“…nowadays many people suffer from such a variety of illnesses that Bapak cannot count them.
Bapak knew his grandfather’s father and his grandfather. Bapak’s great-grandfather was a hundred and fifteen when he died, and Bapak’s grandfather himself died at the age of a hundred and four.
When Bapak was still small he once asked his grandfather, ‘Grandpa, how could you live to be so old? Weren’t you ever ill?’
Ill with what?’ he asked.
‘Well, things like cholera, malaria, flu. all sorts of illnesses.’
‘Oh, yes,’ he replied, ‘But once I was quiet and drank hot water, I was cured.’
And so it was. In the old days, people could easily cure themselves if they became sick. Why was that? Because, as Bapak has now come to realize, their real remedy was to quieten their emotions, their thoughts, and their desires.
Indeed, that was easy for people in the old days, but it is not easy for people today. You can tell them to quieten their thoughts, but that will make them think even harder, their thoughts running in all directions; and instead of getting better, they will get worse, because their heart and mind are filled with doubts and anxiety.
Looking at it from an intellectual point of view, it would seem that illnesses in the human body are simply brought about by the thinking, the heart, and the desires.
But if you were able to look more deeply into the causes and to see them from the spiritual point of view, you would see that illnesses do not arise from the thinking, the heart, and the desires, for these are, by their nature, only tools.
These illnesses arise instead from the low forces that are in charge within the human self. The low souls that always influence the human self are the three forces closely connected with human existence since by their nature they work with the human thinking mind, heart, and desires.
These are the material, the vegetable, and the animal forces. They are the forces that motivate, which means that they can set the human individuality, the human inner feeling, in motion…”
——
Bapak
Human welfare and health
Sixth talk at the first Subud international congress
Coombe Springs, England
August 17, 1959
59 CSP 7
Bapak’s Talk is from subudlibrary.net and is password protected.
What Bapak says is so, so true. I have practiced this unintentionally having learned to quiet my mind over the years and have overcome several, but not all completely, illnesses. Emotions like fear and anxiety, depression can create a toxic field inside the body where diseases thrive There is no greater healer than silence of the mind.