Page 11 - All India Magazine May-2020

When Sri Aurobindo says that illness comes from out-
side, what exactly is it that comes?

It is a kind of vibration made up of a mental suggestion, a
vital force of disorder and certain physical elements which
are the materialisation of the mental suggestion and the vi-
tal vibration. And these physical elements can be what we
have agreed to call germs, microbes, this and that and many
other things.
It may be accompanied by a sensation, may be accom-
panied by a taste, also by a smell, if one has very developed
subtle senses. There are these formations of illness which
give a special taste to the air, a special smell or a slight spe-
cial sensation.
People have many senses which are asleep. They are
terribly tamasic. If all the senses they possess were awake,
there are many things they would perceive, which can just
pass by without anyone suspecting anything.
For example, many people have a certain kind of in-
fluenza at the moment. It is very wide-spread. Well, when
it comes close, it has a special taste, a special smell, and
it brings you a certain contact (naturally not like a blow),
something a little more subtle, a certain contact, exactly as
when you pass your hand over something, backwards over
some material...
CWM 7: 144 The Mother

Man was once naturally healthy and could revert to
that primal condition if he were suffered; but Medical
science pursues our body with an innumerable pack of
drugs and assails the imagination with ravening hordes
of microbes.
CWSA 12: 476 Sri Aurobindo

All India Magazine, May 2020 11