DISEASE - CURE (Cure Your Self - 9)

Practical Guidance to Patient 

(Excerpts from book “Cure Yourself”, author Swami Vijnananand, S.V.)

In the last article, we probed into what a patient is obliged to theoretically conceive in his quest for new medicine.

It is time that for practical guidance of the patient a crude plan may be chalked out.

Partially cure-mystery has been solved. We have previously raised the veil for certain and laid bare the root cause of disease. The ailment is personal revelation of action-reaction phenomenon between individual mind and matter - that is body. In the tussle, 'emotion' toils as a courier, both ways.

Earlier volumes have spoken of the first jerk marshaled from the mind's end. Inevitably, it is for the mind to impede action through emotions. In other words, mind must comprehend that there is no go but to neutralize or to inactivate the emotions. At this turn too, the situation is not fully under control. Assuming one is able to effectively arrest the onslaught of recurring emotions, by no means curbing the effects of the past precipitants remains within one's own reach. For disentanglement of this situation, a procedure by which emotions may be slowly neutralized is imperatively to be traced.

A minute study of the correlation between emotions and body will be an advance in the rightful direction.

Emotions are approximately six: Sex, anger, greed, ego, enmity, and affection. Some experts are inclined to add fear to the list, though to my mind fear a subsidiary emotion. Anyway, the number of primary emotions does not exceed seven without any dispute.

Emotions are ventilated only through sense-organs of the body. So the natural approach to the solution is to counter act the cravings of these sense-organs, in each individuality. As an indication that we are proceeding on the right lines, it is significant to note that to match with the number of emotions, expressions of sense-organs also command approximately the same number of selective alternatives. For instance, eyes can distinguish primarily six to seven colors; tongue has six tastes; smell, touch and sound, follow the same suit.

For the assistance of the readers, below are reproduced reflections of each sense-organ.

1.  Eye: Human vision distinguishes seven colors of which two are more or less shades. Numerous theories exist that go to explain color vision. Without going to technical particulars let us take seven distinctions for our purpose to be: White and black as apparent classifications and additionally five colors from 'Trichromatic' theory of color vision: Red, yellow, green, blue and violet.

2.  Skin (Touch): Approximately seven kinds of cutaneous reception are distinguished: Hot, cold, vibratory, itching, soft, pressing and pain, the last being considered as an exceptional reception. For Recipropathy, it is an accumulated reception.

3.  Tongue (Taste): 'Test book of Physiology' mentions four tastes (sour, salty, bitter, and sweet) as major besides thermal, tactile and pain stimulation. But it would not be wrong to divide taste sensations, for our purposes, into seven major groups: Sour, Salty, bitter, sweet, Alum-like, pungent and metallic.

4.  Ear (Sound): The classification in ear-reception proves a hard job. Indian music is based on seven major tunes and so might other schools of music be on appropriate foundation. Instead of distinction in terms of musical notes one can rely on measure of intensity of various sounds on scale of decibels. For instance, you can easily communicate the order in which you dislike the following: faint whisper at a distance of 1.5 m., ticking of a watch, quite conversation, busy street, shout, fortissimo of a big orchestra and, lastly, thunder. Each respectively produces following intensity of sound in decibels: 10, 20,40,70,80,100,120.

Incidentally, high sound may evoke a sensation which is similar to pain. Beyond a certain limit the sound is not audible to human ear at all. Yet within the range of audibility lie personal likes and dislikes and we can distinguish and divide the range as per individual convenience.

5.  Nose (Olfaction): Here again we come across seven classifications. Below is the data characterizing the acuity of olfaction in man: Ethylic ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, pyridine, butyric acid, propyl mercaptan and artificial musk.

As in other cases, the acuity of olfaction with regard to same odoriferous substance greatly varies in different people. It also varies to a surprising proportion in same person, as the conditions change.

Despite all diversities, one curious thing is established. As emotions can be grouped into six or seven, so do selective properties of each sense-organ range up to seven. Innumerable shades inter-located in between these seven main characters of emotion give birth to vast multitude of individualists. Nevertheless hailing this 'individuality' as guide, we should not be prevented from linking up emotions with relative capacities of the sense-organs.

Evidently, the immediate step is to interrogate the patient to fill up the following table:

Gradation of dislike :	1	2	3	4	5	6
An emotion you caress
Smell you do not like
Sound-range you abhor
Color you dislike
Taste you detest
Touch you shun
General habitual aversions if any …..

What remains is exceedingly unambiguous. The indisposed, fully persuaded and convinced of the code laid down in 'Cure without Medicine' Chapter Thirteen, may quickly put his finger on a starting point suitable to him. Over and above, hints in the appendix may assist the patient in the preliminary transition.

Take a hypothetical case of a patient whose table records his first-rate dislikes of smell, sound, color, taste, touch to be respectively musk, shout, violet, bitter and cold. The sufferer should pick up representative articles of these dislikes as curative agents.

