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SriRangaSri List Archive: Message 00057 Jun 2005

 
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               (continuing from Part 1)
------------------------------------------------------

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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