Works of Sri Aurobindo

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-24_Will to Conquer Illness.htm

WILL TO CONQUER ILLNESS

 

 

            Wake up in yourself a will to conquer. Not a mere will in the mind but a will in the very cells of your body. Without that you can’t do anything; you may take a hundred medicines but they won’t cure you unless you have a will to overcome the physical illness.

            I may destroy the adverse force that has possessed you. I may repeat the action a thousand times. But each time that a vacuum is created it will be filled up by one of the many forces that try to rush in. That is why I say, wake up the will to conquer.

20 October 1957

            Do not love your ill health and the ill health will leave you.

28 August 1966

            Both the things are correct. You must put a strong will for getting rid of your illness and you must remain quiet and unperturbed by the results. The two are not contradictory. One should accompany the other. When you are completely cured, it will be an indication of some inner progress.

            Sri Aurobindo’s compassion is always there to help you, but some effort is needed from your side also.

 

            She must take the resolution to get well, otherwise she will never be all right.

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            The body is cured if it has decided to be cured.

 

            The body should reject illness as energetically as we reject falsehood in the mind.

 

CONTROL OF DESIRES 

 

            In order to be cured, my child, not only is it necessary to stop all these unseemly practices completely, but it is necessary to get rid of all these unhealthy desires from your thought and sensation, for it is desires that irritate the organs and make them ill. You must ruthlessly clean up everything and your will is not strong enough for that; invoke my will, call it sincerely and it will be there to help you. You are right when you say that with my help you will surely be able to conquer. That is true, but you must sincerely want this help and let it work within you and in all circumstances.

 

(A sadhak asked the Mother to use her spiritual power to cure a serious illness.)

 

The power cannot work if you have no control over your desires.

 6 September 1959 

             Your readings are correct.

             In my last note I was referring to food desires. Unless you  

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control the food you take, you will always be ill.

 14 September 1959

            Conquest over the greed for food: a promise of good health.  

PEACE AND QUIET, FAITH AND SURRENDER 

 

            To keep quiet and to concentrate, leaving the Force from above to do its work, is the surest way to be cured of anything and everything. There is no illness that can resist that if it is done properly, in time and long enough, with a steady faith and a strong will.

 6 December 1934

I am having fever. What is the best way to get rid of it?

 

Remain peaceful and confident and it will soon be over.

 

 I have a severe pain in my throat, neck and the back of my head. The attacks are intolerable and I am losing patience.

 

You must not lose patience, this does not hasten the cure. On the contrary, you must keep a peaceful faith that you are going to be cured.

 5 October 1935 

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            Establish a greater peace and quietness in your body, that will give you the strength to resist attacks of illness.

 22 October 1935

            The only thing I can suggest about diseases is to call down peace. Keep the mind away from the body by whatever means − whether by reading Sri Aurobindo’s books or meditation. It is in this state that the Grace acts. And it is the Grace alone that cures. The medicines only give a faith to the body. That is all.

 

            My dear child, now it is time for the faith to become truly active and to stand unshaken against all contradictions. Have the faith, the true faith, that you will be cured and the cure is bound to come.

            My love and blessings.

 2 February 1949

            Instead of being upset and struggling, the best thing to do is to offer one’s body to the Divine with the sincere prayer, “Let Thy Will be done.” If there is any possibility of cure, it will establish the best conditions for it; and if cure is impossible, it will be the very best preparation for getting out of the body and the life without it.

            In any case the first indispensable condition is a quiet surrender to the Divine’s will.

            With love and blessings.  

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 Turn your mind completely away from your difficulty, concentrate exclusively on the Light and the Force coming from above; let the Lord do for your body whatever He pleases. Hand over to Him totally the entire responsibility of your physical being.

             This is the cure.

             With my blessings.

             5 March 1959  

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            The imperative condition for cure is calm and quietness. Any agitation, any nervousness prolongs the illness.

 26 November 1969

(To someone suffering from stomach and intestinal trouble)

 

It is due to restlessness and agitation. What is the matter? Bring down peace, the Divine Peace, in your stomach and it will be all right.

 

            Catch hold of a peace deep within and push it into the cells of the body. With the peace will come back the health.

 

            Peace and stillness are the great remedy for disease.

            When we can bring peace in our cells, we are cured.

 

            Peace in the nerves: indispensable for good health.

 

CURE BY THE DIVINE GRACE 

 

(Someone with rheumatism wrote:)

 Am I destined to be an invalid? I have given the best part of my life to the Divine. Is this to be my fate? Is there no way out?  

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Have faith. There is no disease which cannot be cured by the Divine Grace.

 

            Do not think you are invalid for ever, because the Grace of the Lord is infinite.

 

            I am enclosing a portrait of two birds with keen eyesight to encourage you to have faith that your eyes will be cured.

            I shall see what can be done.

 28 January 1932

What to do about illness?

 

Be passively confident: let me do it and it is done.

 

When one is caught in an illness, how should one pray to the Mother?

 

Cure me, O Mother!

 

            Her mental disease was congenital, that is to say, caused by her physical constitution, and it would have happened to her wherever she would have been and whatever life she would have lived. In fact, I made her last here one and a half years more than she would have lasted elsewhere.

            These congenital diseases can be cured only by an integral

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transformation of the body itself and we have not reached yet that period in the sadhana; otherwise it is only a so-called “miraculous cure” that can take place and that kind of “miracle” can happen only as the result of an absolute sincerity in the consecration to the Divine and an unshakable faith in the Divine Grace. This was not the case, she was full of fears, desires and demands and terribly concentrated on her exterior being and what she called its needs. This is just the opposite of a sincere consecration.

 25 March 1935

My dear child,

            Let your receptivity increase this year, to the extent of giving you the power to fully utilise the force that is at work for restoring perfect good health in you.

            With my love and blessings.

 2 February 1948

X has written again. Two letters to you from his friend Miss Y (who met you on her last visit here some months back) have gone unnoticed − to all appearances at least. She has asked for a blessing-packet for some trouble of hers. She got none. But in her second letter she reported good news.

 

How “unnoticed”? She got cured! Man of little faith!

 31 May 1967

Before sleeping I told you, “This won’t do. If this boil remains, I will have to remain in bed during the darshan week. I am not sure that this is possible.” In the morning the boil had moved about three inches away,  

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giving me full freedom of movement, and in a day or two it burst and now it is dried up. I wonder whether actually the boil could move in this way.

 

Anything may happen. It is only our “logical” minds which put limitations. I must congratulate your body for its receptivity.

 February 1970

With your blessings my disease gets partially cured but does not go.

 

This gives the exact measure of your body’s receptivity. Concentrate the force on the diseased parts and they will improve.

 

About others I inform you in silence and it works, but about my own illness I have to inform you physically − why?

 

It depends on the physical reception of each one, and that receptivity depends on the more or less dominating mind.

 

            It is a question of receptivity. I am doing the best that can be done for him, but he goes on thinking that he is ill. All the time he is busy with that idea and he has made a strong formation of illness around him. He is unable to receive my help because of this formation. Let him discard the idea of illness and more than half the trouble will be over and it will be easy to cure him. 

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