26. Laws of Nature

Q. I have been repeating Ramanama according to your advice and I am getting better. I must add that the medical treatment for tuberculosis is also being followed. You have said that eating little and eating the right food enables a man to be healthy and promotes longevity. I have observed the rule about eating sparely for the last twenty-five years. Why should I have fallen a prey to tuberculosis? Would you say, I should attribute this ill luck to some evil deed in this life or in the previous one?

You say a man can live up to 125 years. Then, why should God have carried away Mahadevbhai, who was so useful to you? He observed the rule of eating moderately and having a balanced diet and he served you as his God. Why did he fall a prey to high blood- pressure? Why did Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who is looked upon as an incarnation of God, fall a prey to cancer, as deadly a disease as tuberculosis? Why was he not able to fight it successfully?

A. I have been expounding the rules of maintaining health as I know them. Spare and balanced diet may not be the same for everybody. It can be best worked out by the individual for himself through proper reading and careful thought. But that does not mean that the individual cannot make mistakes or that his or her knowledge is complete. That is why life has been called a laboratory. One should learn from the experience of others and go forward and, if he is not successful he should not blame others or even himself. One should not be too ready to find fault with the rule, but if after careful thought, one comes to the conclusion that a certain rule is wrong, he should be able to tell the right one and declare it.

So far as your own case is concerned, there may be several causes leading to your illness. Who can say whether you have made the right use of the five 'powers'¹ in your own case? So long as I believe in the laws of Nature as 1 know them, I have to say that you must have erred somewhere. As for Mahadev and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, to feel that even they must have erred somehow is fitter than to say that the laws are wrong. These rules are not my creation. They are the laws of Nature according to experienced men. I believe in them and try to live up to my belief. Man is after all an imperfect creature. How can he know the whole truth? That the allopathic doctors do not believe them or, if they do, they do so in a different sense, does not impress me. What I have said, does not and should not in any way, detract from the greatness of the individuals mentioned.

Harijan, 4-8-1946

[1] Earth, water, ether, fire and wind