"Dr.Bheshajam-bhishak" : The Unseen Healer - Part 2

[Guest guest]

(continuing from Part 1)

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Dear friends and members,

 

The 166th “nAma” in the Vishnu-Sahasranama is:

“vaidyah:”. It is a very significant name given to the

Almighty whom the Vedic scriptures hail as “vaidyO

nArAyaNO harih:” --- "He who cures afflictions not

curable by any known medicine".

 

In my broken condition -- a broken back and worse, a

terribly broken spirit -- the Lord's "nAmA" of

"vaidyah" immediately brought me cheer and solace. The

"orthopaedician", the bone-specialist, by his own

admission, had really nothing in his medicine-chest

with which to heal me. But he had clearly told me to

have firm faith in the invisible "self-healing powers

of the body", hadn't he? And here was the

Vishnu-Sahasranama saying pretty much the same thing!

 

According to the Sahasranamam, there is an Unseen

"Ortho" somewhere, an Unseen Healer with the great

"nAma" of "vaidyah" who has cures and medicines for

the most incurable of human afflictions even ….

 

************

 

There are human afflictions in this world that are far

less common and infinitely more painful than a

fractured "coccyx". Many of them, as we know, are

indeed beyond any known or sure means of clinical

cure. This is stark medical fact which we see around

us all over the world.

 

Many years ago viruses like HIV/AIDS or ebola first

made their appearance in the world. Since then great

attempts have been made by modern medical science and

research to come up with a definitive cure for them.

Success has been elusive. Similarly, rare strains of

the old killer disease, cancer, still abound and till

date no one has discovered sure-fire cures for them.

Then there are diseases like TB, malaria, typhoid and

pox which once had been thought to be completely

eradicated from the face of the earth thanks to some

great "wonder-drugs" formulated by man. Decades later,

the same ‘wonderful’ drugs however are being reported

to be totally ineffective against newer and ever more

virulent strains of the same diseases now invading

several parts of the world. It seems as though for

every new wonder-drug, formulation or medical

break-through that is invented, a dozen hitherto

unknown forms of the disease/virus break out to

afflict successive generations of mankind. It is this

grim fact about medical research that led Winston

Churchill to once wryly observe (in a different

context though) that the history of Man in a way is

nothing but a history of epidemic and disease: "Pox

Romana, Pox Brittanica and Pox Americana!" is how he

summed it all up!

 

When one thinks about the matter deeply, it is indeed

a daily, wondrous miracle that one is alive, hale,

hearty and continuing to survive the onslaughts (or

threatened onslaughts) of a thousand known and unknown

diseases abounding in this world against which even

mighty 21st-century medical science, with all its

spectacular discoveries and advancement, finds itself

relatively powerless. Given that perspective, no

intelligent person should really have trouble

believing that were it not for the sacred presence of

the Unseen Healer within us -- the “RMO”, the

‘Resident Medical Officer’, the divine “vaidyah" who

hath set up His dispensary or hospice within each of

us -- if it were not for that silent and unseen,

unfailing silent Healer… we would all indeed be

hapless victims of violent, incurable afflictions

every single moment of our lives.

 

***********

 

The 288th “nAma” of Vishnu as described in the

Sahasranamam is “owshadham”. It is another beautiful

name indeed. It hails the Lord as the divine

"Medicine". The Almighty Narayana, is not only the

Doctor who prescribes; He is the prescriptive drug or

medicament too.

 

I could really appreciate the deep truth of this

"nAma" in the moment I recalled my orthopaedician

admitting to me that he had but one medicine to

prescribe for my broken tail-bone: “no medicine at

all”. None! "Give your back complete rest", the doctor

had told me, "That’s all you need. There is no other

cure. The more you rest, the faster will the bone heal

and the sooner will you be up on your feet".

 

**************

 

One of the great attributes of the Almighty, as

revealed by the Vedic scriptures, is His state of

being that is one of eternal repose and rest.

