We have an expression, “He or she is fighting the flu or fighting cancer.” I don’t recommend fighting with disease. That creates more disease. Instead, understand the disease. Because disease is nothing but dis-ease, disturbed ease. You were at ease and that ease got disturbed. How can it get disturbed by itself? You must have done something to disturb your ease. Find out what that is and correct it.  We are born with that happiness. We are born with ease. Maybe out of our ignorance we have done something wrong to disturb the ease, but the ease is still there.

So, find out the cause of the disturbance. Go to the very cause. Begin from there and don’t look for a temporary cure. If it’s temporary, it’s not a cure—it’s just temporary relief. Even the commercials use that term.  They don’t say “temporary cure,” they talk about “temporary relief.” Many of the drugs advertised are for temporary relief and not to cure you. So, look for the permanent way. And the only permanent way is to bring ease back by removing the cause of the disturbance.

Imagine that you want to bring light into a room. Would you fight the darkness? Should I advise you, “Oh yes, go and get a few more of your friends. Each one should bring in a club or a bat so that you can all try fighting and beating the darkness out of the room.” The only thing that will come from that is that you would be hitting each other in the darkness. The sensible way is to find a candle and light it. Then, the darkness will immediately leave without even waiting to say good-bye. You don’t have to  fight the darkness. Instead, find the light. How can we fight disease? Find the ease.

Actually you don’t have to do anything to heal the body and mind. If you don’t interfere, the body and mind heals itself. There is a healer within everyone. We don’t have to do anything to put health into the body. We have to stop doing the negative things and then the good happens by itself. We disturb the body and mind so much. We drain the body and mind so many ways. The nature can always recharge itself but the problem is that we waste more energy than we can receive. It’s something like fully charging the battery in your car and then letting it sit there with the lights on all day.

That’s why problems come. The bodily energies are wasted by overdoing everything—by oversleeping, overeating, over-talking. The body gets very confused and drained by all these things. The mind also gets drained by our obsessions, compulsions, anxiety, worries, fears, and upsets. We can reduce the amount of physical and mental energy that we waste. When we utilize energy in the right way, the nature is ready to fill and replenish it.

We have a proverb: “Waste not, want not.” But we tend to waste a lot and  then we want more. So, we have to take care of  this and learn to relax.  That is nature’s way.  The soul wants to heal. That’s why God placed the sole next to the heel. So our sole/soul purpose is to heel/heal!

~Sri Swami Satchidananda