Daily Theosophy

Praja saw however that many people were unhappy, sometimes almost continuously, or only partly happy, and never completely happy, but often they seemed more unhappy than animals can ever be. This was mostly due to their mind. They had more pain and diseases than most animals. Animals have these things also, but by far not so much as humans. Praja wondered for a while: “Had it been a mistake to give them a mind?” But no, without a mind they could never have become what they really are: a question that must, and will, be answered. So it was not a mistake. Then, why would they suffer and what caused it, and what could she do about it?

(52)

(About diseases)

Praja saw a woman who had cancer – lung cancer. She was very sick and very miserable because she was very afraid to die. (She knew nothing about dying and what happens after dying – otherwise she would have feared nothing). But she would die within two weeks. Doctors and hospitals could not help her. Praja would have wanted to talk to her and take away her suffering and fear. But that was not her task. She felt she was not allowed to help her. Praja could have saved her life – but there was a cause why this lady was having cancer, and she had to learn something. She simply had smoked too much, and by putting poison and burning heat in her body she had acted against the laws of nature. She had everyday tortured the cells of her own throat and lungs – without ever giving a thought to the fact that cells ar

e also living beings and that one of her duties as a human being was to give them the best. She had given them the worst, only to satisfy her own addiction. Nature did what she had done to so many cells: torture and make them die. Now she was tortured and dying. Of course only her body would die, not her feelings and her mind. She was not a bad woman at all. But she had just made that one mistake of smoking – and her disease and death was the natural consequence of it.

Then Praja saw a man of only fifty who had a very fat stomach. Because he was unhappy about the sexual relation with his wife he had begun to eat more and more junk food. He suddenly died from heart attack. Others suffered diabetes because of too many sweets or too little movement, and others from AIDS and other diseases resulting from wrong types of sex, and many other more or less miserable cases of pain and suffering due to misuse of specific drugs. In all cases it was their own fault. It was caused in the beginning by their own mind. In all cases they had connected their mind with some form of selfishness and desire or passion. All of them had failed to be a hero, had refused to listen to their heart-mind in the first place, because they thought that it was too difficult – but it never actually was.

So what would Praja do? She would teach the people consideration for all living beings (including cells). And to control their desires by their mind: Whatever people desire for food of drink or sex or other body pleasures, she would teach that with every desire should go a thought to decide whether one should follow that desire or not – and to follow that thought. For example if you desire to swim, the thought could be that swimming is very healthy for all parts of your body: so do it. And if you desire to smoke, for example, …(you know): so don’t do it. If you become frustrated because you think that you can never do what you actually desire: do it sometimes – no more. She would tell the people stories in which the players are altruistic (that is the opposite of egoistic) and follow their desires only when their sane mind says it is right to do so.

Nothing is simpler than to think of other people and living beings first, in stead of thinking of yourself first (there is only one you, but millions and billions or trillions of other beings – so by altruistic thinking you learn to think about the whole universe). There is no higher lesson she could teach. There is nothing simpler, but for many people, who have not been educated in this way it is a most difficult thing to do. Even if they wish, they always again fall back to their old habits and thoughts, many of which are in fact egoistic. So only young people can learn this, by themselves, or by being taught by their parents or at school. Well, of course some grown-ups can also learn it, but the children should give the example. Then the whole future society becomes healthier and more kind.

But Praja saw immediately that many people do not even want to listen to such advice (a long time ago she had experienced the same with the cockroaches – but they themselves couldn’t help because at that moment they were just like that.) And people have a free mind so they don’t have to listen if they don’t want to. So she also wanted to do something for those who didn’t listen to her advice and therefore got ill anyway. She also saw that some diseases began from conflicting emotions, from holding on to particular desires against knowing better, from emotions inconsistent with the heart, from any form of selfishness and wrong thinking. Also she saw that diseases were the end of a process that started either from bad physical habits, or from the emotional level, or from the mind level. Of course wrong eating habits etc. in themselves come forth from disharmonious emotions (such as stress) or wrong mental information (such as many advertisements and even scientific opinions). Disharmonious emotions always rose out of a combination of ignorance and desire. Ignorance means a mind which does not know, or is not clear and is distorted. This whole process of disharmonious thinking and emotions and feeling may have started in a previous life on earth, so in this life such a disease seems to appear “out of nothing,” because we can not see the original cause. Desires arise from pleasant experiences, but also from a wrong understanding of what is real pleasure. Real pleasure would be pleasure without an end, because if you have pleasure but you know that afterwards will follow misery, the pleasure is not complete, and will end soon. Repeating such unreal pleasures adds disharmony upon disharmony, more distorted feelings and more distorted mental understandings, so that the streams of living energy which run through the body also become distorted, and these finally bring about disharmonies in the body. That is what we call disease – ‘not being at ease.’

Even then the body, if otherwise strong and healthy, has many means to correct the disease and cure itself. Medicine can help the body – but some medicine cause more disease than they actually cure. Therefore medicine should best be in harmony with the curing processes of the body itself and support its natural efforts. The final solution, decided by the heart in the body, is to leave the body when it can not function properly anymore, or causes more of a burden than what one needs in order to learn something. Then you die, and continue your life without that body and without being able to do work on Earth (including creating more disharmony if you are that kind of person – but also good people get diseases due to earlier causes) for the time being, until your heart enters a new body. Of course death is not a disease, it is a most friendly law of Nature to take away your earthly burden and suffering and misery until you are strong enough to build and take on a new body. The mistakes you made – disharmonious emotions and untrue thoughts, including all thoughts which could harm other creatures – have not all disappeared. These emotions and thoughts wait till your heart returns to your next life and attracts the same emotions and thoughts again – but now you may have grown in wisdom, and have a new strong body and you are full of energy again to do things and learn things – and to make new mistakes if you are not mindful.

All of this, or at least almost all of this physical suffering could be prevented only by listening to the most essential words of wise people, because these people carry the compassion of Praja in their very being. Many of such physical problems do not exist with animals, because they have no mind that can be distorted, and they have wise instincts of what to do and not to do, and their emotions are natural. Of course animals can get diseases due to accidents, or old age, or when their life energy is exhausted naturally, and with pets due to wrong foods or drugs or medicine giving by their caretakers, and sometimes even due to their treatment by humans which go against their natural emotions.

At the same time Praja knew very well that humans had got their mind not so very long ago yet, and that it was far from completely developed. Humans will need millions of years to completely develop their mind until it becomes just as clear and perfect as the original mind of Adi, whose mind is always connected with our minds. She understood very well that at this stage humans needed all kinds of help, not only to prevent mistakes, but even to help them after they had made mistakes. So what did she do?

(53)

(Steering Beautiful Energies)

You remember that in her previous two dreams Praja had seen that all visible and invisible things in Nature, including invisible Earth-planets and other invisible planets and stars,