Basic
Causes of Disease
From
the Tibetan, Esoteric Healing
- All
disease (and this is a platitude) is caused by lack of harmony - a
disharmony to be found existing between the form aspect and the life. That
which brings together form and life, or rather, that which is the result
of this intended union, we call the soul, the self where humanity is
concerned, and the integrating principle where the subhuman kingdoms are
concerned. Disease appears where there is a lack of alignment between
these various factors, the soul and the form, the life and its expression,
the subjective and the objective realities. Consequently, spirit and
matter are not freely related to each other. This is one mode of
interpreting Law I, and the entire thesis is intended to be an exposition
of that Law.
- This
lack of harmony, producing what we call disease, runs through all the four
kingdoms in nature, and causes those conditions which produce pain (where
the sentiency is exquisite and developed) and everywhere congestion,
corruption and death. Ponder on these words: Inharmony,
Disease, Pain, Congestion, Corruption, Death, for they are descriptive of
the general condition governing the conscious life of all forms,
macrocosmic and microcosmic. They are not causes.
- All
these conditions, however, can be regarded as purificatory
in their effects, and must be so regarded by humanity if the right
attitude towards disease is to be assumed. This is oft forgotten by the
fanatical healer and by the radical exponent of an idea, finitely grasped
and in most cases only part of a greater idea. [13]
- Methods
of healing and techniques of alleviation are peculiar to humanity and are
the result of man's mental activity. They indicate his latent power as a
creator, and as one who progresses towards freedom. They indicate his
discriminative ability to sense perfection, to vision the goal, and hence
to work towards that ultimate liberation. His error at this time consists
in:
- His inability to see the true uses of pain.
- His resentment at suffering.
- His misunderstanding of the law of
non-resistance.
- His over-emphasis of the form nature.
- His attitude to death, and his feeling that the
disappearance of the life out of visual perception through the medium of
form, and the consequent disintegration of that form, indicates disaster.
- When
human thought reverses the usual ideas as to disease, and accepts disease
as a fact in nature, man will begin to work with the law of liberation,
with right thought, leading to non-resistance. At present, by the power of
his directed thought and his intense antagonism to disease, he only tends
to energize the difficulty. When he reorients his thought to truth and the
soul, physical plane ills will begin to disappear. This will become
apparent as we study later the method of eradication. Disease exists.
Forms in all kingdoms are full of inharmony and
out of alignment with the indwelling life. Disease and corruption and the
tendency towards dissolution are found everywhere. I am choosing my words
with care.
- Disease
is not, therefore, the result of wrong human thought. It existed among the
many forms of life long before the human family appeared on earth. If you
seek verbal expression, and if you want to talk within the limits of the
human mind, you can say with a measure of accuracy: God, [14] the
planetary Deity, is guilty of wrong thinking. But you will not be
expressing the truth, but only a tiny fraction of the cause, as it appears
to your feeble finite mind, through the medium of the general world glamor and illusion.
- From
one angle, disease is a process of liberation, and the enemy of that which
is static and crystallized. Think not, from what I say, that therefore
disease should be welcomed, and that the process of death should be
cherished. Were that the case, one would cultivate disease and put a
premium on suicide. Fortunately for humanity, the whole tendency of life
is against disease, and the reaction of the form life upon the thought of
man fosters the fear of death. This has been rightly so, for the instinct
of self-preservation and the preservation of form integrity is a vital
principle in matter, and the tendency to self-perpetuation of the life
within the form is one of our greatest God-given capacities and will
persist. But in the human family this must eventually give place to the
use of death as the organized, freeing process in order to conserve force
and give to the soul a better instrument of manifestation. For this
liberty of action, mankind as a whole is not yet ready. The disciples and
aspirants of the world should now, however, begin to grasp these newer
principles of existence. The instinct to self-preservation governs the
relation of spirit and matter, of life and form as long as the Deity
Himself wills to incarnate within His body of manifestation - a planet, or
a solar system. I have in the above statement given to you a hint as to
one of the basic causes of disease, and to the endless fight between the
imprisoned spirit and the imprisoning form. This fight uses for its method
that innate quality which expresses itself as the urge to preserve and the
urge to perpetuate - both the present form and the species. [15]
- The
law of cause and effect, called Karma in the East, governs all this. Karma
must be regarded in reality as the effect (in the form life of our planet)
of causes, deep seated and hidden in the mind of God. The causes that we
may trace in relation to disease and death are in reality only the working
out of certain basic principles which govern - rightly or wrongly, who
shall say? - the life of God in form, and they must ever remain
incomprehensible to man until such time as he takes the great initiation
which is symbolized for us in the Transfiguration. All along in our
studies, we shall be dealing with secondary causes and their
effects, with the phenomenal results of those subjective effects which
emanate from causes too far away for us to grasp. This should be admitted
and grasped. This is the best man can do with his present mental
apparatus. When the intuition rarely works, and the mind is seldom
illumined, why should man arrogantly expect to understand everything? Let
him work at the development of his intuition and at achieving
illumination. Understanding may then come his way. He will have earned the
right to divine knowledge. But the above recognition will suffice for our
work and will enable us to lay down those laws and principles which will
indicate the way humanity may gain release from the form consciousness and
consequent immunity from the victory of death and those disease-dealing
conditions which govern today our planetary manifestation.