closes it to the Grace.
Alok Pandey
