Tag Archives: disease

Q.550 – Alzheimer’s and Self-knowledge

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Q: I read your answer to a previous question on this topic but am still not clear. What would be the state of all the knowledge of Advaita that I have acquired? E.g. I know now that I am not the doer and I should surrender the fruits of all my actions. But how can I still know this if I wake up with Alzheimer’s?

A: As I intimated in the answer to Q. 383, you have to differentiate between paramārtha and vyavahāra. In reality, there is only Brahman. There is only the appearance of people and world. They are mithyā. Their real substrate is Brahman.

We appear to have a body-mind and that body-mind is subject to disease, decay and death. This applies equally to the body-mind of the jñānī. The difference between the jñānī and the ajñānī is that the former knows that the body-mind is mithyā, while the latter doesn’t. Just as the body may suffer disease or even lose parts through accident, so the brain also is subject to illness and deterioration. Since the mind is associated with the brain, if the brain suffers loss, the mind will also. The memory may deteriorate or fail completely. This is the case irrespective of whether the jīva had previously gained Self-knowledge.

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Q. 548 – God and germs

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Q: It is said that God is everywhere. So God is very much in the human body as well. He is in every cell/atom of a human body. My question is: what is the position /status of God, who is within the body, when  every cell/atom becomes infected? Is infection more powerful than God?

A: God is not ‘in the  human body’. The human body is name and form of Brahman. Similarly, bacteria are name and form of Brahman. There is ONLY Brahman in reality.

At the level of appearance (world etc.), God (Īśvara ) provides an interim explanation of the laws that govern the seeming creation.  One of these laws is that bacteria can infect bodies and affect their working, even to the extent of ‘killing’ them. But God, bodies and bacteria do not exist as separate entities in reality. They are all Brahman.

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World, The Only Hospital

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Swedish Health | P2S Inc.The entire world is like a huge Hospital!

We get admitted into it when we are afflicted by the “Disease” called “ajnAna” (i.e. ignorance of Knowing what we are in truth – disembodied brahman). This disease manifests with many symptoms – unique to each patient. There is no other place in the whole Universe where one can work to rid oneself from his/her disease. 

There are many specialists, doctors, nurses, ward boys and so on to help the patients to administer a medicinal antidote suitable for each so that they may get rid of their disease. But each patient has to take his/her medicine. Just looking at others or listening to the talks of their caregivers and wishes of their well-wishers will not work, however beautiful may be the doctors or however enthralling their words and blessings may be. Howsoever superhuman a patient may imagine the caregivers to be, they are still a part of the Hospital only.

After all, none has really lost his/her health! Everyone is eternally Healthy (swasthata). But that health got “infected.” None need to acquire “Health.” Each patient just has to lose ‘the infection.’ His/her normal health will automatically be back and s/he gets discharged (liberated) from the Hospital. One cannot cleverly manipulate a discharge, for, one surely comes back to the Hospital with a more severe relapse of the disease!

Be Healthy Ever. 

[guru pUrNima day – 07/03/2023]