Health is universal, disease is personal

[Guest guest]

Health is universal, disease is personal. Disease is of the ego;

health is not of the ego. Disease is of the body, of the mind; health

is of the beyond, and the beyond is one. My body differs from yours-

naturally I will have a different disease, you will have a different

disease, but health? Health is simply one. It has the taste; the same

taste always, eternally the same.

 

Somebody asked Buddha 'What is the taste of your Buddhahood?' He

said 'Go and taste the sea, and taste it from anywhere -- from this

bank, from any bank of any beach. Or go to the middle of the ocean

and taste it there, or go to the other shore -- and you will find the

taste always the same: the same salty taste. Buddhahood has one

taste.' Whosoever has become a Buddha has come to the same taste.

Health has the same taste. When the child is healthy, the young man

is healthy, and the old man is healthy, then too it has the same

taste. When the woman is healthy, the man is healthy -- the same

taste.

 

But diseases are different. Now, medical science says that even when

two persons are suffering from the same disease, even then the two

diseases are not the same. Hence sometimes it happens that you are

suffering from some disease -- maybe tuberculosis -- and your wife is

suffering from the same disease, tuberculosis, but the same medicines

don't work. You need one medicine; your wife needs some other

medicine. That's why the physician is needed; otherwise the chemist

would be enough. If once it was decided that tuberculosis needed this

medicine, then what would be the point in going to the physician? The

chemist could supply it.

 

Now, more and more, as medical science is going deeper into the

phenomena of health and disease, they are becoming aware that each

disease has a personality in it: it belongs to the person. So now

they say: Don't treat the disease, treat the person. Don't be too

much concerned with the disease. Look into the person. his total

personality, his way of life, his attitudes, his habit patterns. Look

into them, and then you will find that the name TB may be the same --

because it would be very difficult to have separate names for

everybody -- but each person who suffers from tuberculosis suffers

differently, and a different treatment is needed.

 

Diseases are personal, but health? Health is impersonal, universal.

So is joy. Misery is a disease; joy is health, well-being. "