Works of Sri Aurobindo

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-23_Worry and Bother.htm

WORRY AND BOTHER ABOUT ILLNESS 

 

The doctor has seen my blood. He has given me this little paper to show you how weak the blood is and to communicate it to you. The tiredness seems to increase rather than grow less.

 

You must not worry; you will soon be back on your feet, especially as your vitality has remained very strong. Have no fear and keep your full trust in the Divine Grace.

18 February 1938

X told me, “It was a mistake on your part not to inform the Mother about your body which is so thin and weak.” Kindly tell me what to do to improve it.

 

Do not bother about it and increase your faith in the Divine’s Grace.

            Blessings.

4 July 1939

People say that one gets this attack [of illness] on account of working too hard and exposing oneself to the sun and cold winds during the course of it. This suggestion is worrying me.

 

This attack is not due to work or exposure but to the suggestion of an old habit rising from the subconscient. Do not listen to what people say and keep your faith in the Divine’s Grace. Everything will become all right in the course of time.

            My blessings.

8 January 1940  

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            Do not worry and rest your hand. That is the best way to get better quickly.

 

            My advice is not to worry. The more you think of it, the more you concentrate upon it and, above all, the more you fear, the more you give a chance for the thing to grow.

            If, on the contrary, you turn your attention and your interest elsewhere you increase the possibilities of cure.

 

            Why give so much importance to these material workings of the body? It is better to feel absolutely free of them and let them go their own way without bothering about it, until we have the force and knowledge necessary to intervene in their obscurity and to compel them to change and become the true expression of the Supreme Light and Consciousness.

 

            Health: not to be preoccupied with it, but to leave it to the Divine.

 

            Think less of yourself and your health.

            Surely you will become stronger.

            But if you are convinced that you have an illness, go to the hospital, surely there they will find one.

 

            If parents could leave their children alone, they would not  

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fall ill so often, perhaps not even once out of ten times. Yes, you have not said anything to the child, but how worried you were about its health. It appeared as if a catastrophe had happened or the child had suddenly developed cancer. It is your worry that spoils the whole atmosphere and increases the trouble.

 

            If you are ill, your illness is looked after with so much anxiety and fear, you are given so much care that you forget to take help from the One who can help you and you fall into a vicious circle and take a morbid interest in your illness.

 

            When I was twenty, a doctor told me that in cases of troubles of the stomach or intestines, the best thing is to continue eating as usual and not to bother about the trouble. He said, “If you have acidity, it will come from whatever food you take and the more you bother about it, the more it will increase. If you go on changing your food, in the end you will find that you cannot even drink a drop of water without getting into trouble. But if you remain normal and don’t worry, you will become all right.”

            And I have found this advice to be quite true.

 

WRONG THINKING AND ILLNESS 

 

            In fact I can assure you that the pain in the stomach as well as many other discomforts are due 90% to wrong thinking and  

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strong imaginations − I mean that the material basis for them is practically negligible.

            With love and blessings.

1943

            Do not torment yourself and do not worry; above all try to banish all fear; fear is a dangerous thing which can give importance to something which had none at all. The mere fear of seeing certain symptoms renew themselves is enough to bring about this repetition.

24 July 1945

I have a notion that much protein and starchy food aggravate eczema.

 

In the effect of food on the body 90% belongs to the power of thought. If you follow with confidence the treatment of Dr. X, it will cure you.

            Blessings.

            6 October 1962

            You may have been told that certain bodily complaints will give you a great deal of pain. Things like that are often said. You may then make a formation of fear and keep expecting the pain. And the pain comes even when it need not.

            But in case it is there after all, I can tell you one thing. If the consciousness is turned upward, the pain vanishes. If it is turned downward, the pain is felt and even increases. When one experiments with the upward and the downward turnings, one sees that the bodily complaint as such has nothing to do with the pain. The body may suffer very much or not at all, although its condition is exactly the same. It is the turn of the consciousness

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that makes all the difference.

            I say “turned upward” because to turn towards the Divine is the best method, but what can be said in general is that if the consciousness is turned away from the pain to one’s work or anything that interests one, the pain ceases.

            And not only the pain but whatever damage there may be in an organ is set right much more easily when the consciousness is taken away from the trouble and one is open to the Divine. There is the Sat aspect of the Divine — the pure supreme Existence above or beyond or behind the cosmos. If you can keep in contact with it, all physical complaints can be removed.

25 November 1962

Beloved Mother:

      I am suffering with quite a severe recurrence of swollen ankles due to Dengue fever.

      Dr. X is treating me, but I beg your Healing Force and am doing my best to open so that our work may progress at this crucial time.

 

Stop imagining wrong things and your miseries will stop at the same time.

            Blessings.

10 December 1964

            His vital force is very poor and mental suggestions rather strong.

            Do what he asks for a time. He may find out that it is all his imagination, for it is his imagination that makes him sick or rather gives him the impression of sickness.  

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