Posted on: 13 Oct 2016
Shri Anil asked (by phone): In the recent ‘Mahima Yamuna’, I read about curing various diseases. What is the place of medical treatment in this context?
Swami replied: I quoted the first line of the verse from ethical scripture in My previous reply to you on this topic (purvajanma krutam...). Your present question touches the second line of the verse (which I have not quoted in the previous message), which says that whenever a disease attacks you due to the previous sin or some other natural factor, you should go immediately for the medical treatment (tatshaanti raushadhai...). Hence, medical treatment is the first step. One should not think that medical treatment is against the spiritual path. Often, some foolish devotees think like this and feel highly spiritual by saying “yesterday I got fever. I didn’t take any medicine. I was simply praying Lord Rama for the cure”. Such foolish devotee must know that Lord Vishnu Himself created the medicines and gave medical knowledge to the humanity (Vijnaanam etat sarvam janaaardanaat). The Veda says that medicines are created by God (Pruthivyaa oshadhayah).
The reason is that you don’t know whether this illness is the result of your carelessness towards natural laws or due to the punishment of a sin done by you as per the cycle of deeds. You might have got cold. It might have been due to your exposure to cold wind or rains or due to taking lemon juice, tender tamarind fruits etc. In such case, you can take the usual ‘COLDACT’ tablet. You will get immediate cure since this incident comes under the category of ‘Atyutkata karma’, which means actions giving immediate results. When you are drenched in the rain, you will get cold immediately. It is not a sin, the fruit of which is to be enjoyed in the hell or the next birth. You should not say that if one is drenched in rain in this birth, cold and cough will attack him in the hell or heaven after his death or in the next life. When the medicine is given for a long time and the disease become incurable, then only, you must bring this problem to the normal category of sins and fruits. Then only, you must understand that the illness is given to you by the divine administration as a fruit of your previous sin. Such diseases only come under this category in which case the medical treatment fails. The cure of such disease takes place only when the fruit of sin gets exhausted or God cures it by His grace. The miracles are connected to such incurable diseases only. Jesus gave sight to a blind person, which was impossible in the medical treatment. The filtration of these two types of diseases is done by medical treatment only. If the treatment applies, the illness is not due to any sin, but, due to carelessness to follow the natural laws, which are also created by God only. The remedies for such disease (medicine and medical science) were also given by the same God. If the disease is not cured by medical treatment, you have to treat the disease as the fruit of your past sin. This second type of diseases also comes under the divine administration of God only (because the punishments of sins are also given by God only as per the constitution). The cure of such disease is again by the grace of God only as seen in the miracles (otherwise the soul should undergo the punishment till the whole quantum is exhausted). Show Me a cubic millimetre of space, where God is not involved!