Recently an invalid called on me with the same maximum range of dislikes. I suggested to him, to use musk agarbatti and soap, advised a walk near railway shunting station, handed over an emblem of violet color to keep on his writing table, gave bitter herbal powders for oral intake and recommended a cold bath. It was also hinted that a soothing alleviation shall be his reward, the moment he begins to 'enjoy' the course suggested. To my astonishment he laboriously attempted the feat till on the twentieth day, and to his surprise, he was cured of his agony ten hours later.

More Questions Answered

Readers and patients who intelligently believe in our premise persistently raise questions, though following the code of conduct, insinuated. A few typical posers are reproduced.

Question 1: Is Nature Cruel?

You propose a peaceful, just, true, life. How will it fit in the unjust and cruel Nature? Does not Nature manifest cruelty?

You perhaps mean Nature you are able to conceive or interpret. Many a time, such interpretation is too subjective to be true. When you blame a lion for slaying your goat and stamp its nature with cruelty, it is a subjective, one-sided aspect. Do you mean professing that the lion should live on grass? Strangely, when human constitution allows intake of vegetable, the man eats goats and blames the lion, even acknowledging that lions by nature cannot feed themselves on grass. And are not vegetables alive and tenacious of living? As a famous physician says, "Like every other form of life on this earth, man must eat life and must in turn be eaten by it." Dr. Karl Menninger has elaborately illustrated in "Man against Himself" how we sow seeds of strokes we receive. Accidents too are no exception to this phenomenon, though apparently you imagine it improbable. Accidents and cruelty are conceptions of ours. The conceptions exist since the link - causative factors - is lost sight of.

Question 2: Use of Medicine, Prayers etc.

Recipropathy too prescribes some prayers, substitutes, some form of medicine too, and allows operations. Then what is the difference between other schools and this one?

The prescription is suggested in different form and perspective. A determined, intelligent patient prefers to attend our full seminar and eschew formalities. For others, a check-up whether causality allows them a cure by coincidence is worth trying. Ultimately all have to peremptorily perceive laws by which a real lasting cure is effected. Moreover, after attending the seminar, accepting all our premises, rarely though, even a firm-minded patient needs some breathing time. He wants time to change himself. During the transition period, thoroughly grasping that other way out does not exist, he adapts himself to external disciplines enumerated in our tenets, in addition to limiting himself to theoretical acceptance.

Question 3: Value of Research

Is there no use of research in medicine according to you?

My opinion loses its significance when the questioner like you harbors a partial, though negligible, faith in medicine. I therefore quote Dr. Carrol, one of the greatest medical authority of this century. He emphasizes, "Disease is a personal event. There are as many different diseases as patients." Earlier he has said, "Moreover, the number of their possible combinations is infinite. No task is more difficult than to analyze constitution of a given individual. The complexity of mental personality being extreme, and the psychological tests insufficient, it is impossible to classify individuals accurately. They can, however, be divided into categories according to their intellectual, affective, moral, aesthetic, and religious characteristics, to the combinations of these characteristics, and to their relations with the various types of physiological activities. There are also some obvious relations between psychological and morphological types. The physical aspect of an individual is an indication of the constitution of these tissues, humors, and mind. Between the more definite types there are many intermediate ones. The possible classifications are almost innumerable. They are, consequently, of little value."

Question 4: Laws of Motion and Medicine

In "Cure without Medicine" you have disproved modern medicine on the basis of laws of motion. But does the medicine imply motion?

Whatever result medicine produces is born out of its action, whereas action decidedly implies motion. In any text book of pharmacology - say by Prof. Dilling - exhaustive details of 'actions' brought about by the drugs may be referred to. This action of medicine is mentioned also in Dr. Hahnemann's 'Organon'.

Question 5: Action, Disease and Money - Debt

Why should we presume that allopathic medicine becomes part of our body? Can we hypothesize that the medicine is thrown out along with stools, urine and other such agencies?

The proposition is elaborately discussed in 'Cure without Medicine', Chapter Nine, Point Seven. True action due to medicine accelerates molecular motion in the metabolism and some unhealthy waste is thrown out of body, but this is only a partial process you are describing. For whatever is worth, I reproduce a simile. Say I owe 2000 chips to Mr. A. To pay it off, I draw another 5000 from Mr. B and square up accounts with Mr. A. I can well boast that I am 'cured' of Mr. A.  Visualize for yourself whether I am genuinely freed from my obligation, affliction, adversity and distress.

Question 6: Food as Medicine

Food also 'acts' on our body as do medicine. Why should it be not termed as medicine?

Forgive me for repeating my rejoinder to a similar question. Undoubtedly there is much that is subjective in the concept of medicine: When someone does not consume butter as a food, butter becomes a medicine. When iodine is applied to a finger that is hurt, iodine is a medicine. Apply the same medicine to a normal finger and it ceases to be a medicine. By itself a solution can have no medical properties definable as a medicine; the use thereof alone determines whether it is medicine or not.

