Integral Healing

Pain brings us back to a deeper truth by forcing us to concentrate in order to be able to bear, to face this thing that crushes us....
The secret is to emerge from the ego, out of its prison, unite ourselves with the Divine, merge into Him, not to allow anything to separate us from Him. Then, once one has discovered this secret and realises it in one's being, pain loses its justification and suffering disappears. It is an all-powerful remedy, not only in the deeper parts of the being, in the soul, in the spiritual consciousness, but also in life and in the body.
There is no illness, no disorder that can resist if this secret is discovered and put into practice not only in the higher parts of the being, but in the cells of the body.

          — The Mother

The book is divided into logical steps for a seeker. Part I deals with the `Psychological Causes of Illness', Part II with `Cure by Inner Means', Part III `Cure by Spiritual Force', Part IV `Medicine and Healing' and the Conclusion with `Beyond Illness and Healing'. A comprehensive span indeed!

Each passage starts with the name of either the Mother or Sri Aurobindo, giving the reader a feeling that They are directly speaking to him or her. Each part opens with an appropriate short quotation, itself the essence of that section. For example, in the section `Cure by Inner Means', the Mother says: "The difficulties that come to you are exactly in proportion to your strength – nothing can happen to you that does not belong to your consciousness, and all that belongs to your consciousness you are able to master."

The book itself begins with a beautiful passage from the Mother explaining why illnesses are not receding in the modern world. Why, despite advances in science, technology and medicine, are we facing new, unexplained, incurable diseases?

Finally, there is a comprehensive index, a glossary and references. One wonders however why the compilers have used the term Integral Healing. Truly speaking, the book reflects `Healing in Integral Yoga'. Does that become synonymous with Integral Healing? Also sentences in the Preface such as "there are forms of Yoga that have concerned themselves with the body, such as Hathayoga, which is now synonymous with `yoga' for most people. But these have tended to rely on techniques that are predominantly physical and inherently limited in their results, however powerful within those limits," seem to belittle these ways. A book on `Integral Healing' should ideally embrace all approaches.

Apart from these considerations, the book itself is an extensive gathering of passages drawn from over thirty volumes of Sri Aurobindo's and seventeen volumes of the Mother's collected works. It is certainly a gift for those who cannot read the entire works themselves.

— Dr Vandana Gupta

Dr Vandana Gupta is working at the Sri Aurobindo International Institute for Integral Health and Research (SAIIIHR), Sri Aurobindo Society, for the last fourteen years. She is also one of the editors of the journal NAMAH.

May 2005