From IIM Ahmedabad To Happiness

Author(s): Vijay K Jain
Publisher: Vikalp Printers

Page 35

CHAPTER FOUR
Health Is More Than Wealth
F
rom our own experience, let us try to understand what constitutes a disease. It will be observed that disease is neither a function of the organism, nor a state consistent with the natural condition of the body, inasmuch as the organism itself tries to throw it off, unaided by medical skill and medicaments. The natural normal condition of a living organism is health which is regained the moment disease is eliminated from it. The question then is: what is disease, and how and why does it appear in the organism? The answer is that it is a run-down state of health, and its cause is to be found in the low vitality of the system. Whether it be an ordinary malady, such as common fever, or the most virulent form of an epidemic, health cannot be affected where the vitality is strong enough to resist the onslaught of disease bearing elements and germs. Where the vitality is not impaired, germs of malignant disease are powerless to destroy the organism. To what cause(s) is the lowness of vitality itself due?
In order to understand the nature of vitality, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact that health is affected both by mental and material causes. Harmful passions and emotions, such as
23