Question 7: Equal and opposite, a contradiction

In 'Cure without Medicine' you assailed homeopaths, protesting that ice cannot be eliminated by another piece of ice. Now you say my dislike is my medicine. Is it not a contradiction?

Discussion enumerating this issue appears in point '4B' of Chapter 11 in the present work. Indeed, the problem demands a comprehensive analysis at the philosophical level. Nevertheless, from one angle the inquiry can be adequately put to scrutiny at this stage. In 'Cure without Medicine' we were checking whether each school remains consistently logical to its own preaching or not. Moreover, when Recipropathy prescribes 'ice' as an interim medicine it is not based on principle of similarity but specifically for the reason that 'ice' serves as a measure of 'equal and opposite' of the initiating cause. Ice serves as your cure, it being your 'dislike', equal and opposite of your 'like' which conceals its understandable description. The crux of the issue can be scanned from yet another point having discriminative bearing. In practice, a homeopath recommends not the actual ice, but its empirical potency. Consequently, discomfort that the slice of ice evokes due to patients dislike for it, is absent. The patient stands clear away from discerning the origin of his smarts, gripes, sores, cramps, stitches and pangs. On account of this, results in homeopathy are random and temporary. In case the medicine is inevitable, its intake must synchronize with true understanding about cause and cure of disease. An unvarnished truth and insight into factual situation brings about a world of difference in the psychology of the patient. It reduces overall evil effects.

Question 8: Awe of Science

Recipropathy respects science, but science itself is changing. Instead, why should a religion that sticks up to constant truth not be taught?

An adherent of science is not sorry that it is constantly changing. The change is initiated by better knowledge, which is highly adored human prerogative. In contrast, immutability and constancy in religion rests on faith. Not that faith has no place, but diversity of religion is a factor that renders the solution to construct a universal faith-platform, improbable. None objects - individually you - to rely on religions. Every religion endorses 'Truth'. True religion and true science should synchronize at one point, since ultimate truth is indivisibly one. Recipropathy suggests you to be normal, detached. I wholeheartedly greet that respect for science is on the ascent but have no awe for that too. In the words of Madam Curie, "While it is proper that we should honor great achievements and appreciate the romance of science, it is unfortunate, and indeed damaging to science, when we forget that scientists are in fact human beings. If we can think of them in life-size and as normal biological specimens, and not as disembodied brains, we can see their achievements in their real perspective; awe-struck reverence of the Scientific Mind is as irrational and, indeed, as superstitious, as the awesome fear that the pagan Dyaks have of Jabu, the Spirit of the Mountain."

Question 9: Can 'Mind' change tissues?

Can our mind build or change tissues in body? Can an antibody be created without antigen? I think it is improbable and so with all its defects why should medicine be not accepted?

In issue No.118 (published some time in November 1959) of 'Soviet Union' under the heading 'Injection against Burn', following news piece is chronicled on page 52, "At the sixth international Blood Transfusion Conference held in the United States Nikolai Fyodorov, a Soviet scientist, astonished experts with his report on burn therapy. The pathological condition of people suffering from serious burns is so critical that medicine is often powerless to help them. Experiments conducted by Soviet doctors have shown that in such cases alien proteins with poisonous properties are formed in the blood and tissues, and that the organism reacts against this by producing antibodies.

One day a young man was brought to the Moscow Institute of Blood Transfusion with three quarters of his body affected by burns incurred in a fire. Hope for his recovery was nil. Instead of an ordinary blood transfusion, however, the patient was given an injection of blood taken from a man who had recently recovered from burn injuries. The result was an immediate improvement in the patient's condition. In hundreds of subsequent cases this kind of injection has had same splendid effect. The woman in the photograph had 50 per cent of her body covered with third and fourth degree burns. Now she is quite well." The report speaks for itself.

Question 10: Should we take medicine?

You do not object medicine being consumed occasionally, is it not? How do you distinguish whether your patient is using medicine as per your principle?

Your inquiry gives rise to a number of supplementary questions. It meets an all-embracing reply, in 'Cure without Medicine', Chapter 11, Chapter 12 of this work and in answer to Question Two above. On an overall understanding being reached, one may need medicine in the transition period. Then it is not the same devastating medicine in the usual sense. Admittedly, laws of motion are not repealed, but after true understanding the gravity is mitigated. Whether a patient is taking medicine under a pretext of 'Transition period' is not an issue into which I can probe. If at all, the patient outwits himself, I remain unconcerned.

Question 11: What is Recipropathy?

What is Recipropathy? What does the name imply?

The name is coined to keep away from words having obtained fore judged connotations. It is based on the observation that we earn just reciprocally for all our actions, without exception.

(To be continued)


Vijay R. Joshi