20. Ayurveda and Nature Cure

I have no doubt whatsoever that the spread of Ramanama and pure living are the best and cheapest preventives of disease. The tragedy is that doctors, hakims and vaidyas do not make use of Ramanama as the sovereign of cures. There is no place given to it in current ayurvedic literature, except it be in the shape of a charm which will drive people further into the well of superstition. Ramanama has, in fact, no connection with superstition. It is Nature's supreme law. Whoever observes it, is free from disease and vice versa. The same law which keeps one free from disease, applies also to its cure. An apt question is as to why a man who recites Ramanama regularly and leads a pure life should ever fall ill. Man is by nature imperfect. A thoughtful man strives after perfection, but never attains it. He stumbles on the way, however, unwittingly. The whole of God's law is embodied in a pure life. The first thing is to realize one's limitations. It should be obvious that the moment one transgresses those limits, one falls ill. Thus, a balanced diet eaten in accordance with needs gives one freedom from disease. How is one to know what is the proper diet for one? Many such enigmas can be imagined. The purport of it all is that everyone should be his own doctor and find out his limitations. The man who does so will surely live up to 125.

Doctor friends claim that they do nothing more than investigating the laws and act accordingly and that, therefore, they are the best Nature Cure men. Everything can be explained away in this manner. All I want to say is that anything more than Ramanama is really contrary to true Nature Cure. The more one recedes from this central principle, the farther away one goes from Nature Cure. Following this line of thought, I limit Nature Cure to the use of the five elements. But a vaidya who goes beyond this and uses such herbs, as grow or can be grown in his neighbourhood, purely for service of the sick and not for money, may claim to be a Nature Cure man. But where are such vaidyas to be found? Today most of them are engaged in making money. They do no research work and it is because of their greed and mental laziness that the science of ayurveda is at a low ebb.

Harijan, 19-5-1946