30. Self-Realization V/S Self-Cheating

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Before we go into the reversibility of the NCDs, I wanted to share and explain a medical fact in terms of Yoga and philosophy. We looked at Self-cheating with philosophical perspective in Hide and Seek. Now let us look at it with medical and health perspective. When modern medicine cannot find the root cause of a disease, it simply calls the disease as ‘Idiopathic’ (their way of saying ‘I do not know the cause’). And most of the NCDs are idiopathic (if not all)! Somewhere or the other you will see a sentence in modern medical textbooks ‘However, details about the cause of the disease remain unknown’. Then without understanding it fully, what are they treating? They are treating the symptoms of the disease, and not the disease itself. No doubt, modern medicine has contributed a lot by providing immediate relief for all sorts of diseases, but they have certainly not found a holistic solution in many cases.

We have a military system in our body – White Blood Cells (WBC). They are very small in number compared to Red Blood cells, same as how the military strength of a country would just be a very small percentage of its total population. Different types of WBCs constitute the Immune system of our body. For this military system to function properly, the first and foremost requirement is that the WBCs should be able to clearly discriminate between Self and non-Self cells. Our body has thousands of types of cells of its own, and WBCs should have acquaintance with all of them. In a healthy body this is what happens, same as how military functions in a healthy country. Hence, when a foreign bacteria enters the system, the WBC immediately identify it to be foreign, investigates it, and if necessary kills it. This may seem like a simple thing, but we have to actually wonder about the intelligence of the WBCs in discriminating self and non-self cells. But as is the case with most things, until it functions properly, we do not bother about it!

But it has already begun to fail. WBCs are already going crazy. Just as how in a politically unrest country military takes over and tortures its own people, our system has gone into a social crisis. Our own military, our own WBCs have lost discrimination. They have begun attacking our own cells. They kill our own Insulin cells (partial cause of Diabetes), they kill our own bone cells (Rheumatoid Arthritis), they kill our own colon lining (Colitis), they unnecessarily wage war against harmless foreign cells (Allergies, partial cause of Asthma). Why? What has gone wrong? Why our own cells are killing our own cells? Why this Self-cheating? (Modern medicine calls this Self-cheating as Autoimmunity)

It is worth explaining a little more about diabetes. As seen above, deactivation of insulin is one reason of diabetes. There is yet another interesting reason. Sometimes, even if there is sufficient quantity of insulin in the body, glucose distribution may not be efficient. Insulin in our body is just like the vehicle for the VIPs. It transports Glucose to all the cells of the body. All the cells of the body, from brain to toe, finally require glucose for energy production. It is their common fuel. And Insulin is their transporter. All the cells of the body are well protected with cell walls – not everyone can enter it freely. The gates will open only for designated VIPs, like Insulin. The security system of the body cells recognizes the vehicle Insulin, not the passenger glucose. The security guard recognizes manager’s car, not the manager. In a healthy body this system works well without problems. But in a diabetic body, the security does not open the gate even for Insulin! Security does not identify the manger’s car. Confusion! Body cell is actually depleted of Glucose, Insulin has come with glucose, but the security says ‘I don’t know who you are’. The cell wall is not opening the gates to allow Insulin inside. How can confusion reach such micro levels? Cheating at such infinitesimal level in the whole body! Corruption at such depths! Who is cheating who? WBC, Insulin, Body cells – don’t they belong to the same Self?

And doesn’t this ‘self-cheating’ sound familiar? Isn’t this how we are living on the outside? In the name of being diplomatic, in the name of being smart, in the name of being modern, are we not cheating and lying to ourselves so casually? (Hide and Seek explains this in detail) While we lie to others, while we engage in dummy arguments with others, are we not suppressing our own inner voice of truth? Are we not ourselves splitting ourselves into two and creating a battle? “यथा राजा तथा प्रजा” – Subjects follow their King. We are corrupted to the core, and hence our obedient citizens (cells of the body) too. We cheat ourselves so generously, and hence our subjects cheat among themselves. Who is to be blamed?

So, is this the only reason for diabetes and autoimmunity? Well, may not be. Lifestyle and wrong regulation of day-to-day activities also play a major role. So, increased sympathetic arousal (stress – as explained in the previous post), wrong life style, wrong habits and finally Self-cheating have all come together to establish an evil empire. All villains have joined hands so efficiently in the 21^st century and grown strong roots of corruption. But who is the Godfather of all these villains? Us! And finally who are these villains harming? Us! India is racing ahead to become the Diabetic capital of the world! What an achievement!

Then comes the excuse of hereditary. Well, just one question. How many generations back can we trace this to? 2,3,4? Somewhere someone should have given a beginning, isn’t it? Somebody in our ancestry did some or all the mistakes as above and became a prey of some disease. And along with their wealth, their diseases also flowed to us. If they had the power to begin, why don’t we have the power to stop?

Secondly, every person’s body will have some weak point or the other. Some or the other organ will be comparatively weaker than the others. That is ‘hereditary’. But that itself is not enough to make that organ break down. Suppose you have 5 fans in your house. You may have one defective fan (of some local brand) among 4 good branded fans. If you overuse all the 5 fans, for 6 months, the defective fan will fail first. So, can the local brand alone be blamed fully? Who over-used it? If it was used moderately, it would have come for 3 years perhaps. Same is the case with hereditary disorders. The vulnerability is already there. But how fast it will manifest into a problem will entirely depend upon us. Probably we can even nullify the hidden vulnerability by leading a life free of all the above evils. Diabetes/Hypertension were seen only in old age in earlier generations. But today they manifest by 40 itself. So, if it can be accelerated, why not look at the possibility of decelerating it and nullifying it? So clearly, ‘It is hereditary, I can’t do anything’, is an excuse of the weak, lazy and escapist.

Ok, what we have to do? Accept the mistakes. Stop blaming others and the world, stop giving silly excuses for our problems. Lead a moderated life. Do not cheat ourselves. Be straightforward to ourselves. Be content with whatever money we get. Be simple outside and strong inside rather than being decorative outside and empty inside. Don’t go on a mad rush after wealth. Don’t lose our health for the sake of wealth, only to spend the same wealth on repairing health one day! Etc etc. Well, there will be a plenty of such morals and values. We may find them in the dusty books of forgotten libraries! Changing the attitude, is without doubt, the most necessary and efficient thing to fight against these modern diseases. It is part of the Yoga Therapy as well. Other aspects of the therapy, which is mostly common sense, we shall see briefly in the next post.

So, whether Self-Realization is achievable or not, we have successfully achieved Self-Cheating and percolated it into every cell, every corner of our body. So, with logic then, Self-Realization must also be as easy as getting diabetes! ;)

Note - This and the previous posts give only the basics of Pathogenesis of diseases as per Yoga therapy. How stress can be correlated to each disease individually can be found in detail in books published by SVYASA (Yoga for Back Pain, Yoga for Asthma etc).