Hello and welcome to episode 87 of The Ask Sri Vishwanath Show. I hope you are really enjoying these episodes. It only seems like we started yesterday and now here we are on episode 87. I hope you are enjoying reading them as much as I enjoy writing and filming them. I am so heartened by the questions that have been pouring in and I’d like to thank you all for reading and watching.
Today I want to talk about the dangers of healing and why the great ones always bless people and rarely ever heal them.
Today’s question comes from Laura who lives in New York and she says “I am always curious why men of god do not heal people who come to them for help. Why do they just bless them instead of taking their pain away?”
Thanks for the question Laura. I had to shorten it for time sake but we can still get the idea. That is a really insightful question so I’m glad you asked it. I want to tell you a story that may help answer your question. It’s really beautiful and it goes like this:
The drunk
Christ was travelling when he saw a drunk man leaning over and almost falling into a gutter. Christ picked the man up, wiped his face and asked him what he was doing. Christ had healed his liver and other health problems before. He made him healthy and here he was poisoning his body all over again.
The man stood up to face Christ and told him that because he was healthy he wanted to enjoy life. Christ made him well again and he wanted to enjoy all the pleasures of life. He told Christ that he enjoyed drinking and this was how he wanted to enjoy life. Christ was not frustrated or angry, he would never feel this way because he was a man of god and being so meant he was always detached. However it did sadden him to see the man take this chance of a healthy life and drown it with alcohol.
The wandering eye
As Christ walked further down then same road he then saw a man chasing a prostitute. Christ stopped the man and asked him what he was doing. This man was blind. Christ had healed his eye and gave him back his sight and here he was now, lusting after women. The man said that Christ had given him beautiful eyes and he was going to enjoy life by chasing beautiful women. He said his eyes just could not resist their beauty so pushed Christ aside and continued to chase the woman.
The edge of life
Christ reached a cliff and at the edge he met a man who said that he wanted to give up on life. He just wanted to end it all. Christ asked him what he was doing. A few months before this man was dying and Christ had healed him and brought him back to life. The man cried enormous tears and told Christ that he wanted to end his life because he had too many problems and that he didn’t want to live anymore. He pushed Christ aside and jumped off the cliff.
Gunas remains
The reason why these stories are important is because even when these men of god heal there will still be time and there will still be gunas. It was the gunas that drove these men to drink, chase women and want to die. Healing an illness will not destroy the gunas. You cannot change someone gunas before the time is right. They must be ready for that change. The person will only change as the timeline moves and if they are ready for it.
The gunas will never change through healing and this is why great men and women are reluctant to heal. All of the great ones have performed miracles but they are few and far between because it does not change a person’s true nature. They can take away the pain but the gunas will just produce more of it. The pain comes from the gunas and the gunas comes from the karma of all your lifetimes.
Miracles of faith
When Buddha was travelling one of his disciples came to him and told him that a man was producing vessels out of thin air. The disciple wanted to know how he was doing it. Buddha took the vessel, put it on the ground and crushed it under his feet. He said that faith should never be based on miracles. Your faith should come from knowledge of the god within your consciousness.
Miracles create the illusion that all pain can be taken away instantly. The truth is that pain is caused by the gunas and no miracle can destroy them. We know that Krishna said that the gunas can only be destroyed through self-knowledge.
This is why he says “all works without exception cultivate in the knowledge of Brahman. This knowledge can be attained through service to the teacher or exhaustive questioning. The knower of Brahman will reveal this to you. When the knower of Brahman reveals this to you, no longer be deluded as you are. Just as fire burns everything to ashes the fire of the knowledge of Brahman destroys all works to ashes. Nothing in this world of manifestation exists as purifying as the knowledge of Brahman. Perfected in yoga in course of time one wins knowledge. Winning knowledge one attains to Brahman.”
Knowledge is power
The knowledge of the consciousness destroys all works to ashes. Only this knowledge will destroy the gunas. This is what the great men teach and this is what they share. This is why there blessings are so important. They bless you with the knowledge of the consciousness and then you can withdraw the gunas and destroy them with the fire of knowledge. Nothing is as purifying as the knowledge of the consciousness.
Krishna says we must perfect the yoga. It is a practice which require the course of time. So you need to withdraw the gunas and know the jiva, become the jiva and then manifest the dharma. If you want to know more about this I recommend that you read my book called The Lens of Krishna. It’s one of my best works and you can download it for free on my website. I think it will give you some great insight.
Remember that the blessing of self-knowledge will be of more benefit than thousand miracles.
I hope I answered your question. Remember you keep asking questions and I’ll keep answering them.