Chapter 59Wrong Thinking and Illness

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.§

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

With love and blessings.

* 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

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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 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 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

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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

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