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THE MYSTERIES OF MIND
One who suffers from emotional tension becomes peevish and quarrelsome. He becomes a nuisance to society.
Mental tensions upset physical balance also. They not only produce impulsiveness but diseases also. They increase blood-pressure and all its consequences.
Freedom from tensions means freedom from passions like anger, pride, deceit, greed etc. Tensions excite passions and passions produce further tensions. This vicious circle continues indefinitely bringing in its trail all kinds of miseries.
Ancient works on medicine speak of two kinds of diseases: those caused by external causes and those produced by man's own deeds. There are three causes of diseases: vāta (air), pitta (bile) and kapha (phlegm). When the body sustains an injury, it is said to have been caused by external factors. A disease born of the accumulated effects of previous deeds is said to have been caused by karma.
Then there are mental diseases. Psychotherapists speak of psychosomatic diseases which are a combination of mental and physical diseases. Works on ancient medical science speak of ădhi (mental disease) and vyādhi (physical ailments). A large number of diseases is caused by mental factors. We misunderstand them to be caused by physical weakness and germs etc. Actually these are caused by mental causes. Psychosomatic diseases are very much complicated and have become quite wide-spread these days. If we want to get rid of them, let us remember the ancient aphorism "Let the soul seek truth in itself." We cannot get rid of diseases if we ourselves do not search truth in our own selves. It is necessary to remove our own ignorance.
Food also causes diseases. We are very much ignorant in matters of food. If this ignorance were removed, we get rid of a number of diseases. Moreover, there will be no mental diseases if we knew the nature of the mind and of the faculty of thinking and how to engage the mind.
Food increases as well as reduces pain. Food articles have nutritive as well as harmful properties. This is also the view of āyurveda. No food article is wholly nutritive or harmful. It is the quantity of food which is health-giving or harmful. For example, arsenic is a medicine as well as poison
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