 

Symbolically, Narayana is portrayed as everlastingly

rested with His Consort upon a serpent-bed afloat the

milky waves of the great ocean in the highest heavens

called “ksheerAbdi” (in Sanskrit) or “tiru-paarkadal”

(Tamil). While all of Creation (“prakruti’) is

embroiled in a state of ceaseless flux, strife,

endless churning and transformation, the Supreme

Creator, the great “Brahman” as perceived by the

Upanishads, however remains unmoved, unaffected,

unattached, unchanging and eternal. He is "narAyaNa",

the Supreme Lord of Creation, who rests supine and

eternally reposeful upon a sea of tranquility. The

very name Narayana signifies such a state: "ayana", as

in “sayana” or “anantha-sayana”, meaning "to rest", to

be supine, at peace and eternally tranquil. This state

of restfulness should not be confused with physical

sloth, mental inertia or with human attitudes that one

may term as “laid-back” or lackadaisical.

“Anantha-sayanam” is a state of Rest, of course, but

it has to be conceived by us as the stilled locus of

all cosmic energy --- a metaphysical resting place

that is both primal source as well as ultimate

terminal for all dynamic forces of life in Creation.

 

It has often been said by many wise men of the world

(as for example, Thomas Kempis in the famous Christian

scriptural work “The Imitation of Christ”) that Man’s

true hope and purpose in life lies in the faithful

imitation upon earth of the glorious attributes of God

in heaven. Of all the great attributes

(“kalyANa-guNa”) that adorn the Almighty, the most

wonderful is said to be His eternal restfulness and

peace (“anantha-sayanam”). It is given to only a few

blessed souls on earth, such as saints, yogis, mystics

and poets to have personally and directly apprehended

such divine restfulness and to have imitated or

emulated it in their own lives. Those rare and chosen

few have had really no adequate words to describe the

experience of such peace except to say perhaps, as the

poet once did, that it is a “peace that passeth

understanding”.

 

Little do ordinary people like us realize that the

secret to enduring health and happiness in our

individual lives lies verily in imitating or emulating

that particular attribute of divine repose called

“anantha-sayana”. If we all did know the secret of how

to keep our body and soul really rested i.e. of how to

both conserve and tap the vibrant life-energy flowing

in our veins, our life would be quite free of

afflictions. In fact, if only doctors and scientists

knew how to uncover the great mystery of Restfulness,

of its marvelous capacity to heal and cure, to help in

recovery and restoration, to relieve pain and

suffering, there would be no more need for Man to

search for (or research into) “wonder-drugs” on earth.

 

 

Rest, indeed, is the ultimate healer, the ultimate

medicine. It is the "owshadham” that is spoken of by

the Vishnu-Sahasranamam. Restfulness is truly the

universal prescription of every doctor handed out to

every patient for every known or unknown ailment in

the world. Be it common flu or carcinoma of the brain,

a broken coccyx or coronary thrombosis, whatever else

the physician, surgeon or specialist may clinically

administer to a patient through prescription,

procedure or treatment, at the end of it all, he

finally counsels only one thing: “Follow the

prescription, by all means”, he says, “but to get

really cured, be sure to Rest and rest well…”

 

Restfulness --- what we may thus describe as the

imitation of God’s divine attribute of “ayana” or

“anantha-sayana” --- indeed, it is the only true

healer, the most efficacious medicine or “owshadham”,

ever known to man. Without Rest there can really be no

effective cure or recuperation. If one thinks about it

deeply, everything that modern medicine may offer man

is but means of cure, not the cure itself. Even the

most brilliant surgeon after performing his artistry

must have his patient wheeled into the ICU and left

entirely, after all, at the mercy of the body’s unseen

powers of recovery and healing ---“powers” that, as we

all know, can begin to work their magic only under

conditions of complete and intensive Restfulness. Any

physician can prescribe drugs and ointments that one

may simply walk across to the street-corner and buy

from the neighbourhood pharmacy. But where in the

world can one go and buy the ultimate medicine – the

“owshadham” which is the substance of the curative

bliss called Restfulness? Who else but God alone can

dispense it? Who else but the serenely rested Almighty

-- hailed in the “purAnic” pantheon variously as

“vaidyanAtha”, “vaitheeswara”, “dhanvantri”,

"veeraraghva" etc. -- who else but He alone can

administer health-restoring Rest without which no

man-made medicine or cure ever works?

 

*********

(to be continued)

 

Regards,

 

dAsan,

Sudarshan

 

 

 

 

 

 

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